Hattie's Web

A little bit of heaven

A few pictures from Salt Spring Island, one of the British Columbia Gulf Islands:

Blackberries everywhere!

This eagle and crow appear to be conspiring against the gulls and the geese.

Dahlia in a blast of light

House and garden where cousins Bettie and Jerry were staying

Canada geese

We took the slow ferry back to the Mainland. Nothing is more relaxing than sitting on a ferryboat on a nice day with a calm ocean and reading and occasionally spying on the passengers on the deck outdoors. Nice looking bunch of people, those Canadians. I wonder if the social safety net and universal health care have anything to do with that.

One of the (many) wonderful features of Salt Spring Island was the quality of the domestic architecture there: charming, unique houses, nicely landscaped in a rustic style, totally suited to their surroundings.  There were fruit trees, blackberry brambles, flowers, everywhere, and many bees, wasps, and butterflies. So I guess they are careful with pesticides and weed killer. It appears that the seemingly small measures people take to improve the environment do make a difference, after all, even in an era of megaprojects and the bottom line. Certainly, there is a lot more happening on the west coast in the direction of preservation of species, conscious consumerism, farmers'  markets, recycling, mindful water use and so on. And these small initiatives on the part of individuals and communities  make this a much different place than it was even a few years ago: a lot prettier and seemingly less polluted.

Still at Salt Spring

We will be leaving this lovely place in the afternoon and will be back in Seattle this evening. Taking lots of pix.

Salt Spring

Right now I can't post pix but will as soon as possible. 

Last night I slept like a baby ( or maybe like George W Bush) after a wonderful day of swimming,strolling around this lovely place, and socializing with relatives. Today we have to make nice with some collateral relatives we can't stand, though. We arranged things so as not to have to spend much time with them. To cut down on the collateral damage,so to speak. 

Democracy Now continues to report from inside Gaza,  and Scahill is on today re: government spying.

 

Eyeless in Gaza...

It is so lovely on Salt Spring Island. But I did have a bad night. The sadness about Gaza doesn't go away. And no one talks about it,but it's on everyone's mind. I am profoundly disillusioned. Not that my disillusionment is the point,of course. But I am tired of politicians who claim to be champions of the downtrodden and then come to the defense of Israel's sick apartheid state.

Nonetheless,I will enjoy exploring this lovely place with its perfumed air, and I will  read some Milton. I'm old enough for him now. I feel absolutely schizophrenic at this point,having laughed myself silly yesterday evening over that buddy movie satire, Dumb and Dumber.  Is it me going crazy, or is it the times?

I'll take pix and so on. Won't be able to get to Vancouver this trip,as I had hoped. 

I give up.

 

@charliearchy @VictorianPrude This is scary. And sad.

— Marianna S. Scheffer (@MSScheffer) July 26, 2014

If Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren sign on to this, there is really no hope. All right, maybe it's just a Resolution, but still it sends the message that the U.S. will always side with Israel. Be sure to read the enlightening tweets. I just got my absentee ballot. A small gesture, perhaps, but I will vote for Hanabusa, because Schatz signed on to this resolution. More: A small ray of hope, perhaps.

Signs of shifting US opinion in Gallup poll on Israel's Gaza offensive, Americans under 29 say "unjustified" by 51-25 http://t.co/nmR0V6IUmG

— Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) July 26, 2014

Happy Friday

Front yards in Ketchikan, Alaska:

The weather has turned nice in Seattle, finally, and Terry is on the light rail headed to Ballard.  Only $.75 for seniors, he says. But he doesn't know where he should transfer. What an adventurer. 

I simply can't bear the news right now.

Enjoying a complete news break and enjoying hanging out with the grandkids,cooking,playing card games,watching old Star Trek episodes. It's cold and rainy here,but we are cozy.

In Seattle

Terry and I parted company in Honolulu: He's in Phoenix now and I'm in Seattle. He will be coming up here on Friday.

My seatmate was a construction company owner who was in Honolulu who had been working on some compliance matters regarding a project. Since I'm reading Bird on Fire, the story of the worst case scenario city in the U.S. ,we had a lot to talk about. Phoenix is a great example of how not to do things.

My very personal conclusion is that the most destructive urban planners are big thinkers who believe details are for the little people. Right now I'm reading about the heavily polluted plume of groundwater under parts of Phoenix and Scottsdale. You would be crazy to drink that stuff. 

A long time ago in one of my Reed College classes I studied a work which I can't remember the title of about urban planning in Paris and Barcelona. There the problem has been that they are always behind, and so by the time projects are done they are  obsolete and/ or insufficient.

Phoenix is a victim of that old Wild West mentality: Use it up and move on.  But that era is over. What to do about the mess left behind by the  big polluters?

This is such a fascinating topic!

 

The War on Children

Going to stop quarreling with my friends on Facebook for a while and take the  cat to board. We are on our way again tomorrow. It is brutally humid here, but I am all packed!

More: Below I mentioned a Palestinian I knew who came to the U.S. to study and stayed here instead of going back. Talking over things at lunch with Terry, I asked him if he remembered one of his high school classmates, an Israeli who was in a high school study abroad program. He had lost touch with him. He was quite the guy--fun, adventurous, had a great motorcycle--wondering what might have happened to him, I looked up his name, an unusual one, and to my surprise found that he now lived in Berkeley. I remember him saying he did not want to go back to Israel and did not want to be in the military.

Here is what I wrote at the time of the last big assault on Gaza. 

They did not use white phosphorus this time, but they are using some kind of horrific bomb that spews shrapnel that cuts people to pieces.

What is so infuriating to me  is that you could turn the clock back to the 80's and realize that, belying all the feel-good rhetoric,  we have regressed everywhere when it comes to social justice. A lot of us had great hopes with Clinton. Then we had great hopes with Obama. But the trend is so clearly downward that I don't see how the greatest optimist in the world could imagine ever seeing the kind of improvements that would make a difference to ordinary people. We've run out of money. It's disappeared. We threw it away and not just the rich, either, but all of us. There is no longer the capital to repair our infrastructure, educate everyone and provide good health services. 

And now another round of the Cold War! Just what we need!

As a couple of old people who will be pretty well shot in a few years, we have decided to at least get a look at the things we want to see before it's too late. It would be egomania to think we can make much of a difference in this sorry world.

Monday

The latest "authorized version" of Israel-Palestine is being put into place. Luckily, we have Democracy Now, "the exception to the rulers," to provide the kind of in-depth on the ground reporting and excellent analysis that is rare in journalism.

 Here is Max Blumenthal, who clarifies the issue.

 

He points out that the current Israeli invasion of Gaza was the result of a "green light" given by our State Department, to go and "clean out" the tunnels in Gaza. Kerry's sarcastic aside, caught on Fox News, that this was "some pinpoint operation," Blumenthal considers to be a deliberate and not at all accidental way for him to refuse to take responsibility for his blunder in expecting Netanyahu to act in a measured way. Netanyahu is a fascist, and Israel is becoming a fascist state. Leftists are being bullied and attacked on the street and encouraged to leave the country.  Arabs are targets of racist attacks. This is not a country that should be given the kind of loyalty and money that the U.S. lavishes on it.

The whole program is here.

 

And if you have the time, read Max Blumenthal's Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel.

BTW: If you don't have the time or inclination to look at the vids, DN provides transcripts.