Yellowstone's Spiritual Essence

It would be possible to go to Yellowstone, drive the roads from one beautiful scenery location to another, see the buffalo (grizzly or moose if possible), eat at the lodges, and miss totally the spiritual heart of the land.

It is possible but would mostly happen if you got lost in the crowds, if you didn't find quiet places, if you didn't sit on the ground or commune with an antelope, if you didn't quiet your own voice to listen to the wind.

You will feel the spirit of Yellowstone through its elements by holding a rock, walking a trail, wading its creeks and rivers (other than the hot pools), and feeling Yellowstone against your skin.

You could miss its spirit if you didn't look up at the unbelievable, almost supernatural appearing skies.

The sky after a storm the night before, in Lamar Valley had a purity and power that swept me away. I kept thinking this is like an enhanced photo, like something unreal. How can it be so perfect? Photographs don't do it justice but they are closest when one cannot be there.

If someone gives Yellowstone time, it will creep into their soul. They will want to be on that bluff watching the wolves in the distance and feeling a oneness with their free but also risky life. Yellowstone talks to our hearts through its beautiful hills and skies, through its animals.

There are some great human (one animal) spirit stories in a little book I purchased at Old Faithful Inn called Yellowstone Ghost Stories by Shellie Larios.

I almost didn't buy it, thought it'd be silly, but then remembered my regrets in the past when I didn't yield to that kind of impulse. Besides, what ghosts? How would I ever know if I didn't buy it?

The book is full of small vignettes and many documented ghost stories. The author approaches it from experiences others have described of possible encounters with the other side but more importantly trying to decide who might that spirit have been when living?

Some of the people she writes about helped make Yellowstone into what it is; they were heroes or scoundrels, sometimes plain, ordinary people drawn to live or visit there and leaving part of themselves behind.
Their ghosts might be ones who didn't want to leave and still knock around the old buildings or land, now and then making their presence known.

The wonder of the book is in the little historic vignettes. There are the victories, the tragedies, but also stories of love for someone and the land. Whether you believe in ghosts, the imprint of those people's energies can still be felt-- if you open yourself.

When I drove past Nez Perce Picnic Area, I wish I had already read the book. The book says there are eight individual graves scattered around the park, but Mattie's would be the headstone I'd have looked for and taken a moment to visit. She died young of tuberculosis, leaving behind a grieving husband, a child, and her own life of love and tragedy.

They say her spirit, along with her husband's (he was not permitted to have his body buried beside hers because of park rules) can be seen walking along the Firehole River, or some have heard her humming to birds in the trees. They say no one, who visits her grave, doesn't feel her strong spirit beckoning their return.

I don't need that to want to return. It's my own spirit that pulls me back to Yellowstone. Each time it enriches me for my time there, no matter how long or short.

Yellowstone's Emotional Flesh

Of all the things people go to Yellowstone most hoping to see, it's wildlife-- wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, moose, elk, antelope, mountain sheep, cougars, buffalo herds, eagles, and all in a natural habitat. Its appeal is that it's no zoo.

These are the flesh of Yellowstone Country and as much out of control as whatever is under the surface. Yellowstone is a place mankind, from all around the world, can come and see what it was like so long ago before we closed ourselves off from nature.

Those who take Yellowstone's wildlife too casually pay a price and sometimes it's with their lives. There is the story of the photographer who kept photographing a grizzly, closer, closer, closer... The camera's film was recovered along with what was left of his body.

Whenever I go, my first destination is the Lamar Valley. I could miss everything else about Yellowstone if I could spend several days in the Lamar.

When the first vast herd of buffalo appears in the distance, a pale imitation of what they must have looked like to the first explorers, I feel a stirring of excitement. They represent power in its basic element.

This time the buffalo herds were in the midst of breeding, and it led to a lot more interesting photos. This spring's calf was determined to nurse while the bull wanted to push him away. Perseverance won out, but it took some maneuvering.

While fishing on the Lamar River, I watched an antelope as it watched me. It had left the herd maybe for the same reason the bulls leave the buffalo herds-- pushed out. I saw his lip curl up a time or two though as particularly fragrant smells came on the wind-- nothing I could appreciate.

There was a pretty sizable antelope herd that we watched cavort and I don't know what they were doing. They stuck close to one of the large buffalo herds, who totally ignored their activities. From what I can tell, not much excites a buffalo, except another buffalo.

In this photo you can see antelope running with a few looking on as though what is that all about. This went on for the whole time we watched. Male chasing female? Male chasing male? Playing? Threatening? I have no idea, but they were certainly getting exercise. I hoped they weren't wearing themselves out in case a wolf did come along.

On Slough Creek, I knew there were two buffalo taking naps not far from where I was fishing. Everyone is warned to not take them lightly as they can run 30 mph and have gored more than a few tourists, but they didn't seem to mind fishermen as long as the fishermen persons kept to their business.

Although I didn't catch a fish, I did get to practice my casting. I also saw some gorgeous dragonflies and photographed one, but the biggest, like the fish, got away. There were a few other fishermen where I was casting, but I stayed out of the most likely pools as my goal was learning to work the line.

