Oh Give Me A Home...

Several people have written to me after being surprised that one of the items on my 100 Things About Me list includes the fact that I want to raise bison. What can I say, it's a strange dream, but it's my dream. Bison are strong, hearty animals who tolerate extreme heat and cold much better than cattle. They evolved here in North America and are much more beneficial to the environment than are cows. Their meat is lean and healthier than beef. Plus, something about helping to restore them to their former domain just sort of feels right--it's hard to imagine any living creature looking more at home on the mountains and prairies of the West. The only advantage that cattle have over bison is the fact that they are much more docile and easily controlled. No matter how tame they may appear, all bison are still basically wild animals. Read Dan O'Brien's excellent book Buffalo For The Broken Heart if you want to know more.

I once met a man who wanted to sell me a smallish Buffalo ranch near Adin, California called the Mantutocheega. It was beautiful beyond description and was probably worth at least a couple million dollars. The picture above was taken there. I was tempted to take him up on his offer to sell it to me on contract, but reason got the better of me. Still, the dream lives. A place like the Mantutocheega will be mine one day.

100 Things About Me

I've noted that a "100 Things About Me" list is a very popular type of posting among bloggers. So I figured I'd give it a shot. Here are the results:

1. I am a Minnesotan by birth, born in St. Paul in 1973.
2. Although I have an incurable wanderlust and currently live in Reno, Nevada, the place I think of as home is Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where my parents live.
3. I am very close to my brother and two sisters despite the fact that we live in far-flung places—Maureen lives in Atlanta with her family, Daniel lives in Boston and Katy in Los Angeles.
4. I have gone to Catholic school for every year of education from first grade through law school, with the lone exception of my freshman year of high school.
5. I went to college at Spring Hill in Mobile, Alabama. I majored in English and History, partly because I find those subjects interesting, but mostly because I have a certain talent for b.s.
6. The high school I graduated from, St. Bernard Prep, is located at and administered by a monastery of Benedictine monks in the hills of northern Alabama. I was second in my class of 16 people. And to answer the question I know you're pondering: Yes, we had girls.
7. I can remember the day I fell in love with the mountains of the Western United States: May 9, 1994. On my way to a college internship in Denver I had driven all night across the Texas Panhandle, cut across the northeast corner of New Mexico and saw the Colorado Rockies for the first time. I had never imagined such a place could exist.
8. On weekends I work at a farm in Silver Springs, Nevada. I don’t get paid; I only get free food in return for my labor, and most of the food I end up giving away. I just love the work.
9. It is my greatest dream in life to own a small farm or ranch in a place that still feels wild, backed up against the mountains, hopefully with a decent trout stream running through it.
10. I think snowboarding is the closest human beings will ever come to knowing what it feels like to fly.
11. My mother wants her and me to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and honestly I can’t wait to give it a try; it’s just that $5,000 price tag for the trip that’s keeping me back. That’s $5,000 a piece.
12. Most of the cars I own end up with unusual names. The Kurgan and Azrael are two former examples. My current car, a 1997 Suzuki Sport, is called Grond, Hammer of the Underworld.
13. I have been to forty seven of the fifty states; the only ones I’m missing are Maine, Vermont and Hawaii.
14. I’m a third-generation Cubs fan, but neither I, nor my Mother, nor my Grandfather has ever seen the Cubs win the World Series.
15. The best summer of my life was 1996, when I worked as a National Park Service Volunteer in Yellowstone.
16. I also volunteered to work on weekends during the summer of 2003 in North Cascades National Park; mostly because Jack Kerouac once did the same thing (read The Dharma Bums to find out about that).
17. Since we’re on the subject of National Parks, I’ve always wanted to write a book about visiting all of American’s National Parks, including the really remote ones in Alaska. If anyone else writes a book like this before I do, YOU STOLE MY IDEA!
18. I play the guitar, but have been frustrated for years by the fact that I haven’t really gotten any better since I was about 14.
19. When I briefly worked as a prosecutor in Klickitat County, Washington in 2000-2001, one of my duties was acting as county coroner (yes, coroner) for one week of every month. And no, I have absolutely no medical training.
20. I get a big kick out of the old TV show Bonanza.
21. In Law School I was a member of the Canadian Law Caucus despite never having been to that country during my adult life up to that point.
22. Although there are a lot of places I haven’t been, I can say with absolute certainty that the coolest city in the world is San Francisco, California.
23. I took out all my student loans through Wells Fargo Bank because I thought their stagecoach looked cool.
24. The most interesting place I have ever gotten lost is on the Yukon-Kuskokwim River Delta in the Alaskan Bush.
25. I never visited Disneyland until last Christmas, when I was 31 years old. I don’t think I missed much all those years.
26. My favorite tree is the Ponderosa Pine. I’m not sure what it says about me that I have a favorite tree.
27. I secretly enjoy old Country music like Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson, music from when Country still had a certain outsider subversiveness to it. New Country music makes me want to gag.
28. I once spent a night in a gutter in New Orleans. This will probably come as a surprise to my parents. Then again, it may not.
29. I have a raspberry bush growing on the balcony of my 8th floor studio apartment in downtown Reno. I think it symbolizes something, but I haven’t figured out exactly what yet.
30. I’m one of those people who like to nitpick about historical inaccuracies in movies and on TV.
31. Despite the fact that it is a cartoon, I think The Simpsons has been the smartest and best-written show on television for the better part of two decades.
32. I own literally dozens upon dozens of T-shirts, but only about six functional pairs of pants.
33. I am helplessly addicted to diet soda.
34. I could probably survive eating nothing but chicken wings. In fact, I may have actually done that for weeks at a time in the past, but I wasn’t really paying attention.
35. One of my most prized possessions is a map of the Florida Keys that I got at Earnest Hemingway’s old house in Key West.
36. I love backpacking, but am secretly terrified of bears and often cannot get to sleep outdoors in bear country.
37. Grond (my car) has only one bumper-sticker on it; it contains the words “I like my beer cold, my music loud and my state WILD” next to an outline of the state of Nevada.
38. Although I have owned a DVD player for over three years, in that period of time I have bought only ten DVDs and three of those are the Lord of the Rings movies.
39.I own about seven hats that I never wear.
40. I dislike the trend in TV commercials toward being weird for weirdness’ sake. Think the Quizno’s Sponge Monkeys or that guy in the plastic Burger King mask. And yes, I get that I remember them so they accomplished their mission. I still don't like them.
41. A bullfighter’s sword that my mother brought back from Spain in the 1960’s hangs on my wall.
42. I will often cruise the web for real estate listings for farms and ranches that I could not possibly afford to buy if I lived to be 1000 years old.
43. I am very, very, VERY upset about the fact that I am slowly losing my hair. But not so upset that I will buy Rogaine.
