Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Trappped! The Sequel

I'm not sure who should get photo credit, I shamelessly stole this photo off Kym Kemp's blog Redhead Blackbelt, however, it looks suspiciously like Chris Brannons wing-tip.

There is a slide across hwy 101 north of Dean Creek, right at the Avenue of the Giants information sign. The CHP says that it will take two weeks to clear. Go here for photos and info: Kym Kemp" Blog

KMUD Photos

More photos from my crazy photog buddy Kim Sallaway. Who I am going to have a longgggg heart to heart talk about how dangerous mud slides are. Just in case anyone out there is tempted to walk around on a slide DON'T! Kim is not even a trained professional, but he is certifiably insane. Falling trees are not the biggest danger, you can sink into quicksand mud that is impossible to get out of, or find yourself on islands in the middle of nowhwere... Just don't do it! Don't ask me how I know.







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Monday, March 28, 2011

word games

The other day, when I saw the "third" rainbow, I looked it up, and the description described it as a "Tertiary Rainbow". Well, I always thought that "The Tertiary" was a term for a geological period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. I had no idea what The word "tertiary" meant. I know, I know... I knew what "primary" meant, and knew what "secondary" meant, but I never really put "Tertiary" in context. Yeah. yeah, I knew what "quaternary" meant also, but the "tertiary" just got hung up in my brain somewhere. So, being a logical person, I thought that I would try to see how far up the sequential scale that priorities go. This is what I found:

(1)Primary, (2)Secondary, (3)Tertiary, (4)quaternary, (5)quinary, (6)senary, (7)septenary, (8)octonary, (9)nonary, (10)denary.
So, there is a word for ten but no word for (0)zeronary nor (11)elevenary.
But, words do exist for twelfth order (duodenary) and twentieth order (vigenary).

I guess that if you have priority that go higher than that, you are just plain out of luck, or you have to make up your own word.

More words to ponder:
1 A baby horse is called a colt, and a baby cow is called a calf. What is a baby pig called?
2-The study of mankind is called anthropology. What is the study of love called?
3-Does bimonthly mean twice a month, or once every two months.
4-What is the feminine equivalent of a Misogynist (a person who hates or dislikes women)?
5-What is the feminine equivalent of Fraternal?
6-What comes after Once, Twice, Thrice?




 













1- A baby pig
2- Erotology
3- Both
4 A misandrist
5- Sororal
6- Gotcha' Nothing comes after, that's all they made up. But, I would say fourice, fivice, sixice... great minds could go on forever like this.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Triple Rainbow.

Yesterday evening, about 6:45 pm, my wife and I were traveling north. We crossed the green steel bridge just north of Rio Dell, just beyond where Eel River Sawmill used to be. We had driven under a very dark thunder cloud. The sun was shining past the south end of the cloud. There was a vivid and brilliant rainbow. To the side of that there was a lighter rainbow. I remarked how brilliant the "double rainbow"was. She replied with, "there are three of them". I looked in my rearview mirror and sure enough, oposite the bright rainbow toward the sun there was a third rainbow. It was very, very faint, but obviously there. We had a discussion about how we thought that it was impossible to have a triple rainbow, so I googled it. It seems that we are not the only ones to have seen a "triple rainbow", It happens because the primary rainbow is bright enough to reflect a second rainbow, and it in turn is bright enough to reflect a triple rainbow. the rainbow is opposite in spectrum to its reflection. Kind of a mirror image of color.

 I found this "Best Answer" on Yahoo: "The triple rainbow (tertiary rainbow) will be on the opposite side of the sky as the primary and secondary rainbow. The triple rainbow is rarely seen since it is even dimmer than the secondary rainbow and is on the same side of the sky as the sun. Most people do not know where to look for the tertiary rainbow. It is erroneously thought that the third rainbow is above the secondary rainbow since the secondary rainbow is above the primary rainbow."


I got the photo off  Yahoo images. It is not mine, nor is it from around here.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Trapped!

Highway 101 is closed at just north of Jitney Gulch in Leggett, from a rock slide. Bell Springs road is probably snowed in. The road washed completely away between Whitmore Grove and Ruby Valley. The ground is so soaked up from weeks of rain that trees all just saying "I give up" and tipping over. The good news is that we haven't had a wind to blow the trees over in the sodden soil, or an earthquake that would cause liquefaction.

Somehow all this stuff doesn't bother me. I've got a wood stove, I have a wood powered water heater. The power is on, but if it goes off I have a generator. I've got food in the cupboard, and a good dog, and a good wife. (I guess that I should have put the wife first) Anyway things are good. I'm just really thankful that I don't need to go anywhere, and at least now I have an excuse not to go anywhere.

Go to Kym Kemp's blog, she has really been on a roll lately. click this link: http://kymkemp.com/2011/03/26/hwy-101-closed-and-so-is-hwy-96/

This link will open her whole blog, scroll through and check all the road posts: http://kymkemp.com

Then come back here, we'll roast some marshmallows, and try to figure out how much better of we are than our ancestors were back in the 1960's during a bad winter.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Nona James

Now, the title of this post would have had a lot of people running for the hills just a few short years ago. This is a trip back in time for me. As many of you know, I was raised listening to people like Nona James. Say what you want, people like Nona could be a terrible enemy or the best friend you ever had. She was from a time, and place, that you have heard me refer to before. A time when a person’s word was their bond, their name was their honor, and a handshake was the best contract that you ever needed.

First, I need to, once again, express my gratitude to “Olmanriver”, who found this article, and was instrumental in getting all of the proper permissions from the family, and the author, Mary Anderson. Mary is now employed by the Redwood Times. I’ve always admired Mary, she was one of those rare few that moved here and tried to find out a little bit about us. I suspect that she found more than she bargained for, but none-the-less she recorded a lot of our history. Many of her books on the local area can be found at the Redwood Times office. She is a very exacting person and leaves little room for flexibility. So when you read something that she writes, it’s very much like she heard or saw it.

Reading this story about Nona reminded me of some of the times that I would visit with her. She lived at the bottom of Oak street in Garberville. I lived at the top, and my mother lived there long after I left to my life of adventure and marriage. Nona often traveled between the James Ranch, on the Bell Springs ridge and the Town House, as the ranchers used to call their places in town.

I was always wise enough to stay on Nona’s good side, and you will understand why, after you read a little about her life. In her older years, she very much looked forward to the company, and she liked to talk. I could always steer her into a good story, or a tale or two. Near the end of her life she was not able to get around much and stories got to be repeated a lot. But, it was like seeing a good movie more than once, it was always interesting.

