Yeah, Rain!

We are finally getting some good rain. The forecasters predict maybe more than an inch over this coming weekend. Thank God!

We are still in a severe drought that one weekend of rain won't cure. The deficit for the year is still right at 14 inches. Farmers and horse owners are having to import hay from Texas and other points with the price per square bale up to almost $10. It normally sells for between $3 and $5 a square bale. The big round bales, which are not as nutritious anyway, can't be purchased at any price locally. Those who have them are saving them for their own horses or cows. The governor has declared a hay emergency in our county so the feds will pay owners up to $1,500 to offset the cost of trucking in hay from other states. You can read some of the pleas for hay here. The drought is having its effect on other prices, too. Dairy farms are hurting and milk is up to more than $4 a gallon in some stores. Cheaper to drink gasoline.
The French Broad River, one of the major rivers in this area, is hurting. This is a picture of the river just across the state line in Tennessee. The French Broad flows on down into Asheville and is one of the great kayaking and rafting rivers in the area when it has enough water. Our lake, fed by the Green River, is holding its own. The power station at the dam is not generating much these days so the lake level stays normal.

Big News
The big news in our household is the addition of Buddy, a 2-year-old Corgi we adopted Dec. 21 from the Hendersonville Humane Society, where his previous owner had left him. That owner named him "bling-bling" but neither the dog nor I liked that name so now he is Buddy. He is housebroken and very smart. He's learning to sit, stay and those good things. He is also learning that his crate is a nice place to sleep.

Smaller News

Quad Goat Arrive at Polk High School
That was the headline in our little local paper earlier this month. Our high school has an educational farm, and on that farm are goats. The four baby boy goats -- called bucks --- were born to a doe earlier this month. That is unusual. Normally only two baby goats are in a litter (if litter is the right word). Students bottle-fed the bucks until they were strong enough to nurse. Last word is that they are going fine. Is this a great place to live, or what?

Cows in the Yard

I had a telephone call from the Polk County Agriculture Extension office asking me to join the Board of Directors of the county 4-H Foundation.
My mother, who used to have to chase me with a broom to get me to mow the lawn, laughed at that one. "Now you'll have to get a cow or a hog," she said. The 4-H Youth Development Program is the youth outreach from the Land Grant Universities, Cooperative Extension Services, and the US Department of Agriculture. The four Hs stand for Head, Heart, Hands, and Health. You've probably seen the four leaf clover symbol of 4-H. Sylvia taught a sewing class for 4-H last year. I'm told that I was recommended by John Vining, the county extension agent, and another board member who lives in Lake Adger and rides to the hounds. First meeting: Jan. 14.

Follows her Husband

A woman whose husband had the highest approval rating of any recent president enters politics on her own. Her husband cannot run again. So she runs for president. And wins. Hillary Clinton? Nope. She is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner who just took office as president of Argentina.
Read about it here. She joins a fairly long list of women who have been elected president in Latin American countries, a fact that surprises many who know only of machismo in Latin America. Most Americans don't realize that Latin American societies are very often matriarchal societies.

Bolivian update

Here is a good update on the Bolivian constitutional crisis.

EARTHQUAKE!

We had a small earthquake at 6:07 a.m. Friday. It only measured 3.1 and for that we are grateful because the US Geological Service says it was centered at 35.32N 82.19W. which would put it 1.41 miles from our front door. They said it was 8.1 kilometers or 5.03 miles down. We had no damage but we sure felt and heard it.
Earthquakes are not as common here as they are in some parts of California, or as common as we knew them to be in Mexico City and Caracas.

Big Award

The Mill Spring Volunteer Fire Department had is annual awards dinner Friday night and it was full of surprises. The biggest surprise was my selection as the department's Firefighter of the Year! Bobby Wise, the new assistant chief, was selected Officer of the Year. The members voted on the officer of the year, and the officers selected the Firefighter of the Year. I got a beautiful plaque to hang on my wall, next to the one I received as president of the Round Lake Hose Company when we left Round Lake, NY in 1981. Bill Cunningham, who has been in the department almost since it was founded, was given the title of honorary chief for life, and the call number 2400. We are station 24 so we all have 24xx call signs, ours being 2414 and 2415. The regular chief is 2401. We are now the only department in the county with a 2400.

It's News to Me...

