go wolves go

For a long time I've been saying that one of the things the world needs is more wolves. Due to a recent court ruling, we'll soon be getting more of 'em here.

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To: nsteinzor
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 10:33 PM
Subject: Wolves in the Northeast on VPR

Hello everyone,
Tune into Vermont Public Radio to hear about wolf recovery in the state and region:

Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 7 p.m.: Wolves in Vermont
Does Vermont want a wolf population to return to the state? Bob Kinzel discusses the controversial issue with Peggy Strusacker, the wolf project leader at National Wildlife Federation, and Jackie Folsom of the Vermont Farm Bureau.

If you're not in Vermont, you can still listen and even participate from Oregon by going to www.vpr.net There will probably be a link posted later this week if you miss the original broadcast.

mouths of babes

My son, who is six, absolutely loves seafood of all kinds. I've seen him devour an entire order of PEI mussels and an entire 1 1/2 lb lobster in one sitting. He especially loves lobster, both the actual taste, and the fun value in playing with one as he eats it. Shoot, it's the original happy meal, dinner *and* a toy.

Still, while he's played with live lobster, and eaten dead ones, he'd never had to go through the process of transforming the one into the other, and that can be pretty traumatic for a kid. Some folks won't ever eat lobster again after having had to boil one.

But one day a couple of weeks ago while I was out of town, my son was with my dad, and at the market he asked for live lobster, so live lobster it was. He's sitting in the kitchen, playing with the lobster while my dad heats the water. What's he going to do when it's time to boil the lobster? The water gets to proper temperature, my dad says so, and my son stops what he's doing, looks down and says (I am not making this up), "Hello, Mr. Lobster! It's time for you to die now so I can eat you."

Frickin' unsentimental Virgos, I swear :> That's my boy...

new music, new friends

I am loving this winter production I'm in -- the cast and crew are brilliant, the artistic director is one of the brightest spirits I've met in a long time, and the music he and the musical directors selected is incredibly gorgeous, and quite an unusual set of pieces. Learning and memorizing 30 pieces in 10 weeks, 2/3 of which are in Russian, Georgian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian, etc, is rather a challenge (and we're all supposed to be completely off-music within about 2 weeks, yikes), but it's a really good stretch for me as well. Some of the pieces are sweet and purely beautiful, like delicate snowflakes, and others are extremely...virile. Some of the harmonies are so exquisitely non-western, fiercely powerful and go right to your heart. And in the rehearsal process, I get more fun hang-out time with housemates -- one of my Lovely Housemates is a singer (soprano, natch), and another is doing set design and production. It's also been a good way to integrate more fully with the local performing arts crowd, and this production company is special -- many of them have been active in it for 5, 10, 20 years, very much a family atmosphere, real fun, camaraderie and loyalty there.

The directors are sticklers for accuracy, but thankfully, we have native speakers in most cases for coaches. Georgian pronunciation, in particular, is...a challenge. [Edit: last night was the first makeup test, and I was one of the guinea pigs (as was one of my Lovely Housemates)-- the head of the makeup team is a real pro, is using a palette of browns and earth-tones livened with Russian-doll-like highlights and strong lines to make us look like characters in a wood-block print. The overall effect was so cool I had them powder it so I could wear the makeup home to show it off ;>]

This is one of the pieces we learned last night -- a transition piece, kind of a throw-away, very short, but lovely all the same. The words translate roughly as, "Our host is happy and blessed, because he has beloved guests..." I may have to use this for the next bardic circle here, maybe as a duet with my housemate. You can see what I mean about the language...whee.

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Maspindzelsa mkhiarulsa (Georgan table song, Imereti, western Georgia)

Maspindzelsa mkhriarulsa hqavs st'um rebi saqvarlebi, delo ranina
Ghmerto ghmerto gagviravde chven st'umrebi saqvarlebi delo ranine nanina.

Ghmerto nu ras nu moushli, rats rom hqavdes saqvarlebi, delo ranina
Ghmerto ghmerto gagviravde chven st'umrebi saqvarlebi delo ranine nanina.

scary speculations

see below cut, excerpt from 'Things To Come', by Michael Ventura

So far, airfares have been kept artificially low by forward-looking managers at small, lean airlines like Southwest Air, who purchased low-cost multi-year fuel future contracts prior to the latest price spike. And that's part of the relentless economic pressure on the other airlines who don't have strong futures contracts in place. But eventually, even the longest-term of these contracts will expire, and true fuel prices will hit all of the airlines, resulting in drastic spikes in ticket prices and reduced service . And it's not just passenger air flight -- air cargo is a huge part of the U.S. economy, from FedEx and UPS to winter raspberries from New Zealand and $20 sneakers from China and Indonesia. As air cargo prices rise, local alternatives become not only attractive, but in many cases, could be all that's available at any price. I'll miss those winter strawberries :<

I hope against hope that the scenarios here are wrong, among other reasons, because I have much-loved people overseas and across the country from whom I would dearly hate to be separated. But regardless, it's a good time to get situated in a place where you would like to spend a lot of time, because rising fuel costs means that travelling by whatever method is not going to be getting any cheaper, and could become much more expensive over the next 5 years.

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hopes

I don't know these folks, and haven't read through the material yet, but it looks like it could be a good resource for some sustainability, permaculture and post-peak-oil info. Note that the (free) online material can be found here: http://survivingpeakoil.com/articles.php
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slander, community, and empathy

I found out earlier today that someone I had once considered a friend had chosen to slander me ("slander," in this case meaning choosing to spread information to others containing half-truths, insinuations, selective choice of facts, misrepresentations, and/or pure lies in an attempt to hurt someone or attack their character). I think I get why this happened, but really, the reasons why are largely irrelevant.

So heck, what a bummer. This kind of thing has happened to me once in my life before, about a decade ago, by a real pro with a long history and much skill and experience, so by comparison, this situation is real small-time stuff. Some of the people on my friends list remember that last time -- in fact, a number of us met and became long and fast friends because of our shared experiences around it. Anyhow, I learned some things from both occurrences, general patterns that I've seen and figured I'd share. Note that I'm not getting into any specifics here -- personal privacy and integrity are important to me, so no matter what I thought of someone personally, I wouldn't choose to drag their name through the mud in an open forum. It's just not necessary, compassionate or wise. Those most of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry about it -- it's really not a big deal.

Some generalizations:

1. Friends ask for clarification and more information if they hear something that worries or concerns them. Friends don't take any story on faith one-sided -- if they truly care about the situation and the people involved, they get real information, directly from the source(s), and make their own judgments. This is especially true when things don't quite make sense, when there is dissonance between what is said and one's own experience of people. Times of stress are often when one finds out more about the character of oneself, and of friends.
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