35 bar steep fall 29.22 omph WNW windchill 34 Samhain
Full Moon of Long Nights
A dreary, rainy chilly day, heading toward downright cold and, hopefully, some snow. I’ve made two pots of soup, created an e-mail address for Kate and read a bit. Now it’s time for a nap.
Erik Estrada returns to Muncie for police patrols
Dec 4 05:42 PM US/Eastern
MUNCIE, Ind. (AP) – Erik Estrada has returned to Muncie to take part in overnight police patrols in the city where he starred in the short-lived reality series “Armed & Famous.” The former star of the 1970s motorcycle cop drama “CHiPs” is a reserve officer on the Muncie Police Department.
The 60-year-old actor plans to work the midnight shift for three nights this week, patrolling city streets from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
He took target practice at the police gun range on Wednesday. On Saturday, he plans to help officers at a charity event.
Estrada filmed “Armed & Famous” for CBS in Muncie in the winter of 2006-07. He and several other celebrities patrolled the city as reserve officers.
He also returned to Muncie last winter to keep up his reserve officer status.
Never give children a chance of imagining that anything exists in isolation. Make it plain from the very beginning that all living is relationship. Show them relationships in the woods, in the fields, in the ponds and streams, in the village and in the country around it. Rub it in.—Aldous Huxley, Island
“Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero. Seize the day, trust not to the morrow.” – Horace
Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap, lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination.—Alan Watts
“I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.” – Walt Whitman
Predictions:
Obama wins 51.6% of the popular vote and at least 320 electoral votes.
Franken squeaks by Coleman.
Bachmann Tinklenberg — too close to call.
Madia Paulsen — too close to call.
Dems do not make it to 60 in the Senate.
If I have to give a reasoned opinion, I don’t have it at this time of night. These are not hopes, though, but based on reading and poll watching over the last two months. Which means, of course, that I could be completely wrong.
Here is a cogent analysis. You can read more by clicking on the link or going to Pollster.com.
November 3, 2008
One Day to Go and McCain Is Between Barack and a Hard Place
By Steve Lombardo
Tomorrow, Barack Obama will become the first Democratic Presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976 to win an outright majority of the votes cast on Election Day — and with it a sizeable majority of electoral votes — making him the next President of the United States.
We make this projection knowing that the gap is closing both nationally and in key states; it is our sense, however, that this trend would have to continue for another 10 days for the election to swing back to McCain.
The following is our rationale for going with Obama:
* The economic recession/financial meltdown dominated the headlines from mid-September to mid-October. The war in Iraq remains enormously unpopular. Bush’s approval ratings are near an all-time low for modern Presidents. And the GOP brand is weak and fractured. As a result of these factors, a majority of this hugely dissatisfied electorate will be voting Democratic to change the direction of the last eight years.
* October was the worst month for the stock market in 21 years. Yes, last week was an improvement, but the month of October was unkind to John McCain and the GOP. Last Thursday, the government reported that the economy contracted from July through September – the first time consumer spending had decreased in 17 years.
* With this environment as a backdrop, Obama will pick the GOP lock on the electoral college by winning six states George W. Bush won in 2004–Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Ohio and Virginia–en route to an electoral vote rout.
* This election was always about Obama and McCain was never able to paint him as either “unfit” or “unprepared.” Nor was McCain able to give people a clear reason to vote for him.
* In an ironic twist, it was Obama who defined McCain in a negative light rather than the other way around. They started by claiming that he was “confused” four months ago and then painting him as “erratic” in the last 60 days. Of course, team McCain and the candidate himself contributed to this. It will be interesting to count the gross rating points that went behind contrast ads on both sides. My guess is that the Obama campaign might win that count as well.
* Terrorism and national security virtually disappeared as election issues. These two issues dominated a large part of the national dialogue in 2004 and helped give Bush his re-election victory.
* New registrants, young voters and black voters are going to break with historical pattern and vote in disproportionately high numbers, giving Obama huge margins in certain states and propelling him to victory over an exhausted and disengaged GOP base.
* The Democratic ground game will prove to be vastly superior to the Republican operation (money can do that).
* The turnout will be between 58%-60%, which would be its highest level since 1960. If the total number of voters exceeds 130 million (meaning more than 61% of eligible voters will have voted) then the Obama win could be an electoral landslide because the Democrats have a built-in six-eight point advantage in terms of party identification.
Hi, All,
This is to say that I’m back from a week in the Rockies with the grandkids. The cabin, unexpectedly, had no wireless service, so I’ve been offline for a week. Will post the notes from that time tomorrow, with pictures.
Thanks for checking back.
55 bar falls 30.08 0mph NE dew-point 30 sunrise 7:12 set 6:51
Waxing Crescent of the Blood Moon
A brilliant day. One with all the wonderful marks of fall: cool, blue sky, sun, falling leaves. October is my favorite month. Right now.
So the bail-out has passed. The market continues to slump.
Sarah Palin, they say, is the GOP’s gal in 2012. OMG
More bulbs in the ground. Many hemerocallis lifted. Next is the Friday night workout.
52 bar rises 30.15 omph N dew-point 43 sunrise 7:11 set 6:52 Autumn
New Moon (Blood)
The orchard installation completed. Here are some photographs of the finished result in its earliest moments. Next spring we should have some very expensive apples. Later the cost will amortize over more and more years and more and more fruit.
Feels good to have this as our view out the kitchen window.