Almost 70 assembled and assorted tubas serenaded us Saturday at the Polk High School auditorium. This is one of about 20 "Tuba Christmases" that appear around the nation in December. The best-known was in Rockefeller Center in New York City, where they all started in 1974.
This was the 10th year for a Tuba Christmas in Polk County. The music was good, we all sang along on some of the carols , and we learned something about different kinds of tubas-- such as the Serpent at left. There were three guys playing serpents in the group. Some of the bells on the tubas face the front for recording or projecting to an audience while some face to the rear for leading a parade.The ages of the tuba players ranged from 12 to 86. This video shows some of the kinds of tubas.Listen to the tuba fans ooh and awh over the types.We'll go again next year.

Moonshine

While we were musing about the music the County Sheriff's guys made a domestic dispute call and found Phillip Pierce with 144 pints of moonshine at a house out on Henderson Road. The deputies decided that was more than he was likely to consume in one sittin' so they took him to jail. No word about where the still is located.Oh, and by the way, the last line in the story in our local paper says the sheriff's office plans to destroy the 'shine.
There was an "old time moonshiners reunion" down Highway No. 9 at New Prospect, SC in October but we missed it. There were a lot of bluegrass bands pickin' and singin' and, I guess, talking about moonshine. Surely they wouldn't be drinking it.

Winter Sun

We are still dry -- there is still a statewide ban on outdoor fires, including campfires. Our rain deficit for the year is almost 20 inches now. Add that to the shortage last year and it's clear why Polk County is so dry. The drought has, however, got our county commissioners off their leather chairs and into water supply discussions. The Green River flows through the county and there has been talk among some forward-looking people for years to tap into the river for future water supply. Now the commissioners have realized someone else -- such as Greenville or Spartanburg, SC just to the south, might get the same idea. The Comish is also talking about restricting lot size in future developments to seven acres in order to preserve the rural nature of the county and to save water. No decision on any of this stuff yet.

Bolivian Tango

My friend John Virtue is just back from Bolivia, where he was doing seminars and workshops on journalism ethics. He says friends there say the country is on the edge of civil war. We are so inwardly focused in the United States that you don't see that kind of stuff on the evening news until the civil war is in full bloom. What's going on with President Evo Morales and his opponents is a true social struggle, pitting class against class and society against society, all fired by fuel shortages in a country floating on petroleum and gas reserves.
Morales is from Bolivia's indigenous population, the historically oppressed Indian culture.

Morales, who has the solid support of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is shown in traditional dress in this picture.
The class struggle was heightened by the draft version of a new constitution which would allow Morales to be reelected permanently. And to add more confusion: Bolivia has two capitol cities, Sucre and La Paz. Most of the governing is actually done from La Paz. Sucre has the Supreme Court and justice department. But Sucre is the site of the constituent assembly convened to draft the new constitution. Sucre once had all the Bolivian government. Some of those who live in Sucre want that again, so they barricaded the people drafting the constitution. Pretty soon people were fighting in the streets all over the country.

A good place to read about this kind of on-going Bolivian drama is at the Democracy Center blog. The BBC also keeps a good eye on Bolivia, such as this story about the death of British reporter en route to cover the latest events in Sucre. Other journalists in Bolivia have run into trouble recently. The Committee to Protect Journalists keeps pretty close tabs on that situation.

Fallen Leaves

I have had no takers on my offer to sell freshly-fallen leaves to any and all. So now I am giving them away. Just drop by and take all the leaves you want.

I saw this video and think you all might be moved by it.

Thanksgiving this year has lost a bit of its joy for us because of the death of Amy Greenstadt's mother. Amy is Sean's friend who planned on joining him to share Thanksgiving with us in Michigan. Her mother Inez died unexpectedly last Thursday evening as Sean and Amy prepared to fly from Oregon to Michigan. Our sympathy and prayers are with Amy in this difficult time. The guest book is here for those who wish to send their condolences.

Great Weekend

We had a wonderful weekend visit from Grandson Paul, taking a break from conquering Queens University in Charlotte. We fished Sunday but had no luck. A couple of strikes but no fish in the boat. He fished 'till dark on the dock using night crawlers. They got nibbled by little guys but again he had no luck.