A friend of mine that worked on a ranch in northern Mendocino told me a story about Nona and her two daughters. He said that he and two other fellows were driving around the hill, and on the other side he could see Nona’s pick-up at the gate, with Nona and her daughters in it. As got around the hill on the other side he noticed that they were still there, he was getting a little concerned as he drove up to the gate on the other side. He said that he could see Nona and her daughters, all talking at the same time. Finally he got out and opened the gate, they drove through and waved “thank-you”, but all three never did stop talking. He just shook his head and went on home. Nona did like to talk.

Back in the Early 1900’s, my grandfather Bill Rathjens owned a service station north of Laytonville, just across the street and a little to the north of the Cal-Fire station. He knew Nona and Harry James well, because his was the first gas station to the south of the Bell springs ridge. He also knew the Drewrys and the Linsers. All of the Bell Springs ranchers bought their gas from my grandfather. And, a quite a few of them bought Kohler Light Plants from him. Grampa Bill was the local Kohler dealer. With out further ado:

Interview by Mary Anderson (September 12, 1984)
Nona James 
Still has the skirt she made, but some years back someone stole a very old violin she had. In fact, it was a Stradivarius. I never played it a day in my life, but my step-dad had it and he got it from Charlie Taylor. He played the violin some. When I was a kid, most of the people played the violin around the country. Country people most all played the violin. They used to like it. 'You see, I'm eighty years old and I was raised right here in this country. My grandfather was the first white man to ever settle in the is community. (James 'Woods)

Of course) you've probably already talked to Mrs. Cook. She thought Frank Asbill told the truth and I knew he was a damned old liar because he killed a friend of mine down in the north end of this town - Mrs. Mayer. He knocked her down the stairs and he went to jail for a couple of years. His uncle settled Covelo. Frank was sure a rowdy young fella. He had it 'in for my step-dad, Noble because he was half Indian. His father was a white man. Him and another fellow went to Washington and they was in on that Mexican fight. So they went to Washington and they got a little gold medal. I gave it to one of my fifth cousins. Albert Noble had that seal from the United States given to him because he was in the Death March, you know. There was over 2,000 died in that march, you know. Mr. Jewett had one (of the medals) and my step-dad's father had one. Lyman Jewett's grandfather had one.

Noble was a young fellow in the U.S. Army and so was, Jewett. When they come out to this country they come out in on ox team. Now Frank Asbill told Mrs. Cook and I say that anybody that would believe Frank Asbill would believe anything and she got mad and she hasn't been back to see me since! Another one she believed was old Sam Piercy. He's Sammy Cush's grandfather) you know. He said the Indian girl come to him and it was raining and he took her in and took good care of her. Hell, he was with my grandfather coming through on horseback to clean out the Indians from this part of the country. Sam Piercy was the leader of the bunch. There was nine or ten of them and they found the Indian encampment out by Benbow up where those red rocks are now that they use for a gravel pit. The Indians used to camp up there when it was wet weather.

When I was a kid, Old Jane Johnson, she had two or three boys" one was Phillip. Old Johnson caught an Indian woman too, but so did my grandfather. He caught an Indian Woman and she buried down here on the flat, old Nellie Wood is. She was Sam Wood's mother. Sam died oh, two-three years ago. She's not buried in the cemetery. You don't think the whites would let an Indian be buried in that cemetery. Ira Tooby used to keep the fence up around the graves down there but it's all gone now. That's down there on Tooby flats.

Lotta, you know, nobody could fine out her age. (Lotta Redoni)

I knew this town when there was only 7 people living here. There was a saloon and they had a post office here. The post office was a little tar shack right where I think Wards is now. Or maybe Sears. Charlie Wood was an uncle of mine and he started the telephone office. He married a Linser girl. I have relatives all over this county.

There wasn't much shooting around here. Lead come too high. Now if you say knifing, I can tell you about the knifings. They'd get drunk in the saloon and the barkeeper would knock em out and throw em out in the street and when they'd come to they'd either be all right or else they'd get up and take to knifing one another. Now in this cemetery over here, they're burying now on top of people that was buried there when I was a kid. The first grave I ever saw there, my grandpa Woods is buried there. Those fir trees down there were little bits of fir when I was a kid. Now they're great big things. But you know the old timers buried about 8 foot deep, hand dug graves and everybody helped dig the graves. Now they only bury them down about four feet - five feet - because if they dig down any further they might dig up an old-timer! I know where people were buried there.

Things sure have changed around here. They sure have. I was sitting down there one day, about ten years ago, in front of Peter Pan, and this young fellow almost knocked me off the sidewalk. The hippies was just starting to come in here then. But I went on into the store and got my stuff. He went on. He just knocked me off the Sidewalk and then called his dog and went on. I came on home and put my stuff away and then went back down there and met him and said, “Young fella, if you ever see me coming again you'd better know I know who you are. I went home and I got my pig sticker with me and if you ever touch me or my car or anything I own again they'll be gathering your guts up from the service station on the north end of town.” Then about five years ago I was walking down the street with my brother-in-low and a fellow went across the street in a right hurry against the traffic and my brother-in-law says, “Well, that fella's in a real hurry.” And I said, “Well, you know what his hurry is? He thinks I got my pig sticker with me.” Right till today, he takes off when he sees me comin. And he's not the only one.

I don't get to visit much anymore. My horse is kind of miserable. (Her horse is her aluminum walker) And then I had another little stroke. But I can still read and I can still laugh. But you ought to have seen me a few years ago. My son-in-law was insisting that I couldn't come home until I got someone to stay with me all the time, but hell, I can't afford that. I went to a rest home (after she had surgery).

When did it first start to get civilized around here? Oh, around 16-20 years ago. Now Stella Harris' house just shakes like hell (in on earthquake). Now, Alice Reed when she was a girl and Jack Stone, when he was here (Lincoln Jack - he married somebody else - I don't know who) but Jack was little bit older and he thought he was a pretty good fella and he was coming across a log and he got fresh with Alice and she knocked him off the log into the gully and damned near killed him. I remember that.

WWI: Well, we had a dance here after they come home. One of the Wallen boys was there - Roy Wallen. Alfred and Emmet Harris were there. They was nine soldiers there in uniform. I had an uncle went too, and he died. The son of the woman that ran the hotel down here at that time, he got killed.

Now in those days, we had a little church down here. Now, I resent that new church. I can't t help it because that cost $130 some thousand dollars and there was only nine people that ever went to that church. There wasn't any Presbyterian Church nor any Catholic church here then. There was just the one church. The ladies all mode a quilt and sold it and raised money to build that first church.

