R Blog

Jane Fonda

So, you are Jane Fonda, an Academy Award winning actress and famous female person for nearly forty years. You’ve always been hot and now that you are pushing seventy, you’re still hot. You’ve been married three times: to a French playboy film director, to a professional anti-war advocate and to a billionnaire so goofy he nearly defies description. All three of these husbands cheated on you. When you write your autobiography your conclusion is:

1. All men are dogs.

2. Life isn’t fair.

3. Maybe I’m not so hot.

4. It was all part of my personal growth and development as a human and a woman.

5. All of the above.

Go to Bookends for my review of
Jane's blockbuster autobiography.

Who Makes How Much?

Something we are all interested in. From NY Magazine: http://newyorkmetro.com/guides/salary/14497/index1.html

More on Mercury Fillings

Or, Why is Your Mouth a Toxic Waste Dump?

Email from Consumers For Dental Choice

Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2005 5:21 PM
Subject: Connecticut -- A step forward as we prep for court fight over abolition

            By ruling to protect dental mercury from the state’s ban on mercury products, the Connecticut (CT) Dept. of Environmental Protection has set the stage for a dramatic court battle on whether the chief white-collar polluter gets immunity from the zero mercury law.

            The CT state agency did, however, mandate that dentists distribute the state of Maine’s fact sheet on mercury, whose cover page reads:  “Fillings:  The Choices you have.  Mercury amalgam and other fillings materials”; see www.state.me.us/dhs/boh/files/odh/AmalBrochFinal2.doc   The opinion recognized what we showed in the Zogby poll of CT voters:  most people still don’t know that “silver” fillings are really mercury fillings.  We now have five states mandating fact sheets – and CT is the first to do so without a special statute.  Such an action -- disclosure by executive order -- is a milestone, and we urge other state environmental agencies to follow suit.

            For the first time, we are debating whether mercury fillings should be abolished for ENVIRONMENTAL reasons.  Consumers for Dental Choice assembled a grand coalition of all major in-state environmental groups, the state’s environmental justice coalition, and the state’s leading civil rights group, and put the issue right into the lap of state government.  The press ate it up -- every major newspaper and every TV station has written story after story about the fight to abolish mercury fillings.  Of course, publicity alone causes more people to learn, and to switch.

Meanwhile, we can now head to the judicial branch of government and finally get our day in court, the level playing field we have been seeking.  We are past the stage of running uphill against a state agency with such a cozy relationship with the CT State Dental Association that the two worked out the pollution rules behind closed doors and repeatedly called each other “partner.”

Using tortuous legal reasoning, the Department absolved dental mercury by absurdly claiming that dental amalgam is not a mercury-added product [huh?].  Further, it adopted the ADA argument that the words “elemental mercury” and “amalgam” mean the same thing -- a position opposite to ADA press barrages claiming that the two are quite different.  Now the ADA will have to live with its position equating elemental mercury and amalgam.  And the Department must explain how a product that is 50% mercury is not a “mercury-added product.”

            Our law firm, Brown Rudnick (no relation, unfortunately) is one of the most prestigious in New England.  Brown Rudnick spearheaded the tobacco litigation for most of the New England states, and is doing the case pro bono publico (at no charge).

            Now we have the debate on the front burner:  Should CT abolish mercury fillings?  And, should your state abolish mercury fillings.  The cork is out the ADA’s bottle.

Charlie Brown, National Counsel
Consumers for Dental Choice
[email protected];            www.toxicteeth.org
Sept. 15, 2005

Whatever Happened to Cindy Sheehan?

Well, she’s merged up with Veteran’s for Peace and Michael Moore and they are down in Covington, LA trying to help with the relief effort. On Michael Moore’s website there is an interesting section called “Covington Updates” http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/covington.php with blog type entries and copies of a Mother Jones reporter’s dispatches. Interesting alternative reading. One thing that jumped out at me—rescue workers are getting lightheaded from the fumes of toxic crud and can only stay out in their boats for short periods. Another—two blocks of Gulfport, MI is cordoned off because of chicken and pork strewn on the beach from a grounded freighter. Another—some people in Houston have debit cards but not for the $2000 frequently mentioned. Another—many of the submerged homes can be saved because they are made of cypress wood, though there is talk of bulldozing entire neighborhoods. Obviously, the mainstream media cannot stay on top of the details of this story. They only do one story at a time anyway. Remember the mess in potamia? The internet remains a wonder.

Carve Wood; Carry Water

I paraphrase the old Buddhist saying.

