Oregon deserves better than a jobless recovery
Note: This Guest Comment first ran in the Salem Statesman Journal [here]. Posted by permission of the author, a stalwart voice for Oregon forests and active management.
By Bill J.Kluting
These were the backbone of Oregon’s industrial work sector who were the primary state, county and city taxpayers. During the 1980 recession, our industrial facilities and jobs were still in place; and when these workers returned from layoffs or curtailed hours, Oregon had no problem pulling out of the recession.
Oregon’s unemployed number more than 200,000. One out of five Oregonians is receiving food stamps. Oregon is the third-highest for home foreclosures. Oregon needs to put 150,000 people back to work earning decent wages now. We can’t wait three to four years as some experts project for a jobless recovery.
We’re projected to have a $2 billion to $4 billion revenue shortfall for the next state budget. Oregon has become a welfare state. We are waiting in line for additional monies from the federal government for schools and human services. Our federal government can’t afford to keep financing states that can’t control their wasteful spending.
This state needs to look at restructuring our K-12 school financing. Too much is wasted at the administrative levels and not getting to the classroom.
Oregon is in the top five in the nation for cost per student and bottom five for graduating high school seniors. This has to change and our re-elected superintendent of schools and elected legislators have to find a solution. We need to dismantle the 21 education service districts and form a group of six to do the same job more efficiently. Do these two things alone and you’re saving a half billion dollars that could go directly to the classroom.
This state has to look at every agency, see what they do, eliminate the ones not necessary and phase out positions where not needed. Bring the costs of the health and retirement plans down to the national average. Cut the waste of our tax dollars. Until Oregon’s revenue problem goes away (which is years down the road, if ever), these things have to be done.
Almost half of Oregon’s counties will be losing the O&C federal timber monies they have received through the years, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, causing some counties to become bankrupt. This problem could be solved by having a national forest management plan that allows an annual sustainable harvest, creating thousands of jobs and revenue.
The first step to put Oregon back to work is to form a task force of business and labor folks to form ideas to create jobs and make sure our elected officials understand this needs to be done and done now.
We need to start the new Interstate 5 bridge and build the new mental hospital at Junction City. We need the new ocean cargo container facility and LNG plant in Coos Bay. These projects alone will create tens of thousands of new jobs.
Again, Oregonians deserve better than a jobless recovery. The only recovery plan that will work is to put unemployed Oregonians back to work now.
Bill J. Kluting of Monmouth worked in the timber and milling industry for 39 years. He represents the Carpenters Industrial Council as legislative affairs representative
Ancient Siberia-America Connection
A linguistic link [here] has been confirmed between New and Old World language groups. The Athabaskan language group, which includes Navajo, Apache, and Coquille in Oregon, is related to the language spoken by the Ket people of Western Siberia [here] despite 10,000 years of separation.
Words for ‘canoe’ point to long-lost family ties
Canwest News Service, July 8, 2010 [here]
An obscure language in Siberia has similarities to languages in North America, which might reshape history, writes Randy Boswell.
A new book by leading linguists has bolstered a controversial theory that the language of Canada’s Dene Nation is rooted in an ancient Asian tongue spoken today by only a few hundred people in Western Siberia.
The landmark discovery, initially proposed two years ago by U.S. researcher Edward Vajda, represents the only known link between any Old World language and the hundreds of speech systems among First Nations in the Western Hemisphere.
The collection of articles by Vajda and other experts details a multitude of clear connections — nouns, verbs and key grammatical structures — between the language spoken by the Ket people of Russia’s Yenisei River region and dozens of languages used by North American aboriginal groups.
The newly recognized link has prompted the Yukon-based Arctic Athabaskan Council to begin forging cultural and political ties with Russia’s tiny population of Ket speakers. They live 8,000 kilometres west of Whitehorse and are separated from their linguistic cousins in North America by some 10,000 years of history. …
A special issue of the Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska (APUA) is devoted to The Dene-Yeniseian Connection [here]. Papers cover three related topics:
* The Evidence for Dene-Yeniseian
* The Interdisciplinary Context for Dene-Yeniseian
* Commentaries on the Dene-Yeniseian Hypothesis
The Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska focuses on research in the circumpolar north and consists of original papers on a variety of topics related to arctic or subarctic anthropology. Produced by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Anthropology since 1951, APUA offers a collection of scholarly, often rare papers written by noted authorities in the field.