The Red Hot Fire Sale on Saturday for the Mill Spring Volunteer Fire Department was a roaring success. The day raised right at $3,000 to put toward the purchase of "Jaws of Life" rescue tools. A full set of these tools costs about $25,000. So far the department has raised about $17,000 through fund raisers and with a $12,000 grant from the Polk County Community Foundation. The fire sale was the brainchild of Carolyn Cobb, president of the Lake Adger Garden Club. A nice side benefit was seeing the people from the larger community meeting and talking with folks from the Lake Adger community. Jamie Davidson, another Lake Adger neighbor who heads the fire department auxiliary, handled the organizational details.

A Lost Friend

I just learned of the loss of a dear friend and mentor. Morris W. Rosenberg died in September at the age of 87.
Morrie was The Associated Press chief of bureau for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean when I joined the bureau in 1966 as an eager young reporter still rough around the edges. Years later we were reunited when Morrie became a member of the Advisory Council to the Latin American Journalism Program I was managing at Florida International University. Morrie was a man of gentle good humor and great integrity who made a profound mark on my life. You can read a little about this good man here.
What makes me sad is that Morrie and Lucie were living in Chapel Hill, NC, less than 250 miles away and I did not know it. I had lost touch with him while winding down my time at FIU and relocating in North Carolina and thought he still lived in Washington, DC.

Happier Note

On a lighter scale, Grandson Paul had taken the weekend off from his studies at Queens University of Charlotte to spend time with us. We'll fish, eat well, talk about Hemingway and just enjoy his company.

Fishing in the Freezer

Even though the temperature was below freezing -- 27 degrees -- I had to get a few casts in this morning. Result: Numb fingers and one bass. A little bass, but a bass nevetheless. About half a pound. Hit a silver weedless spoon in about three feet of water. Not the muskie I was looking for but a fish is a fish. I returned her to the lake to grow into a record.
The water temperature was 57 degrees.

Leaf Update

Because I have had no takers on my offer to sell leaves to the leaf-deprived of this world I will have to handle them some other way. So I have ordered a leaf mulcher which, if all goes as advertised, will provide plenty of cover for all of our plants and flower beds. It may also be fun to chop up all those weeds. A man cannot have too many tools.

Our fire department's "Red Hot Fire Sale" made our local paper again. The story was written by The One Whose Voice Must Be Obeyed.

Journalism professor murdered

There have been about 50 college professors murdered in Guatemala in the past two years. The latest taught in the school of communication sciences. You can read the story at Journalism professor murdered in Guatemala .

Guatemala has been a very violent place as long as I have known it. My first trip to Guatemala City was in 1968. The U.S. ambassador had been assassinated in one of the first acts of terrorism against an American ambassador in modern time. Helga Ruge, the wife of the embassy consul who was there at the time, has written about those days in AmericanDiplomacy.org. It is a good read. She talks about the assassination on Page 2. I had good contacts in Guatemala City in those days and heard of the killing very quickly. A fortunate Pan American flight got me from Mexico City to Guatemala City in time to be the first foreign correspondent on the scene. I had never heard the story about the reporter calling Ambassador Mein's wife but if it is true I suspect it was Alfonzo Anzueto, a very agressive, accurate reporter who worked as an AP stringer. Alfonso died in 2000 so I can't verify that suspicion. If he did call the residence he would have done so because someone at the embassy told him the ambassador had gone home for lunch.

Red Hot Fire Sale

We are excited at the Mill Spring Volunteer Fire Department because of the grant we got from the Polk County Community Foundation to help purchase vehicle extraction tools. These tools, commonly called "Jaws of Life" after those made by the Hurst company, are used to tear cars and trucks apart to extricate trapped victims after a traffic accident. They can also be used in other rescue situations.

The tools are costly -- about $25,000 for what we need -- and the foundation contributed $12,000 toward that goal. We have raised about $2,000 in door-to-door requests.

Now the Lake Adger Garden Club has stepped forward to help. They are organizing a "Red Hot Fire Sale" at the main station in Mill Spring Nov. 10. This is to be a huge garage/yard sale with people from throughout Polk County contributing items for sale. The Garden Clubbers have also arranged to sell tables to those who want to offer craft items and stuff like that.

Some people are donating nice furniture, slightly used appliances and other household items. Members of the department's auxiliary will sell baked goods.

A social event last week brought in donations of more than $600 from the Lake Adger Friends, who have adopted the Mill Spring and Sunny View Volunteer departments. Their pot-luck evening included a silent auction of such things as a truck load of firewood cut and split by one of the Friends, rare wine from the cellars of another, and a beautiful dogwood tree from a third.

