More Oreos for the Eyres...

Wonder why Richard Eyre is making those dumb Oreo ads? Seems the Eyres should disclose the fact they are planning on openning a chain of private schools to be subsidized by Utah's new voucher law if it takes effect. More Oreos for the Eyres. All of this from an Eyre family member close enough to call him 'Rick', but who will remain anonymous.

Why am I bothered by the rich, Republican and righteous of this state? Here's to you Richard and Linda -- Consider this, all of my children are card carrying Democrats. Put that leaf between the pages of your scriptures and press it!

Weekend Plans...

Today is Friday. I like Fridays. The week is over. I will be making sawdust in the wood shop. The grandkids are coming over. Tonight is movie night. We are reprising ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ on the big screen with the digital projector. Tomorrow I cook pancakes for everyone. Grandson J wants strawberry jam, not syrup on his. Later, I birthday shop with daughter M and will have lunch at Cafe Trang. I like their new Asian fusion menu, enjoying sushi before the main course of flat noodles, scallions, ginger and tofu arrives.

Lord -- help he understand how I can do this when there is such evil in the world.

Given the trauma, blood loss, and possibility of infection I doubt this fellow survived. Do you suppose he had grandkids? What were his plans for the weekend?

The caption from the Chicago Sun Times about this photo reads: “Suicide bombing in Pakistan_An injured man is carried away from the site of a suicide bombing Thursday that killed at least 21 people in Pakistan. Islamic militants were blamed in the attack.” (AP photo by Mohammad Iqbal / October 25, 2007)

Words for this picture...

Mormons and Americans - warlike people

Once in awhile I get annoyed, even from some of my close friends who are Republicans and Mormons. Recently, I received a rather sappy collection of vignettes from one of my friends. It included a purported conversation between Collin Powell and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Supposedly our imperial interests in Iraqi geography are only for enough room to bury our dead, etc. There was something more about the French and aircraft carriers. I responded to him not in a very polite way and quoted from a 1976 Bicentennial speech by Spencer W. Kimball, then president of the LDS Church. Probably the strongest anti war statement of any Mormon General Authority in a generation. Here is a portion of it for any who have not had the pleasure of reading it recently:

"We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel -- ships, planes, missiles, fortifications -- and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become antienemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan's counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior's teaching:
"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;_"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 5:44-45).
We forget that if we are righteous the Lord will either not suffer our enemies to come upon us -- and this is the special promise to the inhabitants of the land of the Americas (see 2 Nephi 1:7) -- or he will fight our battles for us (Exodus 14:14; D&C 98:37, to name only two references of many). This he is able to do, for as he said at the time of his betrayal, "Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53). We can imagine what fearsome soldiers they would be. King Jehoshaphat and his people were delivered by such a troop (see 2 Chronicles 20), and when Elish's life was threatened, he comforted his servant by saying, "Fear not; for they that be with us are more than they that be with them" (2 Kings 6:16). The Lord then opened the eyes of the servant, "And he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha" (vs 17).
What are we to fear when the Lord is with us? Can we not take the Lord at his word and exercise a particle of faith in him? Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies.
We must leave off the worship of modern-day idols and a reliance on the "arm of flesh," for the Lord has said to all the world in our day, "I will not spare any that remain in Babylon" (D&C 64:24)."

Mendocino and the Market Street Broiler

Last night we had very mediocre salmon at the Market Street Broiler in SLC. I think I would rather eat fish sticks at McDonalds than pay $120.00 for the food we did not enjoy here. Fish from the school lunch program was as good as what we did not finish last night. It was way overcooked and very salty. Maybe they were experimenting with salmon jerky recipes?

It is nice to look at the photos and I can think about planning the next trip. For the uninitiated this is the village of Mendocino CA. A few Hollywood movies and TV series have been filmed there. In 'Murder She Wrote' it was Cabot Cove Maine. Some days I wish I were in California instead of here for better restaurants and the scenery. The Mendo Cafe among a number of others has very good food whether you are a vegan or an omnivore. I like salmon that is barely cooked, juicy and not overly salted. My Boy Scouts for their Cooking Merit Badge can cook better fish than we experienced last night.