Thanks and kudos for this history news (oxymoron?) tip go to Dr. Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, and curator of the amazing and esoteric-knowledge-laden website, the Sino-Platonic Papers [here], which is worth a visit just to read the titles of the scholarly works archived there.
Work Break
I will be away from the Command Console for a few days. Got to make some dough. Back soon.
In the meantime, please contemplate the following:
Our “wildlands” are not truly wild. They have been homelands to people who have resided there for the past 10,000 years or so, and are owned, managed, and the responsibility of the landowner, the Federal government.
Nobody in this country should be subjected to catastrophic uncontrolled fires caused by negligence on the part of a neighbor, especially if that neighbor is a public land management agency.
Some of the farms, ranches, homes, and businesses subjected to the runaway Federal fires have been there for 150 years or more. They are not “new” impositions into a wild landscape.
Numerous towns are at certain risk of catastrophic fire. Without fuels management of surrounding public lands, they will burn fiercely someday, despite bans on new homes and/or the existing homeowners raking their pine needles.
The elimination of inhabitants and of fire suppression will not put out a single fire. Those oft proffered “solutions” solve nothing. In fact, those eliminations will make fires bigger. Modern megafires have traveled as much as 30 miles or more to burn private land far, far away from designated Wilderness.
Fire is not a special benefit that Mother Nature graces us with, but rather a very destructive force that needs to be managed for the health and safety of the populace and the landscape.
We need not live jam-packed into urban bomb shelters, surrounded by wolves and holocausts. There is a better way.
It’s called stewardship.
Taking a Break
I’ll be taking a short break from blogging while I earn some much needed funds. See you next Monday.
Copyright Rip-Offs Are Uncool
It has come to my attention that a for-profit magazine has printed and published an essay of mine:
* without my knowledge
* without my permission
* without remuneration
* without any editorial control on my part
* without any link to this site
The Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal ripped off my work without so much as a phone call to me to let me know. Now my essay appears in their journal with their copyright stamped on it.
That is so uncool.
Really sloppy, unprofessional, and probably actionable, should I choose to take legal tort action against that magazine and their publisher.
Really, really uncool.
For whatever they might be worth, my words, essays, photographs, etc. are my property. They are not free for the taking, especially not for somebody else’s financial gain.
If you want to repost in full something you see here, please ask permission. Chances are I will grant it, with the condition that proper attributions and links are included. If it’s just a few lines, you don’t even need to ask — but you should still include a link to this site.
If you want to print something of mine in your for-profit magazine, please do me the courtesy of contacting me before you do and requesting my permission. Understand that in such a case I may expect to be PAID for my art.
If you are the publisher, a subscriber, or an advertiser in Oregon Fish & Wildlife Journal, you owe me.
One appropriate course of action you could take is to make a donation to W.I.S.E. [here]. If you do, I will consider your debt to me to be paid in full.
Thank you for your support!
Mike Dubrasich, Exec Dir W.I.S.E.
The Good Neighbor Extravaganza
Coming April 17, 2010
Where in the world…can you have a blast discussing soup to nuts with a hydro climatologist, rodeo clown, astrophysicist, renewable energy expert, education’s whistle blower, auctioneer, three attorneys and a comedian?
In Denver! At the Good Neighbor Forum, April 17, 2010 at Casselman’s Bar and Venue 26th & Walnut
From 12:00 - 5:00 PM — Public welcome ($25.00 - GNL members free) — Doors open at 11:00 AM.
and the
Good Neighbor of the Year Recognition Dinner
Hamburger Buffet & *Benefit Auction, April 17, 2010, from 6:30 - 9:30 PM — Public welcome ($75.00 - GNL members $50.00)
Co-hosts: Colonel Mark Trostel, Lea Marlene, Scott Shuman
Master of Ceremonies - Hadley Barrett (Premier Rodeo Announcer)
Recognition of Kevin McNicholas (Owner/partner K.M. Concessions) as Good Neighbor Of The Year.
Book Signing Jim Keen Photographer, author - Great Ranches Of The West, and Colorado Rocky Mountain Wide.
Music throughout forum and evening event provided by Curt Blake (Rodeo music spinner extraordinaire)
Percentage of proceeds benefit Colorado Boys Ranch.