We don't see much in the papers these days about Haiti, except when there is a storm. So here is an update on what is going on there -- or what is not going on. We tried several times to get a project going in Haiti to help the journalists there cope. But we were never successful.

Fall Bargain

For Sale: Beautiful hardwood leaves, fresh from the trees!

Order Yours Today!

• Live in the desert?
• Miss the Fall of your childhood?
• Make your neighbors envious!

I will very soon have a fresh supply of newly fallen leaves from mature oak, maple, dogwood and other genuine Western North Carolina trees.
They are untouched by human hands.
The very first leaves have already fallen and a much-needed rain has made them soggy and not very pretty.
But a fresh batch is almost ready. Order yours now and get 'em in time for Thanksgiving!
Your leaves will be shipped directly to your doorstep in 20-pound lots. And that is lots of leaves.
Spread them on your lawn, patio and driveway for that "mountain fall" feeling.

At $5 a pound they are cheaper than coffee. Orders can be placed by e-mailing barrabas01@gmail.com. Minimum order: 2o pounds.
(Note: leaves may arrive broken because of shipping traumas.)

Home Again

We returned this weekend from two weeks near salt water -- in Miami for a pastors' conference at Voice for Jesus Church and then in La Marque, TX. A wonderful visit with my mother and sister but it is also wonderful to be home.

We had a huge stack of mail piled up at our local post office. Amy, our postal person, welcomed us home by delivering it personally in a big basket rather than trying to stuff it in the mail box. She could hardly carry it because there were so many catalogs. Only a couple of real letters but a huge stack of junk. The lake is still here, and I will check to see if the fish are, too, real soon.

Joy of Giving

Science catches up with the Jesus once again, proving what He said. Acts 20:35 says, "I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Ulrich Mayr, a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, has experiments and brain scans that show people get a kind of thrill from giving money to charity. You can read a Reuter's story about the experiments here. And you can read Dr. Mayr's abstract here.

Tithes and offerings have been a part of our lives for so long this seems natural. I don't notice any special feeling of euphoria but I do feel deeply that giving is right. I feel uncomfortable and get an internal nag when I don't give. But I have a question or two about the study. They gave the subjects $100 to start with and then studied their reactions to parting with that money. Would it not have been more realistic to use their own money? John Tierney, a New York Times science columnist, writes about the study and asks some provocative questions. It is a blog so you can see what his readers think.

An article in Time magazine says:
It is not just the fabulously wealthy and the entrepreneurial elite who are giving. Average Americans continue to step up, whether by volunteering at their local schools or contributing through churches, mosques and synagogues....For every Bill Gates there are literally a million Morris Popes. The 81-year-old retired train engineer has given at least $500 to the Atlanta Food Bank every year since 1982. One year he gave $1,200. And this on a retirement income of about $1,700 a month. He is almost too shy to mention the $3,000 he annually tithes to his First Corinth Missionary Baptist Church. "I look at how God has blessed me during my working years and raising my family, and I can't tell you how many times I've come to these homeless shelters and heard people say, 'My children haven't had a bite to eat today,'" says Pope. "Everyone should feel the pleasure of giving to others. If they knew that, they would give too."

We have had no more serious rain since that of Friday a week ago. But the weather has changed for the better -- the heat broke and now we have nights in the upper 40s and days in the 70s. No big change in the leaves yet but that is coming, too. We took in the "Wings Over the Smokies" motorcycle rally in Fletcher, NC, last week. Our Goldwing chapter worked the entrance gates on Thursday and then I hung out in the vendors area Friday and Saturday. Sylvia joined me at the closing ceremonies Saturday night, but we didn't win the drawing -- a 2007 Goldwing and trailer. This is one of the largest rallies for Goldwing riders in this part of the country and was the first that we attended (2004) after we starting riding again.

Finally Some Rain

Thank God! We finally had rain Friday. Maybe an inch but it was great. It rained off and on all day, pretty hard in some spots, and tapered off Friday night. Saturday dawned clear but the flora and fauna were just as happy as we were.
One of my neighbors brought her little girl into our front yard to play. You can see the fawn's legs in the right of the picture, and then a closeup of the little one. Sylvia no longer likes Bambi as much as she used to -- they eat her flowers. She gets out every other week to spray foul-smelling Liquid Fence but they still get the unprotected plants. Neighbors who raved about cute little deer when they lived in the city now have names for them, and they are not pet names.