44. The most beautiful place I have ever seen in my life is an unspoiled Mediterranean beach in Morocco. A close second is Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana on a sunny, green day after a spring snowstorm in the higher elevations.
45. I am constantly embarrassed by my lack of knowledge about fixing cars.
46. I know how to clean and gut fish with an Ulu.
47. Someday I would really like to see the Aurora Borealis.
48. I wear Teva sandals even when it is much too cold to do so.
49. I almost became a journalist once, but then I decided that if I were going to pick a career where no one liked you and you lived a stress-filled, miserable existence, I might as well make money at it. So I went to Law School.
50. I liked wine and wine tasting long before Sideways made it cool.
51. I love sports, and I lettered in three sports in high school. Despite this, I can’t stand parents who can find nothing better to push their children into excelling at than some silly game. I live for the day when parents get just as excited about a child’s interest in chemistry or music.
52. I think the best smell in the world is the way the pine trees smell in the deep forests of the Pacific Northwest.
53. The best ice cream I have ever tasted was at a little two-story shop in Antigua, Guatemala called Dona Luisa’s.
54. I have passed two State Bar Exams, in Washington and Nevada. On both occasions I had to overcome a traumatic event on the last day of the test—a magnitude 6.8 earthquake in Seattle in 2001, and having my car broken into in Las Vegas just last February.
55. I used to be a Trekkie, until I realized how truly sad that was.
56. I run for a half an hour at least three and usually four times a week, despite the fact that I absolutely hate running.
57. My favorite poem is “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson.
58. I like to make fun of soccer, but only because my brother is such a huge soccer fan.
59. I intentionally will not buy a Playstation or an X-Box, because I know I would never see sunlight again.
60. I don’t get reality TV, but I love a good documentary.
61. When I was a kid, I actually cried when I found out professional wrestling was fake. Okay, “choreographed”, whatever.
62. I’m absolutely dying to get satellite radio installed in my car so I can stop checking out books on tape every time I go on a long trip.
63. I like almost every product made from tomatoes (i.e. ketchup, marinara sauce, tomato soup, etc.) but cannot stand to eat tomatoes themselves.
64. It still makes me mad that Phil Hartman was murdered back in 1998.
65. Women never noticed me until I was about 27 years old. This is something of a mystery to me since as nearly as I can tell I have not changed in any significant way, other than simply getting older.
66. I absolutely cannot remember the name of anyone I meet . I can remember every detail about a person—what their favorite color is, where their parents met, what they minored in during college—but I simply cannot remember first names.
67. I love watching Book TV on C-Span 2 on the weekend. Yes, I’m just that big of a nerd.
68. If I skip going to the gym for more than two days, I start to feel like a human slug.
69. If I had unlimited resources at my disposal, I would buy a summer vacation home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming (also useful for snowboarding purposes) and a winter home in Costa Rica.
70. Religion usually seems pretty silly to me, but I do respect Faith, which is a completely different thing. To me Religion is clinging desperately to some arbitrary dogma, while Faith is about letting go and trusting that things will work out.
71. Thomas Jefferson is my favorite of the Founding Fathers.
72. I have a habit of driving into the country for no particular purpose. This can be a bad thing when gas costs about $2.30 a gallon, as it currently does where I live.
73. I think the most perfect river in the world is the Clark Fork in Montana, especially the portion near the Idaho border.
74. I would dearly love to find a way to write for a living. Then again, so would just about every one of the other 8 million bloggers on Earth.
75. Although I am a lawyer, nothing makes me lunge for the TV remote control faster than the sight of lawyers talking to a reporter. This goes double for any lawyer involved with a celebrity trial.
76. Many people think I’m a cynic, but they’re wrong. I’m actually pretty optimistic about how things will work out in the long run.
77. If there is one subject I wish I had the capability to understand better, it would be theoretical physics.
78. Whenever I’m in Chicago I always try to visit the Field Museum of Natural History, both because it is a fascinating museum and because it contains so many fond memories from my childhood.
79. I have two great weaknesses as an attorney. One is the fact that I have too great a desire for everyone to like me. The other is my tendency to be able to see a controversy from all side rather than from the absolutist position of a zealous partisan advocate.
80. One of my greatest regrets is that I have not traveled more outside the United States.
81. I am mildly allergic to just about everything.
82. A part of me is very sad that there are very few (if any) blank spots left on the map.
83. I would very much like to have children someday.
84. If I ever do have children, two things I hope are that they learn are to play a musical instrument and to speak a foreign language.
85. I love the idea of raising Bison. Don’t ask me why, I just do.
86. I loathe the very concept of fast food and avoid it whenever possible. That being said, I have a shameful weakness for McDonald’s breakfast burritos.
87. I have now lived in Nevada long enough to actually enjoy the sound of slot machines.
88. One entire wall of my studio apartment is glass, and this window/wall partially faces high rise vacation condos across the street. The result of this is that my home life is lived in a fishbowl for anyone in that building who cares to watch, at least so long as I don’t close my blinds. I used to be very shy about this, but in the last year I have grown very accustomed to the idea.
89. I once turned down a great job offer in Guam because they didn’t pay moving expenses. I still can’t help wondering what might have been from time to time.
90. The first album I ever purchased was Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, circa 1987.
91. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to like coffee.
92. I feel that the worst thing about living so far west is the fact that I have seen my two-year-old niece Kira only three times.
93. In college my nickname was “C.J.” It was a name given to me by a friend but I never found out why.
94. For some strange reason I enjoy watching my favorite movies dubbed into foreign languages, even when I don’t understand those languages.
95. My first paying job was as a “Sandwich Engineer” at Subway when I was 16. I was fired for not making sandwiches fast enough. Getting fired was a horrible experience that I am still able to use to motivate myself to this very day.
96. Some books that changed the way I think are: Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire; Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By; Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises; Yann Martel’s Life of Pi; Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac.
97. I have very little patience for people who insist on believing in urban myths, people who tell me I should get involved in multi-level marketing, or people who think that God has a political affiliation.
98. I have a way of surprising people by eating foods that I find in nature. It has often struck me as strange that many people now feel queasy about eating a fish taken directly from a river or wild berries from the field, yet they unquestioningly trust giant agribusiness corporations to provide safe food at the grocery store.
99. I feel strangely guilty when I don't respond to magazine re-subscription notices.
100. I seriously underestimated how hard this list would be to finish.