For details, to join GNL, and to purchase tickets click [here] or [here]
***************
Good Neighbor Forum Program
12:00 Scott Shuman, Auctioneer: “This will be the most exciting thing to hit downtown Denver since the Rockies made the playoffs!”
12:00 Lea Marlene, Comedian, Actress, Writer: “Come to Casselman’s Saturday! Be super cool and make reservations in advance. It’s the classy thing to do! See you then!”
12:05 Michael Shaw, Attorney: Agenda 21 - “There are a thousand points of darkness that are now wafting upon us. What are Americans supposed to do, fight a thousand battles?”
12:35 Beverly Eakman, Education’s whistle blower: “Our psychologized classrooms are producing a nation of sitting ducks.”
1:05 Leon Coffee, bullfighter/rodeo clown: “America’s economy has changed, but God’s economy never changes.”
1:20 Dr. Howard Hayden, Retired Professor of Physics, expert on renewable energy: “People will do anything to save the world… except take a course in science.”
1:50 Robert Nagel, C.U. Rothgerber Professor of Constitutional Law, Author of The Implosion of American Federalism: “The fact that so many of the hopes and fears [over federalism] should be riveted on this supremely unlikely institution is itself a discouraging sign of implosion.”
2:20 Karen Budd-Falen, Attorney exposing taxpayer funded lawsuit racket of radical environmentalists: “Non-profit tax exempt environmental organizations receive millions of tax paid dollars from the federal government, so that they can sue the federal government to challenge the legitimate use of the land by ranchers, employers and other citizens.”
2:50 Dr. David R. Legates, Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Delaware: “We are being brainwashed. This whole discussion is not a climate discussion, it is a controlling discussion. I think there are other ulterior motives. Carbon dioxide is NOT a pollutant. It is NOT harmful to life on earth. If you think it’s only carbon dioxide that drives climate, you really don’t understand how the climate system works”.
3:20 Dr. Willie Soon, Astrophysicist and geoscientist at the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics: “Saying the climate system is completely dominated by how much carbon dioxide we have in the system is crazy — it’s completely wrong.”
3:50 Michael Shaw — Closing remarks
4:20 Q & A Debate
5:00 Forum done. Reset for evening event.
6:30 Good Neighbor of the Year Recognition Dinner
Hamburger Buffet — Benefit Auction — Recognition of Kevin McNicholas as Good Neighbor of the Year.
*Auction items include: 1997 NFR/PRCA directors jacket, shotgun, antique wheelbarrel full of wine & roses, Breyer & Stone horses, CSU logo jewelry, Turkey & Antelope hunts, “Know Bull” limited edition posters (Leon Coffee will autograph) Coors Art Show posters, 1 day Veterinarian service, 2 NFR Tix, custom built hat, handmade boot mirror, “The Maunder Minimum and the Variable Sun-Earth Connection” by Willie Wei-Hock Soon & Steven H. Yaskell, “Taken By Storm” by Christopher Essex & Ross McKitrick.
Door Prizes include: “Ol’ Satan’s Hide” Poems by Quinn Griffin [Jack Kisling composed on the Intertype in 12-point Garamond and hand printed on the Chandler & Price], and “Air Con” by Ian Wishart.
The 4th Annual Good Neighbor Forum
ANNOUNCING:
The 4th Annual Good Neighbor Forum
April 17, 2010 at Casselman’s Bar & Venue - 26th & Walnut in Denver
A day of internationally known speakers…an evening of pure fun!
Doors Open 11:00 AM. Forum begins 12:00 PM sharp!
(2010 Members FREE - Non-members $25.00)
You may join online or by sending an email to: GoodNeighborLaw at msn.com
Please indicate in your email if you are attending forum: Yes___ No____.
Good Neighbor of the Year Recognition Dinner
April 17, 2010
Dinner begins 6:30 PM
(2010 Members $50.00 - Non-members $75.00)
BUY TICKETS
Seating limited. Reservations a must. Please register today at:
http://www.casselmans.com
A percentage of net proceeds will go to benefit the Colorado Boys Ranch (Youth Connect).
Download brochure [here]
——————————————————————————
FORUM SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
Karen Budd-Falen, Attorney
Subject: Taxpayers fund environmental lawsuits — Congressional Action on Exposing Taxpayer Funded Lawsuit Racket of Radical Environmentalists
Dr. Willie Soon, Astrophysicist at the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Subject: The Milky Way, the Sun & the CO2 monster — Avoiding CO2 Myopia
Dr. David Legates, Associate Professor at the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware and Delaware State Climatologist.
