Mouthpiece Notes

"Gaddafi" the Movie

2011-10-30T00:17:00.000-07:00

Muammar Gaddafi (1942 - 2011) is now gone. But, isn't it just a matter of time before Hollywood starts to cash in with "Gaddafi" the Movie? So, it got me to thinking-- What movie star should be cast to play the role of Gaddafi? Here is my nominee for a Drama- Micky Rourke.

But, Hollywood might not stop there. Recall the old movie "The Producers" with its opening song "Spring Time for Hitler"? Or how about the recent movie, "Cowboys and Aliens"?

So, here are my other nomiees:

Comedy-- John C. Reilly

American action hero gone bad-- Nick Nolte.

Science Fiction-- Gary Busey

Musical-- Gene Simmons

Western-- Richard Boone (deceased, but a good actor like him).

"The Old Man And The Sea" of Cortez

2011-10-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

What do Ernest Hemingway and I have in common? We are both wearing the exact same style of fishing shorts in these two pictures. Check out the shorts. That's Hemingway on a fishing boat some place in the Caribbean, and that's me with the captain of a small fishing boat in the Sea of Cortez, just out of Cabo San Lucas. Or, could it have been in the Arctic Ocean, looking at the way the captain is dressed for cold weather?

In June we went to Cabo San Lucas for a wedding. Some of the groom's family made arrangements to go fishing and invited me. I'd long thought about going "deep sea sport fishing" but never did. This was a chance. That, plus the romantic idea of joining the likes of writer and "tough guy" Ernest Hemingway.

Cabo San Lucas is certainly beautiful and warm, with blue sky and water and lots of sport fishing. Cabo San Lucas is located on the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, on the same latitude as Hawaii. It's approximately 1,000 miles south of San Diego. It is now definitely a tourist destination.

Although the Sea of Cortez is named after Spaniard Captain Hernan Cortez, his navigator Fancisco de Ulloa is credited with discovering Cabo San Lucas in 1537. It has a history of pirates raiding Spanish ships taking treasures back to Spain. A fort was established there and the area was opened up to further exploration. In 1730 a Jesuit mission was built. The biggest obstacle to development was lack of a steady water supply.

That's one of the things I wondered about when I got there-- Where does the fresh water come from? I have since learned that the

Laguna Mountains to the north produce about 30 inches of rain each year from the clouds. The rain feeds into the underground Rio San Jose and accumulates underground and in nearby estuaries. The stored water is then treated for consumption. At any rate, the fresh water problem has been solved in Cabo San Lucas.

Staring at the surf we noticed flying manta rays. There were quite a few of them close to shore. For game, people fish for all types of marlin, sailfish, and sometimes sword fish. There are also dorado (mahi mahi), yellowfin tuna and several types of shark. We were going to fish for the tuna.

We were picked up on the beach by a couple of small boats and then we bought some live bait from another small boat anchored out. You could see many local residents relied upon tourists fishing, just as many worked in the tourist hotels.

We started fishing for the yellowfin tuna, and we caught some before too long. Apprently, that's not always the case. While the water had a little bit of chop to it, particularly where the Sea of Cortez collided with the Pacific Ocean, it wasn't so bad that I got sick-- only pretty queasy.

After catching a few tuna, the chop was getting to us gringos and we decided to turn back to town. But, on the way the captain spotted a marlin and asked if "we" wanted to catch it. We said okay. This is the way it actually worked-- the captain got his engine running again (it had broken down and we had bobbed up and down in the waves for a while as he tried to fix it, breathing the gasoline fumes, which didn't help a whole lot), quickly got in front of the swimming marlin, got a stiff pole, and then baited a hook and threw it over in front of the marlin (while I steered the boat for him, thankful for having something to hold on to). Sure enough, the marlin grabbed the bait and was hooked-- all thanks to el capitan.

Sam, the other adult in our small fishing party, had caught and reeled in marlins on other trips to Cabo, so he asked if I wanted to reel in this one. Wanting to save face and act like Ernest Hemingway, I agreed. That's when I started identifying with "The Old Man and the Sea." It didn't take days to reel in the marlin, but it still seemed like a long time to this queasy, thristy (my mouth no longer had any spit in it) ol' man. I never felt like giving up-- but maybe secretly hoped the marlin would break loose and free me.

Hemingway's short story "The Old Man and the Sea" was written by Hemingway in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952. Apparently, it was his last major work of fiction produced and published in his lifetime. Born in 1899, Hemingway commited suicide in Ketchum, Idaho in 1961, at the age of 61. Anyway, "The Old Man and the Sea" is one of Hemingway's most famous works. It was made into a Hollywood movie starring Spencer Tracy in 1958, and into a television movie starring Anthony Quinn in 1990.

"The Old Man and the Sea" centers upon Santiago, a Cuban fisherman who has had a string of bad luck. One day he goes out and finally catches a fish, hooking a monster marlin. Santiago respects the marlin and battles it for a couple of days in a test of wills, holding on while being pulled by the marlin out to sea. Santiago finally wins and the too-big-to-get-into-the-boat marlin is tied to the side of the small fishing skiff as Santiago returns to shore. Of course, sharks attack and eat the marlin, so Santiago returns to port with only the large skeleton tied to his small boat. But, at least all the townspeople see that he his luck had returned and he had caught a very large fish. He's not a "has-been" yet.

In the Hollywood movie, Spencer Tracy at times almost looks possessed. Note that in the pictures, Spencer Tracy and I are wearing almost the exact same shirt. The similarities don't end there, however. While there is no picture of me, battling the marlin for probably less than 20 minutes, with the exact same possessed expression of a desparate man who had been fighting a fish for days, I'm sure it was there on my face to be seen. (Instead of a fishing line, imagine pulling on a five-mile long drinking straw with the other end in a tall, cool Diet Coke on ice. That's what I was imagining).

Would I do it again? Well, probably not-- although later in the month a couple of friends and I went out on the Pacific Ocean off the Washington coast, fishing for salmon, which will be the subject of another post.

Land Ho!

National Debt Made Real

2011-09-26T22:41:00.000-07:00

A stockbroker sent me an email with a short illustration as to why the financial status of the US was recently downgraded. I imagine the following is floating around the internet. Yet, it's a perfect explanation in easily understood terms:

Why the US was downgraded...

U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000

Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000

New debt: $1,650,000,000,000

National debt: $14,271,000,000,000

Recent budget cut: $38,500,000,000

Let's remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget:

Annual family income: $21,700

Money the family spent: $38,200

New debt on credit card: $16,500

Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710

Total budget cuts: $385.

Does this clarify it?

Pretty enlightening, that example. The complaint that we are indebting our children and grandchildren makes more sense. The family debt must be paid off by future generations in some fashion-- whether by more taxes, printing of money (inflation), more borrowing (borrow from Peter to pay Paul), or transfer of assets to our creditors (China), or a combination of all. While we have eliminated "debtors prison" in the United States, it can be seen that we are imprisoning future generations (i.e., we are taking away their choices and liberty) and leaving them to find a solution.

Camping in Capitol State Forest

2011-09-12T20:14:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago our family decided to spend a weekend camping together in the Capitol State Forest near Olympia, the capitol of Washington State. It is multi-use Washington State Department of Natural Resources land open to the public since 1955. It's a working forest with active timber harvests throughout the year. There is hiking, camping and hunting. The northern half of the forest is also open to motorized off-road vehicles, while the southern half is open to horseback riding. 800,000 people visit the forest each year.

While not everybody could make the trip, there's something about getting family together to spend some time in the woods and sit around the campfire. There are no televisions, no radios, no computers, no cell phones, no electricity. It's a time to just be family and talk.

There is a lot of logging in the forest, but those plats are re-planted. The campsite we picked was nestled in the tall trees next to a little stream. But, the stream must be pretty powerful during the winter-- look at the size of the root ball on that fallen tree by the stream.

This is a picture of a crayfish found in the stream. We put it in a potato chip bag long enough to take its picture, then we put it back in the stream. One of its claws was just growing back. The stream had some minnows, but no fish of catching size.

One of the things I wanted to do was make a pot of strew over an open fire, sort of a joint effort. Check out the cutting board made of a cedar plank. When my kids were little we'd go camping and use sticks to eat beans out of cans heated over the fire. That was intended to be a lesson in resourcefulness. Compared to that, this stew was top cuisine. That's daughter Sheila cutting the potatoes

There's something comforting about putting logs on a campfire and staring at the flames and embers. It must go back tens of thousands of years. It can be soothing. Some of the wood was damp. Somebody once said "Whoever believes 'where there is smoke, there is fire' has never tried starting a campfire." We bought a few dry logs back towards town and that made all the difference.

That's son Scott setting up the chess board. Can you beat that arrangement? Even the moths wanted to get into the game.

The Capitol State Forest is pretty big. To the east out across the valley you could see the Cascade Mountains. To the north you could see the Olympic Mountains on the peninsula. (Click on the lower map above for detail).

While we may not camp every weekend, and not every year, to go camping once in a great while is good for the family and good for the soul. It also creates memories. That's granddaughter Dani using a spoon instead of a stick.

The "Potholes" Lakes

2011-08-18T00:54:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of Blythe Lake in Eastern Washington as the sun is coming up.

I had a free day in the middle of the week, so I decided to go fishing in the “Potholes” in Eastern Washington. The eastern part of the state is high desert—very stark, uncluttered and peaceful. In the summer it’s warm and sunny. At midnight I put the canoe on top of the car and drove 200 miles to Blythe Lake, arriving shortly before sunrise.

When I first got there it was still dark and the bull frogs all around the lake were croaking. It sounded like they were trying to get their cellos in tune-- very deep tones. But then a few started something that reminded me of the Australian Didgeridoo. And when I walked around the car I would hear splashing when the frogs and turtles jumped into the water. Different sounds than in the city.

About 15,000 years ago, towards the end of the last ice age, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet covered the northern parts of Washington, Idaho and Western Montana. The front edge of the ice sheet was about 2,000 feet high. That’s about three times the height of the Seattle Space Needle.

In what’s now Montana, there was a lot of water trapped behind ice dams, which were part of the ice sheet. That water is now referred to as Glacial Lake Missoula and may have been about half the size of Lake Michigan. Every 40 years or so during a 2000-year period, the ice dams would burst and all that water would rush across Eastern Washington at about 80 miles per hour. The water would scour the earth, pushing sediment and rocks out of the way and down into Oregon and beyond. The erosion was fierce. Enormous canyons and channels were formed in the volcanic rock almost instantly.

Dry Falls is an example of the vast erosion caused by the Missoula Floods (sometimes called the Spokane Floods). When water was flowing over Dry Falls, it was about twice as much as Niagara Falls. You can get all this information on the web.

Blythe Lake is near Moses Lake. The Moses Lake area has many lakes, commonly known as "potholes," which were initially carved out by the floodwaters from Glacial Lake Missoula. Moses Lake feeds the Potholes Reservoir, which is part of the Columbia Basin Irrigation Project, a dam and irrigation project which raised the water table high enough to allow the potholes to become lakes. Blythe Lake is just south of the reservoir. It's one of the little dots at the top left of this photo:

I don’t know if Blythe Lake is “officially” one of the potholes, but most people refer to all the lakes in the area as “The Potholes.” So, I went fishing in “The Potholes” (although there is an actual lake with that name). You know what I mean.

Anyway, I got there before sunrise and put the canoe in and paddled around the lake. I tried dragging a spinner behind as I paddled; I anchored and tried worms, both deep and shallow, and Power Bait, both deep and shallow. Never a bite or sight of a trout. This little guy got hooked on a worm, but I threw him back (along with the pliers shown in the picture).

While I didn’t catch any trout, it was six hours on the water well spent. The surroundings were beautiful. You could hear the air going through the feathers of the birds as they flew by. You could hear your own breathing. I was the only person at the lake—all day. That’s my car shown in the photo. It was great. After six hours on the lake, I drove back home.

The canoe worked well. The wind was really up coming home, and it was blowing sideways on the canoe. But, the canoe held up. That’s a picture of the back rest I made for it—you can lean against it or sit on top. I also learned that I can stretch out and fall asleep on the bottom of the canoe. That could work in a pinch.

Fishing With My Grandson

2011-08-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day-- I took my son and grandson fishing. (Or, did they take me?). This kind of day doesn't always happen. It was time spent on the shore of the small lake which the three of us will remember forever. My grandson Logan caught one (when his line wasn't tangled in a tight mess-- a knot-tying skill we all three possess). This was a day of appreciation. What is it about fishing, in particular?

31st U.S. President Herbert Hoover said it pretty well in 1947--

"Fishing is the chance to wash one's soul with pure air. It brings meekness and inspiration, reduces our egotism, soothes our troubles and shames our wickedness. It is discipline in the equality of men-- for all men are equal before fish."

Izaak Walton (1593-1683) was an English writer and author of The Compleat Angler (1653), which celebrates the art and spirit of fishing.

"You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it."

Remember the 1992 movie A River Runs Through It? A great story-- some sadness, but also full of fishing, which seemed to forgive and make things right. The movie was based upon the semi-autobiographic short novel A River Runs Through It (1976) written by Norman Maclean (1902-1990). Here's one of the best quotes from the film--

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing."

I don't pretend to be a great or regular fisherman. I've been away from it for decades, only re-discovering it the last couple of years. Just in time, it seems.

"Reno Jim" Uprichard

2011-08-08T23:29:00.000-07:00

Jim Uprichard, who tells me his last name is Welsh not Irish, has been a friend for 50 years. He now lives in Reno, hence the moniker "Reno Jim." That's him in the US Navy. The two stripes means he was Admiral of the Second Fleet or something. He was also a boiler man on the USS Agerholm (commissioned in 1946, but sunk as a target off California in 1982). A boiler man does what Steve McQueen does in the movie "Sand Pebbles." That's a good movie.

Reno Jim and I stay in touch as friends do, mostly out of curiosity to see how life turns for us. The guy in the Captain's hat is Jack Kerouac, the "beat" writer. I didn't know Kerouac, but I think he may have tried to model his life after Reno Jim. Uprichard makes Kerouac look like a Sunday School teacher. The guy with the curly hair is Kurt Vonnegut, whose books I saw Reno Jim reading from time to time. That's pretty much Jim's background, so far as I know.

When Jim went into the Navy he had a metallic blue '56 Chev hardtop. When he got out, he bought a purple VW bug. Over the years, he's pretty much settled on a couple of Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Reno Jim is an excellent rider. When he sees a sign that suggests using caution, he'll grab a fist full of throttle and go even faster, lest some danger catch up to him from behind. The "dangerous curve" ahead sign is biographical for Reno Jim.

There are way too many stories and anecdotes to include here, obviously.

This is a picture of Jim and I from the early 1970's. I don't know who the women are standing next to Reno Jim in the pictures.