Mendocino is less than an hour drive down the coast on Highway 1 from our house in Westport.

The last image

This is the last image of the modifed deck before we packed it up and left our house in the redwoods. The fence that is starting is recycled from the deck and replaces a metal screen.

We have another 40' to replace but that will have to wait until December.

The view from the back deck

Two work in progress photos of the back deck here in the Redwoods. This first portion may be complete with one more session tomorrow. The telescope remains in the box and may have to wait. The hot tub is calling and RA says the stars are out.

So little time and so much to do...

Bush and Right Guard are killing us...

A couple of friends of mine are dealing with serious cancers. One wonders why? Is it in the genes, did parents or grandparents have any cancers, maybe siblings? Maybe it is environmental.

It seems George W. Bush and our Republican dominated Congress for the last dozen years have consistently cut funds to any agency that might protect America while approving the highest defense budgets in a generation. The Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Agriculture, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission have all seen serious cuts to their budgets along with being politicized by George W. Consequently e-coli is sold by my favorite store I love to hate, Wal Mart, with their Topps brand ground beef. A woman in Utah County gets a severed mouse head in her green beans and Wal Mart offers her $100.00. This woman says she is still shopping there, maybe not buying any more green beans though.

My brother in law is a doc and has seen his share of cancer patients. He told me about a web site, a cosmetics data base where you can check out all of things we rub under our arms, put on our faces and wipe our baby’s bottoms. It is an organization called the Environmental Working Group. Right Guard Sport Deodorant, for example, contains toxic chemicals linked to cancer according to this site’s research. Huggies brand baby wipes should be avoided for similar reasons. This site has had more than 30 million hits or searches in three years for consumer products such as cosmetics.

According to the experts cancer causes about 13% of all deaths here in the US. Medical science tells us nearly all cancers are caused by abnormalities in the genetic material of the transformed cells. These abnormalities may be due to the effects of carcinogens, such as tobacco smoke, radiation, chemicals, or infectious agents.

Find out what’s in the stuff you pour on, wipe, spray, rub and spread, as your government is not protecting you. The greater threat to America and its people is in the White House, not hiding in the remote mountains of Pakistan. More than 550,000 will die this year from cancer in America. That is 1500 per day.

Here in the Redwood Forest...

The view from the deck was enhanced to some degree today as we have acquired an 8" Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. It has the computer driven mount capable of locating up to 40,000 celestial objects, plus the ability to compensate for the earth's rotation making astrophotography possible.

We have two DVD's to watch, also the lumber store is delivering a truck load of deck materials as I am starting on the rehab and replacement of our back deck here in the redwoods. The hot tub is filling and I have downloaded Bruce Springsteen's latest album.

So little time and so much to do.

Killing Iraqis is like hunting bears.

A decade ago one of our suppliers paid my way to hunt bears in Alberta Canada. I had no idea what it was about but I went along. I learned two things. First of all, hunting bears is a sick sport. Secondly, I do not like the taste of bear meat.

A friend sent me this article today from the NY Times. It seems that snipers in our military use the same sick methods utilized by Canadian guides in killing bears. This is how it works. You set out bait and wait in a tree stand or other protected area until the bear or Iraqi comes along to take the bait and then you shoot him. There is no warning, just a simple execution. For bears the enticement is a bucket of slop wired to a tree. The bucket has a few holes drilled in it so the the goop can drip out slowly. The bucket is filled on a regular basis for several weeks before the season opens. The bear may come along every day expecting to be fed. For Iraqis it can be weapons or booby trapped artillary rounds placed by our military. Of course only insurgents would try and pick up a 155mm howitzwer round or an abandoned AK rfile.

The moral of the story is if you are an Iraqi never pick up an AK that looks abandoned, neither an artillary round, and if you are a bear trust me, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

I regret I 'engaged' a bear in Canada. Engage is a military euphemism for killing.