Alice had a mean old father. (Della Womack says her father was mean too. Why were all the men so mean in those days?) Della's a second cousin of mine. We had to be mean in those days. They couldn't have lived in this country if they weren't mean. When my grandfather moved here, he was here for two years before Della's grandfather moved here. He married an Indian woman and raised a whole bunch of half-breed kids, but my grandfather's wife died, so he went back over to Sacramento valley and got a new wife over there, and she was 14 years old when she had her first kid. And then she had kids after that. When she died she had, I guess, 12 or 14 living. She had 17 living babies and two or three that wasn't living. I remember when I was a kid, her telling my mother, "You know I loves your Father,” she said, “but I don't like what he done. He kept me barefooted and pregnant all the time.” But you know she'd have a kid nine months and nine days after the other was born. She lived to be 65 or 70. I can remember Grandma Wood but ,Jim was buried in 1908 or 1909 I think.
Depression? Well, I lived up on the hill and yes, we had depression. I know what it is to go without sugar, to go without stuff. But my mother found her cigarettes boughten. My step-dad found his tobacco. They managed to get that. We had a lot of homemade stuff but I know what it is to grind up wheat and make your flour and all that stuff.

(Women sure used to have to work hard?) Well, if I could do it horseback, I could do it. My mother saw me out in the yard one day. I was stirring up the dishes and thinking about whether I should take them off the stove. We had on old fella staying with it and I happened to have been riding and I thought well I didn't water the corn. So I stopped and turned on the water so it would run down there and went up to the house and I let the horse eat the grass around the garden. It was in the afternoon by that time and the dishes had been boiling about two hours. We were keeping a nephew and neice from Stockton. But they'd had polio and they had tuberculosis and the doctor said get them to a high, dry climate. Well, you know, we didn't have the fog we have nowadays up high. There wasn't any fog but once in a great while. But as they took the timber out towards the coast, the fog would blow in. All that has happened in my time. There wasn't any highway through Garberville. And there wasn't anything at Alderpoint until 1914 when they built up Alderpoint. The railroad built that up and by that time I’d moved from the Eastview place. My dad had died and my mother married my step-dad. We had a big house in Eastview that my dad was building when he died. I remember going out with my mother and we had to go out through Tooby flat and then across Benbow. That was before the Benbows coming there and they were building that big house there at that time, the one that Burt lived in. And then over Reed Mountain. That's where she told me about this bunch of soldiers raping the Indian girls. They'd kill all the men except the ones that run and hide. There was a little camp of Indians there and old Sam Piercy was the head of that bunch that caught the little Indian girls. My grandfather was in with the bunch and he was working with old Hardin. But this bunch broke off from them and old Sam Piercy was a corporal and they was going to clean these Indians out and they cleaned em out all right. But you know, my sympathy was with the Indians and is yet. I remembered what Jane told me. I was a little bit of a kid and I helped old Jane pick the winter groceries - acorns and Huckleberries and all that kind of stuff. Jane lived a little ways over from where we lived and her nieces and nephews used to go to school with my brothers and sisters. They went to Harris school. (Jane was Indian and had a tattoo on her chin) She would work for my mother sometimes and help her with the washing and my mother would give her a little of this and a little of that even though she couldn't afford to, so the old gal wouldn't starve to death cause Mr. Phillips would drink up everything he got. Somebody knifed Mr. Phillips and he died. The Indians would associate with the white people. They couldn't go in a saloon and buy a drink even. I don't know how my grandfather treated his wife, but I imagine he was like the rest of them or he wouldn't have been with them soldering around to clean out the Indians. But old Noble and Hadley went up to Ferndale and they took a team of mules with them and they got these Indian wives. That's where my step-dad came in half-blood Indian. Old Frank Asbill, he just had it in for the Indians. I knew Frank. He come to my place and wanted to borrow two hundred dollars and I told him to get out. He wanted two hundred dollars to print his book with. I read a little bit of the book and I seen he wasn't slanting towards the Indians at all.

Hell, his father settled Covelo and they sure killed a lot of Indians. But now, you can see towards the east side of Covelo, there's a picture of a tomahawk. The Indian women and the kids had to eat the roots out of the ground to make that picture. I used to see that tomahawk on the mountain. The Indians said that white would not dominate that valley as long as the tomahawk was there. And do you know that back 15 years ago at a rodeo, I looked around at the crowd and they were over half bloods and part Indians. I seen the other day where Leslie Dunlap died. He was a white fellow, but his first wife was on Indian woman.

I don't know. I think the hippies are a lot worse than the Indians. What are you coloring up about? Do you have hippie blood in you?

You know, I seen lots of parades. They're all right if you're feeling good and like to get around the crowd. But we don't have the parades like we used to have here downtown. There used to be a lot more to it. Boy, they used to take up almost two blocks, the crowds would.

I was the first one that drove over this Redwood Highway and I probably wouldn't have gone it if my friend hadn't been flagging down at the other end. I'd gone to Laytonville – Ukiah, really - and I was living at the ranch up at Bell Springs and the flagman had everybody stopped there where the road goes up to Bell Springs. And so Rusty said, "Non, would you like to go on the new road? You can make it in your Dodge." I made it, but of course, I was kind of wild when I was younger. I'll tell you, it was a rough rood. I guess that 1917 or 1918. No pavement. In fact, it wasn't even graveled yet. And you didn't meet anyone, I'll tell you. It was 26 miles to the home place after I reached Garberville. But there wasn't no traffic. I met one car the whole way.

I rode straddle the horse. Hell, I was raised with horses. When they were building the railroad through in 1914-15, the teamsters would stop at Eastview and put their horses in our barn and then go in and eat their lunch at my mother's place and I'd climb on their horses and ride the horses out to water. But one time the fellow told me don't get on that horse, it's so mean it'll buck a man off. It wasn’t unusual for a girl to ride horses, but it was unusual to ride straddle like I was allowed to. My dad was quite a bit older than my mother. He had a brother you know that was senator for 18-20 years. He wanted to adopt me and I've often wondered why they didn't give me away to him. I was their fifth child and I often wondered when I was younger why I didn't go live with Uncle Ike after Dad died. I can't stand flowers yet. Can't stand the smell of them because of funerals. Dad was buried up at Harris and we always made a big thing out of funerals and had flowers all over the grave.