That's Reno Jim with Ron Paul. That makes perfect sense.

UPDATE September 19, 2011--

Here's a picture of Reno Jim giving Senator Rand Paul a short seminar on the value of money and the dangers of the Federal Reserve this last weekend in Reno, Nevada (of course).

Denver Road Trip

2011-07-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

"Rugged Individualism" is more than a myth. It's something buried deep within our DNA, and if we're lucky we get to experience it once in a while. It's related to challenge, stamina, adventure, self-awareness, self-reliance, survival and perseverance-- and all those things that comprise living. It's not so much a goal or posture, but a glimpse at our inner potential. Sure, there are ingredients of fantasy, day-dreaming, denial and rebellion-- but it's more a reaffirmation that we're not necessarily dead yet. Without self-imposed tests, how can we truly measure our own ability? Surely not by somebody else's standard. At least that's what I believe.

So, a buddy (JJ) and I decided to go on a motorcycle ride from Seattle to Denver and back-- not the world's greatest or most daring and dangerous feat, but an adventure nevertheless. If not at least that, then what? If you ride, you know what I mean.

We decided to load up and take almost two weeks and head out for Denver. We made the round trip, not staying in a motel or hotel once (although we did spend a couple of nights with friends). It was mostly ride, fill up the tank, ride, eat, fill up the tank, find a campsite, etc. Perfect! That's JJ with the red bike.

A week earlier, another buddy (Jim) had ridden from Reno to Minneapolis for a vitamin and nutrition convention, and he arranged to meet JJ and I just west of Denver. So, that made three of us. That's Jim with the black bike and all the gear on it.

JJ and I road to Pendleton, Oregon, the first night and then on to Twin Falls, Idaho, by the next evening. We stopped in Salt Lake (worst highway traffic on the whole trip). The third night was in Grand Junction, Colorado, and we met Jim the next morning in Rifle, west of Denver. That's the capitol building in Denver. After resting in Denver, it was on to Boulder and Estes Park in the Rockies.

There were broken kickstands, cops and traffic stops, lost chaps and shirts, bugs and animals. The best story comes from riding down Granby Pass in the Rockies-- lots of herds of elk. Anyway, Jim got stopped inside the National Park for speeding (and four other potential traffic infractions and one possible crime)-- but somehow he talked his way into a "warning" and we took off. We then saw that Jim's headlamp was out. It was getting dark and we needed a place to stay, but the best chance was 100 miles down the road. So, JJ went ahead through the dark, followed by Jim without a headlamp, and then me. Part of the way there was a pickup truck in front of us which tapped its brakes whenever elk and deer ran across the road-- and there were hundreds. That was living!

We finally got into town and found we could stay in the city park if we first reported in with the sheriff. The deputy assured us the sprinklers were done for the night, but they weren't. We had to cover one with the picnic table and another with a garbage can.

By then, Jim had been on the road about three weeks. No matter how much sun screen you apply, the road and wind will wear out your skin. That's Jim's ear. There's nothing quite like the elements to make you feel alive. We went on up to Rawlings, Wyoming. (Remind me to tell you about a murder charge I defended for Turtle Smith, who fled to Rawlings with a new notch carved in the grips of his revolver. The Wyoming State Penitentiary is in Rawlings, so maybe he was familiar with the town).

Next destination was Grand Tetons National Park and then on to Yellowstone National Park, to stay in Livingston, Montana, where Jim lived for seven years in the 1980's. (Remind his cousin to tell us how the bullet hole got in the front door of that house). That's the arch at the north exit of Yellowstone, south of Livingston.

We stayed with a friend in Wisdom, Montana, in the "Big Hole" and saw the 1877 Big Hole Battlefield, which was actually the site of a massacre of encamped Nez Perce Indians, fleeing the Army and hoping to reach Canada. Chief Joseph led the survivors of his tribe away, but he soon surrendered and said "I fight no more forever." The site is a memorial to the slain men, women and many children. See my earlier post about Levi McCormack.

Wisdom is really small-- around 100 people-- but of those people, there was a famous guy living there named Carl Miles, who invented some Harley Davidson add-on parts, including the "Heel Guard." That's me with him after I bought one of his parts and installed it (so I could eliminate my heel shifter). I'm the one with the light beard.

It could be asked "Is that all?" No, there was much, much more, but you had to be there. These little self-imposed adventures aren't for everybody. But, now and again it's just what the doctor ordered. There you are, riding along in the sun and wind and rain and dust, in the moment. And then you drift off into deep thought. And then you get stung by a bee flying up your pant leg, back into the moment. And then you start over again. It was perfect! Does that make sense?

Porridge, Gruel, Grits and Lawyers

2011-05-19T15:15:00.001-07:00

Porridge is a dish made by boiling rolled, crushed, or steel cut oats (or other cereal meals) in water or milk. It is usually served hot in a bowl or dish. Porridge is usually eaten as a breakfast dish, often with the addition of butter, sugar or milk.
Porridge was commonly used as prison food for inmates in England. Some call porridge "oatmeal." Oatmeal has a long history in Scottish culinary tradition because oats are better suited than wheat to Scotland's short wet growing season.

Gruel is a thinner version of porridge. It is made from some type of cereal (oats, wheat, rye flour or rice) usually boiled in water. It is similar to porridge, but more often drunk than eaten. It has a very thin consistency. Gruel consumption has traditionally been associated with poverty.

Grits consists of coarsely ground corn, usually prepared by adding one part grits to two-to-three parts boiling water and seasoned with salt, sugar or butter. Grits is common in the Southern United States, mainly eaten at breakfast. Grits can also be fried in a pan with vegetable oil, butter, or bacon grease.

Porridge can be found in popular literature. The Grimm Brothers,Wilhelm (1786 – 1859) and Jacob (1785 – 1863), were German linguists and researchers who collected old folk tales and published several collections of fairy tales, called Grimm's Fairy Tales. Jacob Grimm was also a lawyer.

There's a short story called "Sweet Porridge" by the Brothers Grimm:

There was a poor little girl who lived with her mother and they had nothing to eat. The girl went into the forest and met an old woman who gave her a little pot. When the little girl said "Cook, little pot, cook," the pot would cook sweet porridge. The pot stopped cooking porridge when the girl said "Stop, little pot." The girl took the pot home to her mother and now they were free to eat sweet porridge as often as they chose. One time when the girl went out, and her mother said "Cook, little pot, cook." The mom ate until she was satisfied but did not know the words to stop the pot from cooking. The pot kept on cooking until the little pot overflowed and the kitchen and whole house were full. The porridge overflowed into the street and into the other houses. The little girl finally came home and said "Stop, little pot," and the pot stopped cooking porridge, but whoever wished to return to the town had to eat his way back.

Just about everybody probably knows the story of "Goldilocks and The Three Bears."

There was a little girl named Goldilocks who went for a walk in the forest. She came upon a house owned by the Three Bears (Papa, Mama and Baby Bear) and walked right in. On the kitchen table there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry and tasted the porridge from the first bowl, which was too hot. The second bowl was too cold, but the last bowl of porridge was “just right.” She also tested the three chairs (breaking the smallest) and the three beds (falling asleep in Baby Bear’s bed, which was “just right”). The Three Bears came home and started investigating. Goldilocks woke up, saw the Three Bears and screamed "Help!" Goldilocks jumped up, ran out of the house and ran away into the forest. She never returned to the home of the three bears.
These stories are unusual, even for a lawyer-- Were they told to keep one's mind off of hunger? Why were little girls frequently wandering off into the forrest? Were these cereal meals always related to stories of hunger, poverty and subtle danger? Why are the endings so abrupt? What ever became of the little girls?

Yet, more recent popular "literature" continues to deal with these cereals and related themes.

Recall the 1992 movie titled "My Cousin Vinny," in which grits showed up. Vinny Gambini (played by Joe Pesci) was an inexperienced, loudmouth New York lawyer not accustomed to Southern rules and manners, who went to Alabama to defend two young men wrongly accused of murder while on their way back to college--

Vinny Gambini: You tesitfied earlier that you saw the boys go into the store, and you had just begun to cook your breakfast and you were just getting ready to eat when you heard the shot. Witness: That's right. Vinny Gambini: You remember what you had? Witness: Eggs and grits.Vinny Gambini: Eggs and grits. I like grits, too. How do you cook your grits? Do you like them regular, creamy or al dente? Instant grits? Witness: No self respectin' Southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits. Vinny Gambini: So, how could it take you 5 minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20 minutes? Witness: I don't know, I'm a fast cook I guess. Vinny Gambini: Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than anywhere else on the face of the earth? The laws of physics cease to exist on top of your stove? Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?

Such is the reasonable connection between porridge, gruel, grits, danger, crimes, prison and lawyers.

"Walter the Penniless" and "Peter the Hermit"

2011-02-15T02:28:00.000-08:00

Walter the Penniless was lieutenant to Peter the Hermit and co-led the People's Crusade at the beginning of the First Crusade (1095-1099).

The Crusades were undertaken by European Christians between the 11th and 14th centuries to recover the Holy Land, particularly Jerusalem, from Islam. The movement began in France when Pope Urban II exhorted Christendom to war, promising that the journey would count as penance.

The First Crusade (1095-1099) began with the march of several undisciplined hordes of French and German peasants (approximately 12,000 people, of whom only eight were knights), led by Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit.

Leaving well before the main army of knights and their followers, Walter led his band, traveling separately from Peter. They started out by massacring the Jews in the Rhineland (i.e., West Germany) and incensed the Bulgarians and Hungarians, who attacked and dispersed them. They reached Constantinople in shreds. Walter and Peter joined forces at Constantinople and crossed over the Asia Minor, and were promptly defeated by the Turks.

Peter the Hermit had returned to Constantinople, either for reinforcements or to protect himself. But Walter was killed, allegedly pierced by seven arrows. Peter returned to France and joined an Augustinian monastery.

There were nine crusades, plus the Children’ Crusade of 1212. Thousands of French children set out for the Holy land but were instead sold into slavery by unscrupulous skippers. Another group of German children made their way by land but perished of hunger and disease.

Sources: Will Durant, The Age of Faith; Wikipedia; Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia; Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia.

Trumpet Study Methods

2011-01-29T13:35:00.000-08:00

It seems that trumpet players are always concerned about playing lots of notes quickly and correctly (i.e., "technique") and playing high notes (i.e. “screaming”). Where does that come from? Perhaps it is because all the great trumpet players do both. Where to begin? All amateur and aspiring trumpet students start out with Arban’s or Saint-Jacome's method books.

Joseph Jean Baptiste Laurent Arban (1825 – 1889) was probably the first famous trumpet (cornet) soloist. Born in France, he entered the Paris Conservatory at an early age, taking up the study of valved cornet. He was in the French Navy and became a professor at the Military School in 1857. Arban was then elected professor of cornet at the Conservatory in 1869. He was also a cornet soloist throughout Europe and authored Method for the Cornet (1870), which was endorsed and adopted for instruction at the Conservatory. It is still in print. This method of studying the cornet, which is often referred to as the "Trumpeter's Bible," is still studied by modern brass players. It contains hundreds of exercises. The method begins with fairly basic exercises and progresses to very advanced compositions. It focuses on trumpet technique. I started with an Arban’s in the 1960s. It seems all the other trumpet students also studied out of Arban’s.

Louis A. Staint-Jacome (1830 – 1898) was born in Paris and died in London. Louis began his musical training at the age of seven on the piano and violin, taking lessons from his stepfather, a bandmaster. He later studied the cornet at the Paris Conservatory from which he graduated in 1850, winning first prize on the instrument. He must have personally known, or surely at least been familiar with Joseph Arban. In 1870 he became musical arranger for a publishing company and during his tenure with that company he wrote his famous Grand Method for cornet.

It is considered by many players and educators as second to none, except perhaps for the Arban’s. Many teachers believe that the Arban’s method and the St. Jacome method compliment each other, and that the two of them together comprise a complete education on the trumpet.

The French and European trumpet methods of study surely made their way to the United States and influenced American trumpet players.

John Philip Sousa (1854 – 1932) was an American composer and conductor known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. He is known as "The March King." Sousa was born in Washington, D.C., and started his music education by playing the violin. When Sousa reached the age of 13, his father, a trombonist in the Marine Band, enlisted his son in the United States Marine Corps as an apprentice to keep him from joining a circus band. Sousa served his apprenticeship for seven years until 1875. In 1880 he returned to the U.S. Marine Band and remained as its conductor until 1892. Sousa led "The President's Own" band under five presidents.
Sousa organized his own band the year he left the Marine Band, but also served during World War I, leading the Navy Band at the Great Lakes Naval Station. After returning to his own band at the end of the war, he continued to wear his naval uniform for most of his concerts and other public appearances. The Sousa Band toured from 1892–1931, performing at 15,623 concerts. It was a very popular band.

Herbert L. Clarke (1867 – 1945) was an American cornetist, composer, conductor, teacher and one of the most influential musicians at the turn of the 20th Century. In 1893, he joined Sousa and his band in the solo cornet section. After he turned 50, he began to concentrate on conducting and teaching. He opened his own school of cornet playing in Chicago. Clarke died in 1945 and was buried in Washington DC near the grave of his lifelong friend, John Philip Sousa.

Claude Gordon (1916 – 1996) was known as the "King of Brass." He was a trumpet soloist, band director, educator, lecturer, and author. His father was a clarinet soloist as well as an orchestral director. Gordon became Herbert L. Clarke's protégé from 1936 until Clarke died in 1945. During the era of live radio and television, Claude distinguished himself as one of the most successful studio trumpet players and gained a reputation as "the trumpet player who never misses." Claude died from cancer.

There have been a lot of “modern” trumpet players who were excellent soloists, such as Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971), one of the first well known improvisational soloists; Dizzy Gillespie (1917 – 1993) “be bop” soloist with excellent high note range (shown with upturned trumpet bell); Miles Davis (1926 – 1991), perhaps the greatest trumpet jazz soloist (shown with sun glasses); and Maynard Ferguson (1928 – 2006), big band leader and soloist known for his high notes (shown).

There are a lot more—both classical and jazz trumpet players. Notable jazz trumpet players include Chet Baker, Clifford Brown, Donald Byrd, Jon Faddis, Roy Hargrove, Tom Harrell, Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Marsalis, Blue Mitchell, Lee Morgan and more and more.

To me, Clifford Brown seems to have been one of the most “studied” of some of these trumpet players, although I am only going on the sound of his solos. Clifford Brown (1930 – 1956), died at age 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Still, he had a considerable influence on some of those other jazz trumpet players. He won the 1954 Down Beat critics' poll for the 'New Star of the Year' and was inducted into the Down Beat 'Jazz Hall of Fame' in 1972. He formed his own group with Max Roach. The Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet was a high water mark of the hard bop style.