Memorial Day

Melissa's younger sister Kelly is visiting from St. Louis, and since this holiday is only the second time since we've known each other that Melissa and I have managed to get the same day off, I suggested a trip to Nevada City, one of those "so quaint you could just choke" old gold mining towns on the western side of the mountains.

Nevada City is quite beautiful, built in a small corner of the Sierra foothills and full of century-and-a-half old brick buildings and restored Victorian homes that have been turned into restaurants, art galleries, and other such businesses. It's mix of the sleepily pastoral and moneyed sophistication appeals to visitors from bigger cities like Sacramento and San Fran. It's the sort of place where stressed-out professionals step out of their cars, look around at the stately buildings surrounded by green hills and think to themselves "this is the life; I should move here."

I had wanted to visit a couple of wineries while on the other side of the hill, but the foothill vineyards can be fairly well spread out and travel on windy mountain road can be slow. The only vineyard we were able to visit was Double Oak, a literal Mom-and-Pop operation who's mailing address is in Nevada City, but which requires at least twenty minutes of driving on twisty back roads to reach. After talking with the owners, I found out that they had bought the land upon which the vineyard is located in the late 1960's as they were part of what was referred to as a "back to the land movement." Apparently they had no intention of opening a commercial vineyard for many years, and ultimately sort of fell in to oenology by happenstance in the early 80's. California is the sort of wonderful place where this sort of thing can happen. In a rich and bountiful landscape like this people can still dream, and with a little luck still make their dreams real.

I really hope Kelly enjoyed herself. As well as I have come to know Melissa, this is the first time I have met one of her family members. Kelly is only 21 years old, and has an endless supply of energy and enthusiasm. I just hope she doesn't find me too boring or obnoxious.

I made the mistake of suggesting that we return to Reno through Downieville and the Sierra Valley. This route didn't look much further on the map, but it ended up taking almost three hours, nearly twice as long as the trip to Nevada City. I say it was a mistake, but actually, I enjoyed the drive immensely. Most of the trip takes place up the gorgeous middle fork of the Yuba River, a slashing, roiling mass of whitewater if there ever was one. Right now the River is at its peak, flush with snowmelt, and the long drive up through the Grey Pine and Cedar trees of the northern mountains was like a stroll through paradise for me.

We shortened the trip by leaving the main highway in Downieville and passing by the Sierra Buttes through the Gold Lakes region.