Celebrating Green

Green Creek Festival

We spent part of Saturday enjoying the Green Creek Heritage Festival down Highway 9 a ways. Lots of pickin' and singin', a kid's tractor pull, a Fireman's Barrel Roll, and lots of food and crafts.
Several volunteer fire departments participated in the barrel roll, aiming their high pressure hoses at an empty barrel in an effort to push it across the other department's goal line. We stayed dry.
There was a sandbox full of corn for the kids to play in, a car show, farm equipment displays and lots of other stuff. My little camera didn't record the music but you can hear the Boys here. They play regularly at the City Grill in Saluda which is more commonly known as the Truck Stop. They are one of dozens of Gospel Blue Grass groups around here. Almost any week one of the 83 churches in Polk County will have a signing. A group comes in to perform for the folks.

Green Creek used to be called Green's Creek because it was named after the creek that ran through the property of William Henry Green. Uncle Billy came to Polk County before it was a county, in 1760. Now the little phone books in Polk and Rutherford County towns and across the line in South Carolina have dozens and dozens of Greens or Greenes. Some people in the same family spell that last name one way while other family members spell it the other. The cemeteries here are mostly on church grounds and there's many a Green planted in them.

Suffering Nicaragua

Nicaragua has played a large role in my life. So it is sad to read about how the Nicas are suffering again. I spent many, many weeks there over the years, reporting on Nicaraguan politics, disasters, triumphs and dreams. I opened an office there while director of the Latin American Journalism Program, spent four years training Nicaraguan journalists after the first Sandinista government was voted out of office. I baby-sat Howard Hughes when he was ensconced on the top floor of the Intercontinental Hotel, the pyramid shaped hostel that was a temporary home to hundreds of foreign correspondents, diplomats, spies and assorted other ner'do-wells a three decades ago.

So I know a lot about the country, really like its people and recall fondly my Nicaraguan friends. It always makes me sad when bad things happen to the Nicas. And bad things seem to happen to them often. The latest is Hurricane Felix.
The hurricane hit the Miskito coast, an area called the RAAN or the North Atlantic Autonomous Region, where poverty is extreme, infrastructure is weak and communication is difficult. La Prensa in Managua was reporting 168 deaths. The paper said the death toll may be much higher but authorities won't know until they contact all the small fishing villages on the coast.

Managua itself was destroyed and thousands killed in an earthquake in 1972. The epicenter was right under the city. Howard Hughes scooted out of the Intercontinental Hotel to the airport and despite the fact it was closed ordered his plane into the air. Howard wanted out of there as fast as possible.

Then came the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega, which ruined what was left of the country's economy. Now Ortega has been reelected. In a speech celebrating the 28th anniversary of the army the Sandinistas founded he called Nicaraguan reporters "children of Goebbels" and accused them of spreading lies about his government abroad. Sounds like the 1980s all over again.

Sergio Ramirez served as vice president in Ortega's first government, then split with him and formed another wing of the Sandinista party. Ramirez was one of the "group of 12" Nicaraguan inellectuals, clerics and businessmen who broke with Anastasio Somoza to support the Sandinistas when they were trying to overthrow Somoza. Ramirez writes about the party's current status in this article.


Hurricane Felix calls to mind Hurricane Fifi about this same time 33 years ago. Fifi killed at least 8,000 people in Honduras Sept. 18-19, 1974. Most were drowned or buried in mud slides. It took Honduras several years to recover. The storm destroyed 80 percent of the 1974 banana crop. Most of the Honduran fishing fleet and the main facilities of Puerto Cortes, the most important port, were destroyed. Flooding from the storm drowned two-fifths of the country's cattle. The total damage, estimated to be about $900 million, was horrible for Honduras.

American Plot

There are people in Central America even today who are convinced the United States made Fifi a deadly storm. Their theory is that Storm Fury -- American experiments in seeding hurricanes -- made Fifi increase in strength and forward speed so that it hit Central America an unexpected blow. The United States experimented with dropping silver iodide into the storms on the theory this would shrink the eye. Cuba and Mexico complained. Here is text from a Nov. 4, 2001 CNN broadcast in which Correspondent John Zarrella interviewed Max Sheets, then director of Storm Fury. Sheets later became director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

ZARRELLA: But Storm Fury also had critics. The government of Mexico charged that tempering with hurricanes would deprive Mexican agriculture of rain. Fidel Castro fueled anti-American sentiment with accusations that Storm Fury would divert hurricanes into Cuba. And when Hurricane Fifi hit Honduras, there was immediate suspicion that American research was to blame, a charge that was laid to rest.