'Further down the Lamar Valley, there were, as there often are, a lot of cars parked alongside the road with people on bluffs watching through scopes and binoculars as the wolves moved around on the far side of the the valley. We climbed the bluff even though we knew from experience we would only see moving specks in the distance and that only through binoculars or the telephoto lens. It is still stirring to see them over there and know they are living free. Hearing them howl, which I have heard only a few times in nature, is even more exciting.

Someone told us that there were 17 pups and that most of the pack was off hunting. I took their word for it as we saw only a couple of wolves. Several buffalo grazed near them, not concerned that the wolves might be a danger because unless a buffalo is very young, separated from the herd, old and ill, the wolf is no threat.

Although I saw a mountain sheep herd, something I haven't seen there before, I was disappointed to not see any moose. I really love watching them especially if I see them in a stream where they are grazing with those big impressive antlers. I kept an eye out, when in their kind of habitat, but no luck.

Still, the time of watching the buffalo herds interact was compensation. I love listening to buffalo as they grunt and make those threatening sounds to each other. We saw even cows and calves butting heads. The herd was excited by the hormonal changes in the cows. It permeated the whole valley.

Although I have seen and photographed grizzly, black bear, and wolves close enough to recognize what they are, this time, I only saw wolves and nothing worth posting here.

This coyote was running and scared enough to run right past a bunch of tourists watching and photographing. Someone said they had seen two wolves down by the Lamar River and that would explain the coyote's fear of what was behind being greater than what was ahead.

This coyote had already been marked by the park service for research or checking its range. They did have a warning sign, down by Slough Creek, that a coyote had been aggressive and if anyone saw that behavior, to report it. This coyote, if it was the same one, was only in a hurry. The wolves do kill the coyotes; so it had good reason to not dally.

Although we saw three, separate, large, buffalo herds in the vicinity of the Lamar, this herd was in the Hayden Valley and seemed to feel roads were for them, not autos. Nobody was about to argue with them.

Everywhere in Yellowstone, there are lone buffalo grazing, taking a dust bath, or sleeping. It appears that some find the herd not worth the trouble or have been pushed out. Maybe they just like being alone.

One thought that occurred to me while watching all these beautiful animals. Very very few of them die naturally. Life in a wilderness is violent. Something will kill them all and many will survive from their flesh. It is the law of their land.

We humans are the ones who try to make ourselves exempt from that law-- sometimes by giving up things that may matter more than a violent end. Safety may not always be worth what it costs and dying by withering up as a very old person might not be superior to the antelope or coyote that finally cannot run fast enough.

Yellowstone's Physical Heartbeat

You can't really discuss Yellowstone without what has made it what it is-- it's a volcano. Not like ones we are used to seeing but a caldera. It is believed it last fully erupted 600,000 years ago. If it goes again, it will be bigger than the biggest that mankind has ever witnessed. Will it go again? Who knows for sure since its time span for eruptions has not been with a reasonable guarantee like Old Faithful. Man, who thinks he controls so much, has no control here. Perhaps that is part of the appeal of Yellowstone. We are a small cog in a huge wheel; and when there, we are reminded of that.

Because I am not interested in writing a geology lesson, and others have written it much better than I could anyway, here is further information for anyone interested.

Explanation of calderas
Yellowstone Caldera

The physical aspects of Yellowstone, its beauty, its size, its possible future, the danger, the excitement, the mystery, they are part of what makes it what it is. It is beauty and danger side by side and that happens in all aspects from the possible grizzly you might run into as you walk a trail, to the falls and cliffs so easy to slip and tumble over, the buffalo or elk that would sooner gore you as look at you, the hot pools that one tumble into would be the last. The danger of Yellowstone is part of its deep and abiding appeal.

When you are walking in a geyser basin, there is the feeling something could spew out toxic gases and you'd be dead. Sure, I know, it's unlikely but who can say that it positively could not happen? The earth is doing something beneath your feet. As best they can, scientists observe it, calculate it, evaluate its dangers but it's all human measurements; and when you are there, you know-- mankind is an observer, not a controller.

Could Yellowstone erupt without warning creating the super volcano that has been talked about? Maybe or maybe not. It is building up heat under the caldera. The earth is rising (tiny amounts), but perhaps it has done that many times then subsided. Perhaps. It's the unknowing quality that brings you to the edge of excitement at everything you see or experience while there.

Yellowstone is untamed, nature's power, from the buffalo grazing in a meadow to the mud pot bubbling up chemicals from deep in the earth. The colors are absolutely unreal which earned it the name Yellow Rock -- yellow stone seeming to go together better in our language. It's not just yellow though but red, intense blues, all the colors. You drive down a road and suddenly you smell the sulfur. You may not see the hot pool, but it's around somewhere perhaps hidden under a cold river for now.

Since Farm Boss has had a thing about geysers for several years, it seemed obvious we should stay at Old Faithful. We, along with a lot of others, from all around the world, watched the geyser do its thing-- me twice and him three times. I admit I loved the beauty of it, the shapes of the hot water as it went up into the sky like fireworks only better. It is awesome but too bad somebody didn't come up with a better name than Old Faithful, something more beautiful and less predictable. Yes, it goes up more or less on a schedule but its not ours. We simply take advantage of it to observe.

