More of you is always good.

It is the start of a whole new week. Thought I would work in the yard one more day but the weather is pretty drizzly so I need to retool and try to get productive at the office. Maybe even clean this dump up a bit. But first a little blog housekeeping.

Jeff and Gena sent these pics from their home up in Alaska. Not high res but you get the idea.

 This pics are from their daughter, basking in the Northern Lights.

This one just says Nome. Their daughter has turned into quite the photographer by the way. Very talented girl.

Jeff and Gena are two of my more conservative friends but I have learned not to judge people by their political leanings. Gena is a native Alaskan and we all are the product of our individual worlds and our worlds are really not entirely the same.

They recently sent me this letter from an Alaskan fisherman defending Sarah Palin. The knee jerk, reflexive reaction would be to just say she is a twit and be done with it but I found it interesting and worth considering. Healthy to consider alternate points of view.

Dewie Whetsell, Alaskan Fisherman. As posted in comments on Greta's article referencing the MOVEON ad about Sarah Palin. 
The last 45 of my 66 years I've spent in a commercial fishing town in Alaska . I understand Alaska politics but never understood national politics well until this last year. Here's the breaking point: Neither side of the Palin controversy gets it. It's not about persona, style, rhetoric, it's about doing things. Even Palin supporters never mention the things that I'm about to mention here.
1. Democrats forget when Palin was the Darling of the Democrats, because as soon as Palin took the Governor's office away from a fellow Republican and tough SOB, Frank Murkowski, she tore into the Republican's "Corrupt Bastards Club" (CBC) and sent them packing. Many of them are now residing in State housing and wearing orange jump suits The Democrats reacted by skipping around the yard, throwing confetti and singing, "la la la la" (well, you know how they are). Name another governor in this country that has ever done anything similar.  2. Now with the CBC gone, there were fewer Alaskan politicians to protect the huge, giant oil companies here. So she constructed and enacted a new system of splitting the oil profits called "ACES." Exxon (the biggest corporation in the world) protested and Sarah told them, "don't let the door hit you in the stern on your way out." They stayed, and Alaska residents went from being merely wealthy to being filthy rich. Of course, the other huge international oil companies meekly fell in line. Again, give me the name of any other governor in the country that has done anything similar.  3. The other thing she did when she walked into the governor's office is she got the list of State requests for federal funding for projects, known as "pork." She went through the list, took 85% of them and placed them in the "when-hell-freezes-over" stack. She let locals know that if we need something built, we'll pay for it ourselves. Maybe she figured she could use the money she got from selling the previous governor's jet because it was extravagant. Maybe she could use the money she saved by dismissing the governor's cook (remarking that she could cook for her own family), giving back the State vehicle issued to her, maintaining that she already had a car, and dismissing her State-provided security force (never mentioning - I imagine - that she's packing heat herself). I'm still waiting to hear the names of those other governors.  4. Now, even with her much-ridiculed "gosh and golly" mannerism, she also managed to put together a totally new approach to getting a natural gas pipeline built which will be the biggest private construction project in the history of North America. No one else could do it although they tried. If that doesn't impress you, then you're trying too hard to be unimpressed while watching her do things like this while baking up a batch of brownies with her other hand. 5. For 30 years, Exxon held a lease to do exploratory drilling at a place called Point Thompson. They made excuses the entire time why they couldn't start drilling. In truth they were holding it like an investment. No governor for 30 years could make them get started. Then, she told them she was revoking their lease and kicking them out. They protested and threatened court action. She shrugged and reminded them that she knew the way to the court house. Alaska won again. 6. President Obama wants the nation to be on 25% renewable resources for electricity by 2025. Sarah went to the legislature and submitted her plan for Alaska to be at 50% renewable by 2025. We are already at 25%. I can give you more specifics about things done, as opposed to style and persona. Everybody wants to be cool, sound cool, look cool. But that's just a cover-up. I'm still waiting to hear from liberals the names of other governors who can match what mine has done in two and a half years. I won't be holding my breath. By the way, she was content to return to Alaska after the national election and go to work, but the haters wouldn't let her. Now these adolescent screechers are obviously not scuba divers. And no one ever told them what happens when you continually jab and pester a barracuda. Without warning, it will spin around and tear your face off. Shoulda known better.  You have just read the truth about Sarah Palin that sends the media, along with the Democrat party, into a wild uncontrolled frenzy to discredit her.I guess they are only interested in skirt chasers, dishonesty, immoral people, liars, womanizers, murderers, and bitter ex-presidents' wives. 

So "You go, Girl." I only wish the men in Washington had your guts, determination, honesty, and morals. I rest my case. Only FOOLS listen to the biased media.

Now I am not a Palin supporter, I consider most of her policy positions anathema to me, but know many of her fellow Alaskans love her. Dewey's letter helps explain why. Hard to resist the urge to turn people into cartoons, we all do it. Sometimes there is more to the story.

I love my friends from Alaska.

Jeff sent this video yesterday, said he just did two 25,000 lb. loads on his lake. Not sure what that means but he was sure happy.

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Tom Pecore is sharing a picture of a Morning Glory butterfly. I shepherded one of these guys from chrysalis through first flight as a kid and am man enough to tell you that it was an emotional moment for me when it flew.

Brett sent this celestial masterpiece and I have no clue but it is pretty.

Jonathan Hill sends a very interesting link. Disabled musicians continuing to create with brain waves.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35557908

I have been reading Camus' book The Myth of Sisyphus. I don't read much philosophy, truth is I'm not that deep and quite easily confused. But this series of essays is interesting, Albert considers the reaction of suicide in a world of the absurd. And after reading it, I believe I understand the mind of a jihadi suicide bomber a little better. Will share some pithy quotes for you later.

Sisyphus was the iron fisted King of Ephyra (now Corinth). Obeying Zeus, he chained Thanatos, the god of death and freed mortals from mortality. This pissed Ares and Hades off to no end. It was even said that he was craftier than Zeus himself. As a penalty he was made to endlessly push a boulder up a hill. We've all been there.

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Speaking of absurd, I thought that the story of CIA backed militias shooting at Pentagon backed militias was pretty priceless.

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Leslie and I live on a pretty secluded section of the river. We took a walk midday and I went skinny dipping in a large deep section. Beaver dams sealed off the western edge like a modern horizon pool. Lovely secluded pond on a gorgeous weekend.  I am just getting down in my best Woodstock/Easy Rider pond mode when we hear a voice up on the elevated trail. "Hi Leslie." A guy we know named Daniel is enjoying a hike and espies us as I quickly submerge in the murky water.

"Hippies, huh?"

blue heron at mach 2

Leslie and I treated ourselves to the best sushi in these parts, Hana in Temecula. The poki and sashimi salads are pretty epic at Hana.