Odd anathema

It strikes me that anathema is not a noun. This has confused me for some time. Dictionary.com reports it as a noun, but I don't believe it. Consider their example sentence: That subject is anathema to him. Put another noun in its place: That subject is steeple to him. Put any adjective in its place instead: That subject is beloved/disgusting to him. If it were a noun, the example sentence would read: That subject is an anathema to him. Anathema just isn't a noun because it's not used like one as it lacks an article in common uses.

(Steps down off soapbox.)

Unfortunate headlines (1)

The BBC news site had this interesting headline today:

Afghan becomes open heart surgeon

This was a fascinating evolutionary advance for dog-hood until I read the subtitle:

An Afghan doctor has qualified as his war-torn country's first-ever open heart surgeon.

That's what I get for letting my mind wander when I'm tired.

143 million pounds of beef on the wall

CNN has reported that 143 million pounds of beef are being recalled. This beef includes meat from cows that were "downed" - unable to walk, many carried to the slaughter by forklifts. Dr. Dick Raymond, USDA Undersecretary for Food Safety, is quoted as saying "We don't think there is a health hazard, but we do have to take this action." Evidently this is because they think most of the meat has already been eaten. Of course, most of the meat went to school food programs, prisons, and Native Americans.

The Bush administration has spent years trying to dump regulations and cut funding for government organizations like the FDA (as recently as 2006, until public outcry caused a policy change).

Of course, Ron Paul is on the forefront of this issue. He says "I oppose legislation that increases the FDA‘s legal powers. FDA has consistently failed to protect the public from dangerous drugs, genetically modified foods, dangerous pesticides and other chemicals in the food supply. Meanwhile they waste public funds attacking safe, healthy foods and dietary supplements." Go Ron! Keep us safe. Yeah, right.

In the meantime, will a fine keep Hallmark from doing this again? Or prevent anyone else from doing it? How long does it take to produce 143 million pounds of beef? They've been doing this for a while, clearly, so the practice is well-entrenched and must be visible to management. I propose a prison term for the CEO. If I did this as an individual, I'd be wearing an orange jump-suit, so why not apply this to the Corporate perp?

Free Hugs (2)

And while we're at it, let's celebrate again the Seattle Pike Place Market Free Hugs man, this time with pictorial goodness.

Home on the Range (2)

And I now present the 2007 Edition of the Gingerbread House. Showing an imaginative use of native elements such as Swedish fish and Gummi Bears, this festive construction presents a view across the rock-candy ice into a neatly trimmed Cape Cod house. One can almost hear the square-dance caller naming the next step as the fiddle sings out a tune. The formally dressed penguins are standing in line to get into this hopping joint. Later on, after the sun sets, the seasonal hot drinks will keep these merry-makers tapping their toes late into the polar night.

I almost feel like I could write for Madison Avenue!

Home on the Range

We started a tradition of making gingerbread houses with a kit. This seemed like an expeditious way to get started but we quickly switched to baking our own and selecting our own candies. This year, there's a bit of ecological confusion going on as the penguins and bears do not share a continent. (The bears are sitting on the roof while the penguins cavort on the ice in front of the house.) Our cats (the conventional furry type) are all too interested in the decorations and we've already lost a Swedish fish. So far, the gumdrops and icing seem OK, but we also lost a few candy corns at Halloween so we are on the lookout. (The candy corns showed evidence of bite marks similar to those left by Felis cattus (domesticus), and there seemed to be a few candy corns missing entirely.)

There's supposed to be a picture there, linked from Picasa. Hmmm... appears to be of a technical difficulty.

City by the Sound

public
Originally uploaded by n9891q

Although there are elements of tourist overload and the occasional splash of tackiness, the Pike Place Public Market in Seattle is a great place to visit. The fine restaurants come with views that can't be beat, but even the donuts and coffee come with a view!

Free hugs from Seattle

Eric, mon ami, posted recently about free hugs from Paris in his Paris Daily Photo blog. It seems the craze has spread to Seattle; Pike Place Market, to be precise. Stop by, get a hug, some donuts, and walk the market.