The clean-living Brown has been cited as perhaps breaking the influence of heroin on the jazz world, a model established by Charlie Parker. Clifford stayed away from drugs and was not fond of alcohol. Sadly, in 1956, Brown was a passenger in a car and was killed with two others when the driver lost control of the car and it went off the road.

But Jon Faddis (born 1953) has got to be one of the top, if not the top American jazz trumpet player, particularly in the combined areas of technique and high note screaming. You’ve got to hear his music. At least, that’s my opinion. Faddis is a trumpet player, conductor, composer, and educator. The internet states that Faddis currently teaches at The Conservatory of Music at Purchase College-SUNY, in Westchester, New York and he is a guest lecturer at Columbia College Chicago where he serves as the Artistic Director for the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. I’d say he’s pretty “studied.” I’d even bet he studied trumpet techniques out of Arban’s and Saint-Jacome’s at one point.

China Will Own Our Banks

2011-01-21T12:49:00.001-08:00

In an earlier post I mentioned how China may end up owning Alaskan oil. In the January 21, 2011 edition of the Wall Street Journal there are two interesting articles reporting that--

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. on Friday signed an agreement here to acquire a majority stake in Bank of East Asia Ltd.'s U.S. subsidiary, becoming the first state-owned Chinese bank to make an acquisition of a U.S. deposit-taking institution.

And...

Industrial & Commercial Bank of China is becoming the first state-owned Chinese bank to buy a U.S. retail bank. That means Americans could soon see a wave of Chinese financial institutions on U.S. shores (assuming regulators allow the deal to go through).

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/01/21/why-chinas-icbc-bank-deal-is-important/

Now, imagine the future “bailout” of a failing US bank: The US bank becomes insolvent and is taken over by the Chinese bank. (Remember when giant Washington Mutual was taken over by Chase. Chase stepped up because it was big had lots of money. The Chinese bank could become as big or even bigger than Chase).

The US has not seen the last of failing banks:

There were 157 bank failures in 2010, the highest since 1992 and next year is expected to be worse.

According to Bill Zielinski in a post on “Problem Bank List”:

Banking failures for 2010 were at the highest level since 1992 as 157 financial institutions collapsed, the victims of collapsing real estate prices, a weak economy and poor lending decisions. There are many reasons why 2011 could see another wave of banking failures:

1- Unemployment remains stubbornly high and economic recovery remains subdued.

2- Approximately 25% of homeowners with a mortgage are now underwater and negative equity is a major contributing factor to mortgage default. If prices continue to decline expect another wave of foreclosures resulting in major losses to bank loan portfolios.

3- Home purchases are expected to decline as banks maintain vigorous underwriting standards and buyers wait for prices to stabilize. Banks will also remain conservative due to the risk of recourse losses on loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

4- Bank balance sheets already hold assets at values in excess of fair market. A further drop in real estate values will further increase losses for both failed and surviving banks.

http://problembanklist.com/bank-failures-in-highest-since-why-next-year-will-be-worse-0272/

Imagine receiving a notice from your local bank that it is now a China-government-owned bank, and that your deposits and loans are held by it. It’s not too far-fetched to see how a Chinese bank could end up holding the mortgage or deed of trust on your home through a simple transfer of documents. Delinquency and default could result in the Chinese bank (i.e., Chinese government) owning residential real estate in the US.

Banking regulations and practices could also change. Requests for new commercial and consumer loans would have to be approved by the new bank. A current complaint is that banks now have money to lend, but simply won’t loan it. The new bank owners could change many things about commercial and private life in America, literally deciding when, to whom and for what to loan money.

It’s interesting but sad to watch as America is gradually indebting itself and its future generations to a foreign government. This really does put our children’s future in the control of others. China’s policies and practices may become our policies and practices. Excessive spending, borrrowing and debt do that.

How will “the people” now complaining about domination and exploitation by “greedy American corporations” react when the US corporations are gone and even more interest payments are sent to China to benefit Chinese stockholders (i.e., the Chinese government)? Will future generations of Americans be able to some day borrow money from the "local" bank to buy their first home?

Hood Canal "Deadliest Catch"

2010-07-22T23:22:00.000-07:00

"Deadliest Catch" might be the best show on television. Those guys are amazing. So, last May when I was invited to go shrimping on Hood Canal, it conjured up all sorts of thoughts-- mostly that it would be as close as I'll ever get to being like those crabbers in Alaska (which isn't very close . . . . I know).

Hood Canal and the rest of Puget Sound were created about 13,000 years ago, during the Late Pleistocene by a great ice sheet. The Marmes Man was probably walking around the ice sheet about that time. (Watch for a future post on the Marmes Man and Dry Falls).

Hood Canal was named by the Captain George Vancouver in 1792, when he was making a detailed survey of the Coast of British Columbia. His ships were named the Discovery and Chatham. The United States Board on Geographic Names decided on "Hood Canal" as the official name in 1932.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hood_Canal

We were going to catch the "spotted" or "spot" shrimp or, officially, pandalus platyceros. The spotted shrimp (or prawn) is found from Alaska to Southern California, as well as in the Sea of Japan and Korea Straight. Spot shrimp are the largest species of shrimp in Puget Sound and can reach more than nine inches in length, excluding the antennae. They are reddish-brown and deep-pink in color and are recognized by the white spots on their body. They are most commonly found 300 feet deep and below on sandy and rocky floors.

Interestingly, spot prawns are "protandric hermaphroditic" meaning that each individual initially matures as a male and then passes through a transition stage to become a female. Spot prawns usually live for about 4 years, starting their lives as males and maturing at one year of age. They function as mature males for 2 years and then transform into females in their final year of life. Females might mate only once. http://www.bcseafoodonline.com/files/spot_prawn.html

The season is only open a couple of days each year. Due to extremely high catch rates in 2010, the Hood Canal quota was attained in four days, so no additional days of fishing were allowed in 2010. There are a lot of technical and scientific papers about spot shrimp on the internet, particularly because they are harvested commercially, too. There are also some websites for sport shrimpers, which I suppose is what we were called that afternoon. Still, we had to have a shellfish license from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and our limit was 80 shrimp per person.

The shrimp pots had a yellow buoy marked with a name and contact information and 250-350 feet of rope. Inside the pot is a mesh bait container. The bait can be made of different things, as shrimp are omnivores and will feed on most fishy things-- fish guts and meat sprayed with fish oil for additional scent, scented pellets, or the favored canned cat food.

For many years the cat food “Puss’n Boots” was a popular and effective choice because it was soaked in fish oil. "If it isn't 'Puss n'Boots' cat food you're not fishing. I usually use cat food, with addition ingredients with fish scraps as hanging bait. You need the odor to draw the shrimp in and the hanging bait to keep them in."-- James Schufreider. http://www.gamefishin.com/wa/features/shirmp.htm

The company has gone out of business. It was made by Coast Fishing Co. of South California, which was bought out by Quaker Oats and later sold to Del Monte. It was later discontinued due to lack of sales. I don't know what "Puss'n Boots" smelled like, as we always fed our dog "Friskies."

We put the shrimp pots over the side of the boat and let them soak-- just like they do in "Deadliest Catch." They were down about 300 feet. Gloves are good for hauling the pots, but we had a winch aboard.

That was it-- shrimping on Hood Canal in the spirit of all the great fishermen.

(Captain Phil Harris 1956-2010)

Herbs, Neon and Other Spices

2010-07-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

Neon signs make food taste better, and so do candles. Herbs help, too, along with the smells of butter, melted animal fat and carbon. So, the best tasting food is seasoned with herbs and is eaten under the glow of a neon sign with a small flame flickering on the table. Mmm..... The Good Life!

A walk through Seattle's Pike Place Market can get a guy motivated to learn something about food. No harm in learning something new.

I decided a good way to learn about herbs was to grow some. I got some from the local hardware store between the Chevron station and McDonald's. Friends also have good suggestions.

These are some of the planters containing the growing herbs.

Basically, you can just clip a few leaves and stuff them between a couple of pieces of whole wheat bread-- toasted and buttered. There's more to it than that, but it's a start.

The herbs I'm growing this spring and summer-- cilantro, parsley, chives (onion and garlic tasting), sage, oregano, rosemary, thyme, spearmint and basil. Some grow better than others, aphids like some and avoid others, some grow fast but others slow, etc., etc. It's a learning project.

Here are my chives, rosemary, basil, cilantro, spearmint and sage--

Before this little project, the only spices I knew were salt, pepper, butter, ketchup, mustard, garlic, onion, Bar-B-Q sauce, Tabasco, cinnamon, cream and sugar. You can do a lot with those. Still, there's always more to learn about spices and herbs, and an easy way to do it is to plant them and water them. Plus, a guy can really begin to appreciate the knowledge and use of herbs by others.

Seattle to Reno

2010-07-19T23:41:00.001-07:00

JJ Campbell was going to ride his motorcycle to Las Vegas and on to Yuma in April, so I decided to take a long weekend and ride part way with him to Reno and then return for work.

We watched the weather and decided to take I-5 South into Oregon. A guy I know, Marty Hayes, had ridden his motorcycle to Phoenix for a trial earlier in the week and had to lay over a full day due to snow. That's his snow-covered bike pictured below. He suggested we stay away from Eastern Washington and Oregon, which was higher and colder. So, even though it was rainy in Seattle, we headed south on I-5 and would later make a decision whether to turn east at Mount Shasta or further south at Donner Pass.

We stayed the first night in Oregon, and then headed into California the next morning. A California Highway Patrolman told us the road was clear around Shasta, so we headed east. It was in the high 20's and low 30's, with some light rain now and then, but the road was clear and basically dry. No ice on the road, but snow on the shoulders of the road. We thought there might be loose gravel from the road crews, but it was fine.

We dropped down into Susanville and warmed up over some Kentucky Fried Chicken and then hit the road again. We got into Reno late the second afternoon. We stayed a couple of nights at the Silver Legacy. I noticed some empty buildings and felt Reno is being hurt by the economic downturn and Indian Casinos. The lack of people was noticeable since I was last there a couple of years ago, but maybe it was the time of year.

When it came time to leave, the television reported that there was snow on the highway to Donner Pass, with traffic backed up. I decided to head north through the desert into Eastern Oregon and Washington, hoping to bypass the storm and stay dry, even if colder.

The skies were big and I could see storm clouds coming. There were some light snow flurries in Susanville as I headed north, then a few light showers as I headed northeast, but I pretty much missed all the rain clouds and storms-- rode right between them. The scenery was beautiful. It was pretty cold. I had four layers over my legs, and nine layers over my chest-- (1) long T-shirt, (2) wool shirt, (3) leather vest, (4) light nylon shell, (5) rain pants bib, (6) sweat shirt, (7) jacket liner, (8) leather jacket and (9) rubber rain coat. That, with chemical hand-warmers in the toes of my boots, made the ride pretty comfortable. All that, and the electric seat.

It was a trip I've made several times before, but always in the summer. This might have been a little early in the year. Then, again . . . . it was worth it. (JJ Campbell rode back from Yuma later in the month).

Stimulating Unemployment and Inflation

2010-07-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

The policies of the Obama Administration are continuing to stimulate unemployment, not jobs. Moreover, rampant inflation is coming, a future result of those same policies. There are two very knowledgeable and well-respected economists who explain it quite simply—Dr. Walter Williams and Dr. Thomas Sowell.

The following is condensed from Dr. Walter Williams' July 14, 2010, article “A Failed Obama Hero”—

Let’s look at the failed stimulus program of Obama’s hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The unemployment figures for FDR’s first eight years were: 18 percent in 1935; 14 percent in 1936; by 1938, unemployment was back to 20 percent. The stock market fell nearly 50 percent between August 1937 and March 1938. During the Roosevelt Administration, the top marginal income tax rate was raised at first to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent. In 1941, Roosevelt even proposed a whopping 99.5 percent marginal rate on all incomes over $100,000.

Where do the trillion-plus dollars come from that Congress and President Obama are spending in an effort to stimulate the economy? The only way government can spend a dollar is to tax or borrow it.

In the case of a tax, one should ask what would that taxpayer have done with the dollar had it not been taxed away. He would have spent it on something that would have created a job for someone. If the government hadn’t borrowed the dollar, it might have been invested in some project that would have created a job. When government taxes, borrows and spends, it shifts unemployment from one sector to another. Of course, the sector that benefits tends to be a political favorite of the shifter.

Between 1787 and 1930, our nation has seen both mild and sever economic downturns, sometimes called panics, that have ranged from one to seven years. During that interval, no one considered it to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression because there was no constitutional authority to do so. It took the government to turn what might have been a three- or four-year sharp downturn into a 15-year meltdown.

The following is condensed from Dr. Thomas Sowell’s July 13, 2010, article “Signs of the Times”–

Barack Obama has spent hundreds of billions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money just by using the magic words “stimulus” and “jobs.” It doesn’t matter that the stimulus is not actually stimulating and that the unemployment rate remains up near double-digit levels, despite all the spending and all the rhetoric about jobs.

Not only has all the runaway spending and rapid escalation of the deficit to record levels failed to make any real headway in reducing unemployment, all this money pumped into the economy has also failed to produce inflation [so far].

How can the government pour trillions of dollars into the economy and not even see the price level go up significantly? Economists have long known that it is not just the amount of money, but also the speed with which it circulates, that affects the price level.

The velocity of circulation of money in the American economy has plummeted to its lowest level in half a century. Business are holding on to their money. There should not be any great mystery as to why they don’t invest it.

With the Obama Administration being on an anti-business kick, boasting of putting their foot on some business’ neck, and the President talking about putting his foot on another part of the anatomy, with Congress coming up with more and more red tape, more mandates and more heavy-handed interventions in businesses, why would a business risk money it might not even be able to get back, much less make any money on the deal? Banks have cut back on lending, despite all the billions of dollars that were dumped into them in the name of “stimulus.” Consumers have also cut back on spending.

People don’t know what to expect next from this administration, which seldom lets a month go by without some new anti-business laws, policies or rhetoric. Businesses have no way of knowing what additional costs the politicians in Washington are going to impose, when they are constantly coming up with new bright ideas for imposing more mandates on business.

One of the little noticed signs of what is going on has been the increase in the employment of temporary workers. Businesses have been increasingly meeting their need for labor by hiring temporary workers and working their existing employees overtime instead of hiring new people because temporary workers don’t get health insurance or other benefits, and working existing employees overtime doesn’t add to the cost of their benefits.

There is no free lunch—and the biggest price of all is paid by people who are unemployed because politicians cannot leave the economy alone to recover.

