After my love affair with the Mets I became a serious Reds fan. I think the Big Red Machine was the greatest offensive juggernaut of all time, including the 27 Yankees.
But Pete was an awesome player who gave it his all and you couldn't find a scrappier, more hard nosed player.
Charlie Hustle.
I salute him.
And I thought that this ABC story was sort of funny.
I hadn't baked in a while and we were in the mood for scones. The problem is, she likes hers with chocolate and I don't so much. So I split the dough in two.
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| San Francisco Mts. no. 2 - George Elbert Burr |
So many people think that prints mean reproductions and while they can be created in either one off monotypes, limited editions or open editions, printmaking is an art unto itself and has been practiced in our world as far back as the fifth century if not earlier. It is a stand alone craft and should not be viewed as the red headed stepchild of the art world.
Woodcuts, mezzotints, engravings and aquatints are all examples of prints but of course there are many more like lithographs and serigraphs. Durer and Rembrandt were both master printmakers as were Benton, Martin Lewis, Gene Kloss and Charles Capps.
I have tried my hand at making aquatint prints and it is painstaking and not easy! Imagine making something so lovely and elegant with a stylus on a stone or a plate.
One of my favorite southwest printmakers was George Elbert Burr (1859-1939.) Born in Ohio, he worked in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona and created some of the most beautiful southwest images of all time. He worked for Scribners and Harpers in the late 19th century and is said to have pulled over twenty five thousand prints.
In my opinion his best works are the ones with rich dark areas, his aquatints with drypoint, they can be truly magnificent. I am happy to have sold many of his prints in my career.
I don't go to estate sales, being slightly claustrophobic and agoraphobic but I saw that a Fallbrook estate sale had two Burrs for sale this weekend. I tried to buy them before the sale but the company doesn't do that or quote prices on the phone and I was busy all day Saturday so I figured that I had lost them.
I went to Dr. Neon's party Saturday night and didn't go to bed until about four in the morning. When I woke up yesterday I decided to drive over to see if they managed to slip through but thought, "No chance."
But I got there and there they were on the wall, now thirty percent off.
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| Arizona Canal, Phoenix, Evening - George Elbert Burr |
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| Verde River, Apache Indian Reservation - George Elbert Burr |
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| Soapweed - George Elbert Burr |
I also bought this very nice Burr print recently, Soapweed.
I believe I have a Colorado snowscene around here somewhere as well but I may have sold it, can't remember.
Maybe have a couple others, will have to dig.
I own more art than I will ever be able to sell in my lifetime and I just can't stop buying, love the great stuff more than money.
I hope that you enjoy seeing these prints, created by a master printmaker.
It starts Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobb, Batman's old nemesis.
I understand that it is a spinoff from the 2022 series, The Batman, which I never watched either.
The pilot is violent and certainly not everybody's cup of tea but the acting is superb.
This is more gangster than superhero, in fact there is none of the latter, which I like.
But The Penguin is to Batman as Andor is to Star Wars, namely great writing and superb character development.
On Max, if you get it. Worth a watch.
While driving, excessive altruism can cause confusion and accidents. While I am not saying you should be an asshole on the road, you certainly should not, being overly generous can cause a breakdown in the general order and cause accidents.
A case in point.
About two weeks ago I was driving south on Main Avenue in Fallbrook. Four o'clock, busiest part of the day.
I was about a hundred feet from Trupianos Restaurant, approaching the Ammunition intersection. There were cars turning left on Ammunition and coming towards me from the opposite direction on Main. A woman in a white car was trying to cross the intersection from the east.
Now the proper thing would have been for the car going north on Main to maintain the flow of traffic and continue across the intersection.
But he decided to stop and let the guy make the left turn east, motioning with his hand. The abnormal altruism disturbed the normal driving flow and a standoff occurred, the guy going left not really sure why the guy was being nice?
This polite stalemate lasted for about three seconds. And then what happened?
The impatient driver going west, who happened to be an asian woman, bombed the intersection. "If these guys are going to play nice with each other, I am going." Even if it was perpendicular to a heavy flow of traffic at the worst possible time.