SHEETS: Fortunately for us, in 1974, when Fifi occurred, we did no flying into hurricanes, period. "

That full broadcast, which had some very interesting predictions about New Orleans flooding, is here.

Fishing is Godly

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

This is waay dry!

We are in the midst of a severe drought.

• It is so dry in Polk County that the fish have left. They must have left because I can't catch any.
• It is so dry the state has forbidden outdoor fires, including campfires, yet we have still had almost 600 wildland fires in August alone.
• It is so dry that the Baptists are starting to baptize by sprinkling.
• It is so dry the Methodists are giving out wet-wipes.
• It is so dry the Presbyterians are giving out rain checks
• It is so dry the Catholics are praying for the wine to turn back into water.

The temperatures have been near 100 almost every day for three weeks and we haven't had an inch of rain in that time. We have had some thunderstorms but they are quick and don't leave behind much water.

This has all meant a lot of activity for the volunteer fire department. We had a brush fire on Chocolate Drop Mountain last night that lasted until the early morning hours, a power line down at dawn and another brush fire right after that. Everybody is just praying for a nice gentle rain. Anything else is likely to bring lightning and we certainly don't need that.

My blog program now lets me add video as well as still pictures, so here is a little test.





It doesn't let me load much. This tanker explodes in a huge ball of flame. But no one was seriously injured.

We are hearing afternoon thunder so we may get a drop or two of rain. All the towns have put severe water restrictions in place. We are on a well and so far no problems but we are watching what we use because the water table is getting very low.

Summer Fun in the Mountains

This is a wonderful time in the mountains -- but I say that every season. We get daytime temperatures near 90 and last night the low at our house was 59. Great sleeping weather and great weather for outdoor activities. Some nighttime storms, too. Late afternoons and early evenings are great for sitting beside the waterfall.

My friend Art came over from his mountain early Friday so we could drown some worms and toss some lures in my lake. No much luck but he had three strikes from what were probably pretty nice size bass. The fire chief and a couple of his friends fished from my boat last week and caught -- among other things -- a 36-inch muskie. The guy at the bait store has a picture of a 42-pound muskie he says came out of our lake on June 1. It would have weighed more -- and maybe have been a state record -- but the guy waited too long to weigh it.

We've been having a series of summer thunderstorms the past couple of days -- bringing some rain to a very parched Polk County. One night the thunder was so strong our log cabin shook a couple of times.

Another Journey

We are back at home once again after a journey to Michigan, where we watched grandson Peter graduate from high school. He is also set for Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where he has an academic scholarship. Peter is a top-quality lacrosse player -- one of all-state caliber -- but when we last talked he wasn't sure he would play college lacrosse.

His older brother Paul is captain of the lacrosse team at Queens University of Charlotte, where he is a junior.

Bobby, the oldest, is about to graduate from the University of Michigan before he sets off on a stage and/or screen career that will make good use of his musical and acting talent.

A magazine in Greenville, SC, down the road about 50 miles, had a article about living in the mountains, on a lake, or both. The article doesn't mention Lake Adger although it does say, “While the surrounding counties have seen a steady rate of development, Polk County has remained fairly untouched"

We have a great home here in Polk County. But some of the places on the lake are just amazing in their size. This is one of my favorites: It has a great lake view and a mountain view from that amazing porch.

Property values around here seem to keep climbing. After we moved in this house was sold for $1.1 million. It is on the market again --less than 18 month later -- for almost $600,000 more!

Rough Religion

In April, Bishop Michael Babin, for 25 years a leader of Genesis Ministries International in Oceanside, Calif., was charged (along with his son) with beating a golfer unconscious after accusing the man of stealing his ball at a local course. (Two years ago, Babin was nominated for a Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Award.) [San Diego Union-Tribune, 4-3-07]

Where have they gone?

I have my sister to thank for keeping me on track with this blog. She may be the only person reading it, but she is a loyal reader and gets on my case when I fall down on the blog job.

We have taken in new residents at our lakeside cabin in the mountains. They live in the condos we set up in the garage.
We now have a colony of earth worms and thousands of meal worms. I have 1,000 red wigglers and started with 3,000 mealies. Before you call the men in white coats check out this website to read about people seeking state or federal grants to take worms to school.