Subject: Climatology and hydrology — Avoiding CO2 Myopia
Robert F. Nagel, Attorney
Subject: Constitution - Static vs. Living
Michael Shaw, Attorney and CPA, Director of Freedom Advocates
Subject: Agenda 21
Dr. Howard Hayden, Physicist, author of The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won’t Run the World, and A Primer on CO2 and Climate
Subject: Renewable energy
Beverly K. Eakman, Educator/Author
Subject: Numbing, Dumbing America
Leon Coffee, Rodeo Clown
Subject: Political correctness and behavior modification
Book signing: Jim Keen - Author/Photographer: “Colorado Rocky Mountain Wide”, and “Great Ranches of the West”
Silent/Live Auction items will also showcase Antiques
Curt Blake (Music spinner extraordinaire!) to provide sound affects and music throughout the day/night!
——————————————————————————
Separate from the Forum will be the Good Neighbor of the Year Recognition Dinner - which begins 6:00 PM.
Kevin McNicholas, owner/partner K.M. Concessions, will be honored as “Colorado Good Neighbor Of The Year”
Hadley Barrett, Rodeo Announcer, Master of Ceremonies
Entertainer: Lea Marlene, LA Comic, Actor, Writer
——————————————————————————
Good Neighbor Law is a Colorado For-Profit Corporation.
Good Neighbor Law is dedicated solely to the purpose of helping people learn how to be a good neighbor.
For matters pertaining to protecting your private property rights, constitution, land and water, please go to: http://LandAndWaterUSA.com
A Dark Day for America
The virtue of the American system was rule by mutual agreement, tempered by unwavering protection of individual rights. The job of our representatives was to find compromise that all could live with, even if some were not enthusiastic about it, but always within the confines of the Constitution.
That spirit of mutual agreement has been lost. We have devolved to tyranny of a bare majority, the very thing Alexis de Tocqueville warned against.
It is no secret that “progressive” means progression toward Marxist enslavement, the impoverishment of the masses, and enrichment of the ruling class.
This is a very dark day for America, not just because of the health care bill, not just because of the soaring deficit and attendant economic collapse, but more tragically, the end of the America system of governance of, by, and for the people. We the people, and we do exist as sovereign individuals, were once the masters of our own fates. Now we are chained in servitude to a powerful elite who govern us without our consent.
The Democrats gained power through slander and lies. They duped the electorate and sowed fear in the hearts of voters. Now they have turned on those who elected them, and proved their duplicity and ferocity.
Like wolves. Like wildfire.
There is a pestilence upon the land, and it is the Democrat Party.
This is not a political blog. We don’t campaign, we don’t recommend candidates, we don’t favor one party over another. But the foundation of America is crumbling, and we would be remiss not to point it out. Vote for whomever you want to, but know this: your vote means nothing anymore. By itself, voting will not cure the evil that has befallen this country.
Freedom isn’t free. Only those who are willing to pay the price will ever enjoy its fruits.
W.I.S.E. Luncheon
Last week the Western Institute for Study of the Environment held our first Annual Luncheon in the Columbia River Gorge. A wonderful time was had by all. Some photos:
At Crown Point. Left to right: Carl, Kat, Mike, Melissa, Steve, Dan. Click for larger image.
Searching This Site
A commenter requested that he would like to see some posts about anthropogenic fire regimes in the Pacific Northwest.
By my count there have been 40 posts about anthropogenic fire in Oregon, and over 100 on anthropogenic fire in general.
Also, at the W.I.S.E. Colloquium: History of Western Landscapes, we have posted at least 25 scientific papers on the topic.
There is a method to help you search this site and all the sub-sites at W.I.S.E. for topics of interest to you. That method is to use the Search Applet in the upper right hand corner of every page. To use the Search Applet, follow these simple rules:
1. First, go to the root home of the sub-site you wish to search. You can do that by clicking on the large type, bold header at the top of the page.
On this sub-site, the large type, bold header is “SOS Forests“. Click on that. To insure that you are at the root home, check the URL. It should say:
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/
2. Type your search words into the little box that says “search”.
The word “search” will disappear. Your search terms will replace it.