I had the right of way, of course and the misfortune of having to jam on my brakes and powerslide, just missing her, horn on eleven the whole way. She wouldn't even look in my direction, like nothing ever happened. I was so lucky not to be in a serious accident.
It was so stupid and all caused by somebody being overly nice and disturbing the normal aggressive but well ordered flow coupled with a brain dead idiot dwo.
Don't pass on the right or run red lights, don't be a jerk and don't be too nice. It ruins everything.
Love may make the world go round but selfishness and avarice keeps the highways flowing.
I have been craving a good steak ever since I got back from New Mexico and I came up with a plan. Today I executed it.
I asked my coffee deplorables if they wanted to buy in on a subprimal rib roast. For twenty bucks they would be entitled to two hand cut and trimmed ribeye steaks. Four of them were in, Wagman, Joel, Jim and Paul.
Jim told me to go to the Costco business store in San Marcos, where Fry's used to be. Great selection, no tax and cheaper prices.
I was blown away by what was available down there.
Sixty dollar difference, I ended up paying about $9.89 a lb. Very tolerable for a nice ribeye.
Breaking it down was child's play but I was happy Deb was there because she grew up in a ranching family and gave me support.
I borrowed Joel's vacuum sealer but couldn't get it to work.
Needed one anyway.
We will cook one of our steaks up tonight, quick cast iron two minute sear and eight minute oven finish to 115 before the quick reverse sear.
The rest are vacuum sealed and in the freezer. I have high hopes. Rest of the boys will get theirs tomorrow. I gave RoxAnn and Mick one because they are always so good to us. Besides, how much steak can I eat?
Next time we are going to buy the prime and see what the difference is. Dr. Neon says that he is in for half. I think that this is the way to go.
Will let you know.
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Jim said it was an excellent steak tonight. Cooked at 800 degrees.
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RoxAnn and Mick's delectable dinner.
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postscript II - My wife pointed out that for all my talents as a cook I am a pretty lousy mathematician. My friends got 8 steaks for 80 dollars. My 6 & 1/2 cost me 90. The reality is that I didn't know what the thing would cost or what the breakdown would be. I made a deal, I'm not going to welch on it or ask for more money. I got the premium pick and got to give four good friends a good deal, nothing wrong with that.
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I then inserted my smart iq thermometer and cooked in a preheated 450° oven for four minutes, when the internal temperature reached 115°.
I took the steak out of the pan and added fresh sprigs of thyme and rosemary and a big chunk of butter. I learned a new trick, smushed two garlic gloves but didn't take the paper off and added them to the baste. Garlic doesn't burn but infuses the flavor.
When it got real hot I added the steak back and did a quick 2 minute brush over baste.
Wasn't careful, burnt my thumb joint on the pan handle, Leslie grabbed some aloe for the blister.
Anyway, delicious, slightly over the rare to medium rare but the most tender ribeye I have ever eaten and very flavorful.
Prime next.
I guess that it depends on whose fat is in the fire. Subjugating women is one thing but we never thought that it would come to this. Messing with the menfolk is an entirely different proposition.
Women have faced an onslaught of increasingly severe limits on their personal freedom and rules about their dress since the Taliban seized power three years ago. But men in urban areas could, for the most part, carry on freely.
The past four weeks, however, have brought significant changes for them, too. New laws promulgated in late August mandate that men wear a fist-long beard, bar them from imitating non-Muslims in appearance or behavior, widely interpreted as a prohibition against jeans, and ban haircuts that are against Islamic law, which essentially means short or Western styles. Men are now also prohibited from looking at women other than their wives or relatives.
Poor guys are starting to feel it too.
These first serious restrictions on men have come as a surprise to many in Afghanistan, according to a range of Afghans, including Taliban opponents, wavering supporters and even members of the Taliban regime, who spoke in phone interviews over the past two weeks. In a society where a man’s voice is often perceived as far more powerful than a woman’s, some men now wonder whether they should have spoken up sooner to defend the freedoms of their wives and daughters.
“If men had raised their voices, we might also be in a different situation now,” said a male resident of the capital, Kabul, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity or that only their first names be used due to fears of drawing unwanted scrutiny from the regime. “Now, everyone is growing a beard because we don’t want to be questioned, humiliated,” he said.