In the semi-rural life there is much to do outside: mowing, pruning, weeding, chopping, generally maintaining. We have these wonderful natural hedges mixed with snowberry, wild rose, honeysuckle, and blackberry. They grow fast, even in the drought time. They encroach on the lawn, create snaggy traps for the mower guy (my brother) and have to be cut back. The amount of debris is enormous. Some we pile for burning in the winter. Some we toss along the property lines to build up a natural fence. Windstorms clean dead branches from the trees. These need to be collected. Some can be used in the wood stove. Other branches are junk. Trees fall and are sawed and chopped for firewood. Some trees need to be pruned.
This is our giant big leaf maple. It’s very old. (Because of our dial up connection I can't get this photo to load. But it is a beautiful, and very large tree. There are two gigantic trunks and in the tree, if you could see this photo, our friend Aran is straddling a lateral limb preparing to start a chain saw. He survived this adventure). We are starting to save prunings from the maple, a beautiful desirable wood.
Last weekend was the Lummi Island Artists Tour held twice a year. Our first stop was at Mark Kuntz’s home. He’s a prof at WWU but also an artist who creates amazing rustic furniture. (Now right here I wanted to show a photo of a piece of Mark's that we own. So, visualize a three shelf bookshelf unit with the back pieces made of curving pieces of peeled wood. Believe me, it's handsome).
A couple weeks ago he agreed to teach some of us how to do it. He came over and selected a few maple branches we’d been saving in the old chicken coop. Then we went to his house and knocked the bark off with a pressure washer. He sized up the wood and said we had a chair, saw it somehow in the long skinny branches. We adjourned to his basement wood shop and used specialized tools to cut mortise and tenon on the eighteen or so pieces that made up the piece. All of us got lost in the process but Mark kept us on track and at the end of our class fitted it all together.
This is it  after I took it apart, carefully numbering the pieces, and sanded it down. (You would be surprised how much this actually looks like a chair. The maple is very handsome with knarly, twisty parts that fit together very nicely). All that’s left to do is take it apart again, glue it up, clamp it and weight it. Then we’ll have to build a seat.
In retrospect, it’s not quite as hard as it looks because, as Mark said over and over, “It’s very forgiving.”
Where fine woodworking is concerned, I need forgiveness, my only other experience being a table leaf that ended up 1/4” short. However, I believe I can make rustic furniture.
But before moving up to the big time, I decided to try and make something with maple twigs using only my Swiss Army Knife. A  miniature; doll’s furniture. (Here, I intended to show a photo of a tiny chair and bookcase that I whittled out of maple twigs. I actually carved mortise and tenons but have since learned that it's easier to make a tiny dowel to fit pieces together. The chair has a certain "rustic charm" featuring burled front legs. The bookcase is, can I say "whimsical" with a frilly backpiece made from a maple raceme-the flower).
I knew Linda would like it. Very primitive, sloppily done, but with a certain crude appeal. Who, after all can resist a miniature? They are like kittens or puppies.
A knowing observer said, “If she’d seen that little chair in a shop, she would have paid $50 for it.” I will continue to build a suite of furniture for her, making her dreams come true. Wish you could see them.

Grapes of Wrath

Hurricane Katrina and its affect on the Gulf Coast may have the same impact as the dust bowl back in Depression times. After the the tenant farmers were run off their land by the banks which held the paper on the real estate, they loaded their meager possessions into old wrecks and made their way from Oklahoma and Arkansas to the promised land known as California. Steinbeck immortalized their diaspora in The Grapes of Wrath, one of the great American novels. I suppose then that certain people pointed out that the “Okies” chose to live in Oklahoma so that’s what they got for their bad decision making. The “Okies” and “Arkies” were not treated well in California. They were persecuted, cheated, jailed and beaten. But they had one thing going for them. They were white. And in less than a generation were able to meld into the population, earning their way and prospering. One wonders what life has in store for the dispossessed and poverty stricken poor folk of New Orleans. So far, even with the eyes of the world on them, they aren’t getting very good service. Shoot to kill orders dictate that they keep their place. Unfortunately, there place is in the toxic streets or in the urine stained, feces smelling Superdome watching people die. So, what happens to these poor, black people after government gets its act together? Do they buy old jalopies and toss a couple mattresses in the back and head for California? Here come da Joads. Get your rifles loaded and axe handles polished. This time it will probably be the second and third generation Okies mobbing up to hold off the hordes of famished, desperate migrants. It’s pretty easy to forget where you came from. (More on The Grapes of Wrath here).