This is what the Sierra Buttes look like in mid-summer. Right now their crevices are still full of snow, which make them look all the more majestic, like pocket-sized Alps. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a picture when we passed by.

By the time we got home we were all too tired to contemplate dinner, so I said goodbye to Melissa and Kelly and came home to get a good night's sleep. Tomorrow is my first day at my new job, and I want to be well rested.

It Was Bound To Happen

Of course Mark Prior has broken his pitching arm. Of course he may be out for the rest of the season. It was inevitable. It's been at least two or three weeks since the Cubs lost a major player to injury. It's been way to long since God reminded us how bound and determined he is to make sure that the Cubs never ever come close to winning a World Series again

Morning Drama

I love living in downtown Reno, but one of the things that simply must be accepted as a fact of life if you live down here is what the city refers to as "vagrancy." This town attracts quite a number of homeless people, although they are almost entirely focused around the casino district or on the riverfront, where I live. Some are clearly mentally disturbed. A few I've seen are struck with some sort of physical injury, like a lost limb or some sort of condition that contorts their body is some strange way. Quite a few seem fairly sound in both mind and body, and thus the answer to the question of how they came to be in their present condition is not readily apparent. Some of these people you will only see once or twice before they move on to wherever it is that they go, and some become more or less permanent residents; you might not see them for a week or a month at a time, but sooner or later they always show up again.

This morning I was walking to work, and as I was passing a small courtyard on West Street (you know, the one across from the movie theater) I spied one of our "resident" vagrants. He was sitting on the two-foot high brick wall that surrounds the courtyard, slumped over and supporting himself on both sides by bracing his arms against the wall he was sitting on. He looked like he might have been deep in though, or perhaps just nauseous. As I passed by, I considered asking him if he needed help, but I refrained. I recognized him as someone who has asked me for money in the past, and our brief conversations have made it obvious that he is mildly mentally disturbed.

As I passed him I heard him jump to his feet and snatch up something, perhaps a backpack, that had been sitting on the wall behind him. I thought for a moment he was going to ask me something, but in fact he addressed himself to the only other person on the street, a well-dressed white-haired man walking about twenty paces behind me.

"Do you have fifty cents I can borrow?" He asked the man.

"I don't give anybody anything" the white-haired man spit back, almost shouting, his voice filled with venom and contempt.

"Why not?" The homeless man asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Because that's just the way it is." The white-haired man shot back. And that was the end of the conversation.

I get asked for money quite often when I'm walking in my neighborhood. Sometimes I'll give money over to the person asking, sometimes I will truthfully tell the person I have nothing on me to give them, and sometimes, I must admit, I will tell the person I don't have any money even if I do. So I'm in no position to claim any moral high ground. But something about the way that man spat out those words "I don't give anybody anything" really struck me. It was beyond indifference and beyond disgust; it was intense anger. But anger at what, I wonder? At the fact that a man so obviously possessing of little or no property and of limited capabilities had presented himself before this white-haired man and asked for something that was, after all, quite small? That didn't seem like a very good reason for such obvious hostility to me.

I suppose I could look at the situation in a different way. Maybe this man thinks to himself that giving the homeless man money will accomplish nothing, that he'll probably just spend it on booze or worse, and that anyway why should this be his problem? Maybe he is frustrated because he would genuinely like to help but feels that this homeless man isn't really interested in helping himself, and that frustration manifests itself in the display that I witnessed. But something tells me that isn't it.

I am often forced to wonder where compassion has gone, or if in fact it is a concept that has ever really been valued at all. I don't think people should have to like the fact that homeless people live in and around my neighborhood--heck, there's times when I don't like it, and I've caught myself thinking "why don't they just go somewhere else so at least I won't have to look at them" on more than one occasion. Obviously, I can't hold myself up as a paragon of virtue on this matter. But I am still forced to wonder, what is it about the presence of these people that makes the white-haired man and so many others uncomfortable or even hostile? For that matter, why is it that I don't like seeing them sometimes? I don't think the homeless man presented any reasonable physical threat. Even if the white-haired man felt that the homeless man's condition was somehow his own fault, or that at least it isn't up to him to do anything about it, why the anger? Does it make him feel more justified somehow in not handing over 50 cents? I don't really have an answer for this.

Time Is Growing Short

I have only two days left at my current job, and I'll be starting my new position on Tuesday, right after the long weekend. I haven't quite reached the "what are they gonna do, fire me?" stage of not caring about the job that I'm leaving (in fact, I still feel rather guilty about leaving the position about 10 weeks early) but I do find it harder and harder to concentrate. The fact that the weather is finally turned glorious doesn't help.

By coincidence, only one other person in my five-person department is going to be around these next two days--the other three are either on vacation or getting an early jump on the Memorial Day weekend. This is actually fine with me, as I've never really mastered that whole 'saying goodbye when you leave a job' thing. I'm never really sure just how emotional you're supposed to be. I like all of the people I work with, but it's not like I'm moving to Antarctica or anything. My new job is a block away. Honestly, it's not that I want to be rude, but I'd just as soon avoid the whole awkward thing altogether.