Hard to really feel sorry for these guys now that the sandal is on the other foot.
The Taliban say that they are merely protecting Afghan women from corrupt western influence. Funny, Trump said yesterday that he was protecting women with his abortion stance. That kind of protection I think they can do without.
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Trump made a side deal with the Taliban that cut out the Afghan government and created an impossible deadline for withdrawal. He invited the Taliban to Camp David but did not invite our allies, the Afghan government. This deal freed 5000 Taliban fighters unconditionally. Trump's deal left only 2500 U.S. fighters in Afghanistan.
During a speech in Detroit marking the day, Trump placed the blame for the "humiliation in Afghanistan" on both Harris and Mr. Biden.
In a response first shared with CBS News, Harris' campaign is using Trump's announcement, and abrupt cancellation, five years ago of a meeting at Camp David with Taliban leaders, to highlight the role his deal with the Taliban played in the withdrawal.
The campaign argues that Trump's deal created a "virtually impossible" deadline and left "the Biden-Harris administration with zero plans for an orderly withdrawal — only a dangerous, costly mess."
"Trump shamelessly attacks the vice president because he hopes he can trick the country into forgetting that his own actions put troops in harm's way," Harris campaign national security spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein told CBS News. "Trump wanted to bring the Taliban to Camp David just days before September 11th—think about that. He cut a bad deal with the very same people who violently took over Afghanistan and led to the collapse of the Afghan government."
On Sept. 7, 2019, Trump tweeted that a meeting with the Taliban was canceled after a U.S. soldier was killed in an attack by the terrorist group. Months later, in February 2020, Trump signed an agreement with the Taliban to pave the way for a significant drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of that year, in exchange for guarantees from the Taliban that the country would not be used for terrorist activities.
However, Taliban attacks on Afghan forces continued. Trump's former national security adviser H.R. McMaster called the deal a "surrender agreement with the Taliban" during a podcast interview.
Trump's own National Security Advisor says that Trump bears responsibility for the withdrawal.
McMaster told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the former president had made a decision in 2017 to maintain a US presence in Afghanistan, but that Trump then changed his mind. The Trump administration ultimately entered into an agreement with the Taliban requiring US troops to withdraw from the country by May 2021. President Joe Biden, after he took office, pushed that withdrawal date back to August.
“He couldn’t stick with the decision,” McMaster,who served as Trump’s national security adviser from early 2017 until April 2018, said on “AC 360.” “He didn’t stick with the decision. And I think people were in his ear and manipulated him with these mantras: ‘End the endless wars’ and ‘Afghanistan is a graveyard of empires’ and so forth.”
Asked by Cooper if Trump bears some responsibility for the heavily criticized withdrawal during the Biden administration, McMaster responded, “Oh, yes.”
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The mayor of Hamtramck, the town where my father lived when he came tot his country and where he attended high school, has endorsed Trump. Amer Ghalib is a Muslim immigrant from Yemen.
Last year, Ghalib was among a group of Hamtramck residents who met with controversial conservative activist Michael Flynn, a former Army general and Trump's first national security adviser. In 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador. He was later pardoned by then-President Trump. Flynn visited Hamtramck last year.
Ghalib has previously drawn criticism from some for social media posts he wrote before he was mayor. In one written in January 2020, Ghalib described former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as having "the soul of a martyr." The post was written in Arabic and Ghalib wrote it after Iran launched missile attacks on military bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq.
"May Allah have mercy on the soul of martyr Saddam Hussien, he faced Persia, America and the whole world and his hair was not shaken," reads part of Ghalib's post. The English translation of Ghalib's post was verified Monday by Wessam Elmeligi, an associate professor at University of Michigan-Dearborn and director of the university's Center for Arab American Studies.
Hamtramck, the first city in our country with an all Muslim city council and mayor, is the town that banned gay pride flags last year.
Two members were tossed off a human rights commission for not towing the muslim line.
A Michigan city with an all-Muslim council that made waves banning LGBTQ+ Pride flags on public buildings has removed two members of a city commission for breaking the new law.
Hamtramck, population 27,000, is an enclave surrounded by Detroit. More than 40 percent of residents were born in other countries, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and a significant share are of Yemeni or Bangladeshi descent.