No Republicans allowed!

This is an accurate rendering of the Noyo King. It is a 25’ design by marine architect and boat builder Sam Devlin. I bought the plans more than a year ago and almost gave up the idea of building one but recently my brother moved back to Utah and now lives next door. He is willing to help me construct it. I have about 6 months before I can start laying it out in my garage though. It is constructed largely of marine plywood and hardwoods covered with epoxy and glass fiber. Six months will give me enough time to complete all of the household carpentry projects ordered by the Home Secretary.

I think I can recruit a few more shipwrights to assist and the construction should not take us more than a year. The first cruises will be in Utah. I would like to go to Lake Powell and drive it up to the mouth of Dark Canyon for some camping and hiking. Following successful shake down cruises in Utah we will trailer it to Northern CA where it will be dipped in Salt water at Noyo Harbor. For any landlubbers Noyo Harbor is in Ft. Bragg CA on the Mendocino Coast. That means it is about three and a half hours driving time by car from San Francisco.

Persons with experience in boatbuilding, navigation, piloting, fishing and cooking may apply immediately.

He runs like the wind...

He is 13, Hispanic, and does pretty well at the junior high running the mile. His first week running he came in 5th place. He might have done better but his feet hurt. The only shoes he has are a pair his mother bought him for every day use. They look fine but they are not running shoes. There is no arch support, just flat bottom insides. The next week he borrowed a pair of more typical athletic shoes from a friend and moved up to 3rd place behind two ninth graders. The shoes were better but they were not as good as they could be. Saturday we were at a service project doing yard work for one of the older members of our Hispanic congregation. I asked how the running was progressing and after getting a full report suggested we visit Famous Footwear and look at their selection. He has never tried on any Nikes or Brooks. The Nikes felt good and a pair looked really 'cool', but he saw a pair of Asics on display for $94.00. I suggested he try them on as he was reluctant. "Wow", he says, "like walking on air."

This week he runs again and I think he will run on air -- maybe first place.

The Fancher Murders, 150 years ago today...

“At first light, gunfire ripped through the morning calm, raining fire on the camp. A child who survived the attack later wrote. “Our party was just sitting down to breakfast of quail and cottontail rabbits when a shot rang out from a nearby gully and one of the children toppled over, hit by the bullet.” The deadly barrage struck down between 10 and 15 victims, killing seven of them…” so goes the account from Will Bagley’s 2002 book, “Blood of the Prophets”.

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the very sad and despicable event of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The finger of blame for the murders of the members of the Fancher party has been pointed from the least to the highest in Mormondom. Only one participant was ever tried and executed for the crimes committed by Southern Utah Mormons and Indian helpers. Now the descendents of John Doyle Lee want to raise money to buy the statue of Lee, which has been languishing at a sculptor’s gallery for more than three years, and move it to a historical site honoring him and other early pioneers according to a Tribune article. The thought of that at best is an ill conceived and inappropriate one.

It was the eyewitness testimony of an adopted Indian son of Apostle Jacob Hamblin that would put Lee before a firing squad and into his coffin. Albert Hamblin, from the vantage of a nearby tree top, saw him shoot at point blank range two young women deemed 'too beautiful' to kill by the Paiutes.

The truth of the matter likely will not be fully discovered and understood in spite of the several books published to date about this episode in Mormon History. Insider Richard Turley’s book will not be out until next year. Whether or not guilt is assigned to the hierarchy of the leadership of the faithful is a matter for personal introspection and interpretation. History records that a number of inflammatory speeches were made by President Brigham Young and especially senior Apostle George A. Smith throughout the territory. These speeches fanned the hysteria and hostility toward all outsiders, mobocrats and Missourians in particular. The Fanchers were neither. Parley Pratt's death in Arkansas added to the fires of hatred toward outsiders. He being the latest victim of a Gentile. In truth Parley had taken the man's wife after converting her. Legend has it that Apostle Smith advised the Saints in Parowan to plant fruit trees in their public square and that 'bones made good fertilizer', reportedly saying, “As for the cursed mobocrats, I can think of nothing better that they could do than feed a tree in Zion.”

