Moments in Time

Today, in my ongoing series of posts of no consequence, I bring you a mossy montage of images from the half-mile Moments in Time kiddie trail that starts a few hundred yards from our cabin. I’ve been pretty much laid out with a cold since the day I arrived, although it seems to be getting better.

So, this is about my speed.

We are, however, sitting in the middle of a mountain rainforest, so even the lame trails are pretty amazing. Lots of crazy moss and ferns and big-ass trees. I went out with a digital camera and my little cheap-o Canon home video recorder and stitched this together in iMovie today with a nice little thing in E minor behind it. Seasoned nature photographer that I am, I only fell on my ass twice as I was backing up to get a better shot.

Near the beginning is a picture of a bench on a rocky little beach with a spectacular view, even on a cloudy morning. That’s where I phoned into Dave Ross’ Show on KIRO 710 this morning to talk about panhandling. Like everyone else, I always think of the stuff I should of said later on, but I think it was fine. My main goal was to call out the Downtown Seattle Association’s love affair with Tacoma’s panhandling laws and their stealth campaign to bring this to Seattle. If you listen to the broadcast, (2nd hour, Dave Ross Show, 8/22) you’ll notice that DSA press flak Anita Woo doesn’t deny this is where they’re heading.

They’re being very, very circumspect about this. Maybe they’re thinking two-to-three year campaign. Start with panhandling education. Keep landing press hits every three to four months to create the impression that panhandling in Seattle is actually a major issue. Wait for the City Council elections and look for five toadies to push the thing through. City Attorney Tom Carr already sounds like he’s on board.

Whenever they get around to it, I think they’ll find that Seattle ain’t Tacoma. Downtown Seattle is succeeding fabulously. If they think they need to beat up on poor people to broaden that profit margin a bit more, I’m more than happy to give them a run for their money, the greedy fucks.

Pearl Moskowitz' Last Stand

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifIt's the end of August and we're off to our annual family pilgrimage to Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula. This year we're going to mix things up and spend a few days at Kalaloch as well.

Nearly everyone else in the world has checked out through Memorial Day weekend as well. I'm way too obsessive about this blog to abandon it altogether, but I have a plan, which occurred to me about ten minutes ago. For the next week, you may look forward to a series of postings of no consequence.

So, if you're looking for another diatribe regarding the Satanic essence of Phil Mangano, or my latest take on the dark slimy underbelly of ten year plans to end homelessness, you'll have to wait. While I might surprise myself and have a thoughtful moment, the odds, frankly, are against it.

So, for my first posting of no consequence, I thought I'd publish this beautiful watercolor from Pearl Moskowitz's Last Stand, which our friend Alison brought as a gift for Kay and Mica when she came visiting last night. Below is a gratuitously adorable photo of the girls, as Alison reads to them from Babar. Alison didn't bring Babar, which tends to reinforce colonialist attitudes and almost always ends with someone getting a medal. No. Alison brought them an out of print children's story about an activist Jewish mom who saves a tree from developers by engaging the enemy with kugel. She picks this book up used whenever she sees it to eventually give away.

It's an awesome kids book.

I do that too. Here's my list of books I buy used whenever I see them to give away to the next person I deem to be both worthy and in need: Lawrence Boadt's Reading the Old Testament study guide, Carolyn Forche's Against Forgetting anthology of war poetry; and Elliot Liebow's brilliant and moving ethnography of homeless women Tell Them Who I Am. I have also been known to do this with John Hersey's The Wall and Ignazio Silone's Bread and Wine, two very different fictionalizations of underground resistance to fascism during World War II that everyone on the planet should really read sometime. More embarrassingly, I also give away copies of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.