On Tuesday, the council unanimously approved removing Russ Gordon and Cathy Stackpoole from the Hamtramck Human Rights Commission for flying the rainbow flag over a public sidewalk, with a member saying they 'defied the rule of law.'
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| ritual slaughter in the streets of Hamtramck |
Mayor Amer Ghalib, 43, who was elected in 2021 with 67% of the vote to become the nation’s first Yemeni American mayor, told the Guardian on Thursday he tries to govern fairly for everyone, but said LGBTQ+ supporters had stoked tension by “forcing their agendas on others”.
“There is an overreaction to the situation, and some people are not willing to accept the fact that they lost,” he said, referring to Majewski and recent elections that resulted in full control of the council by Muslim politicians.
On one level, the discord that has flared between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in recent years has its root in a culture clash that is unique to a partly liberal small US city now under conservative Muslim leadership, residents say. Last year, the council approved an ordinance allowing backyard animal sacrifices, shocking some non-Muslim residents even though animal sacrifice is protected under the first amendment in the US as a form of religious expression.
“The Johnny Rivers [cover of “Positively 4th Street”] was my favorite,” the singer-songwriter wrote.” It was obvious that we were from the same side of town, had been read the same citations, came from the same musical family, and were cut from the same cloth. When I listened to Johnny’s version, I liked his version better than mine. I listened to it over and over again.”
“Most of the cover versions of my songs seemed to take them out into left field somewhere,” Dylan continued. “But Rivers’ version had the mandate down: the attitude and melodic sense to complete and surpass even the feeling that had put into it. When I heard Johnny sing my song, it was obvious that life had the same external grip on him as it did on me.”
I love Johnny Rivers too but wasn't aware of Dylan's adulation. Of course I also remember him saying that after hearing Hendrix version of All along the watchtower, he started playing his song like Jimi did.
“I liked Jimi Hendrix’s record of this and ever since he died I’ve been doing it that way,” adding: “Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.”
Okay, not the same as his favorite cover but...And then I remember reading this:
When Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner asked Dylan to name his favorite cover of one of his songs in 1969, he didn’t go with obvious candidates by the likes of the Byrds, Jimi Hendrix or Joan Baez. He instead went with Elvis Presley’s relatively-obscure 1966 take on “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” Dylan wrote the song in 1962 when his girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, was studying abroad in Italy and he yearned for her to come home. His version wouldn’t come out until 1971’s Greatest Hits Volume 2, but Odetta covered it in 1965 on her LP Odetta Sings Dylan, which captured the attention of the king. His bare-bones take radiates with the heartbreak that Dylan felt when he wrote the song. “That’s the one recording I treasure the most,” Dylan said.Maybe Bob has different favorites on different days?
I asked her what was new and she reminded me that we had an Audubon Christmas bird count or two coming up in a couple months.
How could I forget?
But then she told me that she was taking off to Scotland with her friend Beth II pretty soon.
I asked her what was up with that and she said that she was going to the Golden Spurtle, with that all knowing look.
As you know, I pride myself on being a renaissance sort and a with it, man of the world type but I honestly had no idea what the hell she was talking about.
"You know, the porridge festival."
I stood there, slightly flummoxed. I can think of a lot of reasons to travel to Europe but gruel just does not rank highly on my list. I ate plenty of it when I was poor and my days of romancing with oatmeal and scrapple have long since passed.
I looked it up when I got to my computer. Yes, the Golden Spurtle is a thing, as if you didn't know.
Competitors come the world over to stir their cast iron cauldrons. Going on 31 years now.
Cooks compete to create several pints of porridge for three or four judges to sample.
The World Porridge Making Championship® title and the Golden Spurtle® will be awarded to the competitor producing the best traditional porridge, made from oatmeal [pinhead, course, medium or fine].
The traditional porridge must be made with untreated oatmeal (not with oat flakes/rolled oats) and with only water and salt added. Any porridge made with oats other than oatmeal will be disqualified. Competitors, who prefer to ‘soak’ their oatmeal, may do so, but no prior cooking is allowed.