There is a theory that the Yellowstone caldera has moved east with its eruptions. Yelseismap might verify that. One thing is for sure, it'll be a terrible thing if it ever does go up, not just for the country, but the loss of this beautiful place for another several hundred thousand years.

The knowledge that it might not be here forever, the danger that you can feel when you are there, that's part of why it mesmerizes so completely. It is not just beautiful or dramatic scenery; it is the power of Gaia. If you stop and let the energy soak into you, it takes your breath away.

I have experienced earth energy many places, but nothing is the equal of what I felt in Yellowstone this time. It was as though the earth was singing to me. Perhaps it's because the earth's core is so near the surface. You can hear its heartbeat if you listen.

The geyser basins made me uneasy, and I admit it. While their beauty was unsurpassed and their colors made me long for a paint brush, something untamed and out of control was right there beneath the surface. I was both drawn and made uneasy by it.

In the end, we humans have little real control over the earth, and perhaps that is what Yellowstone most teaches. Live on this earth, value it, but don't fool yourself about who is in control.

The travelogue part

When I have a couple of hundred beautiful photos from a recent vacation, it would seem a no-brainer to pick a few for here and write something about what I saw. Since it's about the Yellowstone region, it turned out to be anything but.

Although I am not much for travelogue style writing, this vacation involved some of what can best be described by that: two nights in Missoula; three nights in a cabin east of Livingston, (just north of Yellowstone); a night at Roosevelt Lodge (log cabins without bathrooms, walk to the bathhouse in the middle of the night and hope bears aren’t browsing nearby-- worth that inconvenience for being homey and right near the Lamar Valley); one night in Old Faithful Inn (lovely structure and rooms, teeming with history and people); two nights on the Henry’s Fork near Ashton, Idaho; and then two nights in motels to get back to the farm. So that’s the and then we did this and that part.

Renting cabins enhances any trip for me. For those days you really live there becoming part of the area in a way a motel and often even a campground cannot do.

With the internet and searches, I have discovered some interesting places to stay through the years, whenever there has been long enough to spend a few days (even better a week). Such cottages rarely are cheap, but they are usually charming, fully equipped, save money on meals out, and allow a person to spend all their time where they would like to be.

When Farm Boss would head down to the river to fish, he’d ask if I wanted to go. Sometimes I did (although I didn't get a visitor license to fish in either Idaho or Montana), but there was no need to do so because at the cottages I was already feeling the river energies and could watch fawns play in the yard or just listen to the sound of the wind or rivers. Talk about energizing.

When I go through Missoula, there are certain things I ‘must’ do. Number one is visit The Book Exchange. For years, it has been a wonderful bookstore with books on everything. Some are used, all are discounted. They have terrific sections on books about Montana and by Montana authors or on their artists. When they expanded last year into what had been a boot store next door, they became twice as wonderful.

Book Exchange was part of why Missoula required two nights. We also wanted to have a day in the Missoula area for hiking places like Kootenai Creek, a treasure of its own.

The destination for this trip, however, was the Yellowstone Region, and it is why I have had a hard time writing this. Yellowstone Park speaks to me on spiritual, physical and emotional levels, and I want to do it justice. I have the photos and hope that as I begin to write about it, the words will come that express what a magical, mesmerizing, mystical place the Yellowstone basin and area surrounding truly is.

We owe so much to people like Teddy Roosevelt who were visionaries and understood that some things should stay American treasures (for the world also as there were people from other nations everywhere we went).

Let us hope we never end up with a government that has the power to take that away from the rest of us. Thank you to Teddy and all the early explorers, who saw that country and realized what it could mean to the world for it to stay much like it has always been (well since the last volcano blew it up 600,000 (or so) years ago and until it blows again if it does).

Photos are in reverse order of the trip. On top was The Cottage on Henry's Fork in Ashton, Idaho. Then comes Roosevelt Lodge. The main building is where you can buy meals,enjoy beautiful fireplaces and check in to the cabins that are small and sit in the trees.

The last pics are from the Two Rivers Cottage on the Shields and Yellowstone rivers with more of my photos here: On the Shields and Yellowstone rivers. The Yellowstone comes out of Yellowstone Park and eventually drains into the Atlantic. The Shields comes out of the Crazy Mountains, meeting up with the Yellowstone where we stayed. Henry's Fork of the Snake will have its waters ending up in the Pacific as these rivers along the Continental Divide often have their sources less than 10 miles apart and yet will head to opposite oceans.

And finally. what can I say? This trip was about Yellowstone, but I love the Kootenai so much and can't resist throwing in one picture from hiking there.

lipstick on a pig

Isn't YouTube wonderful. John McCain is criticizing Obama for using the term lipstick on a pig... Guess what: John McCain said 'lipstick on a pig' too. The Republicans are definitely the best at something-- they call it hypocrisy.

Play nice, kids!

After calming down a bit and enjoying what my friend, Parapluie, said about what we can do, this morning I woke up still hot under the collar (and I wear a silky black nightgown with no collar). If I am going to be nice about all of this, I may need a partner for awhile to cover that side. Personally, I have this feeling, we have lost elections by trying to be nice (Dukakis, Gore, Kerry come to mind).