Update: Please stand by. We are having technical difficulties linking to Flickr and hope to have them resolved momentarily. (Cue sound of head being scratched...)

Hold on, it's coming

We were out enjoying the sights on Independence Day. It was hot and sunny, a pleasant change from the wet weather, so we decided to visit a friend on Bainbridge Island. It's a short ferry ride but there's plenty of time to turn around an enjoy the skyline of Seattle. The ship had just gotten underway, we were out of the car and had wandered to the stern when we noticed a black cloud starting from a pier and rising fast. A fire had started. As we stood there, trying to figure out what was burning, where it was burning, and how serious it was, the sirens started. Then the Seattle fireboat raced past us, positioned itself, and started dousing the fire. It was all over in a few minutes.

We found out later it was an abandoned dock - quite empty, no permanent structures. I don't think they ever did find out what started it.

Saturday, In the Park

The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) opened a new sculpture garden early this year. It's on the north side of Seattle on a hill overlooking Puget Sound. It has a number of prominent sculptures, including this Calder stabile. According to Wikipedia, Calder invented the mobile and the stabile. Who knew?

The tree in the foreground is not actually a tree, but another sculpture. I did a little research and found it is called Split, by Roxy Paine. This is an interesting piece because it sneaks up on you - in the winter, it looks like just another leafless tree. But take a closer look and the truth is revealed.

SAM has a virtual tour of the garden here. This photograph was taken on the opening day of the garden January 13, 2007.

Rainy Days and Mondays

As Autumn establishes itself, the weather fights with itself. We've had days of drenching rain, days of fog, and days of clear cold. We had a day recently when Mt. Rainier stood proud and clear on the southern horizon, but I didn't have my camera with me. We had another evening when there was an hour of clear skies and Mt. Rainier took on pink alpenglow from the setting sun. These are a few blasts of glory before we settle into the grays of Winter.

Since I didn't have my camera to capture the moment, I offer a picture of Mt. Hood (Oregon) from this summer, taken from about 9000 feet of altitude.

Windy

While Massachusetts was having an earthquake, Seattle was having a windstorm. The colors had started to turn and the leaves were looking sharp so it should come as no surprise that we were treated to a vigorous storm. We had rare lightning and thunder, drenching rains interrupted by periods of clear skies, and winds near 50 mph. Combined, they stripped the developing color from the trees, leaving the ground coated with the result. This poor Japanese maple, sheltered in our back yard, was pounded with everything else. The downed leaves from the upper half of the tree carpet the deck while the lower leaves cling to the tree.

In the Court of the Crimson King

We each leave a footprint on the land. In the days of King Henry VIII, the footprint of a peasant was small, barely noticed even in the aggregate, but the footprint of the King was grand. Enormous kitchens ran nearly 24 hours a day to feed the nobility and the staff. Enormous wine cellars quenched their thirst. Great herds of animals were slaughtered daily to feed the kitchens and harvests of vegetables and fruits supplied the great tables. When I think of the grandeur and comfort in which the nobility lived, I am awed by the wealth and power that they possessed.

But imagine their reaction to my modern way of life. Great gushing streams flow at my command - in hot and cold temperatures, from ice cubes to steaming showers. The bounty of an entire continent - even the entire planet - is available at my local grocery store. I direct the power of hundreds of horses to make my way to and from a minor shopping trip, and thousands of horses are available to wing me across continents and oceans. Even the finest artistry from the greatest craftsmen and performers is nothing compared to the wealth of energy and money poured into Hollywood and Bollywood.

Is there a word stronger than "awed"? For surely that is what King Henry must feel when he sees my wealth and power. Yet in my bounty I resolve again to live simply.

Photograph of Moonrise over Hampton Court, England, a country castle of King Henry VIII.

In the Evening

One of the great things about the Pacific Northwest is that outstanding camping and hiking is nearby. The valleys of the Cascade Range have lakes and vistas that delight in the morning and the evening. This is a sunset photo of Lake Dorothy.

I was struggling for something to say, but I'd rather let the image speak for itself.