Lyman Jewett's mother died in my arms. You know that? She had tuberculosis and she went to hemorrhaging. She was laying on a little old steel cot they had on the porch. She wanted to lay out in the sunshine and I laid her out in the sunshine. So she started bleeding, spitting this blood out and then she said she wanted to go back to her bed, so I lifted her up to take her back to her bed and I got her about halfway back to the bedroom and she died. I was just a girl, so I called for help. Jack, her boy was a year older than me and she had a girl just a year younger than me - Martha, and Lyman was just a little bit of a thing about that high. I always call him little brother because I promised one of his brothers that I'd always help Lyman out.

Well, if I tell all I know about this town, the top will go off. All the old-timers are dying. When I was a kid growing up, big families lived a way out in the country.

I was up in Fortuna during the '64 flood. I was the last car that came through. I had my cousin Ethel Reed with me and she said you're not going across that and I said I'm crossing it right now because half hour from now it won't be crossable. So I was up in Fortuna and I about worked my tail off. My cousin Bunny Wood had a restaurant up there and I worked in it helping to feed the people. They was crowding in there from Pepperwood, and all that country, you know. They come in boats as far as they could come and others walked out and made their way to Fortuna. We had government issue butter and stuff like that One day I was in the grocery store and damn if they didn't have the butter there cut up in pound packages. And I said, you know you're breaking a federal law? I said I put enough of that out to know that’s government issue butter. He was damned careful who he served that butter to after that.

Up at the ranch we had in Northern Mendocino we had a lawsuit over our road when the timber trucks started going through. The dust would get about ten foot deep and flying about 150 yards from our house. So I went and got a good lawyer and filed a lawsuit. My husband had built a fence and when he built a fence, he really built it, but those loggers had blocked up the stream where it run over by that fence and they were taking my water out of my place. But I got em. They didn't know the judge down at Ukiah had hunted down at our place. He didn't know me, but he knew the place. That was Judge Gibson and he was born over close to Covelo. So when their witness got up and swore that was all swampland, he knew damn well they was lying. I told the truth right through. Hell, you know, the loggers would move a fence to get a tree! My mother always put the fence two feet on our side of the line and we kept the fences up good.

There's too many people growing marijuana. I can't smoke that. When it first started coming into the country I went into a place in Laytonville to use the toilet and smoke was coming out under the door of the toilet. Good thing I didn't have bladder trouble then the way I have now! So I went and told the service manager those girls is in there smoking marijuana. I knew the smell. I lived in Los Angeles one winter with a relative of mine and right next door to us there was a board fence but one of the boards was loose and I used to go visit a little Mexican girl there. Her father smokes a cigarette in the morning, and one at noon and one when he went to eat supper and one when he went to bed. I couldn't even stay in that house smelling that smoke. Tobacco smokes almost does me the same way but marijuana smoke is just death to me. I'll puke. When I go in a restaurant and smell it I'll get up and leave.

People are building up the country and taking all the range land and there'll come a hard winter one of these years and what are those people going to live on then. People go out in the country and build big homes and they think they've got everything, but some winter there'll be five feet of snow. I've seen it. I don't just mean for a few days. I mean a five foot fence buried deep so you can't even see where the fence is at. We haven't had that for a long time but. It will come again. It always comes after a dry fall and then it will freeze and freeze but it won't rain or snow and then it will start snowing about the first of the year. It's been two feet deep right there in Garberville. l used to ride mule and take care of Tooby's cattle and that’s the way we got home in the snow. Horse gave out but the mule made it. Snow was over three foot deep. That. was in 1936, I think.

I like people, but I like clean people. I don’t like to smell them and I don’t think you do either. I had over 80 birthday cards on my 80th birthday. I used to know everybody here in Garberville. Now I don’t know hardly anybody. I’d rather be dead than go to a rest home again.

Stay tuned folks!

I realize that I have been lax lately, but coming up soon, near the end of this week I intend to become ex-lax! I have a bunch of things about recent history. I would lump them into "Town Characters" and "Bet you didn't know". I'm not sure which will gurgitate first, so stay tuned. This would be a good time for you to tell ME some stories. Do y'all have some stories that I should know?

Or maybe Oregon, who actually lives in Washington, can tell us why he has Fukushima Radiation and PG&E tells us that we don't have any more than "Background Radiation" here. Or how close he lives to the Cascadia earthquake zone. Or why is it that we are so lax about natural disasters. We KNOW that they are going to happen. Like what if we got hit by a meteorite, AGAIN. Like in dinosaur who?

Thursday, March 17, 2011

St. Patricks Day

Arrrrgggghhhh... I don't feel much like celebrating this year. It's strange, usually by this time of the year we've suffered through the long dreary winter and hard economic times and we are ready for a little sunshine and cheer. But, this year hardly seems like a time for rejoicing or cheer. If you feel up to it, more power to you. I admire people that can overcome.

I have almost completely lost faith in the people that build nuclear plants, that people are now dying from, while trying the save the rest of humanity's sorry ass. Is that a sentence? I can't think. I am such a fan of technology, but it seems that everything that I love has been taken over to feed somebody else's greed. We now have airplanes that are marginally safe because pilots are require to fly too many hours, and the maintenance of aircraft has been reduced to a minimum. We can't drill oil wells safely, because it's cheaper to skip the safety measures. We can't afford to pay teachers and other service providers because the greedy and the wealthy have shipped our jobs offshore. How can we afford to pay people to provide for the things that society needs if we have no jobs, and we produce nothing in America?

I have absolutely nothing against having high standards and tough environmental restrictions, but I think that the restrictions should also apply to the other countries that we buy from. I don't know about you, buy I'm getting tired of finding out that the toys that I buy for children are poison. Why aren't there any restrictions again a country that would do that to us?

So tonite I'm just going to go home, open a bottle of beer, pour it in a glass with a drop of green food coloring in it, say "here's to the Irish" and sit down and watch the depressing news on TV about the greed that shouldn't have been allowed to happen. Japan would have had enough problems without a major nuclear crissis to deal with that has become far more important than the earthquake and tidal wave that they are already dealing with.

My toast for Saint Patricks day is going to be, "Here to Americans taking their country back from the greedy, and showing the world how to be a good  and decent people".

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

1700 Cascadia earthquake

Most of you more erudite among us know about the 1700 Cascadia quake. The Indians were still talking about it in the 1850’s when the white man first showed up. Some of the old Indian legends say that Humboldt bay was a grassy field before 1700, and great redwood forests sunk into the ocean. The quake was estimated as between 8.7 to 9.2. Some of the Indian stories passed down through the generations said “When the sky growls seek low ground, when the ground growls seek high mountains”. The legend referred to lightning and earthquakes. The Indian people knew about tidal waves. They also saw Humboldt field turn into Humboldt Bay. In our own lifetimes we have seen the beach along Petrolia lift 4 feet out of the sea, and Kings Peak grow 16 inches taller. We know that it can happen.

