My Old Indian Friend

My old Indian Friend, Nelson Birdbear, just stopped by. Nelson just finished telling me an interesting story about how his friend got killed in Vietnam. Nelson's Army group thought they had encountered some enemy soldiers, so gunships were called in to cover them from the air. Nelson was making their fox hole bigger and decided to rest for a moment. Nelson jumped out of the hole, and his friend jumped in. All of a sudden Nelson said he felt like he was at the edge of a cliff, Nelson told his friend to get out of the hole, and Nelson jumped back in and started digging. Within seconds the American gunship came over. It was night and the gunship had already made a few runs in front of them. The gunship came to close and shot his friend dead. Had Nelson not had the premonition, he would have been sitting there instead of his friend. Nelson wants to visit his friends grave in Vancouver, Washington. I tried to do some research, but if anyone knows how to look up the cemetery directory for Vancouver, Washing, let me know.

Nelson and I used to work at the Glenharold Mine together. I always liked him, he was fun to joke with. Once he told me he was being given crap about being an Indian by some of the less intelligent miners, and he was tired of it. I made sure the people who were hassling him knew they would be fired if it ever happened again, I think he appreciated it.

Nelson is distressed with all the corruption on the reservation, and when he brings his wife to town for medical treatment, he visits, and we try to figure ways to bring some justice to the crooks. Like every Indian reservation the one north of us has ended up with riches under it. It seems like every time the white man tries to give the Indians the worst possible land, oil, coal, or gold, ends up being underneath it. Currently it appears as though a very large pool of oil may be under Nelson's reservation. There must be some kind of justice in this world.

When you hear it in Hazen or Burn the house to stay warm

Back in the old home town Lord Kadizzle has been putting his finger in the air to test the political wind. Filling the car with gas this morning, I spoke to one of the gas station managers. He is worried about the economy, he notes how people are not buying new cars. Everyone seems to be feeling the ominous cloud hanging over us as the Republicans try to undo the mess they have made. We both felt the same way, this is not an ordinary recession we are headed toward. Bush has created unimaginable debt with his little adventure in Iraq. Three trillion dollars for his war game is a stiff price to pay. To give you an idea, that is enough to solve all the problems of social security for 75 years. If you have a steady income from some job, you will not notice the mess so much, unless you are trying to retire. So far I have met several people who are postponing retirement because of the damage George has done to the economy. When I had a steady job these downturns did not seem to matter so much, but now that Lord Kadizzle has felt his own nest egg assaulted by Bush economics, the story is different. Even the people Bush tried to favor must realize he has done them more harm than good. If you kill the peasants, the nobles will not live well, Bush doesn't seem to grasp this concept. If you read anything other than the comics you have to see the mess this administration has made. One of my greatest hopes is that young people will wake up. It is beginning to seem that they may have awoken. The next generation is making 12% less than their parents, they don't have insurance, and they cannot afford health care. Add to that the fact that the Republicans have set it up so they cannot retire until they are 72, and you will begin to see the scope of the welfare for the rich program the Republicans have set up. Bush can tap dance all he wants (be sure to see the tap dance he did on youtube), but the only way he can get out of this mess is by selling the country to foreigners. Now when the banks fail in New York we ask the Arabs or Asians to step in and buy them. In the book Angela's Ashes there were some chapters about how the family had to burn the furniture to heat the house, finally they started tearing the walls apart to burn them for heat. This is what the Republicans have brought us, when will these idiots notice what we are doing?

What does France think?

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a strong supporter of the United States, recently observed that President Bush has done such a number on our image in the world that no one will be able to restore the luster. Read the whole thing in NYT.

The Kadizzles have Landed

Late Friday the wagon rolled up in front of the kingdom. Strange to be back, and sleep in a regular bed with many square feet all around. Since the cable service will not be hooked up until Tuesday The Commander and Lord Kadizzle have been frying their brains with the CD's Erin gave us. Right now we are watching The Tudors, a series about Henry VIII.

Hazen is a separate reality, it is windy and cold, and hard to understand why people have to wear jackets and coats.