So I left up Parapluie's excellent points for today and will wait for tomorrow to start my own feature that will last 4 posts on the recent trip. I have written three of them, have the photos on two and will finish everything up before I post the first. I think it's a healthy break from the venom of what I feel regarding politics and what is going on.

But I can't resist posting this from Maureen Dowd. I was half irked at Dowd for two of hers that seemed more positive toward having a feisty second banana (or first); but this one makes up for it: [My Fair Veep].

I do actually agree with Fran, from Sacred Ordinary. I know we need to have a sense of humor about this. I also agree with Parapluie that using genuine logic is the best approach... but... Well I might need to take on some guest bloggers to do that part while I cover the vitriol! And yes, I will smile sweetly, hiding my fangs, while doing it.

What we can do

It would be easy to lose hope right now and let the Republicans roll right over us once again. Parapluie has another idea. She put it into comments, but I thought it was worth putting here to hope others will see it and think about it for themselves. I have said all along that Obama can't do it by himself. It will take us, and he has said the same thing. He is an organizer, someone who helps get people started but it's never been him promising a pie in the sky or that he's the Messiah. He needs people working for the same goals. We have to speak out, put up signs to show where we stand, and donate whatever we can afford to the campaign. This is not the time to give up.

Parapluie suggested this:

"I was shy about going out and campaigning in our neighborhood. I know in our immediate neighborhood there are some who have a view close to Christian Fundamentalists. This is something I have never done before. But that is all changed.

"This is absolutely the best way to elect Obama as president. I believe even the neighbors who don't want to talk to me and are angered by my approaching them are less angered by me than any other outreach to them.

"And because I ended the politics immediately by saying a OK and wishing them a good day, they might come around in the quiet of their own space as events come up itn the next two months. In our neighborhood we share the sadness that a house was returned to the bank and the nice hard working neighbor had to move out.

"I do want others to reach out to neighbors as I am doing. I am not depressed because it ain't over until it is over. I urge more people to go out and voice the strategy set up by Obama's campaign because it is brilliant. Reaching neighbors could make all the difference.

"The campaign team knows the economy is hurting us most and we might care to know that he has energized the first group he helped in South Chicago. Notice this is not hand outs but a proven way to get people involved in government to get the education they need to find new work.His Chicago project had real results in empowering the workers who lost their jobs because the steel plant closed.

"In the programed neighborly script his big message to undecided voters is to assure us that he will fight for all Americans, passing health care reform that will save families $2,500 per year, closing corporate tax loopholes, and delivering up to $1,500 in tax relief to hard working Americans.

"Then there is a question for the undecided on which of six issues they care about most - Health Care, Trade, Iraq, Foreign Policy, Education . The process prescribed in campaigning will only work if more people volunteer and start soon. This grass root approach has great potential. So please give it a try.

"Another hopeful note for the Obama campaign is that they are campaigning to sign up thousands of young voters. Have they been polled? I don't think so. To learn more about the new ads for Obama go to http://pol.moveon.org."

Ban these books?

Just for fun and to avoid having to work on what I should be working on, I was skimming around the net and came across a list of books that someone somewhere sometime has suggested should be banned.

This is NOT a list from Sarah Palin (that I know anyway). I am not sure if that's out there anywhere; but still it's fun to look at this one and wonder what damage each might do to a civil society.

Have you read any of them; and if so, have you been corrupted? Yes, I have read some (not all) and might have been corrupted-- but not by them. *s*

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

This and that

[Update: While I appreciate comments from everyone, including with different opinions, if any get to the nasty point, which I have seen more other places than here, I will delete them. Everyone here deserves to have their opinion respected and should respect those of others. Also if someone posts the same thing multiple places, it will only stay in the latest blog, not everywhere. This is a very hot election season and I understand the passion people feel about their opinions. I would hate to have to stop allowing anonymous commenters, or monitoring, but I will if I have to do so. We don't all agree and that's healthy and okay, but we can do so civilly.]

Although I said the next blog would be on what my recent trip meant to me, and although I am working on it (it's not easy), the real world keeps intruding and other thoughts run this way and that in my head.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the Northwest, a feeling of just a bit of fall in the air, temps in the low 80s, blue skies and made even better when our son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons came out to the farm in the afternoon. That was the beautiful side of life. We all sat under the big oak trees and discussed politics, the kids, life; then waded the creek to pick blackberries for them to take home. It was ordinary and special all at the same time.

This morning I woke to see the latest polls are showing McCain/Palin even more ahead-- 10 points in the USA Today likely voter poll. Depressed? You bet. I can't understand it and yet 8 years of Bush has made me understand what seems right to me does not to a lot of other people.

Gritting my teeth, I know I might have to once again accept that the majority of Americans don't think like me. I have to recognize our history has had many such moments and not just ours but around the world. I still have hope, but it's hard. I also have questions.

How do people bounce around so much on what they think in these polls? What impacts a voter to answer one way last week and another this? Is it all thinking Palin will actually be the president?

Yes, having read around the blog world, I do know how many are chortling over those same numbers and feeling relieved that now they will be safe, god will be pleased, and their taxes won't go up. No matter how many times Obama says he would not raise taxes on the middle class, too many voters don't believe him. They relate more to the rich than the poor.