As for that new job, I'm excited but extremely nervous. Being a prosecutor is an honorable pursuit, but I know from experience that it's also stressful and can burn you out pretty quickly if you're not careful. It's somewhat counterintuitive, but the job can be even more difficult for those prosecuting misdemeanors, as I will be doing. It's easy to get people to feel concerned about major crimes like murder or rape or arson--it's harder than you might think to get people to take lesser crimes seriously. But I feel like I'm going in with the right attitude. I know there will be days when things will get terribly frustrating, but I'm going in knowing what to expect and as long as I keep my eyes on my long-term goals, things should be okay.

In honor of this new job, I'm going to do something tonight that I haven't done in years--I'm actually going to buy a new business suit. I've budgeted enough money for one, or maybe two if I find a good deal. This will bring my functional total of business suits up to a whopping total of three.

Striving Toward Mediocrity

Don't look now, but if Maddox can complete the sweep today at Wrigley against the suddenly very bad Houston Astros, the Chicago Cubs will have reached a milestone: They'll be a .500 baseball team. Although this year began (as so many do) with a few of Cub-dom's bravest souls holding out hope that the post season might be a possibility, something tells me that this is going to be yet another year where we have to take solace wherever we can find it.

We're almost completely average!!! WOO-HOO!!!

I Always Knew I'd Die For The Revolution

According to this online test (and what on earth is more accurate than online tests, except maybe the sex quizes in magazines) this is the world leader I most resemble in terms of personality:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

My God, my dad was right all along!!!! Seriously though, I think that it might be a joke, and that everyone winds up as Che Guevara. Please, click the link above to take the test--I want to know who people I know wind up as.

Motorcycle Diaries was seriously dull, btw.

19 Days And Counting

This is really much more of a Melissa Thing, but please note that the countdown now stands at 19 days until Maroon 5 plays the Reno Hilton Amphitheater.

Oh who are we kidding--this is completely a Melissa Thing. I like the band, I can sing (or at least hum) a few of their more popular tunes, and I think I may even have owned one of their older CD's at some point, but honestly I probably couldn't pick these guys out of a line-up.

Melissa, on the other hand, has informed me in no uncertain terms that if lead singer Adam Levine shows any interest, that's going to be it for our relationship. I think this caveat also applies to several current and former St. Louis Blues.

UPDATE: Melissa informs me that Maroon 5 has only one album, and so I could not possibly have owned an old CD of theirs. I have no choice but to taker her word for it.

Nuclear War Averted; Destroying The Republic Will Have To Wait A Few Months

"You think I'm licked! You all think I'm licked! Well I'm not licked and I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause even if this room gets filled with lies like these, and that Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place! Somebody'll listen to me..."
-Jefferson Smith, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington

So there will be no Nuclear Option, no changing of the Senate rules because the Far Right isn't getting everything they want. As the climactic showdown neared, I was going to write an angry moonbat-ish piece (see, I'm picking up the lingo!) about the Religious Right's willingness to nuke the village to save it when low and behold, a handful of reasonable Republicans stepped forward to say that a democracy in which the minority is completely powerless and the majority can steamroll anything it wants through the process and change the rules whenever they aren't getting the results they want is no democracy at all. I always knew you guys were out there!

Now, every good deal leaves all sides secretly feeling like they got screwed, even as they loudly declare victory. Looking around the Left and Right wings of the blogosphere (love that jargon!) there are a lot of angry folks out there who think their party's moderates who made this deal are traitors. But the anger over this deal is a lot more palpable on the Right. This is because for the Religious Right this has always been about putting judges on the U.S. Supreme Court who will overturn Roe v. Wade; in the minds of a lot of influential members of the "values" crowd, anything done to achieve this end is justified no matter how much damage it does to the "small-d" democratic institutions of this country. The Filibuster is in their way, and they thought that this was their chance to destroy it. Undoubtedly this is a loss for the Bill Frist/James Dobson wing of the party, although in the looking-glass world of Backlash Conservatives like them even a loss is sort of a win: It provides more ammunition for their argument that they are being tyrannically oppressed despite controlling every branch of the government.

So who did win? Well, I agree with John McCain that the Senate won. Beyond that, I'm not sure this is the outright victory for the Democrats that some people (like the aforementioned Dobson) think it is. As I understand the deal, the Filibuster survives and enough Republicans agree not to exercize the Nuclear Option to keep the Filibuster safe, at least for this term. In return, Democrats agree not to use the Filibuster for judicial nominees except in "extraordinary circumstances." But there's the rub; who will define "extraordinary circumstances?" Aren't we going to be right back where we started if Democrats feel that Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court is too extreme and Republicans don't agree? Perhaps the Nuclear Option is off the table for now, but I think more likely it's just been pushed back a few months.

The Govern-ator Has Seen Better Days

Thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger's plummeting poll numbers, this is what you're starting to see over in Nevada's lower-profile neighbor to the west, California. As Jon Stewart said, "Whachutalkin'bout, indeed."

A Quick Word About The Picture In The Upper Left

Though I am an admirer of his career and have a lot in common with him politically, I am in no way affiliated with Senator Harry Reid. I just figured out (thanks to Miss Holly) how to post a picture on the banner, but this is the only one of me that I had on hand that could fit in the space alloted. That picture will be changing as soon as I can find one that I like better.

