An Eminently Level-Headed Virginian

One of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's new neighbors:

Della Coleman, 75, lives a few doors down from the cemetery in a gray trailer. She was entertained by the sight of TV trucks parading down her normally quiet street all day, but she was not the least bit concerned that a bombing suspect was buried near her home.
“Don’t bother me at all,” she said. “I guess it would bother some people ’cause of what he did.”

Coleman, a retired hospital aide who grew up nearby, said the owners of the cemetery had been good neighbors. “The people are good to me,” she said. “That’s their place. They can do what they want.”

Starving the Beast

Forget the votes to repeal Obama Care, the real power is the power of the purse, which is an exclusive Congressional authority.  Republicans control enough of Congress to make sure that nothing is spent to make a the Affordable Care Act a success.  This can't be good.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.
Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.

The bathtub is always full. 

Neighbors

Last night was not the first time I heard the music.  Every now and then I would hear what sounded like someone practicing violin but the sound was too sporadic to get a fix on its source.  I knew only that it was from a neighbor's house behind me.  And it's been a while so I'd forgotten about the music until I head it again last night.  This time, though I spotted them--at least two violinists and maybe a cellist--on the deck of the house behind me.  I couldn't get a clear look through the foliage but it was definitely a group playing music.  A bit later others joined in with guitar and banjo (so I guess the violins were fiddles by now).

Imagine that--people on their deck playing music on a beautiful spring evening.   I felt happy just being in the same neighborhood.

Slugs and Worms

That's the headline I would have used a few weeks ago to describe my local velo experience after several days of heavy rain.  I never got around to making that post.  Now that the weather is very nice, the headline no longer applies but I like it enough to use it anyway.

Yesterday slugs and worms were not in evidence.  We had bright sunlight and warm temperatures after several days of increasingly sunny, dry weather.  Truly the early days of summer here in Olympia.  The trees are filling in with green.  Flowers in bloom everywhere.  People out and about in shorts in t-shirts.  I rode in a t-shirt for the first time this year yesterday. 

Last week was cool and overcast.  I managed to ride early, hoping to dodge predicted mid-day showers.  A nice enough ride but nothing like yesterday.  When the sun comes out here this place sparkles.

A few weeks ago--the week of slugs and worms--was much cooler and darker, pretty much what I expect in early spring here.  The slugs were pretty easy to spot with their eyes periscoped up; they looked intent on getting somewhere.  The worms were less easy to see.  As a rule, I keep a sharp look out a (a lesson deeply imbedded in my brain from booby trap training in the Army) and so I didn't run over anything.

Yesterday's fauna amounted to a wooly caterpillar and a small garter snake, both easily spotted in the bright sunlight.

Rite of Spring

Yesterday in Olympia. Procession of the Species.  All sorts of spectacle in the streets.

Dancers

Artesian Rumble Arkestra

Mongoose and cobra

Whale and jellyfish

Geoduck

Giraffe

Earlier in the day we attended the Power Tool Drag Races.

Speaking Aid

Republicans who disparage Obama for using a teleprompter and view “Front Row Seat: A Photographic Portrait of the Presidency of George W. Bush,” will no doubt want to skip the photo of Bush addressing the nation as he launched the Afghanistan war.

Images such as President Bush addressing the nation from the Treaty Room of the White House that U.S air strikes were underway in Afghanistan, portrays Bush not as the war time leader one may think but rather in a light of smallness, as he is seemingly engulfed by the teleprompters text. 

 Aside from reminding us that Obama is hardly the first president to use a teleprompter, the image described sounds like an honest portrait.

Capitalism Waiting to Happen

West, Texas.  Upper Big Branch.  Deepwater Horizon.  Santa Barbara.  Triangle Shirtwaist.

Something to think about on this 44th Earth Day.

An Honor

Coffee Strong held a party last Saturday to celebrate re-opening in its new location.  After four years of subsidizing  a money losing coffee business, the Coffee Strong board and volunteers changed the model from coffee house to GI/veteran resource center with full time staff.  The site moved to a larger but less expensive space next door to the old location, still within spitting distance of Joint Base Lewis-McChord.  Coffee Strong still serves coffee but that is now incidental to the mission:  opposing the wars and helping service members and veterans understand their options. 

Supporters and volunteers who assisted in the conversion were recognized as Plank Owners.  As I understand the term, a plank owner is a crew member of a ship at commissioning.  I was among those so recognized, with the certificate thereof, for which I am deeply honored.  Also grateful that I've had the opportunity to be part of Coffee Strong since its beginning in 2008 and for the past three years volunteering there as a veterans advocate.

My relationship with Lewis-McChord goes back to 1970, when it was Fort Lewis Army Base next to the adjacent McChord Air Force Base.  I did my infantry training at Fort Lewis from September to November, earning my 11 Bravo MOS before being sent to Vietnam in December.  I never knew about the GI coffee house in nearby Tacoma, The Shelter Half.  Being part of a similar movement for a new generation of service members is a source of great personal satisfaction..

Shameless plug:  Like most shoestring nonprofits, Coffee Strong is always in need of donations.  If you have some spare cash, you might consider slipping a few bucks their way.