Cruisin' on a Sunday afternoon

We don't know why, but this ship of the Canadian Coast Guard was plowing back and forth, back and forth for about an hour one afternoon. The season was late, the weather was bad, and the seas were rough, so the bay was empty. In chugged this ship, and it started going back and forth in a roughly 400 meter line. We spent some time guessing what it was doing but came to no satisfactory conclusion.

The best theory I heard was that junior sailors were practicing their low-speed manoeuvring skills.

The Coast Guard is a great bunch of folks but they occasionally do curious things.

I'll be watching you

When you get to London, you really must make time to go to the Tower of London. The building is magnificent, the history is fascinating, and the views are great. A Beefeater leads the tour from the entry gate to the concluding chapel. The chapel is bittersweet as the bodies of the victims of the Tower are often buried beneath your feet. Depending on your station in life and your gender, you may have been executed just steps outside the chapel (Henry VIII was a particularly vigorous user of the chopping block outside the chapel).

It is not until you get home that you have the time to inspect the photos and notice that it is not a lamp that you have photographed with the Gherkin, it is a security camera.

Hi, officer!

Looking up!

In 1887, this was a muddy spot, busy with workers assembling a giant Erector set. Welcome to the heart of the Eiffel Tower. We were standing in line to buy tickets for the stairway and the line snaked around underneath the landmark. We had plenty of time to look around and look up. A few hundred steps later, we were looking back down at this very spot. We've never taken the elevator to the first level, we've always taken the stairs.

The Restaurant Jules Verne is spectacular, I'm sure, but above our budget, so to speak. There's a restaurant on the Tower, Altitude 95, that we really enjoyed.

What is this quintessence of dust?

As we were riding along the Iron Horse rail-trail, we passed farms and open range. One of the farmers near Cle Elum seemed to be a bit of an artist. You can see two of his creations in this photo.

Iron Horse Trail

We just completed a little bike ride.

We started in Thorp, WA, on Saturday morning. The day was sunny and clear with temperatures into the low 70's or so. We were riding the Iron Horse Trail (State Park), the old right-of-way for the Milwaukee Road rail service across Washington. Unfortunately for us, someone had been dumping new gravel on the trail and the headwinds were always against us. This made for quite a challenge across almost 40 miles of trail through Cle Elum and into Easton. This photo features one of the tunnels that we rode through on the first day.

Don't get me wrong: it's a great trip and a lovely trail as it winds along the river and through the farming country. But the sheer labor of the trip is daunting - going westward is a hard ride.

After the noble struggle, we had a wonderful dinner and evening in Easton State Park. I recommend getting a camp site closer to the lake and away from the highway.

The next morning, we got up early and had a hearty breakfast. The overcast had come in overnight and the sky was gray. The cooler temperatures made riding a bit easier, the trail was much improved, and even the headwind seemed to give us a break. Well, a little break. We blazed through the first part of the trip up into Snoqualmie Pass and took a rest at Hyak. We were just at the mouth of the Snoqualmie RR Tunnel: 2.3 miles of darkness and cold. A pretty cool ride on a bike, but that 50 degree air just takes it out of you! We came out the western end into more overcast and a trace of rain. The rain mounted as we descended and soon we were wearing those brown stripes and spitting the grit out of our teeth. It's rare that I've wanted fenders on my bike.

I'm afraid my behind got the worst of the trip and I was pretty glad to see the end of the trail. I got out of my sodden clothes and headed home.

Maybe next year we'll do it all again.

Here's to St. Pancras

In honor of the opening of the new high-speed rail service between London and Paris, here's a view of St. Pancras station, the London terminus of the service. We were staying at a nearby hotel and caught this fantastic building on a sunny day. Too bad they don't build them like this anymore. Once I might have complained about how ugly the building was, but now I am so tired of glass boxes and mindless rectangular grids that my eye has learned to appreciate the detail and fine craftsmanship of the older buildings. Just down the block is the British Library, but other parts of the neighborhood are in disrepair. I'm sure that will change dramatically as the impact of the renovations and the new rail service kick in. Isn't this the one from which Harry Potter and Ron Weasley fly off in the stolen car? King's Cross Station (with Platform 9-3/4) is around the corner.