Walter E. Williams was born in Philadelphia in 1936, holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from California State University (1965) and a master’s degree (1967) and doctorate (1972) in economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1980, he joined the faulty of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and is currently Distinguished Professor of Economics. More than 50 of his publications have appeared in scholarly journals such as Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review and Social Science Quarterly and popular publications such as Reader’s Digest, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. He is also the author of several books.

Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. He left home early an d did not finish high school. Eventually, he joined the Marine Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, Thomas Sowell entered Harvard University and studied economics. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), Thomas Sowell went on to receive his master’s in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968). He has published a dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, California.

Thelonious Monk

2010-07-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

Our jazz quintet plays a lot of songs by Thelonious Monk-- Well You Needn't, Straight No Chaser, Misterioso, In Walked Bud, Let's Cool One, Blue Monk, I Mean You, and 'Round Midnight. Monk's songs sound unique, and I wanted to learn more about him.

Thelonious Monk lived 1917 through 1982, so he died at age 65. He was jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the giants of American music. Some have said he invented "bebop," but I think he's a lot bigger than that. He wrote about 70 songs.

"His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk

There's an excellent biography about Thelonious Sphere Monk written by Robin D. G. Kelley titled Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original (2009). It's hard to imagine how a book about a jazz musician can be a "page-turner," but it is, at least for this reader.

Monk's melody lines and harmonies are very distinctive, and I wondered if his song writing and improvisation came naturally or if he really had to study and think. The answer is probably "both." But, (as am amateur musician) I was relieved to learn that he practiced a lot. A lot.

Kelley writes how Monk, working his way through "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," the theme song for Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra, sounded on a recording of his practice--

The first take is painstaking; in five minutes, he gets through just one chorus of the melody. As he wrestles with each measure, every note in his reinterpretation of the melody is carefully placed. By the second take, played rubato (out of tempo), there are more alternations to the melody and increasingly dissonant harmonies. Toward the end of this take, Thelonious begins to integrate stride piano and improvises for the first time . . . The fourth, fifth, and sixth takes, which together add up to a little over an hour of continuous playing, are an exercise in discovery. Monk works through a wide range of improvised figures in a fairly systematic way. He repeats certain phrases, making small rhythmic and tonal alterations each time to see how they sound. . . [This] represents a fraction of what it took to transform "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" into a Monk original.

Monk played with all the other great jazz musicians through the 1940's to 1970's-- tenor sax players Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane, trumpet players Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davie, alto sax player Charlie Parker, and drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. There are many, many more.

(That's Thelonious Monk, Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge and Teddy Hill outside Minton's).

It's probably safe to say that Monk's genius was under-appreciated, and there were many times when he couldn't get gigs. He was prohibited from performing in New York for a period because of a minor drug conviction. But, some of Monk's troubles were caused by a then undefined mental illness. Monk was hospitalized on several occasions due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. It may have been manic depression or schizophrenia, or he may have been bipolar.

On February 28, 1964, Monk appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and was featured in an article inside.

Here's some of what author Kelley writes about Monk's music--

Monk's unique sound has a lot to do with how he voiced his chords. As early as 1941, he was already experimenting with "open" voicing-- i.e. sometimes playing just the root and seventh of a dominant or major seventh chord, eliminating the third and fifth. The impact on the ear is quite startling. A standard major seventh voicing with the root on the bottom- C-E-G-B -sounds consonant, but remove the E and G and suddenly you have a highly dissonant chord, because the two remaining notes are only a half-tone away from each other. Invert the chord and you have a minor second. Often he would eliminate the root altogether and just play the seventh or the ninth in the bass.

Also, Monk was given credit for introducing the half-diminished chord, a minor seventh chord with a diminished or "flat" fifth (e.g. C-Eb-Gb-Bb). It became an essential element of Monk's harmonic language, partly because of the dissonance created by the C-Gb. That flatted fifth or "tritone" was critical to what would become his harmonic signature.

Practicing Law

2009-11-21T16:20:00.001-08:00

Each lawyer has a different set of dreams and goals. Mine include wanting to help the little guy, take on some cases which other lawyers may fear as too hard or impossible, solve some tricky legal questions in a novel way, and then be recognized for a tough job well done. So, I guess, I wanted to be a hero (hopefully) and help “make some new law” by having a case reported in the law books as a “case of first impression.”

The promise of fees has never been the determining factor. Fitting cases usually involved modest or no fees at all. I recall a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln—“do a good job practicing law and the fees will take care of themselves” or something like that. It’s true.

The “hero” thing probably came from watching black-and-white television shows growing up-- guys like Hop-a-Long Cassidy, Cisco Kid, and The Lone Ranger.

That, and perhaps also learning from some of the “classic” heroes-- like Don Quixote, Attorney Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird"), Detective Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood in "Dirty Harry" ), and Sheriff Will Kane (Gary Cooper in "High Noon"). Myths. The only real male hero in my life who was not a myth was my Dad.

The Ronda Reynolds case (posted earlier) got me to thinking about the civil cases I’ve handled that sort of fall into the category. Weird, but they all seem to involve death in some way—

1988-- Burkhart v. Harrod, 110 Wn.2d 381 (1988) involved a young man who had been killed when his motorcycle wrapped around a telephone pole after a wedding rehearsal dinner party. His blood alcohol level was almost twice the legal limit. He left a wife and small family. It seemed that somebody at the party could have taken his keys away or given him a ride. The cases in the State of Washington hold that surviving family members may sue a tavern owner, parents may sue those who provide booze to minors, and relatives of employees who were over-served at a company party could sue the employer. But no liability had yet been imposed upon a “social host” who over-served an obviously intoxicated guest. There is still no liability against social hosts, as we lost the appeal.

1989-- Halquist v. Department of Corrections, 113 Wn.2d 818 (1989) was sort of a ghoulish First Amendment type of case. I represented a journalist who wanted to video tape record the scheduled hanging of Charles Campbell, who had slit the throats of three women while he was in work release. The case was dismissed on grounds that there was no right to access the visual images of the hanging under the state constitution. The public would have to consider the death penalty in other ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rodman_Campbell

1991-- Rabb v. McDermott, 60 Wn.App. 334 (1991) involved a guy named McDermott who died in a car wreck, leaving two twin boys known to be his. I represented a woman who stepped forward and claimed that her young boy was also a son, although McDermott was not named on the birth certificate and paternity had never been established. We filed a claim against the estate and sought to prove paternity against the deceased. Going without blood tests and in face of the “dead man statute” (which means you can’t use what the deceased said when alive if you might benefit in someway from those words). We prevailed, and a trust fund was set up for the third son.

2000-- Nelson v. Schubert, 98 Wn.App. 754 (2000) involved extreme domestic violence. Schubert was an insurance agent and reserve police officer who once said “Only stupid people get caught for murder.” He married younger Juliana Schubert and fathered two sons. The marriage was falling apart and Juliana was leaving him. She then disappeared without a trace, not taking her purse, car keys or other belongings. Police suspected him and even arrested him, but the lead detective died from leukemia. Schubert was released and never charged. Juliana’s mother asked me to file a wrongful death claim against the husband after the seven-year presumption of death kicked in. Based primarily upon his inconsistent statements, a jury found that he was the “slayer” and awarded the sons about $1,800,000 (although the sons fought us, too). Based upon his civil trial testimony (he should have remained silent, but just couldn't resist showing how smart he was), he was later charged and convicted of murder. (One of his sons committed suicide shortly after that). http://www.seattlepi.com/local/92009_schubert19.shtml

2008-- Thompson v. Wilson, 142 Wn.App. 803 (2008) was where a husband, whose wife was leaving him the next morning, called 911 and reported that “my wife just committed suicide” by shooting herself in the back of her head. The sheriff declared the death a suicide and the husband was never prosecuted. I represented the mother of the wife, left to sue the coroner to change her daughter’s death certificate from “suicide.” That case is still in the works. So far, so good. The jury has said the death was not a suicide and that the coroner acted arbitrarily and capriciously. The coroner has refused to change the death certificate. http://rondalives.web.officelive.com/default.aspx

There is something big and serious about cases involving death—perhaps because they deal with the end of life. Maybe such cases give us an opportunity to respect and honor life, examine how death may come and what it leaves, or… maybe with death in the background we get a chance to see how we act before it.

Parker's Ballroom

2009-11-19T21:44:00.001-08:00

Parker's Ballroom on Aurora Avenue in North Seattle was already a northwest landmark when I moved to the area in the mid- 1960's. My new friends told me about it.

An album had been recorded there by Jimmy Hanna and "The Dynamics" and was hard to find. We found one copy and shared it but now it's long gone.

The record had some familiar instrumental hits on it including "Work Song" and "JAJ." That's what I liked about the band-- the horn section-- a trumpet and tenor sax. A couple of the garage bands I joined worked out our own versions of these hits. Still, the Dynamics were the model for me.

While I got to Parker's a few times, I never saw the Dynamics. Never saw Dave Lewis, either, but listened lots of times to him play "David's Mood" (another northwest standard) on his Hammond B 3.

A lot of big names played at Parker's over the years-- Ray Charles, The Beach Boys, BB King, Ricky Nelson, Guy Lombardo, Tina Turner, Tower of Power, Stevie Wonder, and many, many more.

The "big names" I saw there were Van Morrison and Them (when "Gloria" was their first big hit) and Doug Kershaw ("Louisiana Man"). Van Morrison had on a dark brown suit with a blue shirt which I thought was cool enough to imitate in a courtroom years later. I remember disliking Doug Kershaw because he embarrassed his bass player on stage in front of all of us-- we didn't hear the mistakes that Kershaw had to point out on stage in the middle of a song.

All the good northwest bands performed there, including-- Don & the Goodtimes, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Merilee Rush. But, I didn't see them at Parker's. Normana Hall in Everett was "our" place to go see and hear Northwest Bands, including Tiny Tony and the Statics. http://www.pnwbands.com/parkers.html This is an excellent site for the history of all the northwest garage bands and more.

Parker's opened in 1930. "Like a few other local dance halls, it spanned all of the sequential musical eras from the wild jazz days of the Prohibition Era right on up through the forties swing scene, from the rise of rock ‘n’ roll in the fifties, to the psychedelic sixties, and onwards to the heavy metal, disco, and punk rock scenes of the seventies. Unlike most other historic dance halls though, Parker’s still stands." http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3827

Check out http://www.pnwbands.com/dynamics.html for more pictures of the Dynamics and a sound clip of JAJ.

Ronda Reynolds

2009-11-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

Ronda Reynolds was born in 1965. She was the youngest female cadet accepted into the Washington State Patrol in 1985. Ronda served on patrol for almost 10 years. She resigned and later married Ron Reynolds, an elementary school principal in 1997.

On December 16, 1998, Ron Reynolds called 911 and reported that Ronda just "committed suicide." Lewis County Sheriff's Deputies found Ronda dead in her walk-in bathroom closest. She was lying on her left side, wearing pajamas, and was covered by an electric blanket with her head on a pillow. A second pillow covered her head. Her right hand was under the blanket and her left hand was clutching the blanket. She died from a single gunshot wound in front of her right ear. She was 33 years old.

A little over three years ago Marty Hayes called and asked me to meet Barb Thompson, Ronda's mother. Marty is founder and president of The Firearms Academy of Seattle. http://www.firearmsacademy.com/ He had been working on the case for a couple of years and said Barb was looking for a lawyer to help her get some answers about her daughter's death.

The coroner changed his determination three times between 1998 and 2002 — to suicide from undetermined, then back to undetermined, and finally suicide.

The more they explained the case, the more unbelievable it seemed. For example, there were no fingerprints on the revolver. The husband had signed a $50,000 life insurance form and mailed it in with a premium right after Ronda's death. Jerry Berry, the lead homicide detective assigned to the case, believed the death scene was a "staged suicide." Berry kept working on the case but one day was suddenly ordered "off the case" and demoted back to patrol. He never quit working on the case-- even after he resigned from the Lewis County Sheriff's Department because of continuing harassment.

The probate had long been opened and closed and it was too late to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the husband. So, Marty pointed out an unused state law that allowed somebody like Barb to challenge a death certificate in court. It looked a little late for that, too, and although we were thrown out of court, we prevailed on appeal and were sent back to Lewis County Superior Court for a trial. The appeal is reported in Thompson v. Wilson, 142 Wn.App. 803 (2008) . Jury trial began on November 2, 2009.

This is from the Chehalis Chronicle-- http://chronline.com/articles/2009/11/11/news/doc4af9e7e593040796021282.txt

A jury concluded Tuesday that Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson's suicide determination in a death 11 years ago was incorrect. The unprecedented judicial review is the latest twist in the case of Ronda Reynolds, a former state patrol trooper who was found shot dead under an electric blanket in a walk-in closet at her Toledo home on Dec. 16, 1998.

Reynolds' mother Barbara Thompson has never agreed with the determination that her daughter committed suicide.She first filed a civil suit in 2006. Her case was facilitated by a state law passed in 1987 that allows the determination of coroners and medical examiners to be subjected to judicial review.

Ferguson called a ballistics expert, a forensic pathologist, former Sheriff's Office employees and friends of Reynolds to the stand.

(That's Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds--no relationship-- the reknown forensic pathologist, recalling where exactly in all the evidence he noted lividity, which supported his opinion that Ronda died earlier than when claimed by Ron Reynolds).

Jurors faced three questions, all of which they answered unanimously in favor of Thompson:

Question 1: Was the coroner’s determination of suicide accurate?Jury: No.

Question 2: Did you find the coroner’s determination of suicide more likely than not?Jury: Not likely.

Question 3: Did you find the coroner’s determination of suicide arbitrary and capricious?Jury: Yes.

The judge denied Thompson’s request to ask the jury whether the official cause of death could be changed to a homicide, saying there was no legal authority to make such a determination.

(Jerry Berry, Royce Ferguson, Marty Hayes)

The little guy can fight city hall. It's just not easy.

Arrogance of Power

2009-09-09T22:00:00.000-07:00

The following excerpts are from a column written by Cal Thomas dated September 10, 2009, titled "The Reason for Our Discontent."

Who wrote the following: "We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about 'unthinkable things' because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless."

A "right-wing extremist" didn't write these words, nor did a cable TV or radio talk show host. Sen. J. William Fulbright, the late Arkansas liberal Democratic senator and Bill Clinton mentor, wrote them in his 1966 book, "Arrogance of Power."

The arrogance of power and disdain for average Americans is what fueled much of the dissent expressed in town hall meetings. Growing numbers of people see a small cadre of government, academic and media elites caring nothing about them, except when it comes to their tax dollars. Many, especially those who are conservative and even worse, religious, are viewed by these elites as enemies of progress and sophistication.