The Cascadia Subduction zone extends from Vancouver Island in Canada to the triple junction off Petrolia. When the 1700 quake happened it moved 66 feet, for over a 620 mile stretch. Just for reference, The Japanese quake that just happened, the island moved 8 feet. I'm not sure how long the rupture zone was. What just happened in Japan might have been a small payback for the 1700 tidal wave that we sent their way. I can’t find how large the wave that hit Japan was, but it was very large, and was recorded in their history.

The cascadia subduction zone creates an earthquake every 4 to 5 hundred years. So, we still have a couple of hundred years before another one hits. We should know a lot more about earthquakes by then, maybe everything will be alright, right?

However, earthquakes and volcanoes have a tendency to go in swarms around the ring of fire that surrounds the Pacific Ocean. So, lets take a survey. Chili had an earthquake recently, New Zealand had an earthquake, and Japan had an earthquake. Who does that leave, oh yeah, US! Somewhere between Mexico and Alaska is over-ripe for an earthquake. They say before an earthquake the animals and fish act strangely. One of the things that happened before the Loma Prieta Earthquake that small fish choked the harbors and died off. They are doing that exact thing as we speak. What do they know that we don’t. Should So Cal be alarmed?

Getting back to the Cascadia quake of 1700, whole forests of trees sunk into the ocean. The broken off trees can STILL be seen at very low tides when the sand washes away and exposes the old trees that are normally buried. They say that this not only can, but WILL happen again. I don’t think that I would sleep very well living next to the ocean after this, knowing what we know can happen. But, human nature being what it is, will probably force people to run to the beach and take photos of the 90 foot wave that is expected to hit the coast in the next Cascadia Subduction Zone fracture.

1700 Cascadia earthquake





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Japan U-235

As most of the faithful readers here know, I’m not much good at prayer and mumbo-jumbo. I take great comfort in knowing the facts. Yep, there is nothing like having a solid grip on reality for me. So, I keep hearing about this nuclear cloud coming to our shores from Japan’s failed nuclear power plants. Not being very reassured by the governmental agencies reassurance that “everything is okay folks”. I decided to look into a few things myself. Of course, I only looked into the things that are so real that you could hit them with a hammer.

It seems that at least two of the power plants are under control because they are keeping them cool by pumping seawater into the reactor core. There is this little thing called “critical mass” that can cause uranium 235 fuel rods to burn ferociously when allowed to become too close together. They can keep the critical mass from being reached by keeping the fuel rods separated by “heavy water”. If anything happens to allow the rods to interact with each other and start ”reacting” they will melt down, hit the bottom of the reactor vessel, where they will start reacting uncontrollably. The Uraniun 235 reaction isn’t in danger of exploding because it isn’t contained tightly enough. (layman terms) It starts to heat up and burn uncontrollably, and melt through the bottom of the vessel. When that happens, the hot melting uranium will melt through the rock underneath and keep boring it’s way toward the center of the earth. Uranium 235 is heavier than the surrounding rock , so it will have a tendency to stay together and keep boring.

Eventually, the uranium will become diluted and lose it’s critical mass and stop heating. Unfortunately, while it is boring beneath the reactor vessel it will be spewing great masses of radioactive steam and other radioactive particles, that are very, very dangerous to breathe. Some people think that Iodine tablets may save them, but it’s not a very good cure for radioactive poisoning, in fact, there is speculation that it only works for children.

While it is comforting to know that the seawater that they are pumping will keep the reaction under control, it occurs to me to wonder what the next step will be. Those that think the problem will eventually go away are right, but the half life of uranium 235 is 700 million years! So, 700 million years from now, the uranium will be half gone. Sadly, the way half lives works, is that it will take another 700 million years to get rid of HALF the remaining u-235. That’s a long wait folks. I wonder how many times that they will be pumping the worlds supply of seawater past the reactor cores. Not a very comforting thought. Now I know why people just pray for miracles. It’s easier, and much more productive.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Earthquake science

It's strange what facts about earthquakes interest people. As the story of the Japanese earthquake reverberates around the world like it's resultant tidal wave. You would think that the damage in Japan from the quake or the wave would be the most intriguing, or the death toll, or at least the fact that the story has gone nuclear, literally. But, nope! The thing that absolutely blew me away is the fact that the whole country of Japan moved eight (8) feet! Not only that, it moved the axis of the earth, the center point of it's rotation, by four (4) inches! And, the days are microseconds shorter now. Although I will agree that these are minute changes, those are things that affect every single person on the planet.

The earthquake and tidal waves were all generally predicted, and we knew that they were going to happen sooner or later, so even though they were predicted they came as a surprise, because we didn't know exactly when they would happen. We all take our chances.

I know some of you are already noticing that I called the wave a "Tidal Wave" and not a Tsunami. We now have deep scientific ways of differentiating them, because a tsunami isn't a breaking wave and has nothing to due with a "tide". So, the term tidal wave is incorrect. But, less than 50 years age, nobody on the west coast of California would have known what a Tsunami was, with the exception of maybe a few people well versed in the Japanese language. The  term tidal wave came from the wave that moves up a harbor entrance or river from an exceptionally large tidal difference, that created a breaking wave coming up a coastal river. Whereas the Japanese word "Tsunami" translated into English means "Harbor Wave". Whaaa??? Why bother with the correction? It smacks of putting on airs, which I'm unlikely to do, as you know. I've often heard it said, "that's one thing about Ernie, he doesn't have airs". Or was that hairs?

The other word that bothers me is "Temblors", as Laura so aptly pointed out in the post about "Big Words". What I have do, when they say on television that, "There was a temblor in the East Bay this morning" is that I have to translate it into, "They had an "earthquake". Everybody knows that it is an earthquake, why not call it that?

Oh, by the way. They say that even if the Nuclear plants in Japan go "China syndrome" that the radiation won't be enough for us to worry about in the U.S. Do you believe that??? I worry about everything, like what am I going to do to catch up for the time that I waste on blogging if the days are shorter now?

Friday, March 11, 2011

Photo of yesteryear.

I originally got these photos from Bob Doran, he said that I could use them On my blog with the caveat that I ask for comment from people that might view them.

They came from Bob with this comment:
“Only one or two of these made it into the Postcard Kings story in the Journal (which you may have seen).
This amazing collection of images came (via Steve Lazar) from Dave Rodoni, a Midwesterner, who, I'm told, says he is not related to the local Rodoni clan. Not sure how he ended up with them.
I'm thinking your readers might find them interesting. My request - please encourage people to post comments on the individual pics if they know anything about what they're looking at.”