Each competitor is required to produce at least 2 pints or 1.1 Litres of porridge which is to be divided into 4 portions for the judges to taste. Presentation bowls will be provided for each competitor to enable them to present their 4 porridge portions anonymously.
Judging of the porridge will be made on the consistency, taste and colour of the porridge and on the competitor’s hygiene in the cooking process. Judges will enter the cooking area but the anonymity of the final traditional dishes is preserved by a secret numbering process.
The heat winners must be available to compete in the final cook-off (20 mins) and will be required to produce a second batch of 2 pints or 1.1 litre. of traditional porridge.
Pinhead?
The first Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championships were held in Carrbridge on Sunday, 11th September, 1994 and the 25th on 6th October 2018.
Roger Reed was the creator behind the event, who was the owner of the Fairwinds Hotel, Carrbridge and secretary of the Carrbridge Community Council. The idea of the Championship was to raise the profile of Carrbridge and of porridge rather than to raise funds. At the time Roger was quoted in the local press “it is a very healthy food and we should make more people aware of this”.
Roger recalled the first competition:
“At the time I was a member of the Community Council and, I think, the village tourist organisation. I was out walking the dog in the woods behind Fairwinds one day, thinking of how to promote Carr-Bridge. I knew that other small villages around the country, UK, had world championships, conkers, tiddley winks and marbles etc., what could Carr-Bridge do? I used to make the porridge at Fairwinds and the idea of World Porridge came to mind. I went down to the Ecclefechan (Restaurant) to put the idea to Duncan Hilditch. In a very short time we decided that it would be possible to hold a competition in making porridge. Everybody had their own way of making porridge, could we find the best. Duncan was sure that he knew enough top chefs to act as judges. We then drew up the rules for making basic porridge. We decided that to add interest we would add a speciality section where the competitors could let their imagination take over. It was probably all sorted out in an hour or so. Duncan sorted out the judges, I organised the event. I put the idea to the Community Council, they approved and funded the initial event and subsequent years. It was never intended to make money but not lose too much. Simple idea really.”
Can't leave well enough alone now, can we?
All I can say about the Beths' journey, is well, somebody had to go.
And if they can put Fallbrook on the international porridge map with some tasty avocado porridge number, well, all the better. Represent, ladies.
I sincerely hope that they have been honing their porridge skills and not embarrass all the hot cereal lovers in Fallbrook who will anxiously and breathlessly be awaiting the results.
Oh, and I know you are wondering, what is a spurtle? (I know that I was.) It is the wooden utensil that you use to stir soups, broths, stews and porridge.
Before rolled oats existed, porridge had to cook for a long time, and the spurtle helped prevent lumps from forming. It has more surface area than a spatula.
So these people been evidently stirring the pot for over five hundred years.
Guess we should listen to them. Happy stirring!
May the best porridge win.
It's the political season, can't pretend that it is not and my wife sent this to me so I am posting it:
Homeland Security Admits It Tried to Manufacture Fake Terrorists for Trump
An internal investigative report, made public this month by Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, details the findings of DHS lawyers concerning a previously undisclosed effort by Trump’s acting secretary of homeland security, Chad Wolf, to amass secret dossiers on Americans in Portland attending anti-racism protests in summer 2020 sparked by the police murder of Minneapolis father George Floyd.
The report describes attempts by top officials to link protesters to an imaginary terrorist plot in an apparent effort to boost Trump’s reelection odds, raising concerns now about the ability of a sitting president to co-opt billions of dollars’ worth of domestic intelligence assets for their own political gain. DHS analysts recounted orders to generate evidence of financial ties between protesters in custody; an effort that, had they not failed, would have seemingly served to legitimize President Trump’s false claims about “Antifa,” an “organization” that even his most loyal intelligence officers failed to drum up proof ever existed.
Why am I not surprised? The nexus always seemed real fishy.
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DeGoff sent this along: Donald “America’s Hitler” Trump Gives Supporters the Green Light to Blame Jews If He Loses in November | Vanity Fair
Blame the jews? Not exactly a novel idea...
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From Calvanese, speaking of Never Forget. Elmer Fudd was born in 1972? Weawy?
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Fallbrook's CPR Classics rips off clients to tune of $11.7 million dollars. Hmmm. Brian was once my neighbor. Something always felt wrong.