For those descendents of the Fancher and Baker party the murder of your ancestors 150 years ago is not forgotten on this day. We must not forget what happened at Mountain Meadows.

ATM's and Astronomy

"And, I Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees; And I saw the stars, that they were very great…"

From the Nasa web page their "Spitzer Space Telescope has detected enough water vapor to fill the oceans on Earth five times inside the collapsing nest of a forming star system. Astronomers say the water vapor is pouring down from the system's natal cloud and smacking into a dusty disk where planets are thought to form.

The observations provide the first direct look at how water, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, begins to make its way into planets, possibly even rocky ones like our own."

I want to be an ATM soon. For the uninitiated that is amateur telescope maker. Last week we gazed through a friend's 12 1/2" Newtonian Reflector. He built it himself and it only made me realize more my 8" Celestron needs to be replaced. He will teach me how to grind the mirror. We saw the double stars in the handle of the Big Dipper, the Moons of Jupiter, our own lunar landscape, a star cluster and the Andromeda Galaxy, 'and they were very great'.

"the silence and emptiness that is so great..."

This from a Time Magazine article worth reading, maybe even the new book out about her:

“On Dec. 11, 1979, Mother Teresa, the "Saint of the Gutters," went to Oslo. Dressed in her signature blue-bordered sari and shod in sandals despite below-zero temperatures, the former Agnes Bojaxhiu received that ultimate worldly accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize. In her acceptance lecture, Teresa, whose Missionaries of Charity had grown from a one-woman folly in Calcutta in 1948 into a global beacon of self-abnegating care, delivered the kind of message the world had come to expect from her. "It is not enough for us to say, 'I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,'" she said, since in dying on the Cross, God had "[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one." Jesus' hunger, she said, is what "you and I must find" and alleviate. She condemned abortion and bemoaned youthful drug addiction in the West. Finally, she suggested that the upcoming Christmas holiday should remind the world "that radiating joy is real" because Christ is everywhere — "Christ in our hearts, Christ in the poor we meet, Christ in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive."

Yet less than three months earlier, in a letter to a spiritual confidant, the Rev. Michael van der Peet, that is only now being made public, she wrote with weary familiarity of a different Christ, an absent one. "Jesus has a very special love for you," she assured Van der Peet. "[But] as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see, — Listen and do not hear — the tongue moves [in prayer] but does not speak ... I want you to pray for me — that I let Him have [a] free hand."

The two statements, 11 weeks apart, are extravagantly dissonant. The first is typical of the woman the world thought it knew. The second sounds as though it had wandered in from some 1950s existentialist drama. Together they suggest a startling portrait in self-contradiction — that one of the great human icons of the past 100 years, whose remarkable deeds seemed inextricably connected to her closeness to God and who was routinely observed in silent and seemingly peaceful prayer by her associates as well as the television camera, was living out a very different spiritual reality privately, an arid landscape from which the deity had disappeared.”

Brix index and Wal Mart

Regional officials from Wal Wart met with our city government recently and were told by our mayor we were all happy to have them open their new super center in Centerville. Maybe his memory is not so good or maybe he is just trying to be polite, but 72% of the residents in a poll conducted among residents of Centerville by Dr. Raymond Briscoe in 2004 said they did not want that big box here. As the store’s grand opening gets closer I am wondering what I will do to non-observe this event. Somehow I find no comfort in the words of our city manager Steve Thacker when he offered we were going to have the ‘finest Wal Mart in all Utah.’ Several other communities have taken that title away from us though as new and better Wal Warts are being constructed in Utah with better looking fake stone and archways.

Friday I planted 10 bushes and trees in my yard including two Pluots. If you have not discovered this very sweet fruit I recommend trying them. Maybe with the addition of these trees and bushes we can drown out the noise of happy shoppers driving on Main Street to the big box. At least we can reduce CO2 emissions with our new foliage and can look forward to new fruit in a couple years. It is a pleasant experience growing one's fruit and vegeys or getting it from local sources. If only I could grow pineapples in the green house I would not have to buy them at Target.