I haven't given up but it's definitely not a happy thing to see today in the papers. Yesterday was a happy day, although with a kind of heavy cloud over it as our kids see the political situation as we do.

You can't believe how much I'd like to say this won't matter in the long run, get a grip, but wouldn't a draft matter to those of us with grandchildren or kids young enough to be caught up in it? Won't destruction of the environment matter to those of us who don't value dollars higher than anything else? What about endless wars around the world where our budget is further destroyed?

People who vote for Bush/McCain appear to worry more about welfare moms than wars. Welfare and aid to families is a tiny fraction of where our budget goes. Do such people really believe we can fight all these wars with no cost??? Why has it been okay with them to borrow the money to fund them making us more vulnerable in the world and now with a financial crisis that has not yet been handled, only delayed. How much do you think the government can really pick up if more banks start to fail? That guarantee is only good when the government has money to fund the losses. You think that can go on forever at the rate we are leaking money to wars overseas?

Are those who favor McCain aware how much his friend and adviser, Phil Gramm, had to do with these sub-prime mortgage failures? To make the economy look good for awhile, they allowed a lot of loans that never should have gone out but don't worry. They made money on it!

Since issues don't seem to trouble most voters, here's another question: I keep hearing how voters relate to Palin because she's like they are. when did it become good in this country to vote for ordinary people? When did being a good guy at a barbecue or a good mother become a reason to want them leading the government?

When did we stop wanting Thomas Jeffersons and begin to want George Bushes. The new George Bush with a beehive and glasses wears those to look ordinary, or so she says, just as Bush wore his boots, cowboy hat, and bought a little ranch, to look like a cowboy.

It's all about images and somehow a bi-racial and cultural man with a Harvard education and a brilliant mind just isn't ordinary to too many voters. Would it have helped if he'd graduated at the bottom of his class instead of being president of the Harvard Law Review?

And on that good mom thing, since I am writing stream of consciousness. Sarah Palin is supposed to be one; but their family was such that she kept from her own children the fact that she was pregnant until she was 7 months along. If you read the recent article [Fusing Politics and Motherhood in a new way], it shows how she eventually told her children about her pregnancy but still withheld the news of Downs Syndrome.

Inside Ms. Palin’s room, her daughter Willow, 14, immediately noticed her new brother’s condition, according to People magazine. “He looks like he has Down syndrome,” Willow said. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

I understand having a child born with a disability is not something you want or need to share with everybody. As the article indicates, it was a lot for them to absorb (although given their religious views it had to be from god); but their own children, when it would impact them so greatly, why not tell them? With that lack of communication from the parents, it's not surprising their daughter would wait until she was 5 months pregnant to tell her mother. So tell me, is lack of communication a right wing family virtue???

And no, it doesn't impact her ability to be president. It doesn't change what her political values are. Shaking my head. I really do need to take a vacation. Oh wait, I just did :)

The Cult of Personality

and ironically it's not in the Democrats where you will find it. Republican bumper stickers should read: It's not the issues, stupid. It's the heroes.

Most especially if you are a fan of John McCain/Sarah Palin and you hate the New York Times, please break your rule and read Frank Rich today-- Palin and McCain's Shotgun Marriage. He has his usual links for you to check that his opinions have facts behind them. We are being told Palin is this wonderful natural leader, please read the links to see if it holds up to investigation.

I know enough good, right wingers to know that they are not all horrible people. Many love this country and are buying into the idea that McCain will be the best choice for it. Unfortunately they are being sold a bill of goods, a pig in a poke, pie in the sky, and emotions are being used to close the deal (think the callous use of 9/11 footage once again during their convention). These good people are ironically being sold on the cult of personality where it comes to both Palin and McCain (when they are told how bad it is if it was Obama/Biden. They are being told what to think and because it's done slickly, they don't even know it. They think it's their own idea.

Everyday we see evidence of how the McCain campaign has been taken over by Karl Rove and his minions. You can see that slick operator's fingerprints on the Daily Show where they went to the convention to ask delegates what made small towns superior. I forget where I originally saw it but you can find it here: Small Town Values. (Warning: it is not politically correct for its language-- as usual). If you can't bear to hear a few swear words, the gist of is that these Republicans had no idea why they were superior to middle-sized or bigger towns. They had been told it and it sounded good.

Not to say small towns aren't nice places (I live near one) but they have the problems of anyplace else. Palin's little town in Alaska was the meth capitol for awhile if not still. Sorry but small towns have suicides, murders, thefts, teen pregnancies, divorces, adultery, corruption, etc. Sure, they have less of it but it's because they have less numbers.

Sometimes I wonder if Rove wanted Palin all along and only indicated he preferred someone else because he knew how to manipulate John McCain. Rove is good at running campaigns, but the evidence of the Bush administration is that he's no good at running the country.

There are so many issues to discuss before November, and I will be going into them, starting with the economic situation, but not for awhile. For the next week or however long it takes, it'll be High Mountain West with a lot of photos and an attempt to express what the Yellowstone region means to me (definitely not easy).

It's important to store up beautiful places and rich experiences because they are what make us who we are; then we have the emotional strength to go out and try to make a difference in the world or at least our own little part of it.