3. Push *Enter*. That is, tap the *Enter* key on your keyboard.
You should see a new URL that will look something like this:
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/?s=anthropogenic+fire
Notice that your search terms will appear in the URL. That is the way to check and see if you completed all the above instructions correctly.
4. All the posts that contain your search terms will appear. It happens very quickly, so you might not notice it at first. But scroll down the page and you will see all the posts that contain your search terms.
5. If your search returned more than 15 posts, at the bottom of the page you will see a hot link that says “Next Page –>“. Click on that. Another page will appear with a URL that looks something like:
http://westinstenv.org/sosf/page/2/?s=anthropogenic+fire
Notice that “page/2″ in there? That tells you that you have found the second set of 15 posts containing your search terms.
Scroll to the bottom again. If you see the hot link that says “Next Page –>” again, that tells you that more than 30 posts meet your criteria. You can click on the hotlink again and see the third set of 15 posts. And so on. If there is no “Next Page –>” hot link at the bottom of the page, you have reached the end and found all the posts with your search terms.
6. To perform a new search (you may wish to try some other search words, for instance), be sure to click on the large type, bold header first. That will take you back to the root home. If you don’t do that, you may inadvertently search within your old search results.
7. All the sub-sites at W.I.S.E. are their own, stand alone databases. You cannot search multiple sub-sites from one location.
8. However, you may perform an author search at the W.I.S.E. Library by going to that subsite and typing the author’s name into the search applet. All the authors of papers posted in the W.I.S.E. Colloquia are listed at the Library.
Important: the Library lists the Colloquia posts, not the Commentary posts. To find authors at the Commentary sub-sites, you must visit the appropriate Commentary sub-site and do your search there.
The Library may be accessed by clicking on the hotlink that says “Library” in the upper lefthand corner of every page.
Any questions?
A PoMo Deconstruction of AGW
Note: the following arrived by email from an unknown (pseudonymous) source. We have no idea what it means, but we like it.
SmutGate reveals the bare naked truth
by Anton LePip
The latest bimbo-esque mythopoetical eruption from the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) camp is the publication of a “romance novel” written by the UN’s climate change chief, Dr Rajendra Pachauri [here].
Return to Almora, published in Dr Pachauri’s native India earlier this month, tells the story of Sanjay Nath, an academic in his 60s reminiscing on his “spiritual journey” through India, Peru and the US.
On the way he encounters, among others, Shirley MacLaine, the actress, who appears as a character in the book. While relations between Sanjay and MacLaine remain platonic, he enjoys sex – a lot of sex – with a lot of women. …
The book, which makes reference to the Kama Sutra, starts promisingly enough as it tells the story of a climate expert with a lament for the denuded mountain slopes of Nainital, in northern India, where deforestation by the timber mafia and politicians has “endangered the fragile ecosystem”.
But talk of “denuding” is a clue of what is to come.
By page 16, Sanjay is ready for his first liaison with May in a hotel room in Nainital. “She then led him into the bedroom,” writes Dr Pachauri.
“She removed her gown, slipped off her nightie and slid under the quilt on his bed… Sanjay put his arms around her and kissed her, first with quick caresses and then the kisses becoming longer and more passionate.
“May slipped his clothes off one by one, removing her lips from his for no more than a second or two.
“Afterwards she held him close. ‘Sandy, I’ve learned something for the first time today. You are absolutely superb after meditation. Why don’t we make love every time immediately after you have meditated?’.”
The dialectic paradigm of smut narrative counterpoised to the apparently asexual neoscientific theory of human-caused global warming — leading to the postdialectic apocalyptic destruction of the planet (Thermogeddon) — suggests a textual neosemanticist union of post-rationality with subcultural capitalist sexuality.
In other words, AGW is Freudian, and not in a healthy way.
The rise of Clintonesque libertine-arianism in postmodern culture is now a pan-disciplinary worldwide phenomenon. We must, therefore, once again search for the meaning of meaning within the clash of premodern traditional structures and postmaterialist socialism.
Pachauri et al. and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, along with Al Gore, not for scientific achievement (the Peace Prize is not a science prize), but for proliferation of postmodern (sexual) angst regarding imaginary anthropogenic global disaster (the putative coming Ecopalypse).
Contextualisizing a Pynchonist “powerful communication” that includes narrativity as a whole, poststructural dematerialism is offered as a “solution” to neoscientific alarms about the quasi-moral depravity of civilization as we know it.
