Restore paper ballots

Congress is poised to consider a new emergency paper ballots bill next week. This could be our one last chance to get this right before the election in November. Transparency and accountability are essential if we are to restore our democracy.

Please sign the petition here.
Thanks.

In case you haven't heard, electronic voting machines are incredibly easy to hack. Watch this video from Princeton University. They demonstrate the procedure. After you see it, I think you will agree. We need a paper trail!

Princeton Study Exposes Diebold Flaws

paper ballots 2008 election voting machines Diebold MoveOn

Hashbrowns with a side of Bush

Breakfast in the Bird Park this morning is hashbrowns and popcorn but the usual tiding of magpies was not impressed. I thought they'd love some tasty leftovers from a very greasy spoon, but they did not. Magpies are a bit picky. Even the starlings were freaked out. Maybe they don't like potatoes. Or perhaps it's the spices. Damn. If they don't clean it up by the end of the day, I'll have to do it. Before the mice. But I'll be surprised if the starlings don't polish it off. Where are the crows when you need them?

Did you catch the Cafferty File last night? His question, following McGovern's call for impeachment, was "Time to IMPEACH Bush and Cheney." We all know why it's not happening. Congress is owned by the corporate lobbies and won't touch the issue because they themselves are as guilty as Bush but there is some satisfaction hearing Cafferty read comments from people all over the country clamoring for Bush and Cheney's removal. Collectively we have woken up and smell the ... uh ... "coffee". America the beautiful.

Local new at 7

Another mouse in the PETA humane trap as Bartok plays away in garage, 7 days now, the magpies had popcorn and peanuts for breakfast, the starlings are mopping up, and the snow is still on the ground and white under a the blue Nevada sky. I hope your day is a good one, wherever you are.

Ghostwriters in the sky

And speaking of ghosts, for you writers looking for a little extra cash, ever thought of being a ghostwriter?

Snowy morning

Now for the Saturday local news.

The spécialité du jour at the Bird Park this morning is delicious, albeit moldy, Christmas bread. The birds are delighted. As there is snow on the ground today, I put all 3 feeders out and that's caused quite a fuss. Naturally, the occasional fight has broken out. Those chipper little birdy songs we like to think are happy hearted odes to morning aren't always sweetness and light, you know. Birds can cuss like sailors on Saturday night. And, as you might have noticed, the Santa in the foreground of the above photo is missing his right hand. I accidentally broke it yesterday while re-organizing my office so he is now awaiting repairs. Poor bastard. I'm going to fashion him a little hook. As for last night's snow, we got about a foot here in the valley, but there was four or five feet in the Sierra. M. Lee is talking about cross country skiing to the park today and, although I don't feel like interrupting my coffee high with exercise, I may drag my self along lured by the possibility of a photo or two.






Today I will put the finishing touches on my new office space. I thought about taking a "before picture" but that area was so oppressive I decided against it. But here is the NEW IMPROVED version. M. Lee is amazed, even jealous. And, for him, that is saying a lot. He fancies he can wander in here any time and threaten me with an intervention clean up. Now too bad. My tons of stuff at the moment all has its very own place.



The laptop is new from Christmas, an Acer Extensa 4620Z with Tablet PC. I have barely used it so far as its arrival necessitated creating a space for it, hence the Great Re-organization of 2008. It has Vista which so far I don't care for, but I've learned to live with worse. And I hear Microsoft has fixed some of its initial problems, if you trust them. So far the most obnoxious thing I've come across is the cheesy elevator music that goes with the Acer Tour. What the f$@#!ck were they thinking!#!%? I haven't even tried the stylus yet but soon I will shake the pen and see if any strange creatures fall out. I also added some atmospheric blue lights to the invisible theatre which are very cool.

By way of a footnote to the holidays, I lost weight over Thanksgiving and Christmas in spite of eating grand feasts and am now down to 113 pounds. They are right. Nothing tastes as good as thin feels! I suppose this will brand me as a total dweeb but... I love you Weight Watchers.

And yes, the ghost of Bartók continues its microcosmic surreal concert in the garage. Day five. I wonder what Rimbaud would have to say about it. He was adamant that "the air of hell will tolerate no hymns" but then it's not hell. It's my garage.

Snowy night

Here is the view from my window tonight. The color is as close as I can get, given my limited knowledge of photo editing. It's hard to capture as it's so dark out. The spirit is right anyway. Béla is still grinding out the Christmas carols on his calliope in the garage so it's not a silent night, but a lovely one. Four and a half days now and counting.

Béla Bartók on the calliope

The Christmas card battery has been wobbling out its warped melodies for more than three and a half days now and in that time I have become very fond it it. In fact, today I retrieved it from the trash and it now sits on a small black plate in the garage where it can sing till it dies. As Roy said, it's like "Béla Bartók on a calliope of the macabre, having gone horribly awry." I love that image. Bartók has been one of my favorites since I was a kid. My piano teacher turned me on to him. I was charmed. At that point in my life he was one of the first to open the door to the world and myself that, until then, I was not sure could, should or wanted to share. Later in high school I had a painter friend, Miki Balogh, whose father had studied under Bartók in Hungry and been the head of Cornish in Seattle during its early days. He was dead by the time I met Miki but I was thrilled to be have come so near the masters. She and I instantly became fast friends and spent seemingly endless time obsessing about art, poetry, freedom, sex, drugs and every kind of music and musician. Her mother had a lesbian lover who lived with them in their small home that doubled as a piano studio. That also impressed me. And for a while they had a house guest from Hungry, a wild darkly handsome revolutionary who had escaped from persecution under its fascist government. Miki told me that one afternoon when her mother and friend were gone, she lay in his arms on the couch as he recounted the sufferings of the Hungarian people, kissing every scar on her body, weeping all the while. That really impressed me. So, if a bit of the spirit of Bartók has incarnated in my garage this new year, eeeexceeeelleeeeent!



A BIG STORM is supposed to hit tonight or tomorrow. Weathermen are predicting 5-10 feet of snow in the Sierra. Old timers in the valley have already made a run on the grocery stores and the shelves are eerily bare so we followed their lead and stocked up as well. Tonight the wind is howling around the house and seems intent on knocking over our back fence but so far, no snow. But the birds must know something is up. The last few days, very few have been around, I had to put a "BIRDS WANTED" sign in the window. Other than that, I'm in the midst of reorganizing the north side of my office. I'm sure, in it's pre state, it would have made a Feng Shui expert desperate.