End of August

The tavern stank. Those were the three words that began the journey I am on today. That was 10 years ago and the Dragon’s Justice project was born in a time of great despair. Since that time it has changed form, title and lost three of the 4 original contributors. 2 Died and one quit. The futility of it is not lost on me. The soft laughter of the fairies long since relegated to the dustbin of ideas. I am rededicating myself to its completion. My joints will not seem to permit the crisis to travel as far as I had first wished. The lost coast is going to be a large enough realm for my mind and body to wander and the story will be told. I owe that much to Cary and her memory.

regional Radmul

The country is made up of many different regions. It is one of the ways we get our identity and in America identity is a big thing. I am a Californian, not by anything I did I just happen to be born here by a stroke of luck but it is part of my in group. It means something to be in that group just as being southern or western or a Yankee means something. Part of that meaning is derived from regional art. If you ever have the chance to travel through the Pennsylvania Dutch country you will see the hex signs painted on barns, very cool art for the fertility of the farm. In the Radmul region of the moment it is chainsaw art. Up and down the north coast of Cali carving stumps into cool stuff for the tourists is one way an artist can make a buck in an environment that because of limited transportation has little economic development. This is a region that derived its wealth from the exploitation of resources and once the trees were cut and the river fisheries screwed up the economy went into the crapper. The growing of pot has provided a positive cash flow with mixed effect. Criminal activity is probably not the best way to build a sustainable life style, but I digress.
As I ride through the towns and parks of the coast I try to take in the local art and remember how it was when I was a kid and how what gets made has changed over the years. There are still lots of bears and fish but some of the kitchy stuff from my youth has been replaced by dragons and unicorns. Of course Paul and Babe the blue ox are still there but now they have been joined by space aliens in Crescent city. Here are a few examples of the regional redwood art and some Aliens to boot. More can be found here and here on my photo storage sites. Hope you enjoy and someday get the chance to see them in person.

A propaganda lesson

The war in Iraq has been a study in propaganda in its most pernicious form. I was listening to the archivist and folk singer Utah Phillips the other day in an interview recorded before his death and he pointed out that before the Nazi party the word had a much more benign meaning. It was the conveying of information to support a position. In other words making an argument based on facts that supported your side. Goebbels corrupted that idea to mean making up the facts to support your side and the folks in the White House today have adopted this use of the word as their model. In making the case for the invasion it was not incumbent upon those that took the position that we had to invade to put forth the facts that did not favor their argument. In the market place of ideas that is the responsibility of the opposition. We can get to the failure of said opposition in another debate but the current administration new that the facts they were asserting were untrue. That is why they should be prosecuted as traitors and war criminals. When Dick Cheney went on television and said they knew the location of the WMD he knew that the fact he was asserting was a fabrication. The center for public integrity documented the 100’s of instances of this so I will move on to the present and the need for this little exercise in propaganda as it was originally defined.
The idea that John McCain is a teller of truths in the language of Bill Clinton is a fairytale. Let me provide a few examples. When the good Senator visited Iraq in 2007 in an effort to garner support for the ill-conceived war he visited an open air market. He then went on television to tell us that his visit proved that we winning the war because he could walk around and shop. One of his companions compared it to a farmers market in Indiana. Not having been to Indiana in a few years I can’t say that you do not need armed guards to shop there but here is the truth about Baghdad. For the Senator to walk around this safe secure marketplace he had to strap on a bullet proof vest, surround himself with 100 of our finest young soldiers and put 4 helicopters overhead to circle the area. A few weeks later this same market was closed by suicide bombings but as I stated before that is not his responsibility to bring out. Just don’t lie about your trip that’s all I ask. Did he forget that the cameras were running as Hilary Clinton did in Bosnia or was he counting on his pals in the mainstream media to go along with his lie as they had with the Bush folks.
McCain is pushing the, “the surge is working” meme so hard he make Sisyphus look like a piker. He quips in his speeches that General Petraeus drove around in an unarmored Humvee.The pentagon was denying this nonsense the moment they heard it and again McCain was forced to admit he, “misspoke” but in the same breath he uses the lie to support his bigger lie.
For those that try to advance the idea that we are winning in Iraq the phrase that our troops are doing everything we ask them to brilliantly tumbles from their mouths with ease. They deify the generals and when anyone dares to question their wisdom or competence that questioner is called un-American and traitor. I have one but one question for those folks. If they have done everything they have been asked and the surge strategy was so brilliantly designed to win why are they not on their way home to a well deserved victory parade?

Pictures from the race

A few shots from th 40th annual Great Kinetic Sculpture race on the Arcata plaza. The egrets were out along the highway between Eureka and Arcata. Today rode 24 miles on the roads and another 8 on the sand. My legs are on fire as I write this so I will be crashing early but will get more shots up tomorrow. The videos may take a little longer as I will be attending the second leg . This week will be more about bikes and less about political rants you have my word.

Redwood trip report

I returned from the camping trip up the coast. The weather was a little damp but the scenery was unbelievable. I need to work on my conditioning before tackling the mountains again. I traveled 125 miles in 4 days of riding. I made 34.4 miles each of the first 3 days with the short day coming when I arrived home.
That was odd the way it worked out but ran into a few problems with a trail that wasn't maintained. I wasted half a day trying to reach a campsite out at Ossagon Creek. There was blow down all along the trail and I thought what the hell I’ll be a good guy and clear some but eventually got to a section that needed a chainsaw, which I did not have. I had portaged twice already and gave up and turned around after tweaking my ankle. By the time I got back to the paved road I was whipped so I went down hill to Prairie Creek.
Let me back up a bit, on day one I was up early and after a few packing modifications I was off. Took a while getting used to the weight again but made it out to Clam Beach by lunchtime. Then it was all uphill for a while to Westhaven and Camel Rock. I shot some vids and pictures along the way and ended up at Big Lagoon for the night. That was one of the things TV taught me wrong. From watching Giligan’s Island as a kid I did not know the thing that made it a lagoon was the sandbar. They always just paddle out on their rafts or whatever. Speaking of Bad TV from the 60’s seems more than just Bob Denver was 420 friendly. Dawn Wells got busted for pot possession; we have some useless laws for a free country. It was the camp host at one end of the campground and I at the other in what felt like the middle of nowhere. I sleep well in the true dark and quiet, a few hours after sundown the silence is clarifying. I would have slept well under any circumstances, as I was exhausted.
Along with the trail problems I also had a few tech problems. My tape recorder gave up the ghost, it was 15 years old but damn it pissed me off. The sleeping bag cover sweats so it was a total waste however I did get good at guying the tent to avoid condensation and the rain bothered me not a bit when I was inside. Since I was not going as far I decided not to rest day 3 and rode back to Clam Beach another 34 miles.
For the next trip I will be cutting the weight and looking for something a little less mountainous but I need more conditioning. This trip the wildlife I saw elk at the little red school house some mule deer and a falcon. I did not get photos of the Sandhill Crane or the Egrets. The chainsaw carvings were a little more exotic. The road kill report was pretty light a gopher 2 birds a field mouse and a skunk.