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From Jeff Miller:
From Bruce Hall:
I have to think that there is not a single person on this earth who has not lost a close friend or family member to that dreaded scourge cancer. The disease does not discriminate. The pain of my brother's loss will be with me forever.
Leslie and I have lost two friends in the past week to cancer and have another friend that is seriously ill. It is tough, comes up so fast and sometimes by the time it is detected it is sadly too late to do anything.
I found my own cancer in 1985, which occurred in various places in my body. It comes back again and again. That means I have been dealing with it, in one way or another, for thirty nine years or so. According to the doctors, my cancer was benzene related owing to some of the solvents and chemicals in my sign shop.
I made a decision early on to forego as many chemicals in my life as I could. Because I don't trust the manufacturers to play it straight and I don't trust the government that is supposed to regulate them.
A couple stories in the news that caught my eyes the last couple days:
Hazardous chemicals in food packaging can also be found in people
This one is not so earth shattering, all of our bodies are now coursing with forever chemicals but at least our frying pans don't stick!
But the next story really bothers me:
During the Trump administration, these scientists had findings suppressed and were ultimately retaliated against.
More than three years ago, a small group of government scientists came forward with disturbing allegations.
During President Donald Trump’s administration, they said, their managers at the Environmental Protection Agency began pressuring them to make new chemicals they were vetting seem safer than they really were. They were encouraged to delete evidence of chemicals’ harms, including cancer, miscarriage and neurological problems, from their reports — and in some cases, they said, their managers deleted the information themselves.
After the scientists pushed back, they received negative performance reviews and three of them were removed from their positions in the EPA’s division of new chemicals and reassigned to jobs elsewhere in the agency.
This in itself is not too surprising. Republican administrations and EPA administrators, with the exception of Whitman, have always favored industry over the health of the American public.
In one case, someone had deleted a report he had written that noted that a chemical caused miscarriages and birth defects in rats and replaced it with another report that omitted this critical information. After Phillips asked that the original report be restored, he was removed from his position within the EPA’s division of new chemicals and assigned a job elsewhere in the agency.
“I was turned into a pariah,” Phillips told ProPublica about the almost yearlong period when he was sparring with his managers in the new chemical’s division. “I lost sleep. I dreaded going to work. I was worried every time I had to meet with my supervisor or other members of the team. It made me question whether I wanted to continue in my job.”
This is what got under my craw:
The inspector general’s reports said supervisors defended their actions, claiming that the whistleblowers took an overly conservative approach in their assessments and that, in some cases, criticisms the supervisors had relayed from the companies that submitted the chemicals were valid. One supervisor said scientists “were expected to make compromises to complete the new chemicals assessments.”
Research scientists should not be making compromises with chemical companies. They should be concerned with accurate, unvarnished data and nothing else. Another reason to fear a new Trump administration.
Bennett said she was particularly concerned about how the outcome of the upcoming presidential election could affect the whistleblowers. “If there is another Trump administration, I will be petrified for them,” she said.
If Trump fulfills even some of the promises made in Project 2025, job security for the whistleblowers — and all EPA scientists — will become much more tenuous. Project 2025 specifically calls for new chemicals to be approved quickly and proposes that all employees whose work touches on policy in federal agencies would become at-will workers, allowing them to be fired more easily.
Although Trump has attempted to distance himself from the effort, saying, “I don’t know what the hell it is,” reporting by ProPublica showed that 29 out of 36 speakers in Project 2025 training videos worked for him in some capacity.
The Department of Energy Promised This Tribal Nation a $32 Million Solar Grant. It’s Nearly Impossible to Access.
All three scientists who were found to have been the victims of retaliation said they worry that the underlying problems they raised have not been adequately addressed and might worsen.
The scientists said they were still concerned about industry pressure on the EPA’s chemical approval process.
“It’s been four years since we first started raising concerns about what was happening, and we haven’t seen a resolution yet,” Gallagher said. “We haven’t gotten assurance that the concerns we’ve been raising will be fixed.”