I'd like to say that whatever happens with the election, we will be okay, but I don't believe it. I think this is an important turning point for Americans. I worry that the right path is not easy to find, that it's far easier to follow the masses. What if the masses are going off a cliff? What if they are seeing an emperor with no clothes but being told he's richly garbed?

What if the ones who have power only care about themselves and don't mind what happens to the rest of us? How do we protect our own families, our friends? I wish it was different, but I don't think we can take an attitude that this election won't matter to our individual lives. It will.

Would it matter?

For months I have listed off the reasons I believe Barack Obama is the best choice to be president of the United States. I have gone into the silly reasons people might not vote for him (think flag pin). Sometimes I have written about the serious accusations and my take on them. These posts are listed under Obama in the labels section.

None of the negative accusations (some particularly vicious) have changed my mind that he is the most promising person who has run for president in a long while. In the beginning, I did research them, still will look to see, if something is new and really ugly (think infanticide), what actually happened.

My belief in his promise is because of his education, wisdom, communication and organizational skills, common sense, and temperament. I like how he speaks the same whether it's a speech or talking to someone about an issue. I know they all have speech writers, but it feels like he works on his own words, not just delivers them. They are his ideas, not some witty writer's who has figured out what other people want to hear regardless of the truth of a position. It naturally helps that I mostly agree with him on the issues.

Normally a vice president is not considered to be a critical part of a presidential ticket, but it does speak to the presidential candidate's judgment. It reassured me when Obama had the foresight to look toward the actual running of the country and chose a real partner in Joe Biden, a person who could take over should something horrible happen. I liked it that he didn't chose someone who could help him win as much as who could help him govern if he won. Winning the office and failing doesn't benefit anyone and he saw that.

Biden is not known for charisma, nor is he from a big state. He is a work horse and that is what Obama decided he needed. Biden knows the Washington scene and has tools that Obama can use. Good judgment, which he has shown putting together his entire campaign, earned Obama another plus in my book.

On the other side, John McCain, despite his age and past health problems, went the other way when he chose Sarah Palin. They are calling it a Hail Mary pass that worked but the question of how it would work if she should become president, that's the harder question to answer. He chose someone that, unless you believe god rules this earth with a tight fist, you would know didn't have the experience or temperament (pit bulls are what we need in the presidency?) to instantly step into the most powerful position in our country. What does his choice say about McCain? I wrote about that in Loose Cannon for President?

I have gone into the issues of why I would not vote for Sarah Palin (wouldn't even want to know her personally). I don't like people who bully others or use their power to enforce their will. From what I can tell, she's proud of being aggressive and an attacker. She bullied a librarian about banning books (although the librarian proved her mettle in not backing down). She bullied people as governor to get her brother-in-law fired. She is being investigated for misuse of power. Unless you were in her church, she'd be a disaster in a neighborhood, can you imagine what she would do in the presidency?

Watching Palin and getting to know more about her personal side, it's pretty obvious that McCain chose her for a reason beyond the obvious. He has a reputation for bullying people and apparently admires that skill in others. What some of us might see as a major character flaw, not only didn't matter to McCain but was a plus.

Then there are some other things about her that keep coming up. One is did Sarah Palin have an affair with her husband's business partner, an affair that ended his marriage but not her own? If she had a hushed up affair, would it matter to the religious right? Would she have not told McCain or given his history, would it matter to him? This would make it look possible: Here we go.

In the 'tabloid' world, there are other more unlikely scandals connected to Palin. When I first heard about the possibility that the baby born in the spring was not Sarah Palin's but her daughter, Bristol's, I thought the talk should be filed under silly. How do you fake such a huge event? I know it happens. Jack Nicholson has said he only found out when he was grown that his sister was really his mother. Still, weren't things like that a lot easier to fake back then than they would be today?

Just out of curiosity, I did a Google search: palin baby birth. There are some elements that could make one suspicious if one was the conspiracy sort and believed rigid fundamentalists would put their families second to their reputation. Would it matter even if it was true or would it come under the category of personal family business as is how they are dealing with their daughter's suddenly public pregnancy?

For me there are enough reasons to not vote for Sarah Palin based on her christianism, her shallow grasp of what is going on in the world, her willingness to lie to get more power, her pride in being a pit bull; but those things not only didn't matter to Republicans at that convention but explained some of their biggest cheers.

[Update: Today also, Sylvia has published a blog with a lot of information about Sarah Palin from someone who lives in Alaska. Please check it out: back to the same. This is no time to feel things depress us or we don't need to know. Right now is when we DO need to know and be prepared to defend what we believe to others who might be uncertain.]

Republicans apparently wanted someone divisive and willing to smear others whether it's with lies or not. Do what it takes but win and we don't care how! *loud cheers* It seems they take pride in it. Lies haven't mattered when it was Bush.

McCain talked about bringing the country together, and he might mean to do that right after he finishes smearing Obama and the left in order to win. Can someone really unite a country right after they tear it apart?