This Land is Your Land, This Land is my Land

Back in the old days it used to be fun to sit around a campfire and sing Woody Guthrie's song declaring the country belonged to everyone, but now when you travel you begin to see how those with the means have bought up a whole lot of the country and told the rest of us we are not welcome. Sometimes I think I know how black people feel when there neighborhood is gentrified. The trust babies move in and tell them to get out. As we drove toward Vail the other day we could see the worker bee huts in the outlying towns. The worker bees cannot afford to live in Vail, so they hop on a bus and go there to serve wine to the elite who followed the creed and grabbed as much for themselves as possible. Long ago we used to take the kids to the beach in North Carolina, some could argue we were playing the role of the well to do. In those days the beach was fairly open to the public. We rented some wealthy persons home on the beach and enjoyed it. Now the super rich have monopolized the beach, and they don't need to rent their homes to the less than super rich, so the beach is effectively closed. The same trend can be seen all over the country. Does the country belong to everyone, or just the select few that inherited the tax breaks from George. Someone reading this will think, "Anyone who wants can get off their ass and make a fortune". In a lot of cases this is true, but don't forget a few realities. Erin asked me the other day the old question, "Whats the best way to make a small fortune?". I gave her the classic reply, "Start with a big one". Many of the people buying up the country did nothing to earn the money, but be the first sperm to a rich egg. The tax system also puts the people starting at zero at a big disadvantage. When the dust settles do we really want a country of haves, and have not's? Bush and his gang have done everything in their power to make this a banana republic, where a small elite lives at the expense of the peons, I hope in this election we take the country back.

Fog in the Moutians

Again this morning the clouds bumped into the mountains and the fog has rolled in. It is nice to see fog. As a college student I worked in an underground coal mine along the Ohio River. Once in awhile I would go to work on the midnight shift when the mine fans pumped the fog from the river into the mine. The fog in the mine created one of the weirdest working environments I have seen. The inside of my head has always been foggy, it is nice to see it on the outside once in awhile.

Role Reversal

How many times have you seen a parent get rid of troublesome kids by putting them in front of a television? Erin has to work at her job from home, so she puts her parents in front of the TV to keep them occupied. Lord Kadizzle and The Commander have been watching Dexter all day. We could be poster children for the danger of TV, or make that poster parents.

"Bush has !#%#@ed up so bad, he has made it hard for a white man to run for president"

Chris Rock posits on the genius George Bush

If down were up you couldn'd get any higher

Chris Smithers has some great lyrics. These apply to no one better than my hero the idiot.

A Bomb Well Thrown

Lord Kadizzle loves a well thrown bomb. Some of the best are in Rolling Stone Magazine. His Lordship only gets to read it when up in the mountains in Evergreen. If you want to read and excellent illusion buster read McCain Resurrected. Matt Taibbi's writting is excellent, my favorite little interlude was his description of the soccer moms at a McCain rally. While the country implodes from the mess in Iraq, they discuss the problem with sweetbreads and salads. Taibbi's discription of Ann Coulter "a shanky bitch/whore" could not sum the woman up better. Taibbi gets into how the Republicans hate McCain because of his slips into rational thinking. Read it and laugh. Summary: "That idea — the principle of fighting first, thinking later and never, ever saying sorry — is what matters most to conservatives, and John McCain may be its last line of defense. If he fights hard enough to save it, you can bet that even Ann Coulter will come around to supporting him."

The Nicest Serial Killer you will ever meet, Dexter

By a stroke of good fortune, The Snoocher Bear came into a complete collection of Show Time movies. Last night the crew sat down to watch the Dexter show, and could not stop. Dexter is a serial killer, that kills serial killers. He only kills bad guys that really need it. Lord Kadizzle rarely recommends shows, but he is sure you will enjoy this one. In fact Lord Kadizzle guarantees you will enjoy it. If you are not completely satisfied, you will get a two story refrigerator with an elevator, and an operator to take you to each floor. That was the same guarantee one of the crooked preachers on my hometown radio station, WWVA had if you ever proved him wrong.

The Onion: China Celebrates Status As Number One Polluter

Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays

Some Good Advice from May West

Lord Kadizzle ran across this May West quote in a magazine today "Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before". Reflecting on the quote, it might not be a bad reason for Republicans to vote Democratic this election.

Snoocher Bear fires out excellent Whistle Bean Soup

Dinner tonight at the Bear Den in the woods near Evergreen had a salad and Black Bean soup. The Bear is following in her mothers footsteps and has become a very good cook. In order to protect her I had to polish off an excellent apple pie she left unguarded in her fridge. Luckily I was able to subdue it with ice cream. First I killed the bacteria in the microwave. Back to the whistle bean soup. The recipe is on the Epicurous web site. If you try the recipe Lord Kadizzle would recommend you spend the extra amount for windless beans, the weather prediction here calls for high wind tonight, with sheets flapping.