Okay, can anybody recognize these buildings, or give me any information on them???
Double-Click on the photos for massive enlargement. Sorry, they have already been photo-shopped, and much of the detail has been washed away, but still good enough to send us tripping down memory lane.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Sausage

There ain't nobody that made sausage like my ancestors did. (period) All sides of my ancestral family were sausage makers. All the sausage that I ate as a kid was like they talk about heirloom tomatoes. The kids today don’t know what a good tomato is, nor do they know what good sausage is.

Charlie Two Crows has become a commenter on this blog, and has contributed greatly to my knowledge of my little world. The other day I asked him a rather pointed question, that he didn’t feel comfortable talking about, so he picked up the phone and called me. He said “I don’t know the whole true stories, but I know where the bodies are buried” I had to laugh, because that is and old expression that I use to say that I don’t know the whole truth, but I know where to find it. He went on to try to explain the expression. I had to stop him and tell him that he was preaching to the choir, and that I fully understood the expression and the meaning. But, some of the stories that I know about local history, that can never be shared, has some real bodies.

It is purely coincidence that his ancestral name is “Two Crows“, and my ancestral name, in Welsh, is “Crows Valley” (Bran’s Coomb). So it seems that we are birds of a feather in some ways. This time he has given me a big tip in finding information on my mothers family, “the Rathjens”. And I was able to find a photo of an old wall plaque from the @1920-30’s for sale on E-Bay. Unfortunately it had already been sold or I probably would have bought it.

My dad used to love to season, stuff, and smoke sausage, he had many recipes for smoked meats floating around in his head. He was valley wide famous for his thanksgiving smoked turkeys. My grandmother Ruby made the best bacon ham and sausage that you ever ate. I always asked her for her recipes she would reply that “there aren’t any recipes. If you want to know how to make something you’ll just have to come work with me and learn to make things like everybody else in the family did”. She would go on with her lecture that “people shouldn’t use recipes, because you just have to make things that taste good, and the flavor of anything changes by the weather and the season. You make an apple pie from early fall apples different that you make a pie out of late fall apples, and even different with winter apples. You just have to know how to make a good pie. There isn’t a recipe”. I’m sure that she was right, because she made the best food that you ever ate. One of my favorite meals was ranch raised fried chicken, mashed garden potatoes, specklety gravy, fresh picked cob on the cob with cows butter on it. And soda biscuits.

I guess that if I ever want to eat any good smoked pork link sausage for breakfast, I’m going to have to make it myself, because I know that a good tomato nor a good sausage comes out of a store.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Chocolate

Back in the early 1900s there was company in San Francisco called the Rathjens Sausage Company It was owned by two Rathjens brothers, who were German emigrants. The company was housed in a large brick building. When I was in college in San Francisco in 1964 the building with the sign painted on the side was still there. It was located down near Ghiradelli Square. The two German brothers also owned the Rancho El Primero in Laytonville. The company went bankrupt during the depression. The two German Brothers were my Grandfather, Bill Rathjen’s, uncles.

I have tried several times to find out more about the history of the sausage factory. But, as often happens with me, I get sidetracked with something else on my way to my goals. This time I got sidetracked with the Ghiradelli Chocolate Company. The history is much easier to research, and my wife loves chocolate. It seems to be the key to her heart. So this is going to be about chocolate, not sausage.

Just like all things in history, the further back that you go, the less that you can be sure of what really happened. Chocolate was originally from the Amazon or Orinoco basin of South America approximately 4,000 years ago. About 600 AD, the very advanced Maya Civilization either originated in Orinco, or they traveled to Orinco to bring the chocolate to the Yucatan Peninsula. They made plantations of cocoa and processed it. There is evidence that they knew about, and used cocoa long before they made the plantations.

As you have already guessed, cocoa became the local currency. By 1000 AD, cocoa was well established as the local means of trade. One Zontli equalled 400 cocoa beans, while 8000 beans equalled one Xiquipilli. On Mexican picture script, a basket full of cocoa beans was known to have 8,000 beans in it, so a basket full was equal to the number eight thousand. Maybe the Mayans were the original bean counters.

By 1200 AD the Aztecs had defeated the Chimimeken and the Mayas, They required tribute from the defeated tribes in the form of, you guessed again, Cocoa beans. They didn’t call it taxation back then, they called it “Tribute”. I wonder if the Aztecs had their own form of the IRS. If a poor Mayan tribe was late in paying their tribute, did they have to pay late fees in cocoa beans? I wonder what happened when they had a bad crop year?

In 1502 Christopher Columbus Discovered Cocoa beans.

In 1528, Hernando Cortez returns to Spain with cocoa beans, impressed by the fact that the Aztecs used them as currency. Hernando seeded plantations on Trinidad, Haiti, and the West African island of Bioko to grow "money" to trade with Aztecs for gold. Spain then had a virtual monopoly of the cocoa market for almost a century.

In the early 1700s Chocolate was used as a beverage, they had not yet started using it as a sweet confection. The chocolate houses became as popular as coffee houses in England.

In 1765, a Chocolate factory was established in Massachusettes Bay Colony. Back in the colonial days.

In 1852, in the heyday of the California Gold Rush, Domingo Ghirardelli establishes his first chocolate factory in San Francisco, CA. So chocolate has deep history in San Francisco.

In 1998, Lindt and Sprungli Chocolate of Switzerland acquires Ghirardelli Chocolate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of its holding company. Well… At least it didn’t move to China.

I'm not particularly fond of chocolate, but my wife and many other people would joyfully kill for it. It must be more addictive than cocaine, because I don't see my wife showing any inclination to give it up. Just like in Mexico, chocolate has become a form of currency in my house, and I am required to, on a regular basis, pay tribute to my wife.


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Monday, March 7, 2011

Why use a big word when a little one will do?

When I was a young man growing up, I knew a lot of very smart people. Most of the people that I knew worked as skilled laborers. Either in the woods, the sawmills or in ranching. Most of the old timers had a “homestead” a lot like Old MacDonald’s farm. They built their own houses and grew their own food. Most of them thought that was the way it was supposed to be. When something needed to be done they did it themselves. If they needed a gate hinge or a latch, they found a scrap of iron and heated and pounded on it until it was a hinge or a latch. They probably would have preferred to just buy one, but they thought that was a frivolous waste of money, so they made most of the things that they needed out of the scrap pile. If you visit any of the old ranches around here, you will still find a lot of old hand forged iron laying around, or still in use.