In a letter to Henry Lee on Aug. 10, 1824, Thomas Jefferson wrote something that could be applied to the arrogant elites who have caused the rising anger in modern America: "Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depository of the public interests—"

Law Book

2009-08-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

In 1981 or so West Publishing Company (then the world's largest law book publisher) offered me a contract to write a volume on criminal law practice and procedure for use by Washington attorneys. I accepted and started to work, thinking the project would take about 90 days. It took over three years to write the manuscript, which I did while practicing law full-time during the day. The work was published in 1984. It has been cited as authority by both the Washington State Court of Appeals and Washington State Supreme Court.

To get the manuscript finished, I also hired a smart young lawyer named Jeff Gross, who helped quite a bit doing research. West also held the copyright on a lot of criminal law books from other states, so I had access to that material, too. I had been collecting a lot of legal forms from actual cases, which I wanted to include in the manuscript. Midge Wolff helped re-type the legal forms, and Della Wasson typed the manuscript. (Della also typed the manuscript for the 2nd and 3rd editions).

The manuscript resulted in volumes 12 and 13 of the Washington Practice Series. There are several thousand footnotes referring to Washington statutes, Washington cases, United States Supreme Court decisions and other laws and cases. The law is constantly changing through new and amended laws and old case decisions being followed, modified, distinguished or overruled in newer cases.

I now have an arrangement with the publisher to update the volumes each year. The updates are published as supplements to the bound volumes and are inserted into the back cover of the books.

Each year I am to read and summarize the newly enacted state statutes and amendments passed by the state legislature, as well as the Washington State Court of Appeals decisions (contained in the green "advance sheets"), Washington State Supreme Court decisions (contained in the yellow advance sheets), together with the United States Supreme Court decisions for the current session. "Advance sheets" are pamphlets containing the court decisions, available before the same decisions are compiled into bound books.

It's tedious, time-consuming, solitary work, but it's also satisfying-- sort of like taking your kid to get a new haircut and some school clothes before the beginning of a new school year. There is pride invested in the project. Plus, you want it to be accurate and true, as others will be relying upon it. It takes about 80 to 100 hours to do all the reading, summarizing and organizing. A 10-page court decision has to be summarized into a single sentence or phrase to be useful as a foot note. For example, a complex court decision might be summarized like this-- State v. Rathbun, 124 Wn.App. 372, 101 P.3d 119 (2004) (driver jumped out of vehicle and over fence and was 60 feet away from truck when arrested; search of truck was not incident to arrest).

Grill Cooking

2009-08-18T17:29:00.001-07:00

My friend knows a lot about healthy cooking with fresh vegetables and how to spice up a meal.

So we went to the local supermarket to put some things together on the grill. I took my camera to photo-document some of the foods. Look at the colors of those vegetables. What a display!

There's also a small local fish market near the Everett waterfront. We bought some fresh oysters for grilling. I wanted to buy a new oyster knife rather than use a screw driver again. Next time I think I'll open the oysters and put them on the grill, rather than wait for the heat to open them.

We also got some tiger schrimp for grilling with some butter and garlic. Mmmmm....good.

This silver salmon was given to me by Clayton, who started me fishing this season. The Coke can is in there to show the size of that fish! I just put it on a boat of aluminum foil and it barely squeezed in under the hood of the grill-- no spices, no butter, no garnish. It was great!

There is other grilling that I've done and have planned this summer. We even went to the movie about Julia Child and I've been inspired to do something other than always drive through McDonald's, although there's a time and place for everything.

There are some U-Pick blueberry fields around here, and the berries taste real good with Bar-B-Q chicken.

Health Care Bill

2009-08-06T11:22:00.000-07:00

There's so much discussion about the contents of the proposed "health care" bill that I decided to try to work my way through it. Yes, it's over 1,000 pages. Yes, it's complicated and would take months to figure it out. Yes, I see a lot of constitutional issues, including privacy rights, property rights, separation of powers issues, and 10th Amendment rights reserving power to the states and to the people. This chart is probably pretty close to accurate. (Left click on chart to enlarge it).

It appears to me that many of the complaints about the proposed legislation are well-founded, and that this is definitely a move for national health care and elimination of individual policies and protections. No, I would not support this legislation at all. There's too much in the text of the bill to address it all. Below are some excerpts of the actual text, which I have high-lighted in red. It would be best to read the actual text of the bill yourself. Here's the link to the actual text of the proposed house bill: http://docs.house.gov/edlabor/AAHCA-BillText-071409.pdf and here's the link to the analysis done by Duke Professor John David Lewis in plain english, which does a better job than me, but which does confirm the suspicions I found on my own by reading the bill: http://www.classicalideals.com/HR3200.htm

Selected excerpts I found pertinent--

QUALIFIED HEALTH BENEFITS PLAN
3 A QHBP offering entity is required to comply with
4 standards for electronic financial and administrative
5 transactions under section 1173A of the Social Security
6 Act, added by section 163(a).

* * *
1 SEC. 102. PROTECTING THE CHOICE TO KEEP CURRENT
2 COVERAGE.
3 (a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE DEFINED
4 —Subject to the succeeding provisions of
5 this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable cov
6 erage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health
7 insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance
8 coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the
9 first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met:
10 (1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.—
11 (A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in
12 this paragraph, the individual health insurance
13 issuer offering such coverage does not enroll
14 any individual in such coverage if the first ef
15 fective date of coverage is on or after the first
16 day of Y1.

* * *
8 (b) GRACE PERIOD FOR CURRENT EMPLOYMENT
9 BASED HEALTH PLANS.—
10 (1) GRACE PERIOD.—
11 (A) IN GENERAL.—The Commissioner
12 shall establish a grace period whereby, for plan
13 years beginning after the end of the 5-year pe
14 riod beginning with Y1, an employment-based
15 health plan in operation as of the day before
16 the first day of Y1 must meet the same require
17 ments as apply to a qualified health benefits
18 plan under section 101

* * *
1 (1) IN GENERAL.—Individual health insurance
2 coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance
3 coverage under subsection (a) may only be offered
4 on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-par
5 ticipating health benefits plan.

* * *

(c) TRANSFERS TO TRUST FUND.—
23 (1) DEDICATED PAYMENTS.—There is hereby
24 appropriated to the Trust Fund amounts equivalent
25 to the following:

1 (A) TAXES ON INDIVIDUALS NOT OBTAINING ACCEPTABLE COVERAGE
2—The amounts re
3 ceived in the Treasury under section 59B of the
4 Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to re
5quirement of health insurance coverage for indi
6viduals).

7 (B) EMPLOYMENT TAXES ON EMPLOYERS
8 NOT PROVIDING ACCEPTABLE COVERAGE.—The
9 amounts received in the Treasury under section
10 3111(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986
11 (relating to employers electing to not provide
12 health benefits).

13 (C) EXCISE TAX ON FAILURES TO MEET
14 CERTAIN HEALTH COVERAGE REQUIRE MENTS
15—The amounts received in the Treasury
16 under section 4980H(b) (relating to excise tax
17 with respect to failure to meet health coverage
18 participation requirements).

* * *

14 ‘‘(6) NOT TREATED AS TAX IMPOSED BY THIS
15 CHAPTER FOR CERTAIN PURPOSES.—The tax im
16 posed under this section shall not be treated as tax
17 imposed by this chapter for purposes of determining
18 the amount of any credit under this chapter or for
19 purposes of section 55.

* * *

15 ‘‘(f) ENFORCEMENT OF HEALTH COVERAGE PAR
16 TICIPATION REQUIREMENTS.—

17 ‘‘(1) CIVIL PENALTIES.—In the case of any em
18 ployer who fails (during any period with respect to
19 which the election under subsection (a) is in effect)
20 to satisfy the health coverage participation require
21 ments with respect to any employee, the Secretary
22 may assess a civil penalty against the employer of
23 $100 for each day in the period beginning on the
24 date such failure first occurs and ending on the date
25 such failure is corrected.

* * *

‘‘(C) OVERALL LIMITATION FOR UNINTEN
23 TIONAL FAILURES.—In the case of failures
24 which are due to reasonable cause and not to
25 willful neglect, the penalty assessed under para-

1 graph (1) for failures during any 1-year period
2 shall not exceed the amount equal to the lesser
3 of—
4 ‘‘(i) 10 percent of the aggregate
5 amount paid or incurred by the employer
6 (or predecessor employer) during the pre
7ceding taxable year for group health plans,
8 or
9 ‘‘(ii) $500,000.

* * *

18 ‘‘SEC. 59B. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE
19 HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.
20 ‘‘(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual
21 who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at
22 any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed
23 a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of—

1 ‘‘(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross in
2 come for the taxable year, over
3 ‘‘(2) the amount of gross income specified in
4 section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer.
‘‘(2) NONRESIDENT ALIENS.—Subsection (a)
2 shall not apply to any individual who is a non
3 resident alien.

* * *

16 ‘‘SEC. 59C. SURCHARGE ON HIGH INCOME INDIVIDUALS.
17 ‘‘(a) GENERAL RULE.—In the case of a taxpayer
18 other than a corporation, there is hereby imposed (in addi
19 tion to any other tax imposed by this subtitle) a tax equal
20 to—
21 ‘‘(1) 1 percent of so much of the modified ad
22 justed gross income of the taxpayer as exceeds
23 $350,000 but does not exceed $500,000,

1 ‘‘(2) 1.5 percent of so much of the modified ad
2 justed gross income of the taxpayer as exceeds
3 $500,000 but does not exceed $1,000,000, and
4 ‘‘(3) 5.4 percent of so much of the modified ad
5 justed gross income of the taxpayer as exceeds
6 $1,000,000.

* * *

‘‘(A) REPORTING.—Any person who is re
2 quired, but fails, to meet a reporting require
3 ment of paragraphs (1) and (2)(A) of sub
4 section (f) is subject to a civil money penalty of
5 not more than $10,000 for each day for which
6 reporting is required to have been made.

7 ‘‘(B) DISCLOSURE.—Any physician who is
8 required, but fails, to meet a disclosure require
9 ment of subsection (f)(2)(B) or a hospital that
10 is required, but fails, to meet a disclosure re
11 quirement of subsection (f)(2)(C) is subject to
12 a civil money penalty of not more than $10,000
13 for each case in which disclosure is required to
14 have been made.

* * *

22 (9) LANGUAGE SERVICES.—The term ‘‘lan
23 gauge services’’ means provision of health care serv
24 ices directly in a non-English language, interpreta
25 tion, translation, and non-English signage.

* * *

the Secretary shall include
12 quality measures on end of life care and ad
13 vanced care planning that have been adopted or
14 endorsed by a consensus-based organization

* * *

1 ‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—Subject to clause
2 (ii), a qualifying ACO that meet or exceeds
3 annual quality and performance targets for
4 a year shall receive an incentive payment
5 for such year equal to a portion (as deter
6 mined appropriate by the Secretary) of the
7 amount by which payments under this title
8 for such year relative are estimated to be
9 below the performance target for such
10 year, as determined by the Secretary. The
11 Secretary may establish a cap on incentive
12 payments for a year for a qualifying ACO.

* * *

3 ‘‘(C) TARGETED HIGH NEED BENEFICIARY
4 DEFINED.—For purposes of this subsection, the
5 term ‘targeted high need beneficiary’ means a
6 high need beneficiary who, based on a risk score
7 as specified by the Secretary,

* * *

11 ‘‘(4) LIMITATION ON REVIEW.—There shall be
12 no administrative or judicial review under section
13 1869, section 1878, or otherwise, respecting—

* * *
‘‘(v) LIMITATION.—In no case shall
12 more than 20 full-time equivalent addi
13 tional residency positions be made available
14 under this subparagraph with respect to
15 any hospital.
16 ‘‘(vi) APPLICATION

* * *

8 ‘‘(10) The Secretary may disenroll, for a period of
9 not more than one year for each act, a physician or sup
10 plier under section 1866(j) if such physician or supplier
11 fails to maintain and, upon request of the Secretary, pro
12 vide access to documentation relating to written orders or
13 requests for payment for durable medical equipment, cer
14 tifications for home health services, or referrals for other
15 items or services written or ordered by such physician or
16 supplier under this title, as specified by the Secretary.’’

* * *

For purposes of law
18 enforcement activity, and to the extent consistent with ap
19 plicable disclosure, privacy, and security laws, including
20 the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
21 of 1996 and the Privacy Act of 1974, and subject to any
22 information systems security requirements enacted by law
23 or otherwise required by the Secretary, the Attorney Gen
24 eral shall have access, facilitation by the Inspector General
25 of the Department of Health and Human Services, to
1 claims and payment data relating to titles XVIII and XIX,
2 in consultation with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
3 Services or the owner of such data.’’

* * *

8 ‘‘(1) MAINTENANCE OF EFFORT.—A State is
9 not eligible for payment under subsection (a) for a
10 calendar quarter beginning after the date of the en
11actment of this subsection if eligibility standards,
12 methodologies, or procedures under its plan under
13 this title (including any waiver under this title or
14 under section 1115 that is permitted to continue ef
15 fect) that are more restrictive than the eligibility
16 standards, methodologies, or procedures, respect
17 tively, under such plan (or waiver) as in effect on
18 June 16, 2009.

* * *

GENERAL.—A State is not eligible
2 for payment under subsection (a) for a calendar
3 quarter beginning on or after the first day of
4 Y1 (as defined in section 100(c) of the Amer
5 ica’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009), if
6 the State applies any asset or resource test in
7 determining (or redetermining) eligibility of any
8 individual on or after such first day

* * *

V9 SEC. 2541. LIMITATION ON FEDERAL FUNDS.
10 A State is eligible for Federal funds under the provi
11 sions of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 201 et
12 seq.) only if the State—
13 (1) agrees to be subject in its capacity as an
14 employer to each obligation under division A of this
15 Act and the amendments made by such division ap
16 plicable to persons in their capacity as an employer;
17 and
18 (2) assures that all political subdivisions in the
19 State will do the same.

Cowboy Sidekick

2009-07-14T22:19:00.000-07:00

"A sidekick is a stock character, a close companion who assists a partner in a superior position. Don Quixote's Sancho Panza, Sherlock Holmes' Doctor Watson, and Batman's companion Robin are some well-known sidekicks in fiction.

The sidekick has the literary function of playing against the hero, often contrasting in skill or performing functions not suited to the hero. By asking questions of the hero, or giving the hero someone to talk to, the sidekick provides an opportunity for the author to provide exposition.

It may also be argued that the comedy sidekick's apparent stupidity makes a non-intellectual hero look intelligent. An openly flamboyant effeminate sidekick may make an unimposing hero look more masculine. A strong, silent and modest hero may have his fighting qualities revealed to the other characters and the audience by a talkative sidekick." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidekick

So, get a beat-up cowboy hat, let your whiskers grow, mess up your hair, wear a tattered vest or coat, speak with a "twang" and say or do some goofy stuff to make the real cowboy hero look good, and you're probably a perfect cowboy "sidekick."