UPDATE: Okay, picture changed. Now it's one of me harvesting grapes at the farm last year. Not really crazy about his one either, but it will do for now. I still like Harry Reid, though.

It's Not Hard To Tell These Two Are Sisters, Is It?

These are my sisters, Katy (on the left) and Maureen, during Maureen's recent visit to LA. Thanks to Katy for sending this picture. Even though she looks great, Maureen wants it noted for the record that she is five months pregnant with her second daughter, Avery Catherine Keown.

Spring At Last

This was the first day at the farm that truly felt like Spring in Nevada is supposed to feel. The temperature topped 80 degrees by afternoon, and the air was bone dry with not a cloud to be seen.

May is perhaps the busiest month out at Custom Gardens, with the exception of harvest time. Today we spent time laying irrigation line into the future melon patch, rid ourselves of water-stealing weeds among the always resilient raspberries, and spread a little compost in preparing winter squash beds. As Summer approaches and the Great Basin starts to heat up like an oven, work must be started earlier so that it can be concluded as soon after noon as possible; after that, the heat is too stressful on plant and human alike.

The farm is begining to blossom and grow, but right now it still only hints at the abundance that it will eventually provide. Strawberries are coming in, tiny nubs that will become apples and cherries have begun to appear on their respective trees, and most exciting to me, the grapes look poised for an especially nice year. Right now most of the farm is still bare and brown, but I know what the summer and fall will bring, and that provides motivation.

Click on the link at the left to check out Custom Gardens' website.

Someone Was Hired, But I Still Don't Care

Apparently last night was the culmination of the latest season of The Donald Trump Show, although I didn't see it. I know I'm still stranded on Planet Me on this issue, but Reality TV remains one of those cultural phenomenon that try as I might, I just don't get. For years I've been awaiting the backlash against these exercises in greed, shmaltz, phoniness and public humiliation, but the backlash never comes.

I'm still not sure where the appeal of these shows comes from. I mean, I live in reality, okay? I can't help but wonder why I or anyone else should care to watch an artificial version of it on TV (I know I'm the millionth person to point this out, but there's nothing "real" about any of these shows--they're all more contrived than the worst episode of Dallas ever dreamed of being).

Is it some sort of strange wish fulfillment perhaps? A throwback to that quintessential American fantasy that if only the right big-time producer were to catch a glimpse of you in the right light at the corner drugstore then you, too, could be a star? Perhaps that's part of it, but if that were the case, if it were all just about a vicarious experience of instant fame, then why would humiliation and ridicule be such an integral part of these shows?

Perhaps it's in the cruelty where lies the magic. I often ask this of friends of mine who follow these programs and call contestants by their first names, as if they were real friends. Do they watch hoping to see the bitchy girl get her comeuppance on The Bachelor, or perhaps the a-hole on The Apprentice get fired in front of millions of people? I'm sure this is a part of it too, but as these friends never fail to point out, some of the new and most popular reality shows have lurched to the complete opposite end of the spectrum--Extreme Makeover Home Edition is always the first to get mentioned. Rather than rewarding greed, villainy and scandal, and without the prurient appeal of some of the bottom-of-the-barrel Fox shows (though I can't remember any of their names, I do remember that they always, always, ALWAYS managed to work in a hot tub somehow), this new breed of "Rescue" Reality show trades on shmaltz, pathos and melodrama. It's not any more entertaining in my mind, but at least it isn't cruel and I suppose that's something.

Do people find these shows somehow more 'genuine' than scripted programming? Maybe people see it this way, but this notion is certifiably false. No one ever acts the same way when a camera is on them as when it isn't. Everyone on these shows is angling for screen time, playing out roles, emoting, trying way too hard to be the center of attention, and the result is a perfect media-illustration of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle; you can't observe something without changing the thing you're observing.

So I'm serious, what's the appeal? I'm not trying to argue with people who like these shows, I'm just genuinely curious. Why would you want to watch American Idol over brilliant satire like The Simpsons, or a great comedy like Arrested Development, or entertaining (if extremely far fetched) drama like 24 or one of the 400 Law and Order spin-offs on at least 9 cable channels at all hours of the day? I really want to know.

No Date Yet For the Opening Of Tioga Pass

The Merced River in Yosemite Valley, El Capitan and Cathedral Rocks in the background. The picture was taken in Winter, but right now Yosemite Valley, on the warm, wet western side of the Sierra, is vibrant and green.

We've entered that time of year when I start making daily checks on the plowing status of Tioga Pass, hoping for news on when the "back door" to Yosemite National Park will open. This route to one of this country's most famous national parks is basically a straight shot from Reno down highway 395 to Lee Vining, then over the pass to Tuoloumne Meadows. The problem is that the pass itself is closed by snow for most of the year. It usually opens sometime in May or early June, but in heavy snow years, like this year, it might take much longer. One could, of course, drive over the mountains and enter Yosemite from its lush, low-elevation western side, but that route adds several hours to the trip.

I get so impatient sometimes, waiting to get back into the heart of my mountains. Though the hours of daylight are now very long, most of the Tahoe area ski resorts have been closed for weeks and winter is just a memory here in the Truckee Meadows, we are still only just approaching that glorious time of year when life returns in earnest to the mountains of the West, and this includes the High Sierra. Soon Yosemite's mountain meadows will be a riot of wildflowers, its streams and waterfalls will swell with snowmelt, and the high country will become a seductive, intoxicating place of blue skies and warm days thick with the smell of pine.