Cherry, Plum, Pear and Apple trees in their mounds. The colorful bush is a sandcherry. Mulch is down and the clover seeded.
Hazelnuts, coral bells, currants, gooseberries and lead plants.
One of two blueberry patches.
55 bar rises 30.09 0mph NEE dew-point 54 sunrise 7:09 set 6:58 Autumn
New Moon (Blood)
More mulch. Two more loads. 3 cubic yards. 4.5 total. This is a lotta mulch, 3 trailer fulls. The good news is the trailer has not exploded a tire since Wednesday.
The pitchfork is a useful tool and I’m glad to have occasion to use one.
My chicken noodle soup always has a slightly different recipe, but the result tastes good. Today I left out the carrots and peas (we didn’t have any) and added garlic. This is a hearty soup, great for cool weather.
Swapped out the nutrient in the hydroponics while watching the Vikings under perform. It’s weird to me that so many different combinations of players and coaches can yield similar results.
Kate had a busy, tough weekend. But she’s on the flipside now.
70 bar steady 29.83 0mph NE dew-point 61 sunrise 6:18 sunset 8:16 Lughnasa
Full Corn Moon
There are times when the Olympics seem to drone on and on. Especially gymnastics. It’s hard to remember that the individuals have spent at least four years, in many cases more, preparing for these few seconds.
There was another addition to the age revolution. A Russian gymnast performing for the German national team, 33, won a silver medal. Something’s going on here.
Sport and sports develop a strange, distorted look from a distance. Let me show you what I mean. 26 miles. Get there as fast as you can following the path we lay out. Grab the other person, twist them. Stay inside the circle at all times. Do this over and over. We’ll decide whether you did it well. Jump in the water. Swim with your arms sweeping forward, together, over and over, for two lengths of the pool. Touch the pad at the end. Run down this path. Dive forward onto your hands, then leap onto this. Twist or turn in the air. Land. Again, we give you points. Take this heavy metal ball. Stand here. However you can, throw it as far you can within this area. Oh, don’t step outside the circle.
Pull back another level. At age 11 a coach spots a young boy with an unusual physique and dedication. A swimmer. Another, with fast twitch muscles predominant. A Jamaican. Run. Run. Run. 100 meters. An Ethiopian. Run. Run. Run. 26 miles. Slow twitch.
Sport finds human beings who excel in a particular physical activity, then polishes them for a chance to perform against others of similar excellence, all to see who is best. I know this competition gets a lot of ink as a salutary, wonderful concept that “brings out the best in our young people.” Isn’t it the opposite? Doesn’t it lead to a focus on the short term. On winning at all costs. Is it any surprise that doping and cheating of many kinds follows this kind of ethos like a bad scent follows a skunk?
Sport itself, the kinesthetic intelligence at work, has obvious beauty and requires, like art, years of discipline and study. The competitive aspect of sports, which I enjoy, has a certain doomed inevitability. I don’t know whether the culture of sport has a way of being that would not force competitors, at least some competitors, to choose shortcuts. I don’t think so and that leads to this element of the tragic, especially in an Olympic setting where the tone matters so much.
Just thinking out loud. This just is, it seems to me.
79 bar falls 29.96 0mph NE dew-point 56 sunrise 6:10 sunset 8:25 Lughnasa
Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon
I got this off the Permaculture listserv.
“(I find this is a good reminder to recite every morning.)
Diadra
A Prayer for Gaia by Rose Mary O’Malley
As I breathe in your air, eat your fruits and drink your water, let me be sustained and nourished so that I may serve.
As I use your resources for clothes, shelter and warmth, let me be strengthened so that I may give back more than I have taken.
As I drink in the beauty of your oceans, flowers, blue sky and stars, let me be so filled with beauty that I will bring only love and joy to your inhabitants.
As I am nourished, taught and loved by your inhabitants, let me so filled with love and knowledge that I joyfully work to assure a fair distribution of your treasures.”
It is an example what I believe to be true, that is, many many people consider the earth a sacred place and have the intention of reverence and worship toward her. The whole neo-pagan movement with its mix and match invocation of Europe’s ancient pantheons and perhaps some Egyptian influence does not reflect the rootedness of this sentiment in American soil. (That is, the American manifestation of it. I believe this is a global phenomenon.) It is also not the case that the Native American reverence for the earth is other than a salutary reminder since their experience is so different from that of us boat people.
We need a way of following the seasons that respects our American experience of this vast and wonderful land. We need a way of honoring mother earth that borrows, yes, from other cultures, but does not presume to make their ways our ways. We need, as Emerson said, a religion of revelation to us, not the history of theirs. And that revelation comes from two sources: our experience of the outer world–this land, its peoples and our experience of other peoples and other lands; and, our experience of our inner world and its own universe, added to our resonance with the outer world.
This is the pagan lovesong that I hear in the hearts of so many people, one that needs articulation and expansion. This is like Brian Swimme’s work, too.
This faith, this reverence and worship of the earth, as in Ms. O’Malley’s prayer, is an ur-faith, or a proto-faith, a faith that comes prior to others, a faith whose acceptance does not contradict the Mulism or the Buddhist, the Taoist or the Christian, but complements, supplements them. For some, like me, it is an adequate faith, enough to sustain me on my journey and as I contemplate the life after this one, or others, it is not enough, but one that needs some salvation instrument or some philosophical cleanser. That’s all right.