From a web site I found this about Pluots: “Pluots are a hybrid of a plum and an apricot. They mainly retain the characteristics and flavor of a plum. Their skin is a light reddish-yellow color with small speckles. Every year they become more available in stores across the U.S. as demand and production rises. This fruit has one of the highest brix level readings on a refractometer, meaning that it has a very sweet taste!”

Too bad Wal Mart leaves me with such a sour taste...

Children who are soldiers...

More than forty years ago the Reverend Martin Luther King offered this:

"One day...

Youngsters will learn words they will not understand.

Children from India will ask:
What is hunger?
Children from Alabama will ask:
What is racial segregation?
Children from Hiroshima will ask:
What is the atomic bomb?
Children at school will ask:
What is war?

You will answer them.
You will tell them:

Those words are not used any more,
Like stage coaches, galleys or slavery -

Words no longer meaningful.

That is why they have been removed from dictionaries."

Regrettably our lexicon of hurtful and evil words has not diminished over the decades. We have new words that speak of horror, terror, and death. Death comes from the muzzles of AK-47's brandished by an 11 and 12 year old boys. In Asia, Africa and South America there are by UN estimates 300,000 children who have been kidnapped at gunpoint and forced into government and rebel militias to fight and die. They will never knowing the peaceful life of a child like my grandsons. More civilians have died in Iraq under US occupation than in the brutal reign of Saddam by a 2:1 margin. Where is the outrage? Where is the action by America and the Bush Administration?

Read more if you want at Refugees International

Mormons wrote the book on torture...

Two Mormon psychologists from Spokane WA developed the techniques and wrote the manual for the unlawful torture techniques used by the CIA and DoD at 'Black Sites' in Thailand and other places. The article about these “two knuckleheads" who practice "voodoo"psychology, according to someone familiar with their craft, is found on line from a
Vannity Fair article by Katherine Eban. Brothers James Elmer Mitchell and Bruce Jessen are raking in the big bucks, driving Beemers, buying dream homes in Florida and have medals given them by the CIA. Their manual is being used at Gitmo, and they are responsible for the training of the guards at Abu Ghraib as well as additional “Black Sites” operated by the CIA.

Others involved in the interrogation business were revulsed by their crude, degrading, and inhumane techniques developed by Mitchell and Jessen. Associates referred to the two of them and their associates as the ‘Mormon Mafia’. The sad irony in all of this is that their techniques don't work and they have had no success in gathering intelligence of any value.

I am ashamed as an American and as a Mormon.

A Liberal in the best sense of the word... James E. Faust

He was also a life long Democrat because of his belief in and commitment to championing the causes of the poor and the less empowered. We shall miss his wisdom, compassion and voice of reason. Imagine also, he once served as a Utah State Legislator. His kind has not passed that way often.

Coprolite is s*#t

I saw a sign like this recently and appreciated the humor. Coprolite for the uninitiated is fossilized dinosaur poop or for that matter any poop that has been fossilized. One of my favorite things to do is to visit the local rock shop, Rock Pick Legend , at 1017 South Main Street in Salt Lake. I went by there today and bought a polished sample for a family member. I like to give dinosaur poop to my friends and family.

They have a number of fine samples of coprolite that are cut and polished. Many other local rock specimens are found there from Utah and the intermountain area as well as other places in the world. Utah has an abundance of dinosaur poop and much of it is found between Moab and Lake Powell. It can be very small in size, almost BB, and so large it would be impossible for one man to lift in its petrified state, as big as a washing machine I have been told. Analysis of the poop by paleontologists can determine if the dinosaur was carnivorous or an herbivore. I have never seen one, but I understand some samples of coprolite have bone fragments encased and fossilized within the dung. If you don’t have anything to do and you find yourself on 10th South and Main in Salt Lake stop by and check out their petrified doodoo. You will not be disappointed.