A good cowboy sidekick was George "Gabby" Hayes (top) who was sometimes Roy Rogers' sidekick "Windy Halliday." Walter Brennan (left) had some starring roles of his own, but he was often cast as a sidekick to others, such as John Wayne. Sometimes he was a bad guy.

My favorite was "Festus Haggan" on Gunsmoke, played by Ken Curtis for years. He was a perfect sidekick-- he rode a mule, not a horse. If he had to think about something, he said "I'm a studyin' on it." Perfect.

Another Roy Rogers sidekick was gravel-voiced Andy Devine, who played "Cookie."

Another favorite was Slim Pickens, who was particularly good in the 1973 movie "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" in the scene when he's dying to the music of Bob Dylan's song "Knockin' On Heaven's Door."

It's been said that the original cowboy sidekick was Lester "Smiley" Burnette, who played opposite Gene Autry. I don't remember him. He was just a little before my time.

It takes a lot of talent to be a good sidekick.

Walden Pond

2009-07-14T00:13:00.001-07:00

Another stop during the Boston visit was at Walden Pond just outside of Concord Massachusetts. Author Henry David Thoreau made it famous.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 – 1862) was an author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, surveyor, philosopher, and transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden (1854), a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience (1849), an argument for individual resistance to civil government on grounds of moral opposition to an unjust state.

Thoreau was born in Concord Massachusetts. After attending college Thoreau moved back home to Concord where he met writer Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) (below left)(essayist, philosopher and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the early 19th century).

Emerson introduced him to a number of other local writers, which appears to have included Louisa May Alcott (1833 – 1888) (a novelist best known for the novel Little Women), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 – 1864) (seated below) (novelist and short story writer) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882) (below right) (educator and poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", "The Song of Hiawatha" and "Evangeline").

On July 4, 1845, Thoreau moved into a small house he built himself on land owned by Emerson in a forest around the shores of Walden Pond. The house was not in the wilderness but at the edge of town and within walking distance to his old family home, so his existence at the pond wasn’t exactly a test in raw survival. Thoreau earned money by surveying and was able to walk into town for meals. His mother also lived nearby in the old family home and would provide food.

Thoreau spent a little over two years at Walden Pond. He would later publish Walden, or Life in the Woods in 1854. In the book he compressed the two years into a single calendar year, using the passage of four seasons to symbolize human development. In it, Thoreau explores natural simplicity, harmony, and beauty as models for just social and cultural conditions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau

Thoreau was an early advocate of hiking and canoeing and conserving natural resources on private land and preserving wilderness as public land.

He was not a strict vegetarian, but preferred that diet and advocated it as a means of self-improvement. He wrote in Walden:

“The practical objection to animal food in my case was its uncleanness; and besides, when I had caught and cleaned and cooked and eaten my fish, they seemed not to have fed me essentially. It was insignificant and unnecessary and cost more than it came to. A little bread or a few potatoes would have done as well, with less trouble and filth."

While living at Walden Pond, Thoreau ran into the local tax collector who asked him to pay six years of delinquent poll taxes. Thoreau refused (as opposing slavery and the Mexican-American War) and spent a night in jail. He was freed the next day after his aunt paid his taxes. While it wasn’t very long, the incarceration appears to have made a strong impact on Thoreau. The incident started him thinking, lecturing and writing about civil disobedience. His essay entitled “Resistance to Civil Government” (also known as “Civil Disobedience”) was published in 1849.

The essay argues that people should not permit governments to overrule their consciences, and that people have a duty to avoid allowing their implied consent to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice.

“That government is best which governs least.” This statement is sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine, but its essential wording appears to have been first found in Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau

Thoreau’s philosophy of civil disobedience is said to have influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Henry David Thoreau was a Transcendentalist, a philosophy advocated by Emerson, which holds that an ideal spiritual state transcends, or goes beyond, the physical state and that a person achieves that insight through personal intuition rather than religious doctrine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism

Paul Revere

2009-07-13T18:29:00.000-07:00

As mentioned, we were recently in Boston to see the historical sights. A number of incidents preceding the American Revolutionary War, including the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party, happened right there in Boston.

In the North End of Boston we saw Paul Revere's house, as well as the Old North Church. Remember the words from "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)--

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere . . .

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light--

One if by land, and two if by sea
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore. . .

British soldiers planned to head west to seize arms and gunpowder stored at Concord. The British would have to pass through Lexington on their way to Concord, five miles further. It was uncertain whether the British would start from Boston by marching south over the narrow isthmus or by first taking a short boat ride to the west across the back bay of the Charles River.

The guy in the church was going to signal which way the British were going. The signal would be either one or two lanterns hung in the steeple of the Old North Church. Revere would be watching from Charlestown, which was north across the river from Boston.

Paul Revere was known by Longfellow's poem as having warned all the citizen soldiers in the surrounding area that "the British were coming." According to Arthur B. Tourtellot's book "Lexington and Concord, The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution" (1959) --

Paul Revere made arrangements for the sexton of the North Church to display the signal lanterns long enough to be seen across the Charles River but not long enough to be seen by the British as a signal. (We visited the Old North Church and I sat in the church pew which may have been used by Paul Revere).

Then he had two friends row him across the river to Charlestown, where he walked into town. He saw that two lanterns were hung as a signal and borrowed a horse and started riding the 11 miles towards Lexington, which could have been done in about an hour on a fast horse.

Revere was spotted by two British officers on horseback, so he had to turn around and head north and then back towards Lexington about midnight.

Samuel Adams (right) and John Hancock (below)and their party were staying in Lexington at the house of Reverend Jonas Clarke. Revere arrived to warn them that the British were coming through Lexington on their way to Concord, where the British intended to seize the local armory of weapons. Alarm was given to the Lexington minutemen.

After warning Adams and Hancock in Lexington, Revere set out for Concord about 5 miles further. Half way to Concord Revere and two companions were surrounded by British officers and were forced into a pasture. The two companions eluded capture, but Revere did not. With some other prisoners, Revere was taken back towards Lexington by the British. Close to Lexington the British confiscated his horse and set Revere free on foot.

Revere walked back to the Clarke house and met up with Adams and Hancock again. Sam Adams hated to ride horseback, so a carriage was brought to take him, Hancock, Revere and the rest of the party away from Lexington before British troops arrived.

British soldiers arrived at the Lexington Common after Revere and the others had left town. There was a battle there, which common is now called the Battle Green.

The British then went on towards Concord where they were repulsed by the assembled Minutemen at the North Bridge.

Not surprisingly, actual events weren't exactly like the Longfellow poem. Yet, pretty close. Paul Revere played a major role in the American Revolution. He lived after the war and was buried in Boston.

At least Paul Revere is remembered through the Longfellow poem, (as well as the rock-n-roll band "Paul Revere and the Raiders") while Sam Adams is remembered as a beer maker, and John Hancock as an insurance salesman.

Ebey Slough

2009-06-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in earlier posts, I read a book about a guy who paddled down the entire Mississippi River in a canoe. That inspired a daydream to one day paddle in Ebey Slough just east of Everett Washington.

Today that "dream" was realized....

I put the canoe on top of the truck, tied it down and headed east on the Highway 2 bridge over the Snohomish River a couple of miles. That portion of Highway 2 is called "the trestle." The viaduct and bridge are used by more than 37,000 vehicles everyday.

This version of the trestle is about 40 years old and had to be repaired in 2007. Crews sandblasted rust, dirt and loose concrete from the girders and then used a carbon fiber mesh to repair them. Once the mesh was in place, crews used hand trowels to apply concrete over the exposed steel.

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/us2/ebeyislandbridgerepair/

Hmmm.... I decided to get off the trestle and onto some side roads, looking for a spot to "put in" the canoe. As soon as I pulled off the main highway I saw what I suspected to be remnants of an old "hobo" village. I'd forgotten about that. Transients used to live on a small swampy patch of western Ebey Island, and today it looked like they still do. I seem to recall that more than 20 years ago a couple of public defenders represented a guy charged with a murder at that camp.

In the early 1980s I myself had defended a guy named Charles Long who, on this very same Ebey Island, repeatedly stabbed a guy named Freeman with a knife-- partially severing his jugular vein, collapsing a lung and lacerating his heart-- in the presence of two witnesses. As I was searching for one of the eyewitnesses, the deputy prosecutor found the witness and literally had her hypnotized so she could no longer support Long's claim of self-defense. After the jury convicted Long, I got the verdict overturned on appeal in State v. Long, 32 Wn.App. 732 (1982).

Ebey Island is named for Colonel Isaac Neff Ebey (1818–1857), one of the earliest settlers in the Pacific Nortwest. Col. Ebey was the first permanent white resident on Whidbey Island. In 1857, a party of Haida and Tlingits from British Columbia travelled by canoe into Puget Sound on a mission of vengeance. Following the murder of one of their chiefs by white men the previous year, the Haida party was searching for a white chief to kill in retaliation. The original intended victim was Dr. John Kellogg. But when the Haida were unable to locate Kellogg, they went to Ebey's house, called him out, shot him dead, and beheaded him. Three years after the killing, Isaac Ebey's scalp was recovered by Captain Charles Dodd of the Hudson's Bay Company and given to Ebey's brother. Cpt. Dodd traded the scalp for the price of "Six Blankets, 3 pipes, 1 cotton handkerchief, 6 heads of Tobacco, 1 fthm. Cotton". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_N._Ebey

This canoe trip on Ebey Island had the potential to create a lot of memories.

After driving around awhile, I finally found a spot to park, though I'd have to portage the canoe a short distance to the slough. Only a couple of obstacles to get around--

Can you imagine what this guy's key ring must look like?

Once in the canoe on the water the cliff swallows started going crazy. There were hundreds of mud swallow nests under the trestle on all the pilings. Creepy.

Oh well. I shook that off and decided to enjoy the pleasing sights on the slough.

Deciding to go the opposite direction, I paddled upon what I imagined to be the Ebey Island Yacht Club. I wondered if that was the guest dock.

I'm not entirely sure what I think and feel now about Ebey Slough. But I am truly thankful I got a chance to outlive this particular dream. Next canoe trip-- another peaceful neighborhood lake.

Hammond B-3

2009-06-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

When you hear the organ sound in jazz, blues, gospel, rock and even country music, it's usually the sound of a Hammond, and more particularly, a vintage Hammond B-3 "tone wheel" amplified through a Leslie Speaker with rotating horn in a wood cabinet. There's nothing like that sound. Even digital samples don't quite measure up.

For the purist, it helps if the amplifiers in both the Hammond and the Leslie have vacuum tubes, rather than transistors or digital chips. It's the old-fashioned heat and distortion in the tubes that makes the character and warmth of the sound.

Before electricity, mechanical organs used to be comprised a lot of metal pipes (each shaped like the old metal boatswain's whistle) in incremental sizes from short lengths (for the higher pitches) to about 16 feet (for the lower bass notes). Some of the pipes were made of wood. Air was pumped through a particular pipe as a corresponding key on the organ keyboard was pressed. All these pipes and blowers required a lot of space-- sometimes a separate room. You can still see and hear "pipe organs" in older churches.

The Hammond organ was invented by clockmaker Laurens Hammond in 1934 and was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ. The Hammond is a mechanical organ (as compared to transistor, solid-state and digital). There's a "tone wheel" which has a number of metal disks attached to a revolving metal shaft coming out of an electric motor. The tonewheel actually has to be oiled through a wick (cotton string). Magnets pick up the electric impulse produced by the revolving disks, which is converted into a signal to be amplified into sound. There are several additional mechanical parts which can change the sound, such as "draw bars."

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard instrument for jazz, blues, gospel and rock music. Jimmy Smith is probably the originator and best known of jazz organists. Growing up in the early 1960s, my Dad had a couple of 33 rpm vinyl albums of Bill Doggett, who was more of a swing and blues organist. More recently, I had a chance to meet Joey De Francesco. There are lots of other super organists and I've heard a couple of them live.

Hammond had its own set of speakers, but inventor Donald Leslie (1913–2004) came up with what's now commonly known as the Leslie Speaker. Sound is emitted by a rotating horn over a stationary treble driver and a rotating baffle beneath a stationary bass woofer. The sound has a constantly changing pitch that results from the Doppler effect created by the moving sound sources. It was originally designed to mimic the complex tones in a pipe organ. The effect varies depending on the speed of the rotors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_speaker

A few years ago I saw and heard Ray Charles perform at the Paramount in Seattle. Of course he was great! The organist on stage had a Hammond and two Leslie speakers. That was a premier setup.

The Hammond C-3 is essentially the same organ as the B-3, but the cabinet has a wooden enclosure or "skirt" around the legs of the organ. The C-3 was marketed for church use because of its "modesty" or "privacy" panels, which hid the organist's—often a woman's—legs when the organ was positioned in front of the congregation. The B-3 was marketed for musicians who wanted to use a separate Hammond tone cabinet or Leslie Speaker. The B-3 and C-3 were produced between 1954 and 1974. A vintage tonewheel Hammond in good condition is a pleasure to play, but it weighs about 500 pounds, and a Leslie Speaker weighs about 100 pounds. They can be hauled for gigging, but it's pretty hard on them.

Salem Massachusetts

2009-06-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

We went to the Boston area the last week in May. One part of the trip was to Salem, Massachusetts-- home to the famous "Salem Witch Trials" in 1692. Three young women started exhibiting bizarre behavior, which led to suspicion and accusations of witchcraft in the Puritan town. Suspects were accused, examined and imprisoned by local magistrates. By the time the hysteria was over 24 people had died-- 19 were hanged on Gallows Hill in Salem Town. Some died in prison and one man who refused to confess was crushed to death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials

We got there a little late in the evening, but managed to connect with a tour guide, who claimed to be a witch. He wore a top hat and carried an umbrella. There was something vaguely familiar about our guide.

He walked us past the old county jail, a couple of graveyards, taverns and other places claimed to be haunted. The guide suggested that we closely examine our photographs later for "white orbs," green slime, and ghost-like mist. Such would be evidence of ghosts that only a camera could capture-- the unaided human eye just wouldn't see them. I thought the white orbs were reflections from the camera flash bouncing off of rain drops (as the guide did have an umbrella).

Later, when I examined the digital photos I'd taken a little more closely, I did see. . .

Fishing Scenes

2009-06-18T00:48:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures taken during various fishing trips to some local lakes. It's relaxing and beautiful out on the lake in the canoe. Some of the scenes are from the shore. It's a good way to get away from the old grind in a matter of minutes.The pictures should be pretty self-explanatory. (That's one of several swimmers wearing wetsuits who were working out on the glass-smooth lake, swimming its length and back).