Most of the old timers never had a chance to finish school, but most of them had some kind of a rudimentary education, so they could read and write. The more valuable things that they knew were taught to them by their ancestors. The most remarkable thing that you would readily notice is that they were very adept at the things that they did. What they lacked in education, they more than made up for in skill.

A remarkable thing about them is that they could talk about very complicated tasks that they were performing, and teach you how to do it with great ease. It always amazed me how they used simple words to explain the most detailed task. Most of the old-timers used lots of hand gestures and detailed “show and tell.” It was always plainly obvious what they were detailing.

As kids will do from time to time I would use a word a little to “big” for them. They would admonish me that I shouldn’t use words that I couldn’t spell, and ask me to say it some other way that made more sense. Sometimes they would know the word that I was using, but they were wise enough to know that if there was big word that somebody might not understand that it wasn’t fair to use them, especially when a few simple word will serve as well. Every time that I arrogantly think of using big words, I think of those wise old timers, the wisest people that I ever knew, and chose to use simpler phraseology. I normally would have ended that sentence with “wording” in the place of “phraseology”. See how easy it is to use simple words.

So, I gained a habit of avoiding confusing words whenever I can. I get a lot better results. Plus, I have the added benefit  of having people understand what I’m trying to say. Well… sometimes.

But, just between you and me I like a few big words, ones that explain things better than all the little words that you could ever conjure. Words like “esoteric”, which means: “restricted to initiates: intended for or understood by only an initiated few” See my little pun? But, I know that is a word that would never have been heard around my people. Most people today readily understand that word, but I would imagine that there are a few people today that wouldn’t.

“Euphemistically” is another common word that would leave a few people out of the conversation. It means: “to avoid saying or writing something direct, harsh, unpleasant, or offensive by using milder or more indirect language ”, The word “nicely” would work nicely in it’s place. A euphemism is just a nice way of saying things.

When somebody starts using a lot of big words around me, I immediately start sensing a snow job and listen very carefully. I read a lot, and knowing the big words helps you to understand some writers, and it helps you to follow most conversations, but it seems to me that people that use the biggest words are using their higher education to cover the fact that they don’t know diddly-poop. See? All my folks know diddly-poop, I don’t have to explain that!

Most of the folks that I grew up around never used the word “were”. The word “was” was used for were and was. A kid could have been snickered out of town for using a word like “whom”. Who the heck did a person think they were use high-fallutin” words like “whom”.

So, just for grins, what’s your favorite “Big words” that should be banned from the English language? Or better yet, What words should be words that aren’t? I run into those all the time.
Like the inverse of the word “inverse” should be outverse Right?

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Michael Moore, Madison Wisconsin

"Hold the Dickens, She's headed for the barn!" That was an expression that my grandfather Bill Rathjens used to say when he saw something inevitable about to happen. I just listened to a speech by Michael Moore about the demonstration in Wisconsin. Now, I want to be way up front about this, Micheal Moore has previously not been one of my favorite people. I sometimes think of him as an arrogant, overstuffed, trouble-making asshole, but, if I'm forced to admit it, that description sometimes fits me. I hate the expession "having said that", so I won't use it, but this time I think Micheal Moore has finally found his center, and the sincere part of him bubbled to the top and he spoke from his heart. Stangely, he completely echoed my words that many of you bloggers, that follow some of my political blathering on other blogsites will recognize.

I have a friend that has always said that "a revolution cannot be bloodless". I disagreed with him, and I said "that all a bloodless revolution needs is a strong and good leader". Americans are the most passionate and feeling people in the world. even though most of us don't understand the inner working of politics, or the economy, most of us know that good jobs are scarce and times are getting too rough to cope with. More and more people are dropping out and starting to lead lives of crime or welfare. That only puts more strain on honest hard working folks. The ubber-wealthy certainly don't pay the price. When the banks, insurance companies, and stock market were recently bailed-out. It wasn;t the wealty that did it, it was US. You and I, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer. So, we know that there is a great illnes in the American Workforce that only a revolution can heal. Can Moore be our great leader?  Solutions sometimes come in strange packages.

Did you know that the combinined wealth of the wealtiest 400 people in American is greater than the one-half of rest of the 311,000,000 put together? If you are one of the 400, go the hell away! Don't read this, it's not in your best interest. If you are one of the remaining 311,000,000, you are with me, and I encourge you to listen to Micheal Moores speech that he made on March 5th 2011, in Madison Wisconsin.

Click on the arrow in the center:

Friday, March 4, 2011

A Man for all Seasons.

A man for all seasons is a man who follows the path that he knows is the right path, he is a man of integrity and character, and usually gives mankind more that he takes. He does what a good friend of mine says about helping your fellow man, in any way you can. He calls it “paying your dues for the life that you get”. Another friend of mine says, “It's a good feeling to go outside on a beautiful spring day, when it is great to be alive, and know that you deserve it”. He is saying it jokingly, but I know that in his heart he really does try to deserve the life that he has.
I have another friend (Pssssst... Olmanriver) who has that spark about him as a “real person”. If a person were to label him, they would probably call him a “Hippie”. He has long hair, he is very conscious of eating good food and mostly a vegetarian. He doesn't openly discuss why he's a vegetarian, but you know that he is sincere about it. He might try a little weed ever now and then, (I don't know) If he had a choice, he would probably save a redwood tree. He doesn't like being labeled as a “Hippie”, probably because it's just too confining for him. But, if you put his fingers in a vice and tightened the handle until he chose “Hippie” or “Redneck” he would probably go with Hippie, and he would make that a proud label. Most of us don't like labels, including myself, but if I had my fingers in a vice, I'd probably go with “Redneck”. So right off, you would think that we wouldn't get along. But that would be another mistake.

This man has established a library of local history for various Indian tribes, and has done more for the real knowledge of local history, recently, than any other person that I know. He has taught us all about local history and he tries hard to sort out the Bullshistory from the real history. Those of us born here know that is an almost impossible task, but being one of those “adult arrivals”, he didn't know that you can't sort out the tall-tales. We always just thought of our history as “good stories” the more dramatic, the better. But he, for the most part, has been able to extract some truth, and has left my family and it's history greatly indebted to him. I have on numerous occasions invited him to our family gatherings. He has steadfastly, not refused, but always had something else to do, like that was the day he washed his hair. I really think that he feels that he wouldn't fit in, but I can assure you that he would be one of the more classy of my family, especially myself.