The Hidden Cache

The Commander and her army of one have often hiked in the vicinity of The Hidden Cache. In the early fifties a the son of a local rancher found the Hidden Cache. The boy had been told to take the horses back up to the top of the mesa at the end of the day for better feeding. Somehow he got lost and stumble across The Hidden Cache. Local speculation is that a German spy was hiding out on the Paria during World War two. Inside the Cache everything seemed to indicate some sort of military person was secretly living there. The whole story is in Michael Kelsey's hiking book of the southwest. The strange metal box the guy lived in was a weird part of the whole story. Many years after the box was found a similar box was found somewhere else in the southwest. No one has ever solved the mystery. In addition to the box the little cave dwelling was nearby. The Commander speculates it was an escaped German war prisoner. The location was so remote, the prospects for spying on anything would have been minimal. The only thing that seems to make sense to Lord Kadizzle was that the Germans were interested in nuclear activity when the first bomb was made. Someone could write a very good novel using this story as the basis.

We Need more Fifty Million Dollar Yachts

Sitting around my daughters house I stumbled across an article about a yacht builder in England. It seems the five and ten million dollar yachts are not selling well, however the mega yachts are more than making up for it. This is Republican economics at its best. Does the world really need more mega yachts? I thought we were short of infrastructure, health care, and education and on and on, but nooooo, what we need is more mega yachts. As the economy collapses are even the right wingers incapable of seeing this insanity? The whole trickle down nonsense initiated by their hero Ronald Regan has been the worst disaster ever foisted on the working class. Some nit wit right winger if they are reading this will think, "But yea building the yachts creates jobs".
Picking cotton created jobs, but all the good living was done by the masta, not the field hands. Unbridled greed is the god of the Republican party, it just plain doesn't work for anyone but a few on top that don't have the morality to see it.

The Sex Life of Trash, or A Trashy Sex Life

Sleeping at 8'500 feet is not easy to begin with, but the dust from cleaning Erin, and Fran's garage contributed to sinus problems. About a two months ago Lord Kadizzle had a go at cleaning the garage for them. However, when we came back much of the trash had reemerged. The stuff must breed in the dark. Although all the bottles had been cleared out, one or two must have been left. The two bottles mated and there are now dozens. The same phenomenon hit the laundry. The Commander must have left some socks and underwear in the dryer. On our return they had bred to the point that laundry was all over the floor, and you could not even get to the washer or dryer. Driving across the country you can see where junk cars have bred and multiplied in peoples yards. This happens sometimes in North Dakota, but the climate seems to limit the vitality of junk cars. On dirt roads in remote parts of West Virginia and other poor states you could often see someone dump some trash, withing a few weeks the pile was amazing because of the propensity of trash to reproduce.

Castle Rock Hike

To see this hike you need to double click on the Google Earth picture. There were some problems with Google Earth, so disregard the coloration in the lower left. The yellow pin is where we wanted to go, but we did not have time to scout a rout to the top. The red line shows where we went. The very first part of the climb was very difficult straight up a ravine. Since as usual the instructions from the book we were using were very poor, we wasted a lot of time. The second picture shows Lord Kadizzle going up the back part of the spine about the place we stopped.Maybe next year we will make it to the top. The top is close to seven thousand feet.

The Divine Twiddler

Religion has always perplexed Lord Kadizzle. Having just read through about 2/3 of Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion, his lordship is still perplexed. One of the best essays in the book involved The Divine Twiddler. Dawkins writes about seven critical numbers in the universe that must be exact for us to exist. Religious people use this to claim someone set the numbers. Of course you need someone to tune the seven dials, and thus God, or The Divine Twiddler comes into the picture. As usual the problem is still there, because there is no way to figure out where The Divine Twiddler came from. However, Lord Kadizzle likes the concept. I cannot wait until the next time someone asks me if I believe in God, and I can reply, " I am sort of leaning toward The Divine Twiddler. It would be so nice to see a sign in front of a church somewhere labeled The Church of The Divine Twiddler. The symbol for the church would be seven knobs. People would say, "Do you know Lord Kadizzle?", and someone would reply, "Oh, yes, I think he is a Divine Twiddler, they meet on the lake on Sundays".