Cancer diagnoses are rising globally and I am sure that our widespread exposure to chemicals is a great contributing factor. Cancer cases in people under 50, also known as early-onset cancer, are increasing globally. In the United States, the American Cancer Society (ACS) reports that the demographics of cancer patients are shifting from older to middle-aged people. The US is expected to have more than 2 million new cases of cancer this year, which is almost 5,500 diagnoses per day.
The number of new cases of six of the 10 most common cancers is increasing, including breast, prostate, endometrial, pancreatic, kidney, and melanoma. In 2024, the US is projected to have over 611,000 cancer deaths, which is more than 1,600 deaths per day.
If you care about cancer and your loved ones you need to care about the environment and what we are exposing our bodies to. And vote responsibly.
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| Salomé with the head of John the Baptist - Aubrey Beardsley, 1894 |
I consider myself a bit of an impressionist writer, at least with my travel blogs. I try to paint a rather rough picture and don't always stay within the lines, even add verbiage with little semblance with reality when I feel that it is called for.
And as we all know, I am prone to hyperbole and exaggeration, especially if it furthers a feeling and a good story.
I received this letter yesterday from a good friend and was set back on my heels a bit.
Hi there, well my grandparents lived their productive lives in Salome and grandfather worked the Santa Fe railroads building them across Arizona and my grandmother was the town nurse, only woman to own an explosives business( on what’s my line on tv) and they owned many gas stations up and down that hell hole road to Wickenburg… I think my grandfather was also the County Supervisor- lots of my interesting history in that desert with nothing….my dad, grandparents and uncle are all buried in Wickenberg…
Ps - none of them were drug addicts (lol)
I felt terrible for demeaning my friend's ancestral homeland in my blog, especially since I was mostly kidding around.
I have always wondered about the people who lived in places like Salome, Baghdad, Ludlow and Amboy.
The truth is that I don't know very many of them and have no right to make such gross judgements. Maybe they are merely people like me who can't stand compression (or authority) and needed to find a place to escape?
I am sure that Salome and Aguila are full of wonderful hardworking people and always have been. I wasn't being serious. My friend laughed off my apology but I still feel kind of bad.
I was in a very remote section of the desert and there was simply no there there.
I found myself wondering about those brave and hearty folks who ventured on this particular terrain and said:
"This is it dearest, we shall go no farther, we have found our little paradise. This is where we shall plow our field and fruitfully multiply as the good lord hath ordained."
Clean dry air and 110 degree heat notwithstanding, the general area is not anyplace I would ever consider putting up my shingle.
And who knows, stick me in a dilapidated single wide with a broken axle and enough gin to float my passage and I could probably even finally finish that novel I never really started.
You need that sort of solitude to write properly.
This particular stretch of nowhere would probably be a fertile environment to start your own cult or religion, if you ever had the need for followers and creed. Not situated all that far from hellfire and damnation, if fact I think that it is the next town over.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Why was I even here? Certainly not to pontificate, Edward Abbey had mined this stretch of literary terra firma so brilliantly that there was no reason to try to one up him, not that it was even possible.
Besides at my age in my late sixties, most of the really big thoughts have since flown out the window. Now it is about intake and outflow and complaining about the new locations for arthritis and similar ailments. Base shit.
What was I doing again? Oh, that's right I was driving to Prescott to hang out with some old friends and hit a Navajo rug auction. I had got up and got out of the door at five on Friday morning, the GPS took me up Winchester Rd. and finally I took the 10 to the Wickenburg turnoff and the lovely old gas station that I was forced to capture, entropy and spray paint being the hallmarks of the new apocalypse we were promised by our savior as payback for all those ungodly thoughts and actions we thought we could dodge.
Can't cloudsit with the big guy and the harps before you indulge in a little fiery introspection and look at life's book with a bit of honest clinical objectivity and soul searching.
At least my car was running, reasonably full of gas and still had four wheels, still fully capable of delivering me from my sandy purgatory if not hellhole barring any unforeseen intervention from Yahweh or his minions.
But the Anza Borrego couldn't take me last week and I will be damned if I let Ms. Mojave have her way with me today. Begone desert!
I saw a general store, decided not to stop, for some reason.
Nothing personal but no one needs water that bad and I still had a little that I had brought with me. I would wait until Prescott.
Case they are looking for another skull.