The next few blogs will veer away from politics (none too soon obviously). I want to write about what my recent vacation meant to me. It was all so fast with a lot to experience, not a lot of time to fully soak it in, but the feelings and images are strong, some archetypal, wonderful photos. I could spend a month in that country and still might not feel I could do it justice when I tried to winnow it down to a few words and pictures. It's simply too big.

I will, however, be back on politics (interjecting sooner if something happens where I feel a need to comment). As we head toward November, I want to write on issues and hear back what others (agree or disagree) think. This is a critical time for us all to speak out.

As others have written, even I, who generally find it interesting, am sick of politics, and will be glad when the election is past; however, we can't afford to give it up just yet. We can't grow lax. We have to hold onto our passion. There are two paths out there, one of which I believe would be destructive for many generations to come.

It will matter.

Sarah Palin Gender Card

Jon Stewart on Daily Show always seems to nail it best because he uses the words of the very ones with the double standards:

[Daily Show September 3-- Sarah Palin Gender Card]

on roads less traveled

When traveling across the broad expanses of the west, I like to check the news; but never more so than on this recent vacation during the Democratic convention and the lead up to the Republican convention. Often turning on the radio and cycling through radio stations yields only static and sometimes music. It had been years since I heard John Denver's Take me Home, Country Roads.

Do you know how many talk radio stations in this country are owned by the right? I went looking for the answer-- 91%. (The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio). Ed Schultz, who I like very much, was one voice I finally found before we drove out of range. He said his program is on 60 stations and Limbaugh is on 600. Limbaugh is only part of what is out there from the moderately right to the extreme militia types.

This is not a piece about whether government should regulate that. I understand some of this happens because it's what listeners want; but if all your information comes from either the left or the right, do you really know what goes on or only what your side wants you to know?

Because I do believe we need to understand (when it's possible) how others think, I read or listen to the right sometimes even at home. It's not easy (other than to find the stations); but I make the effort. On this trip the right wing pundits and their callers were in lock step. They are thrilled, thrilled beyond imagining, at Sarah Palin's selection. Everything that supposedly mattered before in a president has been thrown out or possibly revealed.

I know I have thought it before, but it's further proof to me that this country is irreversibly divided, and there is no way back. The only question left is which side will win or do we stay as we are. There is no way of combining such divergent ways of seeing life.

If you believe god intervenes in life, that whatever happens, it's god's doing, that he will guide the good and smite the wicked, if you vote for someone who promises to follow in such a way to always keep god on your 'good' side, you and I can't even communicate. We aren't living in the same universe.

Even on the few liberal radio programs I would come across when nearing big cities, it would still be all about how can we possibly combat this woman given her physical beauty, her trained communication skills, and that beautiful family. Poor Joe Biden. All he knows are the facts of what has been happening, what might happen under the right circumstances, but poor man can only use logic and is at a loss on how to project emotion.

If someone diffidently suggests Palin has only been a two term mayor of a small town in Alaska, and a 22 month governor of that state of less than a million people, the other side retorts that it's putting down all women to question her experience

Besides, her experience does not actually matter as her power comes from her faith. Any logical approach to talk about lack of experience is countered by she has more than Obama. She doesn't, but facts aren't what this is about.

The lack of logic makes me angry even writing it back at home when no longer at the mercy of a car radio in the middle of nowhere. On the road, even when I did find a progressive radio station, what did the host do but invite right wingers from the convention to praise Palin to the heights. Et tu, brute!

In the middle of Oregon's outback, I clicked onto Dennis Miller's program, someone I had not heard on radio but had heard debating on Bill Maher. He is a lover of the Iraq war. Although he said a few good things about Obama, he added he'd never vote for him. Callers would bring up something and Miller was not informed about the facts. He would let untruths go by. Even I, traveling and in the middle of nowhere, knew better what was going on than it appeared Miller did. Is a host's job to prepare or is pontificating all that is required?

I decided (and this is not new) I am really angry at the right wingers who one day earlier considered experience critical and the next considered it to be irrelevant. One day they praised Palin as this great family woman and the next day said her family is off limits. I am angry at people who don't get informed and still talk or vote.

Now I don't mind when someone disagrees with me when we are talking about the same set of facts. Example: Iraq. I do not believe we should have gone there and feel the whole thing has been an expensive boondoggle damaging our own country as the Soviet Union years ago damaged itself in trying to occupy Afghanistan. However, I can tolerate someone using the same set of facts but simply seeing them through a different prism. Where I am ready to blow a gasket is when they don't know the facts and consider that a virtue. Those are the ones that it appears to me are the loudest in cheering Sarah Palin.

Palin recently preached in her church that we were in Iraq because God led us there and it was a holy mission. She states creationism should be taught in science class (heck I wouldn't even think atheism should be taught alongside of the bare bones of evolution). Sarah Palin would ban books in the library that she and her fellow christianists believe are bad for good people.

If she had the power, she would ban all abortions for any reason except maybe the life of the mother. I haven't heard how she feels about that but do know in cases of rape and incest, she and now John McCain (another of his sell-outs to get the presidency) would deny an abortion to even a woman who had been raped.

We are one Supreme Court judge away from having the right to choose an abortion go back to individual states. Some states, who are right wing (you can look on a map to see which as they are in the red column), could then ban it and make it again a crime as it was when I was growing up. The price of that is paid by girls in back alleys, but the righteous will feel vindicated and it's all about them.