Planting Trout

2009-05-19T11:48:00.000-07:00

On the way back from Monroe, I decided to take a detour by Blackman's Lake in Snohomish. I found the public access boat launch and was sitting there when a guy (shown in the picture with his little granddaughter) asked me to move my car. He pointed to a truck and said they were about to plant some fish. I moved and got out of my car to watch.

Talking to the guy-- his name is Ralph-- I learn he's a member of the private non-profit "Snohomish Sportsmen's Club". He said the club plants salmon fingerlings and grown trout in the local lakes and streams and rivers to supplement the planting done by the state. The state plants smaller fish. The club also sponsors fishing derbys for kids and sets up "special needs" fishing derbies. It sounds like a good organization. Ralph mentioned that the club has been in existence for more than 50 years. They plant several times a year. Anyway, the truck pulled up and put a soft plastic gravity-fed tube which dumped the fish-- in this case fish about 14-16 inches long-- directly into the lake. The driver said he was dumping 800 pounds of fish, which probably meant about 400 fish.

The fish came out pretty fast and hit the lake. They had a tendency to try to swim back upstream trough the plastic tube and back into the truck. We had to tap a few off the beach into the water. The club dumps the fish into an area of the lake with Lilly pads so the fish have a chance to get oriented and then disperse. The fish that's shown upside down recovered and swam away. If not planted in the lake weeds, the fish would hang around the boat launch and public fishing dock and be easy pickin's for anglers. Ralph said that as soon as the truck is seen dumping the fish into the lake people start calling their buddies on the cell phone to come catch some easy fish. That's why the club was planting on Monday rather than on a weekend. Otherwise "... half the fish would have been caught by the bums ..."

It was pretty interesting.

Lapstrake Canoe

2009-05-19T00:50:00.001-07:00

It didn't take too long to realize that some fish might be swimming out a little ways from the shore-- just out of casting range. That, plus some lakes only have a boat launch for public access, so people fishing from the bank at the launch have to reel in their line for those who want to put boats in the water. It gets a little crowded.

One day all was going well fishing from the boat launch until a younger guy drove up, threw his car doors open, and cranked up the volume on "his" music for all of us to hear (suffer). So much for a peaceful afternoon of fishing at the lake.

I went to Craig's List in search of a light solo canoe and found one in Marysville-- a very decent lapstrake canoe. "Lapstrake" means "overlapping wood strips" or something similar. The dictionary refers to "clinker-built" as the same thing. I'll be reading and learning more from here. Anyway, I'm told that this is a Tom Hill design. It's 13.5 feet long and weighs about 35 pounds. There is a fiberglass bottom.

Ten years ago I bought a book titled "Mississippi Solo" written in 1998 by Eddy L. Harris, who had started in the ankle-deep headwaters of the Mississippi River and paddled its entire length to New Orleans. It was interesting. He made the adventure sound real appealing, and it didn't take much more than a small canoe to make his dream happen. About that same time I had purchased a book published in 1985 simply called "Basic Canoeing" or something, which described the "J" stroke and all the other basics. I had a daydream of paddling around the Snohomish River sloughs.

So this wooden canoe looked perfect for my purposes. It's amazing. It's just right. The craftsmanship might be a little rough, but it's solid.

Here's a picture of how the canoe looks when I'm paddling around. Also, here's a picture of a bald eagle sitting on one of the lake's swimming docks, and a picture of one of the docks. While it's not the Mississippi River, it's pretty close.

Foolproof Fish Cooking

2009-05-18T23:10:00.000-07:00

Surely there are many more ways to cook trout, but these are the only three that I know and use-- frying, baking and grilling.

Frying... dust the trout with flour and pepper and put in a skillet with a little hot oil. Fry until it flakes and doesn't look raw. Pretty easy. Don't forget to turn the fish over.

Baking...make an aluminum foil boat and set the trout inside with some Italian salad dressing and maybe some chopped up vegetables to look good. Close it up and bake. When in doubt, cook a little longer. Not too hard to do.

Grilling... put the fish on the grill and cook. You might rest it on a piece of aluminum foil. Cook until it is flaky and it doesn't look raw. Not too tough. I don't have any pictures of grilled fish.

The last time we used the outdoor grill was in March 2009. We found some rodent droppings inside the grill on the fake rocks. (It is...er... it was a natural gas grill). The animal must have gotten in through one of the rust holes. I decided it was time to get rid of it, so we did. It hasn't been replaced since fishing season started. Here's a picture of the hamburgers we went ahead and cooked on the grill one last time for old time's sake. (Everybody is still alive). That grill got a lot of use.

Add something else. Unless you are just going to eat fish, you might add something else, like a piece of bread or some healthy vegetables like these. Save room for ice cream.

Role Models

2009-05-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

How do we learn our roles in life? Is it possible that an older sister helps mold a younger brother? How about the following--

Growing up and learning to read in the 1950's, I recall that my older sister (by three years) helped me learn to read by using comic books. She would open a comic book and proceed to instruct. Not only did she help me learn to read, but I probabaly learned my proper role in life (as a male). I recall that she picked which comic books to "read" to me.

Could it be that an older sister assumes the superior role as a "Little Lulu" while the younger brother is merely a "Tubby"? That the sister is the smart "Nancy" while the brother is born to be a perfect "Sluggo"?

And how about this-- are these learned "inferior" male roles assumed and held over into adult relationships? Why does Charlie Brown continue to trust-- yet be fooled-- by Lucy? It's probably no accident.

Maybe that's a little cynical. Perhaps younger brothers learned something about proper relationships from such role models as "Popeye" (a befuddled vagabond sailor) or "Lil' Abner" (an uneducated hillbilly).

These comic book characters probably taught a lot.

Beginning Fishing

2009-04-15T22:57:00.001-07:00

Okay, it's been a while since the last posting. Always thinking and writing about the economy, inflation and bailouts gets a little tiring. So I went fishing.

This is a beautiful fish, isn't it? But fishing is more about the experience than the result (or at least that's what amateurs say when they aren't catching any fish).

The simple plan was to get a rod and reel, some bait, and find a few small private spots on some local lakes-- lakes that could be reached within a half hour of the house or office. Sort of like these pictures--

As it turns out, there are a lot of local lakes that sort of look like that. But most have aluminum cans and plastic bags and Styrofoam coffee cups-- thrown into the water or bushes even though there is a nearby trash can. (I've decided to always carry a trash bag and fill it up with garbage. Then I'll have something to carry away, particularly when I don't catch fish, which will probably be most of the time).

So, I got a decent graphite pole and spinning reel and looked at the maps of the area and found the lakes with public access and fishing from the shore . . . and got some advice and a tour from Clayton (a real fisherman).

For bait, I started out with night crawlers. Clayton showed me how to tie two hooks on a leader and thread the worm on the line. It has worked-- once so far.

One time at a lake I found a lure that sort of looks like this, only green. I later tried it after worms didn't work and caught a fish! It was the biggest trout I'd ever caught. So now that's a favorite lure, of course.

I've learned that other fishermen and bait shop owners are super friendly and love to talk about fishing. They are more than willing to share a few tips with a novice like me. The learning part might be the best part. I'm finding that fishing is a social-- albeit solitary-- sport.

I saw a guy casting a metal lure and he said I needed one, too. So, off to the tackle shop for a Kastmaster and some pointers. I got one like this and caught another big trout! It's fascinating that an animal will try to eat a small metal machine like this lure.

I spend a lot of time (when my reel isn't one big bird nest) casting into tress and bushes. I had to wade into the lake to retrieve my pole tip after using it as a rake to scrape my lure out of some brambles. If you've ever fished, you know how it goes. This fishing sport is going to teach me patience and relaxation-- I hope. It sure tests my patience.

This is not a picture of me (is that a golf club?) but it's a picture of exactly what I went through to hold on to my first big fish. So far, I'm finding that fishing really is fun.

China Will Have Alaska Oil

2009-03-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

China (and Japan) Are Biggest US Creditors--

In September 2008 China passed Japan to become the US government's largest foreign creditor. China's investment in US Treasury Bonds surged to $585 billion in September, pulling ahead of Japan which now holds $573 billion worth. Overall, China's holdings may be $800 billion or more.

China is also thought to be purchasing US debt through third countries. China now owns nearly one dollar out of every ten dollars in US public debt. According to some reports, China and Japan hold almost half of the US debt held by all foreign countries.

Simply stated, the US owes a lot of money to foreign countries, of which China and Japan are our biggest creditors.

It’s sort of like owing money to China for the monthly house payment, and owing Japan for the monthly car payment. The monthly paycheck has to go to these creditors. And, more money must be borrowed to buy other things like new household goods (i.e., “stimulate the economy”) or fund retirement plans (i.e. “social security”). For the US, foreign countries have become our bankers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111803558.html

The US Is Continuing to Spend Money It Doesn’t Have--

The US now wants to spend more trillions of dollars. In 2008 there were the $160,000,000,000 “stimulus checks” and $750,000,000,000 TARP funds to “bailout” the banks. In 2009 under President Obama’s administration we already have the $800,000,000,000 “stimulus package” and the 2010 budge is announced to be more than another $600,000,000,000. Other billions ($30,000,000,000+) have been paid to automobile companies.

Further, President Obama has announced projected budgets involving the spending of trillions of dollars which the US does not yet have.

The money needed to pay the US past and future public debt must be obtained from (a) future taxes or (b) the printing of money or (c) continued borrowing from China and Japan and other countries.

Taxes Can’t Cover the Spending--

Even if the incomes of our nation’s “richest” and “wealthiest” citizens were taxed at 100% the money would not be enough to cover even half of the projected spending. See my other posting— "$250,000 Minimum Wage.” The US will be increasingly forced to rely upon China and Japan as the US seeks to raise money.

In February 2009 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton returned from Asia where she urged China to keep buying US debt and to work with Washington to fix the global economic crisis. She said Washington must incur more debt to China to boost the ailing U.S. economy (and stimulate demand for Chinese products). She says it would not be in China's interest if the US is unable to get its economy out of a recession.

Continued Printing of Money Won’t Cover the Debt—

In short, printing money cheaply does not create wealth, but simply dilutes the purchasing power of existing dollars. See my other postings— “Fiat Money Inflation in France,” “Redistribution” and “Real Silver Coins.” Besides, China and Japan would not be pleased if we paid our debts to them with dilluted dollars.

How the US Borrows Money—

A great amount of money is borrowed from foreign countries. How so?

Well, the US imports a lot of its consumer goods from other countries. Take a look at the labels on products and see where they are made. Most products today are made in China and Japan and other foreign countries. The US trades US dollars for goods made in Asia and elsewhere— the US accumulates a lot of Chinese goods, and China accumulates a lot of US dollars.

The US borrows back some of those dollars held by China and others to cover some current obligations the US can't pay simply by raising taxes and printing money (e.g., roads and building projects, military expenses, Medicare and Social Security).

The US gives its promise in the form of an “IOU” called a Treasury Bond or Treasury Note or Treasury Bill. All these “promissory notes” require that the US pay back the loans in the future, with interest. Bonds are long-term debt instruments and may be due in 30 years, Notes may be due in 2-10 years, and Bills are usually short term debts due in 13, 26 or 52 weeks.

China and Japan loan US dollars back to the US, taking these Treasury debt instruments in return. In short, these countries trust the US to repay the debts, plus interest. The US must repay these debts. Mature notes may also be replaced with new notes-- sort of like constantly re-financing the house.

At some point China and Japan may want some collateral for the debts. I.e., China and Japan may want something to repossess in case the US defaults and can’t continue to pay its debts with interest.

China Will Have Alaska Oil --

It is conceivable that China will insist upon something other than a simple unsecured promise of the US government that it will pay its debts. (Recall how France used lands seized from the church as collateral to back its fiat money in the 1790s).

What does the US have to use as collateral?

The US has unused oil reserves in Alaska (because federal law prohibits development there by US citizens and companies— the federal government would rather US citizens trade some of their dollars to other foreign countries for oil).

With its expanding population and need for natural resources, it could be only a matter of time before China insists on getting repaid in oil instead of more paper dollars. China may insist that the Treasury Bonds and Notes be secured by using the oil reserves as collateral—sort of like how the bank takes a mortgage on the house. If the debt is not paid, the bank seizes the collateral (such as the house, or car, or oil). Or…

Maybe Japan Will Protect Alaskan Oil from China--

A twist on the above scenario might be that the US would refuse to pledge its oil assets to China. Japan is an ally of the US. Japan has the world’s second largest economy after the US. Before World War II Japan had the world’s largest navy.

Could it be that, rather than allow China to get Alaskan oil, the US will strike a bargain with Japan for Japan to assume the US debt to China in exchange for US oil? Would the US turn over its Alaskan oil to Japan if Japan would help the US get out of debt to China? Could it involve a scenario where Japan would use its Navy to protect Alaska from China (if the US couldn’t even afford a strong navy anymore)?

It’s because the US is spending more than it can afford that these questions are even considered.

UPDATE:

China's premier Wen Jiabao expressed concern (Friday March 13, 2009) about China’s massive holdings of Treasuries and other U.S. debt, appealing to Washington to safeguard their value. He noted that Beijing is the biggest foreign creditor to the United States.

"We have made a huge amount of loans to the United States. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried," Wen said. "I would like to call on the United States to honor its words, stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets."

Inside China there has been a lot of debate about whether they should continue to buy Treasuries.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090313/D96T37FO0.html

UPDATE:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sought Arab support Tuesday (March 31 in Doha, Qatar) for a proposed oil-backed currency to challenge the U.S. dollar in his latest swipe at Washington's dominance in global financial affairs.

While it's highly unlikely Chavez will gain any serious momentum for his "petro-currency" proposal at a summit of South American and Arab League leaders, it represented another attempt to undercut the dollar's standing as the world's leading commercial currency.

China has struck deals—most recently this week with Argentina—to conduct trade in currencies other than the dollar. Iran has proposed replacing the dollar with the euro or other currencies to set worldwide oil prices.

The $250,000 "Minimum Wage"

2009-03-05T15:08:00.000-08:00

$250,000 will eventually be the new “minimum wage” (as well as the effective “maximum wage” people will limit themselves to-- if the federal government doesn’t).

The Obama administration has claimed that taxes will only increase for that 2% to 5% of the working population earning more than $250,000—increases required in the interests of “fairness.” The current 39% top tax rate is scheduled to rise to 41% under President Obama’s plan. It will likely rise above that during the next few years.

Can taxes be increased so that the government takes 40%, 50%, 75% or even 90% of a person’s property? Of course they can— and they have. Remember, the top rate was more than 70% under Carter, was at 80% under Franklin Roosevelt, and reached 90% under Eisenhower and Kennedy. http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=19

Year after year, election after election, politicians always say “the rich” and “the wealthiest” should pay “their fair share” of taxes. What is the "fair share?" Is it the present 39%, or the 70% imposed under Carter, or the 90% imposed under Roosevelt? How about 100%?