Summer in the High Sierra is heartbreakingly short, but what it lacks in duration it more than makes up for with a fierce explosion of life. It's hard to wait, but waiting reminds you that there is a value to learing to live with the Earth on it's own terms and by it's own cycles. Summer will come when it is time and not a moment sooner. I think that it is because of this wait that, when it does come at last, we appreciate it all the more for its vibrant, fragile beauty.

Cubs-Sox

As we all know, the real battle between the forces of Light and Darkness this weekend won't be taking place in a galaxy far, far away, but in Wrigleyville. There will be no Sammy Sosa, no Kerry Wood, no Carlos Lee, Maglio Ordonez or Frank Thomas, but the Cubs and White Sox are still going to suit up and play. It's been a good year so far on the Dark/South Side of Chicago as the White Sox have been tearing it up lately. As for my Cubbies, well . . . we just swept the Pirates, if you can really call winning a two-game series a sweep. That's something, right? Right?

Here's Why I'll Wait A Few Days Before Seeing You-Know-What:

I comfort myself with the fact that the genes of goobers like these will eventually be eliminated from the population, as these guys have absolutely no chance of ever reproducing. I'll go see Revenge of the Sith at some point, but I'll wait until the costumed geeks go back to writing fan fiction and downloading porn in the basement.

Bill Moyers Rocks

I wanted to share a little of Bill Moyers' speech at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis the other night; I only caught part of it on C-Span, but luckily Salon.com has it posted on their site today. Click here to see it, although be warned that because it's salon.com you might have to sit through a commercial first.

Bill Moyers is a relic in this age of demagogues posing as journalists and cable-TV shout-shows passing for public discourse. He actually still believes in journalism, and that "news is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity." For this he has been relentlessly demonized by the right wing in their usual character-assassination style. They probably thought they had heard the last from him when he retired from his show NOW six months ago, but as this speech makes clear, they were wrong.

If you don't want to wade throught he whole rather lengthy piece (or just don't want to sit through Salon's commercials) here are a few of the best bits:

For those in power and their right-wing media minions who attack him:

Who are they? I mean the people obsessed with control, using the government to threaten and intimidate. I mean the people who are hollowing out middle-class security even as they enlist the sons and daughters of the working class in a war to make sure Ahmed Chalabi winds up controlling Iraq's oil. I mean the people who turn faith-based initiatives into a slush fund and who encourage the pious to look heavenward and pray so as not to see the long arm of privilege and power picking their pockets. I mean the people who squelch free speech in an effort to obliterate dissent and consolidate their orthodoxy into the official view of reality from which any deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy.

About the state of journalism today:

The more compelling our journalism, the angrier the radical right of the Republican Party became. That's because the one thing they loathe more than liberals is the truth. And the quickest way to be damned by them as liberal is to tell the truth.

This is the point of my story: Ideologues don't want you to go beyond the typical labels of left and right. They embrace a worldview that can't be proven wrong because they will admit no evidence to the contrary. They want your reporting to validate their belief system and when it doesn't, God forbid. . . . No, our reporting was giving the radical right fits because it wasn't the party line. It wasn't that we were getting it wrong. Only three times in three years did we err factually, and in each case we corrected those errors as soon as we confirmed their inaccuracy. The problem was that we were getting it right, not right-wing -- telling stories that partisans in power didn't want told.

And perhaps my favorite bit, on public policy:

Without a trace of irony, the powers-that-be have appropriated the newspeak vernacular of George Orwell's "1984." They give us a program vowing "No Child Left Behind" while cutting funds for educating disadvantaged kids. They give us legislation cheerily calling for "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" that give us neither. And that's just for starters.
* * *
An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only on partisan information and opinions that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, to ask questions and be skeptical. That kind of orthodoxy can kill a democracy -- or worse.

I sure hope Bill comes through on his thinly-veiled threat to return to the anchor's chair, and that he stays at least long enough for a few more like him to come along.

I Love It When A Plan Comes Together

Today is a very big day for me.

First of all, it's my birthday. I'm now 32 years old.

Second, today is the day I close on The Fortress Of Solitude, my condo on Arlington Avenue in Downtown Reno (click here or keep paging down to see a picture of the view from the Lookout of the Fortress of Solitude, i.e. my balcony). I've never owned a home before. True, at my age Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world, but for me this is a pretty big step.

Third, in two weeks I'll be starting a new job as a prosecutor, a move made possible by my passing the State Bar last month; I've done this sort of work before in what now seems like a former lifetime, but this time I have the experience to make it happen. It will mean more money and the chance to get back into the actual practice of law again.

Last but definitely not least, there's Melissa. We've only known each other for about three months, but things are going very well. She's everything I ever wanted in a woman--smart, ambitious, loving, beautiful, the whole package. I think there could be big things in our future.