The wellspring of postmodern neoscience may be traced back to confabulations of the 1970’s, early intercourses between poststructuralist “free love” advocates such as Margaret Mead and population bombers such as Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren (currently the Advisor to President Barack Obama for Science and Technology).
Simply put, the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s erupted into class warfare over sexual identity and sexual morays [I think he meant mores, as in virtues or values, not eels, but who knows? - Ed], and that tide engulfed scientific institutions as well. Coed-ophilia supplanted rational inquiry, filling the institutional [intellectual?] vacuum left by the poststructuralist dialectic. Traditional science atrophied, and neoscience arose as a substitute.
Joyceian concepts of the distinction between feminine and masculine gave way to neosemanticist theories of sexual multi-morphism. Yet precognitive biological urges remained, and flourished, and with the dissolution of rational inquiry became the defining characteristic, and thus the stasis, of neoscience and postmodern society.
Baudrillard uses the term “Sontagist camp” to denote the conflation of “scientist” with “artist,” thus deconstructing “observation” and science itself as a self-referential semiotic paradigm.
Millernarianism (Doomsday-ism) satisfied the new dialectic and its socialist subtext. Abundance was seen to marginalize the underprivileged. Therefore, an abundance of postmaterialist thought came to dominate. But that neocultural sublimation was flimsy cover for [neo]premodern sexual conquest and exploitation, a profoundly instinctive human practice that continued unabated, and indeed has proliferated.
The anti-populationists copulated as never before, in oxymoronic expression of preapocalyptic hedonism. Neoscience institutions have become breeding grounds in counterpositional dissonance to their deconstructivist thema and schemata.
So it should come as no surprise that sexuality has infiltrated and indeed supplanted rational inquiry, despite the overlying Marxist asexual supertext of the neoscientific elites.
SmutGate seen in this context is thus neither pre- nor post-emergent, but is instead foundational and interpolational to the neodialectic cultural narrative of meaning within the neoscientific AGW camp.
Grandmother Adams’ Bushfire Story
Editor’s note: Roger Underwood is a renowned Australian forester with fifty years experience in bushfire management and bushfire science. He has worked as a firefighter, a district and regional manager, a research manager and senior government administrator. He is Chairman of The Bushfire Front, an independent professional group promoting best practice in bushfire management.
We have posted many essays by Mr. Underwood [here, here]. This one reveals a case of divine intervention, or a miracle, or something similar. You are cordially invited to append (as comments) your own tales of inexplicable salvation.
By Roger Underwood
Patsy Adam-Smith is one of my favourite Australian writers. She has a simple, clean style and she wrote about places and people that I love: the bush, the sea, timberworkers and railwaymen. I also like the way she wrote about her family with such pride and affection, and the stories of her grandmothers who were pioneer settlers in Victoria, one Granny Smith and the other Grandmother Adams.
Her relationship with Grandmother Adams was not a particularly happy one, although they had one thing in common. “We admired the pioneering spirit,” Adam-Smith writes in her first book (Hear the Train Blow, in which she records her childhood, growing up in a railway family during the 1930s). “She would tell me stories by the hour of the pioneering days, and I would listen for as long as she would talk. She and my Grandfather had pioneered the hills of Gippsland.”
They lived in a slab hut with an earth floor, her husband taking work where he could find it to buy their stock, and the mother and children milking the cows while he was away shearing, fencing or sleeper cutting. Adam-Smith goes on: “Grandmother Adams had been burnt out twice in the Gippsland hills. Once she narrowly escaped with her life. My grandfather was away.”
I sent your aunt Anastasia to neighbours to tell them we needed help; the fire was surrounding us [Grandmother Adams recalls]. Not long after she left the wind changed. I looked at the track she had taken and now flames criss-crossed it, and as I watched a blazing tree fell right across it. She was a wonderful horsewoman, you know, and I knew she would get to the neighbours, but I thought she would never get back. The bigger children helped me pull my sewing machine outside and I covered it with wet bags and I gathered up what we could carry. As we left the house I looked across to the only gap that was clear of flames and there was your aunt, sailing over a fallen log, her horse bringing her home at a gallop.
“How did you find that gap?” I asked her.
“I followed the two men,” she said.