They are both funny and Sandi is a talented potter.
I think I am more comfortable at this stage of my life in pine and juniper forest and high desert than the lizard and scorpion type of sandier habitat.
Broken beer bottle desert.
We went and previewed the auction, which benefited the Smoki Museum or wait, that was struck as not woke enough, the Museum for Indigenous Peoples, really rolls off the tongue.
They call it MIPS, it is shorter and a hell of a lot easier.
Saw more than a few that I liked but didn't know how the game would be played and the nature of the reserve prices and those details can prove quite challenging.
It was festooned with multiple kokopellis, lizards, lightning, rain, antelope and even llamas.
Very rich and unusual iconography.
We left and had a tour of the courthouse.
Town just ain't been the same since all the Californians moved in.
We had a great meal at a Spanish place, Gato Azul. They didn't serve cat mind you, we weren't in Ohio, it was merely the restaurants cute moniker. I had a lamb chop tapa, perfectly cooked and a papas y queso appetizer.
The guests seemed to be of a similar hue and chroma, I asked Bob when I might see some brothers? He laughed.
On the way home they regaled me with tales of Big Nosed Kate, Doc Holiday's squeeze, born exactly one hundred seven years and one day before me and she who had found employment in a "sporting house" in Dodge City at the age of twenty four.
Prescott was the birthplace of the Roughriders, Teddy Roosevelt believing that hard bitten ranchers would be tough foes on the battlefield.
Damn right.
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| Buckey with the star |
We went to the auction the next day, separate cars in case somebody needed to bug out early.
Who is she?
Read about her. She has a chapter in Mark Winter's master weaver book. 80 years old, just took a left turn off the traditional path and forged her own way, design wise.
She incorporates ancient Hohokam wall art and cave paintings as well as some fanciful figures. There is a llama in this one. I have now seen quite a bit of her work and this is the slickest yebichai border I have ever seen her do.
From Toh-atin Gallery:
Esther Etcitty was born in 1944 in a traditional Navajo Hogan near Sanostee, New Mexico, about thirty miles southwest of Shiprock. The major trading posts for Navajo weaving in that area are Two Grey Hills and Toadlena. She attended boarding school in Sanostee and in Albuquerque but did not finish because she was needed at home to help with the family.
Esther is one of the featured weavers in Mark Winter's book, The Master Weavers, Celebrating One Hundred Years of Navajo Textile Artists from the Toadlena/Two Grey Hills Weaving Region.
Her weavings are different than most of the work featured in the book. As a young weaver, she made traditional Two Grey Hills styles and some geometric weavings, but about 25 years ago she found her own pattern. She started weaving natural wool colored pictorials with Kokopelli (the hump back flute player) as the predominate design. This mythological figure is commonly found in the rock art of the area.It also includes horned toad, sheep, rock art figures and Yei’s woven into the background.
Etcitty is one of the few weavers acknowledged by Winter as a Master Weaver who does not make geometric patterned rugs. She has laid her claim to having created one of the most unique individual artist designs in Navajo weaving.
I like this weaving, very hip and different, not sure anybody else will but I get that sometimes. I got it for a good price should make a little money and enjoy it while it is mine.
They put so much red chili in the food that it is almost too much for me to bear. Gut buster. We ain't in Californee no more.
Place has been going downhill for about fifty years but I still come back.
I left early the next morning for Santa Fe. I was completing the purchase of a wonderful collection that I was working on in August.
I stopped off at John Fillmore's, who was kind enough to perfectly clean an 1853 Hirishige print for me, no charge.
Thank you buddy!
I can't wait to put it on a metal stand, so lovely, in both color and architecture.
My friend treated me exceedingly well, as did his wife, and we had dinner at Harry's.
We finished our transaction the next morning and I decided to hit the road.
It was actually cold and rainy, a wet Monday, everything was closed and I got the sudden impulse to skedaddle.
We can talk for days but I needed to make tracks.
Finally got her to crack a smile.
I continued on yesterday morning. Santa Fe and back in five days.
Was colder in the desert this run than at my house, by a long shot, having left in 100° days .
Got home yesterday afternoon, little worse for wear.
Very good short trip.
Left early in the morning today to unpack the car.