The mealie population gets reduced by a couple of dozen every two or three days when Sylvia puts them out to attract blue birds. The garage stays fairly warm so they should be okay there. The earthworms eat table scraps, paper and coffee grounds. The meal worms eat, well, meal. Chick meal, that is. The bird store charges $7.50 for about 20 of the meal worms, and I got 3,000 for $12 bucks or so. They are both good for fishing, and the earthworms make compost for the garden and bait for the fish.

We had a few days of really cold weather that killed off most of the apple crop around here and the peach crop across the South Carolina border. Three nights in a row where it got below 24 degrees. Our worms survived. But it was hard work getting those little fleeces on them in time.

We are back up to normal now but expecting some stormy weather over the weekend. We plan on watching Paul play lacrosse against Mars Hill College on Saturday and then driving on up to Ann Arbor. I have surgery there Monday morning to remove a cataract from the left eye and get a new lens. The surgery will take about 15 minutes at the Kellogg Eye Center at the University of Michigan hospital. I wanted the new lens to be a Superman Special with x-ray vision but they will only give me a lens that will provide 20/20 vision. Or maybe it's 20/40 because they say I will still need reading glasses.

I was glad the state attorney general had some sense and dismissed all charges against the Duke lacrosse players. I don't know who I am more displeased with -- the district attorney who rushed to judgement, the Duke administration that cancelled the lacrosse season and forced out the coach, or the news media that fanned the flames. It was not a sterling moment in our history of jurisprudence.

Have you heard Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton aplogize yet for what they said about the case? I haven't either.

CBS fired Don Imus, which is okay by me. But the slopppy news media forgets that BET -- Black Entertainment TV, a late night source of a lot of televised gangsta rap which denigrates women worse than Imus -- is owned by Viacom. Which owns CBS.

Where have all the reporters gone?

Gone to retire every one

When will they ever learn?

When will they ever learn?

Cuban censorship

The Cuban government has told three foreign correspondents that they must stop "inconvenient" reporting. AP Wire 02/23/2007 Cuba declines to renew credentials for 3 Havana correspondents

So long to a noble profession

Pam Constable writes in the Washington Post about the decline in the number of American foreign correspondents. She calls it a dying breed. She makes some good points. When we left Mexico City in 1979 the numbers had already started to decline. There were about 35 full time American foreign correspondents based in Mexico City in 1970. That had dropped to 15 by 1979. I have no idea how many are there now but I am sure they are few. Big name capitals in Europe -- especially Paris, London and Rome -- had more.

This is a big loss for followers of American print and broadcast news at a time when it is more important than ever before to know what is happening around the world.

Missed us

The really bad weather missed us. We got a little ice and a dusting of snow but nothing else except cold. Down into the teens. Had a warming trend this morning, up to 27 degrees when we left for our Saturday HazMat class. Interesting stuff rolling up and down the Interstates. What we call ethylmethylbadstuff. You can see a video of one such incident.

Found a blogger inside Cuba. Read about him. The BBC led me to him.

Click on the name El Cubano de la Isla for a direct link to the blog, if you read Spanish. Another gutsy Cuban, unless he is a government plant. I am real goosey about that after it turned out that one of the most prominent independent journalists in Cuba was really a government spy.

This Just In...

The magazine "Progressive Farmer" has picked Polk County -- our county -- as one of the top 10 Best Places to Live in Rural America. Gillespie County in the Hill County of Texas was No. 4 but we prefer the mountains. Read all about it here.

Ice and Snow

We have a light dusting of snow and now we're getting sleet. The emergency radio is full of calls on "1050s" -- auto accidents in Polk County emergency talk. Our job at the volunteer fire department usually defaults to traffic control on these calls unless there is a fire involved. We are not certified as a rescue unit yet so we have no extraction tools. I am sure there will be more calls as the day progresses because the forecast is for nasty weather until Friday morning.

I found this interesting story about one of the wars I covered.
Former Salvadoran Foes Share Doubts on War - washingtonpost.com

Sen Joe Biden used his mouth to shoot himself in the foot with some comments about the other Democratic presidential candidates. He said Sen. Barak Obama is "the first mainstream African American [presidential candidate] who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Busy Days

The temperature was 15 degrees on our back deck this morning -- six degrees with the wind chill. But it is a clear, sunny day now with no wind and the temperature has climbed into the 40s.