“What men? There are no men here,”
“Oh yes, they jumped the log ahead of me. When the wind changed I didn’t know which way to go and these men rode out ahead and beckoned me to follow them.”
At this stage in her story, Adam-Smith writes, her grandmother always blessed herself, before going on…..
There had been no men. It was God Himself that led the girl home.
But men did come through the gap after her. Grandmother Adams and her children were rescued.
There are several things I like about this story, not the least being the importance placed on saving the sewing machine. This is a telling reminder of the importance of these machines (their first, and only ‘labour-saving device’) in the lives of many bush wives and mothers, and also of their value as a hard-won investment. My wife’s maternal grandmother (also a Granny Smith), a pioneer group settler in the karri country, acquired a ‘Singer’ sewing machine during the 1920s, and it was her pride and joy. The machine was inherited from her own Grandma Smith, and was by then already probably 30 years old. It was worked by a foot treadle, connected to the works by rubber driving bands. We have it today. We keep it clean and oiled, and it still works. Both my wife and her mother learned to sew on it.
I also like the spiritual side of the story, and I am happy to accept Grandmother Adams’ explanation of divine intervention. I can recall two mysterious experiences myself at bushfires many years ago, times when I was exhausted or under extreme stress. And I have heard stories from others about the apparent intervention of a mystical power that saved the day. My old forestry mate Brian Cowcher once told me how, when working in the jarrah forest one day, he had stepped off a large log and just before his foot touched the ground, he saw that he was about to land on a tiger snake, which had its head up and was looking at him. Brian said he never knew how it happened, but somehow he found himself again back on the log and standing upright, even though, he said, “he had passed 45 degrees” on the way down.
I have always liked the thought of God intervening to save Brian, who was a mentor, a good bloke, and to whose wonderful bush yarns I loved to listen, for as long as he would talk.
December 2009
Cantique de Noël
O Holy Night (”Cantique de Noël”) — words by Placide Cappeau (1808-1877), music by Adolphe Charles Adam (1803–1856).
Adam wrote operas and ballets, and is probably best remembered for the ballet Giselle (1841). My personal favorite Christmas song, “O Holy Night”, is operatic to say the least. It requires a well-trained soprano to hit the G above high-C in the musical climax (oh night di-VINE). But I also like the pathos and beauty in the embedded transition to a minor key. “O Holy Night” weeps with hope and devotion. The finish shatters glass and your heart.
This rendition [here] by the Celtic Woman is particularly beautiful and moving.
The words (in English, one translation anyway):
O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining.
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born;
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!
O night, O Holy Night , O night divine!Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by the light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here came the wise men from Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!
Behold your King! Before him lowly bend!Truly He taught us to love one another,
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother.
And in his name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
With all our hearts we praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we,
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
His power and glory ever more proclaim!
Merry Christmas!
The Genesis of Old-Growth Forests
Note: due to the crush of work I have accepted recently, I do not have time to prepare new posts for the next week or so. The following is a repost from May, 2008 [here, here, here].
by Mike Dubrasich
Iain Murray, the author of The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Won’t Tell You About - Because They Helped Cause Them, [here], wrote in Chapter 4 of that book:
With wildfires burning, it is useful to turn to the wisdom of the ancients. When the pioneers first entered the great forests of America, they found that the Native Americans had managed the forests for centuries. Their woodlands contained very few big trees—maybe fifty such trees per acre.
Apparently the Indians had set regular, low intensity fires which burned away accumulations of undergrowth, deadwood, dying trees and particularly small trees growing between the big trees. The larger trees were unharmed, because of their thick fire-resistant bark.
That in a nut shell is the way our old-growth forests developed. Frequent anthropogenic fire gave rise to open, park-like forests, largely uneven-aged at large-area scales. Forest scientists refer to such trees as “older cohort” because they are quite different than the even-aged thickets of trees (younger cohort) that arose following elimination of anthropogenic fire (aka “Indian burning”).
True old-growth forests contain older cohort trees. Those trees are remnants of the the former open, park-like forests that covered much of forested North America, and they may also be viewed as relics of our ancient culturally-modified landscapes.
In this 3-part series, I discuss in greater detail how our old-growth forests came to be here. The issue is important, because we must understand how old-growth forests arose in order to protect, maintain, and perpetuate them. If we value old-growth, and that seems to be a widely-shared value, then it is vital to understand their development.