Recently, we haven't heard a lot from him on this blog, and the posting that he had done had a serious side to it. He has been out “following his path, and helping his fellow man” ”I could go on to tell you much more, but I will leave it with; part of mankind is much better-off today because of his concern. He has several times labeled me as a “hero” on this blog. As I discussed before, labels don't really fit well, and to call somebody a hero for doing what they love, pumping adrenalin through my veins and racing around in firetrucks is not “Hero” folks, it's “adrenalin junkie”. It is, however, very rewarding to know that sometimes life and property are saved as a side result of my junkiness.

I have contacted Olmanriver several times lately, and I can tell you that he has been quite busy, and the world is a much better place because of him. All that I can say is he is the kind of person that we need more of.

From now on he will be “Saint Olmanriver” to me. He is the kind of person that doesn't seek acknowlegement. I just want him to know that some people notice the sneaky good that he does for mankind.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

A rare taste of politics.

Or... I'm mad as hell, and I'm not sure what to do anymore..


World unrest is at cyclical high. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak has agreed to have a Presidential election in September of this year. Libya is still unsettled. Moammar Gadhafi is still holding on and claiming that his “people love him”. Unfortunately, there is only a handful of “his people” still left. Little love is lost on Gadhafi. Why is it that it seems like the worlds most powerful people are among the worlds looniest people? Kym Jong-Il is probably the craziest of all dictators. The only sane dictator that comes to mind is Castro, and he isn’t really the dictator anymore. His little brother Raul is now the head dictator, but he is Fidel’s puppet, and is now the titular head of Cuba. But, you’d better believe that he is following big brother Fidel’s suggestions.

Some of the world unrest, that really has me pondering, is this thing in Wisconsin. The demonstrators are going nuts over protecting their unions. It seems that school teachers, and other public service workers are demonstrating for their collective bargaining rights. The big-money boys and girls have figured out that public service workers have the only jobs that can’t be placed offshore. But, they are running out of taxpayers to pay the public service workers wages. I know that we need school teachers, police, firefighters, and all of the other workers that provide us general public types with the things that we need. But, the public service workers don’t grow carrots and other things of real value. I know what you are thinking! I know that many people place a lot of REAL VALUE on education. But, an education is not adding directly to the food supply. It doesn’t make any difference how smart or educated we are, at some point we are going to have to eat.

The state of Wisconsin is trying to make the point that the Unions are breaking the backs of the people that are paying the wages of the public service workers, and have the unions thrown out. If you have looked around lately, you will notice that there are fewer and fewer of us working ilk with money to pay taxes. The fat-cats see this as an opportunity to make the public service workers work for practically nothing, like the rest of American workers do. All they have to do is claim that they are simply trying to balance the budget by taking away collective bargaining rights.

If the point that the state doesn’t have enough money to pay the public service workers, they should sit down at the bargaining table with the unions and tell it like it is, and work out the details. I don’t think that they should simply throw the unions out the window. It might be a lot of work to negotiate fairness, but I guarantee you that it will be a lot more fair than having the state decide what to pay the teachers. Now, with that all behind me, I can open up the subject of why we don’t have any jobs.

We don’t have any good jobs, because we elect the wrong people, we listen to the wrong people, and we don’t know that much about how wealth works. You and I are not responsible for the world economy, we elect our political leaders to do that for us, and to keep trade between different economies fair. It is our job to earn a living, help feed and educate the family, protect their health and so forth. If our politicians fail us, all that money that we once had in our pockets, and traded back and forth for goods and services, bleeds off to an offshore country. Then, we don’t have any money to spend amongst ourselves. It’s all gone, the stock market sags and businesses close, education suffers and roads go without pavement. But, if you’ve looked around you lately, you know what I’m talking about.

The reason that I say that our politicians failed us is, because they were the ones that let our countries wealth slip away. At one time a good percentage of our wealth went to Japan, but China is now the Big Dog in eating up our economy. Japan took away our electronics industry because Regan let them. It was a way to make the stock market move and his fat cats got rich sending our jobs and America’s wealth overseas. Japan was able to out-compete us because the Japanese government subsidized their electronics industry. They paid the Japanese manufactures money for ever television that was sold in America.

Remember that once proud name RCA? Maybe you are old enough to remember the black and white dog listening to “His Masters Voice” over a gramophone speaker. Maybe you also remember that once great Japanese television that stole our hearts and breath away, SONY. Remember that great “Sony Trinitron” television? You must, It’s even a word in my spellcheck program and “spellcheck” is not even a word. Anyway, the Sony Trinitron was highly subsidized by the Japanese government. Of course it was a fine TV, it was really a $600.00 TV that we only paid $350.00 for. How can you beat a deal like that. You can’t. To bad for the American TV worker, he couldn’t beat a deal like that either. Their unions couldn’t do a damn thing for them. They just watched as the jobs rapidly moved to Japan. Our politicians are supposed to protect us from things like that. But, the wealthy made enough money moving our jobs offshore that they could afford some pretty hefty campaign contributions for the politicians that didn’t fight them.

Then the wealthy saw how well that worked, and the Chinese provided a wide open market for American jobs. To say that the Chinese were a willing partner is an understatement! They wanted badly to play the take-American-jobs game. They wanted so badly to play that they thought all they had to do was buy American politicians. They were a little too overt and got caught sending Bill Clinton millions of dollars for his campaign. They got caught, and had to change their strategy a little bit, but it all worked out for them. Hell, they were so eager to play the game that rather than subsidize their industry they just devalued their currency to below the value that we can produce the same product for. The fat cats in the stock market saw how well this was working for them that they took some of the extra money that they were making and bought up the news services, otherwise known as The Mainstream Media, or the “MSM” as the ones in the know call it. They figured out that all they had to do is repeat: “Don’t be stupid, we live in a world economy now” They pumped the philosophy that the whole world would come to a happy balance and everybody would have a good job. But, that was all bullshit, because people that really know how things work, know that there is no way in hell that an American worker can compete against a country with no environmental standards. And there is no way in hell that an American worker can compete against a 12 year old Chinese girl that has to work twelve hour days six days a week. And even if we could, they would just change the value of their currency until their products would be cheaper than ours again.

The sad thing, as I am sure that some of you have already guessed, at some point America is going to run out of money and jobs to ship overseas. OOPS! That already happened didn’t it? What happened with that? Well, we borrowed from our grandchildren so the wealthy stock market people could still make a killing, and buy more politicians. It’s about to spiral in again, and crash. China is now buying our agriculture land.

The thing that I don’t understand at all, is why isn’t everybody on the streets screaming at the top of our lungs to get rid of the crooked, bought-out politicians. Oops, we will have to depend on the MSM’s news service to cover our struggle. I wonder how that will go….