Here is a note from the local Tryon Daily Bulletin, reporting cases in the Polk County District Court:

"Karen Olivia Jones was convicted of unsafe movement. Jones was fined $25 and court costs."

No indication if this was a hip, colon or automobile problem.

Speaking of autos, we were re-ended in Greenville last week. Got the insurance adjuster's estimate today -- $2,800 in damage to my Ford Freestyle. A guy stopped to make a left turn across two lanes of oncoming traffic. I stopped. The F-150 pickup behind me stopped. The Chrysler behind him did not stop. No one hurt but the driver of the Chrysler was ticketed for unsafe driving, driving with a learner's permit and no licensed driver in the car, and failure to use a proper child restraint system. She faces almost $1,000 in fines.

I had a nice 70th birthday Saturday the 27th. Sylvia spoiled me all day and friends took us to dinner Saturday night.

We worked the Master Gardener's Desk at the Polk County extension office this morning. On Wednesday night we have the second session in the HazMat training for our fire department certification. That will be followed by an all day session Saturday.

I like coffee and donuts. There is a guy over in Raleigh, NC who has combined caffeine with donuts (and bagels) so you can get your coffee jolt while you eat. Saves time, I guess.

It Missed!

The ice storm predicted over the weekend by the weather folks missed us. We had the rain but the thermometer stayed above freezing at our place.

While staying indoors and only reading about outside activities I came across a couple of interesting stories in the New Times of Miami. Both are about Cuba and are written by "Our Woman in Havana" whose name is not disclosed because she snuck in as a tourist without a journalists' visa. Some do that because it is so difficult for an American reporter to get a journalists' visa. If the Cuban authorities decide they want the person out of the country they simply pick the person up at the hotel and provide free transportation to the airport for the next flight out. All of my efforts to get a visa since I was last in Cuba in 1979 have been fruitless.

One story deals with Cubans on the street and the other with independent journalists.

Water and Ice and Procrastination

It has been too long since I updated this blog. No excuse, no reason except procrastination.

We are in the midst of a mild winter storm, some ice on the roads. A Department of Transportation truck carrying sand to be used to fight the ice instead slid on the ice and turned over north of us. We had ice on our deck rails and a light coating of ice on the drive this morning but it is gone. However, the roads out of here, which go up before they go down, are still icy in spots.

But we have a nice fire in the fireplace, a load of wood handy, and the generator ready just in case.

There has been a lot of news since the last posting. We had a huge, wonderful, joy-filled reunion at Christmastime with all of our children and grandchildren coming to the mountains to be with us. It was really a blessing for Sylvia and for me. It was especially nice for me because the kids cooked up a surprise birthday party for me as an early celebration of my 70th birthday. They brought in a lot of my favorite food -- including a huge supply of tamales from my favorite Mexican restaurant in Detroit -- and then sat around the dinner table telling me how I had blessed their lives.

It is really an honor to beloved by such wonderful people!

Sean brought his friend Amy so we had a total of 15 people spread around our little mountain cabin. Sleeping bags and pallets on the floor, constant smells of delicious food from the kitchen, many, many hugs. It was great.



Sean got us a radio controlled airplane to play with but unfortunately the prop was broken in shipment and because of the holiday we could not get a replacement before he left. It arrived the day after he left. So I have the plane now, waiting for a nice day. I promised him video.

Shortly before Christmas we joined a health club in Forest City, a nearby town east of us, that has a nice pool and -- best of all -- a nice steam room. We started exercising on our own in the pool. Sylvia was working on therapy for her sprained ankle and I was working on getting my strength back up somewhere near normal. That progressed pretty well and I started swimming laps. Now we go three times a week for water aerobics, a time in the whirlpool and a nice steaming.

The fire department has been busy. Not many fires but we were called for rescue and traffic control on several wrecks. The only fire we have had in the past couple of weeks was in the median of Highway 74 -- a small grass fire that was out by the time we got there. We start training in dealing with hazardous materials Jan. 24. The HazMat training is necessary because of all the weird stuff being transported along the interstates and highways around here.

Art Buchwald, who so often made me smile, died Wednesday. The New York Times has a wonderful video obit, "The Last Word." You have to register for the Times but that is free and you should be checking it out once in a while anyway. Richard Severo, who shared office space with us in Mexico City, has a nice written obit in the Times.