The answer depends upon whom you ask— If you ask the person paying that 50% or 90%, the answer is “Taxes are too high.” If you ask the person who is not the target or subject of the higher tax, the answer is “The rich should pay more— they aren’t paying ‘their fair share’.”

What is the purpose of taxation? It could be to pay for essential government projects (whatever “essential” means).

But, if the purpose becomes “economic equality” or another redistribution scheme, then “fairness” requires that incomes eventually become equal—from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.

Incomes are not equal due to a number of reasons. In the end, “inequality” presupposes that “the rich make too much” or “the poor don’t make enough.”

Confiscatory taxes could equalize income—

If property is taken from the top 5% and redistributed to the benefit of the other 95% (whether by direct payments or through specialized entitlements), incomes will still be disparate unless the money taken from the 5% is enough to raise the 95% to the desired $250,000.

Raising the minimum wage could equalize income—

A law could be passed that simply requires that each “poor” person be paid the same amount as any “rich” person. Why should the minimum wage stop at $15 per hour? Why shouldn’t the minimum yearly wage be $250,000— the same amount made by a “rich” person?

Income could be equalized through a combination of both— by taxing everything over $250,000 and raising everybody else’s income up to $250,000.

An accounting period, perhaps ending on April 15th of each year, would be the date at which books would be balanced to make sure that each person earned no more than $250,000 and that each person was paid no less than $250,000.

And, suppose that somebody made a bad investment so that his income was only $200,000 on April 15th— the deficiency of $50,000 would be corrected by issuance of a government check. Incomes could remain equal at $250,000— regardless of effort, abilities, opportunity, discipline, recklessness or prudence.

Curiously, however, nobody would want to work once his or her income hit $250,000 per year— once the $250,000 ceiling is reached, the worker will take a vacation for the rest of the year (unless forced to work for free at a gulag the rest of the year). Also, there just aren’t enough people earning more than $250,000 to take from to make incomes equal for the rest of us. Perhaps the limit should be reduced to $200,000, or dropped to $150,000 or less until all our incomes can be balanced evenly.

If the economic and taxation policies proposed by President Obama are implemented, given the record deficit spending that would result, in reality the maximum wage and minimum wage should really be about $75,000—

A recent WSJ article “The 2% Illusion— Take everything they earn, and it still won't be enough” is illustrative:

IRS data for 2006 (the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%") shows that filers with adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 comprised just 7% of all returns. Yet, the "top" taxpayers paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The “richest 1%” paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues. This was at the current 39% top income tax rate.

“A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable ‘dime’ of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123561551065378405.html

So, even if the government took every dime over $75,000 of every living taxpayer, there wouldn’t be enough revenue to pay for the government’s existing programs and promises to people now living. Perhaps that’s why the US government borrows today and promises to pay in the future— having our future children continue to pay our bills with their energy and money.

"I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today" -- Whimpy

Ira Hayes and Other Heroes

2009-02-27T20:13:00.000-08:00

Ira Hamilton Hayes (1923 – 1955) was Pima Native American and member of the Gila River Indian Community. He was in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) and a veteran of the World War II Battle of Iwo Jima. Hayes was one of five Marines (along with a Navy medic) shown in Joe Rosenthal’s photograph of the flag raising on Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi.

Hayes (on the far left of the photograph) became a national hero, along with the two other survivors of the famous photograph, Rene Gagnon and John Bradley. Hayes's story drew particular attention because he was Native American.

After the war Hayes was arrested some fifty times for drunkenness. He apparently suffered greatly from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which was not well known or understood at the time. Hayes was found dead in 1955 at the age of 32, face down and lying in his own vomit and blood near an abandoned hut close to his home on the Gila River Indian Reservation. He had been drinking and playing cards with several other men. The coroner concluded that Hayes' death was due to both exposure and alcohol. Hayes is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Ira Hayes appeared in the 1949 John Wayne film Sands of Iwo Jima along with the two other surviving fellow flag raisers. All three men played themselves in the movie when Wayne hands the flag to be raised to the three men. (The actual flag that was raised on Mount Suribachi is used in the film.) The life of Ira Hayes was featured in a book by James Bradley called Flags of Our Fathers
(2000).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Hayes

Johnny Cash (who was actually Scottish and not part Native American as he had believed for a time) performed “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” by Peter LaFarge. Cash took the song to No. 3 on the Billboard country music chart in 1964. Here are some of the lyrics--

There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill

Two hundred and fifty men

But only twenty-seven lived
To walk back down again

And when the fight was over

And when Old Glory raised

Among the men who held it high

Was the Indian Ira Hayes

Ira returned a hero

Celebrated through the land

He was wined and speeched and honored
Everybody shook his hand

Then Ira started drinkin' hard

Jail was often his home

They'd let him raise the flag and lower it

Like you'd throw a dog a bone

He died drunk one mornin'

Alone in the land he fought to save

Two inches of water in a lonely ditch

Was a grave for Ira Hayes

[CHORUS:]

Call him drunken Ira Hayes

He won't answer anymore

Not the whiskey drinkin' Indian

Nor the Marine that went to war

Another Native American war hero was Billy Walkabout (1949-2006) who served in the US Army during the Viet Nam War. He was a native Cherokee from Oklahoma. He died at the age of 57. He is also buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Billy Walkabout was one of the most decorated soldiers of that war. He received the Purple Heart, five Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars. He received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in Vietnam in 1968 while with U.S. Army Company F, 58th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. The citation states that—

Sgt. Walkabout (then a Specialist) distinguished himself by exceptionally valorous actions during a long range reconnaissance patrol southwest of Hue. After successfully ambushing an enemy squad on a jungle trail, his patrol radioed for immediate extraction by helicopter.

When the helicopters arrived the lead man was seriously wounded by hostile machine gun fire. Walkabout started shooting at the enemy while the wounded man was pulled back to safety. Walkabout then administered first aid to the soldier. As the wounded solider was being loaded onto the helicopter, enemy elements again attacked the team.

While maneuvering under heavy fire Walkabout started shooting at the enemy again. A mine then blasted through Walkabout’s team, killing three men and wounding all the others. While he was wounded himself, Walkabout rushed from man to man administering first aid, bandaging one soldier's severe chest wound and reviving another soldier by heart massage. He then coordinated gunship and tactical air strikes on the enemy's positions.

When evacuation helicopters arrived again, he worked single-handedly under fire to board his disabled comrades. Only when the casualties had been evacuated and friendly reinforcements had arrived, did he allow himself to be extracted.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1799091/posts

Lori Ann Piestewa (1979 - 2003) was the first woman in the US armed forces to be killed in the 2003 Iraq War. She was also the first Native American woman to die in combat while serving with the US military. She was a member of the Hopi Tribe from Arizona.

PFC Piestewa was a member of the US Army's 507th Army Maintenance Company, a support unit of clerks, cooks, and repair personnel. Her company was traveling in a convoy through the desert and was meant to bypass Nasiriyah in southern Iraq during the opening days of the war.

The convoy became lost and ran into an ambush in Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. Under heavy enemy fire, PFC Piestewa drove at a high speed, successfully evading the enemy fire until an RPG hit the front-left wheel-well of her Humvee. The force of the explosion sent her vehicle into the rear of a disabled tractor-trailer. Three other soldiers in the Humvee died in the crash.

Piestewa was injured in the ambush, as was her friend Jessica Lynch. Both Piestewa and Lynch survived but were wounded. They were taken prisoner, with Piestewa dying soon after of her wounds. Piestewa and her company were first considered missing in action. Later it was learned that Piestewa and several other members of her company did not survive the ambush.

Piestewa was a single mother of two children at the time of her death. She was 24.

"Pendleton 8"

2009-02-23T13:08:00.000-08:00

A couple of years ago it was disturbing to read the story of a young Marine who had gone to the same Mukilteo high school as my kids. The Marine was being held in shackles in a San Diego military prison while awaiting trial for the April 2006 killing of a man in Iraq. The young Marine was on his third combat tour of duty. According to military reports, Marine Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington and six other Marines and a Navy medic plotted to seize and kill a suspected insurgent and then staged a scene to cover it up.

Reports assert that four of the men went to find their intended target but he wasn't home, instead grabbing a neighbor. The neighbor was led to a crater left by a roadside bomb, then tied up and tossed in. A sergeant gave the order to several fellow Marines to shoot the man.

Pennington was not one of those who shot. The men then placed a shovel and an AK-47 next to the body to make it appear the victim had been planting a roadside bomb. This occurred in the village of Hamdania Iraq.

The squad was incarcerated in Iraq and returned to the US in May 2006. The men were held in continued custody in the maximum security division of the Camp Pendleton brig as potentially dangerous and violent. Supporters dubbed them the "Pendleton 8" and conducted rallies in front of Camp Pendleton's main gate.

While he was awaiting trial, the presumption of innocence was abandoned and Pennington was kept in shackles. He also had difficulties getting medical treatment. His normal discharge date passed while he was in custody and his pay was stopped even though he had not yet been convicted of anything.

His parents set up a web site which told the story of their son, requested contributions for a defense fund, and contained pictures of supportive demonstrations in California and of neighbors holding candlelight vigil. They hired a civilian attorney to work with the three military lawyers for Pennington.

Within months of being accused, five of the eight men (including Pennington) pleaded guilty to a variety of reduced charges. The other three (including the sergeant) were tried and convicted. The sergeant, described as the leader and mastermind of the killing, was sentenced to fifteen years, later reduced to eleven.

As part of a plea bargain, Pennington pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy. He was not the first to plead guilty. He was to serve either the sentence imposed by the military judge or eight years, whichever was less. While awaiting sentencing the conditions of his confinement were improved.

Evidence was presented at the five-day sentencing hearing. On the website his family writes--

"We listened to Rob's testimony about that night, but also heard a lot of information that we never heard before about the previous two deployments. . . one of the most important things we learned in that courtroom was that Fallujah was far more horrific, far more devastating than any of us really understood. We watched film, listened to testimony and realized how devastating this was for the boys who fought that bloody battle."

"We knew something was wrong when Rob came home, but we took his word that he could handle it. That's what those grunts do, right? Suck it up . . . We did not think he was in any shape to return to Iraq after Fallujah, but we took the easy route and let him tell us what we really wanted to hear -- that he was really okay."

The judge sentenced Robert Pennington to fourteen years in a military prison, which was limited to 8 years by the plea bargain. He was also to receive a dishonorable discharge. Then in 2007 his commanding general made a clemency decision that reduced the sentence to 21 months of confinement and a bad conduct discharge.

Except for the sergeant who is still seeking an appeal and sentence reduction, none of the eight served more than 15 months behind bars due to a combination plea deals and clemency.

In December 2008 Robert Pennington was "working hard at a tack and feed store in Del Mar California as a truck loader and driver, doing well."

http://www.defendrob.com/

Black Cat of Anarchy

2009-02-21T01:10:00.000-08:00

Twenty years ago I wrote a play about the “Everett Massacre.” (It’s the subject of another posting). In short, on November 5, 1916, there was an armed confrontation between city officials and members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW were also know as “Wobblies.”

The Wobblies were “one-world” idealists professing solidarity with workers of all nations. Their goals included the dissolution of capitalism, employers, management and all the rest. No doubt there was a connection to Russia’s Marxists and Leninists, but the US Wobblies seemed to be more like anarchists.

In theory “anarchy” suggests the absence of all direct or coercive government as the political ideal, and proposes cooperative and voluntary association of individuals and groups. That sounds fine. As a practical matter however, “anarchy” suggests confusion, disorder and chaos. That seems to be its reality, too.

Anyway, while doing research for the play I noticed that the black cat had been adopted by the Wobblies as their mascot.

It seems the black cat is also called the “wild cat” or “sabot cat.” The Wobblies were no strangers to labor violence, and there was some use of company-busting “sabotage.” A “Wobbly” named Ralph Chaplin is credited with the design.

One story about the origin of the black cat symbol is that a IWW strike was going badly, with beaten members hospitalized. About that time a skinny black cat wandered into the strikers’ camp. It was fed by the striking workers, and as the cat regained its health events looked better to the Wobblies. Eventually the striking workers got some of their demands and they adopted the cat as their mascot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism

There was a lumber and hardware store in Arlington Washington called “Copeland Lumber” which had orange buildings and a sign which featured the black cat of anarchy. I don’t know the history of that sign—I believe there were other Copeland Lumber stores. Perhaps there is an historical connection between the mill-working Wobblies and the lumber store.

Yet, well before the Wobblies appointed the black

cat to be the symbol of disorder and chaos, the black cat had long been associated with witchcraft and the dark side.

American short story writer Edgar Allen Poe (1809 – 1849) wrote a short story called “The Black Cat.” Poe wrote that his wife got a black cat for them. It was . . .

“. . . a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. "

"One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him, when in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body, and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. "

Well, I can only hope that Poe’s story was not autobiographical. Poe did not soften the part of the black cat in the rest of the story, which of course caused him a lot of revenge and stress.

Maybe the Wobblies just wanted a little more sinister version of other black cats who were popular at the same time—

“Felix the Cat” (on the left) is a black cat cartoon character created in the silent-film era. He was pretty popular in the 1920s. “Krazy Kat” (on the right) was also a popular newspaper black cat cartoon strip character between 1913 and 1944.

“Fritz the Cat” was a popular underground comic book cartoon character in the 1960s. Fritz was "glib, smooth and self-assured.” In 1972, Fritz starred in his own movie called “Fritz the Cat.” Cartoonist Robert Crumb, who created Fritz, did not like the way Fritz was portrayed in the film and reportedly decided to have Fritz “killed” in the comic strip-- After recording a television appearance, Fritz is approached by a neurotic ex-girlfriend of his, who urges him to have sex with her. At her apartment, he ignores her as he watches the television show, despite her repeatedly threatening to commit suicide. When the show is over, Fritz gives her a kick in the pants before leaving. As he walks out of the apartment, she stabs him in the back of the head with an icepick. After having killed off Fritz, Crumb never drew another story featuring the character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_the_Cat

The evolution of the cartoon black cat has resulted in the sexy female version, of course, but still somewhat out of society’s mainstream--

“Black Cat” is a Marvel Comics anti-hero who has been an ex-girlfriend of Spider-Man. Black Cat should not be confused with “Cat Woman,” who is associated with DC Comics. Cat Woman has been one of Batman’s most enduring love interests, occasionally depicted as his one “true love.”

And, finally, is it any surprise that the evolution of the black cat of anarchy would result in a child's toy, still looking like a sinister trouble-maker?

Order out of chaos and anarchy.