Abortion is another of those areas where I can tolerate disagreement so long as its based on the facts. The fact is that it could again be banned if the Supreme Court gets another case and gets a fifth judge who will favor ending a federal right. Someone might (through that different prism) see that as good or bad but don't kid yourself that it could not happen.

Palin, if she becomes president (and it's not unlikely given McCain's age and past cancer), will not feel she has to understand the facts of any situation. God will lead her and that's all she or those who will vote for her need to know.

We are like two countries within one. With all of our political differences on issues like taxes, this christianist concept of god is the bigger division. How widespread is it? If someone is operating on logic, they will look at Sarah Palin's resume, then question why McCain said he would pick someone with foreign policy experience.
What happened to McCain between the one statement and the decision?

Is this a choice made on governing the country or on getting elected and worry about the rest later? Someone using logic would wonder how a woman who has run a small town (with some large failures), been governor under two years (already under ethical investigation there) didn't even know the basics of the Iraqi situation recently, has no education in constitutional law, how is she going to run this country? The christianist knows the answer! God will be guiding her-- as he has been George Bush.

I have no idea which viewpoint will win the election in November, but as Robert Frost said in his famous poem, it will make all of the difference. The unfortunate part is the road less traveled could end up being the one with less votes. I was on a lot of roads less traveled these last days and, superior path or not, there aren't many folks there.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost

Back at the farm, I am unpacking and unwinding after so many miles on the road. I am also going through the photos to delete the less successful ones and organize the best. It was a beautiful trip and in many places little traveled. For me, such times do make all the difference.

Starve the Beast

While on the road any internet connection is spotty; so I wrote this and scheduled it because it is about something that concerns me. Getting to a motel with wireless, I am expanding it with recent examples. [Starve the Beast] uses the Edwards' affair but is about a bigger issue, one that distracts the public from the issues that actually impact their lives.

Since I did not see the Democratic convention, I missed the way it was covered but heard a commentary that many speeches were not covered in order to run commentary by the pundits. Say what! They want to tell us what to think and it's not just Fox. Worse, they zero in on things that don't matter to distract us from those that do. Reading comments here (which I much enjoyed as the commenters add so much), I saw from Robin that it could have been watched on C-Span which sounds like the only way to avoid those addicted talkers.

My opinion: just show the damned conventions; and if pundits want to comment on them from their supposed news program, do it later! It is not about them except to them!

What makes the mainstream media zero in on trifles? Why do campaigns end up being about junk? That one I can answer as look at the results of McCain running the Hilton/Spears/Moses ads and then at his improved poll results. With a certain kind of voter, it appears to work. It is, however, as bad as the junk food or meaningless reality television that invade our mind and bodies as they train us to only think or eat what is easy.

Was it important to voters if Larry Craig might be a wantabe homosexual? How about that Elliot Spitzer liked kinky sex? Both men ran afoul of laws that were intended to decide sexuality for others but what made the coverage so extensive?

Those stories run, and hundreds like them, instead of health care discussions, questions about transportation, environmental concerns, ways to stop buying so much oil while sending money to potential enemies, and a multitude of issues that actually matter to our lives. Have we become a tabloid people who don't have the ability to think about issues that require exercising the brain? Does the media bear part of the responsibility for it being that way or are they only the result?

Character does matter, but it should be when it relates and impacts the job the politician is being paid to do.

Sarah Palin has a teen-age daughter who is pregnant. Normally Democrats would understand and let that one go (stuff happens) but there might be a tendency to hit on it because of the way Republicans have done (think of how Lynn Spears was crucified as being a lousy mother when her teen got pregnant) or what they would be saying if it was an Obama child; but we need to step back and think about it. It is not an issue.

The issue with Palin is her lack of experience, decisions she has made while mayor of a small town or as governor these last nearly two years (trooper-gate might say a lot about her ethics if it's true), questionable land deals for the city when she was mayor that has left that city still in debt, never having met an oil or timber interest that she didn't want to support, being in an Alaska independence party in the 90s, apparently lying in her acceptance speech about her opinion on the bridge to nowhere, her radical religious views, and her lack of any serious understanding of international policies or constitutional law.

Given McCain's age and his being a two-time survivor of melanoma, it's not unlikely that she could be thrust into the presidency . She talks good given she was educated as a sports announcer, but could she have run a nationwide campaign for president? Is she ready to run this nation from day one? McCain said that was key to who he would ask to run with him but clearly it didn't turn out to be that way. McCain went for the tabloid vote.

If Palin stayed vice president, none of the above would matter, and she'd end up with more child care help from the government probably than she has had as governor; but what if McCain is disabled or dies in office? We end up with someone who probably thinks god takes care of everything, and a country who can ill afford more of that kind of thinking. I keep reading how she's so appealing because she's an ordinary person. So that's what we need to run this country???

Palin receives this nomination for two reasons. First and foremost on her resume is being a fundamentalist christianist which will hand McCain the fundamentalist religionists. For everbody else, we have the second reason, does anyone believe she'd have been invited to run if she had been the homely governor from Alaska with less than two years under her belt. You know the answer!