To some this seems like overnight success. Anyone who's known me for a few years, however, knows better. For ten years now I've been working, fretting, hustling to make ends meet, trying to think long-term. I've been through poverty, self-doubt, depression, all of the things that will lead you to the Dark Side if you're not careful, and I've persevered. Now, in a sort of perfect storm, everything is finally falling into place. It's about five years or so behind when I planned on it all happening, but I'm finally here and that's what counts. If you'll pardon the cliche, I've worked long and hard to be an overnight success.

Birthdays, like New Years, are often times for renewed dedication and commitment to achieving the things that are important to us. They serve not only as milestones, but as reminders of our limited time in this world and the fact that our lives are being lived whether we are paying attention or not. In past years on my birthday I've told myself that by God, this would be The Year, that at 28 or 29 or 30 or 31 I was going to finally make it happen. In those days, in the back of my mind, something always sensed that I still wasn't ready, that the pieces hadn't quite fallen into place yet, that the life I wanted was still a ways off. But not this year.

These past two months have probably been the best of my life, and I think things are only going to get better. There's still much work to be done, of course; I have the pressure that always attends a new job, the debt on my (MY!) new home to deal with, and of course, pride always goeth before a fall, so I probably shouldn't be crowing too loud just on principle. But already on this day, the culmination of my 32nd year on this planet, I can tell things are going to be different this time around.

Cabela's Coming to Reno; Rednecks One Step Closer to Ruling Entire Planet

Cabela's is going to be opening one of it's shrines to Horn-Porn here in Reno, complete with stuffed elephants, faux bass lakes, the whole bit. Honestly, I'm really not sure what to make of it yet.

There's been enought written about the Red/Blue divide in this country in the last year or so to fill entire libraries. Nothing I can say by way of observation will really add to all this over-analysis in any meaningful way. But I do think that if you are like me, if you are a Blue American, the sort of person who stormed around for about a week or two after the last election talking about how it was "time for us to secede from the South", if you now find yourself trying desperately to understand the great swath of humanity out there in suburban and ex-urban and rural "Red" America that now apparently controls every element of your life from the moment of conception to the unspecified time in the future when God tells them that they can remove your brainstem from the life-support fluid-pod, Cabela's might be a good place to start.

In case you don't know, Cabela's is an outdoor enthusiast's supply shop. But of course, this is sort of like saying the Louvre is a place where some paintings are kept. For the truly devout, Cabelas is Jerusalem, Mecca, Rome and Salt Lake City all roled into one. It is THE Outdoor Supply Store.

But it's even more than that. It's also something of a tourist attraction. First off, if you aren't an outdoor enthusiast you probably don't know this, but like almost every other cultural element these days, "outdoor recreation" has taken on Red/Blue cultural connotations. I ask your forgivness if I start to sound like David Brock for a moment, but please indulge me. Blue outdoor enthusiasts like me favor stores like REI. The sports catered to by these sorts of outlets are the "Adventure Sports", the kind of non-aggressive, tread-lightly activities that seem to be entirely about personal performance, adrenaline and 'live for the moment' experiences. You know; skiing, snowboarding, kayaking, backpacking, mountain biking, rockclimbing, the sorts of thing you'd expect to find a lanky, upper-middle class college kid doing.

Cabela's is not about this sort of 'get in touch with the Earth-Mother' kind of nonsense. No, Cabela's is All Man, baby. It is the king of the 'other' kind of outdoor sports shop, the Cast and Blast variety. If it doesn't involve killing something or a machine that guzzles fossil fuels like a frat boy on a post-exam bender guzzles Mad Dog 20/20, Cabela's isn't interested. I got your "harmony with the Earth" right here, M-F-er! It's time to kill us some varmints!!!

The Crown Jewels of the Cabela's empire are the massive retail shops. Really they aren't so much retail outlets, they're more like Disneylands for guys with serious gun fetishes. Here's how Cabela's website describes their stores: "Massive wildlife dioramas, aquariums, plus entertianing (sic) and educational displays make every Cabela's store is (sic) a 'must-see' destination." Only eighteen of these behemoths currently exist or are planned for the near future, and the locations for these pilgrimage sites make it pretty clear that Cabela's eschews the East and West coasts, opting instead to locate their emporiums where the Real Men are; Buda, Texas; Kearney, Nebraska; Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin; Gonzales, Louisianna; and now, at last, Reno, Nevada. The website promises that the newest of these "large-format destination retail stores" is scheduled to open in our fair city in late 2006 or early 2007. It will cover 150,000 square feet. That's well over 300 times the size of my home.

I am not anti-hunting, though I do not engage in it. I have been known to fish from time to time, and to enjoy it immensly. The thing that gives me pause about Cabela's is not the fact that it promotes these activites, but the arrogant philosophy (if it can be called that) that inspires such gigantic shrines to the myth of the Great White Hunter. Rather than be a part of the environment, why not bend it to your will, or better yet, crush it under your muy macho boot heel? The object isn't to experience or understand your place in Nature; the object is to make Nature your bitch. But more than that, shopping at a Cabela's is kind of the retail equivalent of paying to see The Passion of The Christ over and over and over again. In the minds of a lot of people, it's a statement of identity. In the age of Wal-Mart, this is how you show the world that you're a Real 19th-Century American; shopping as political expression.

When the store opens, I admit, I'll probably go check it out. I might find some stuff I want to buy, and what the hell, I've never seen a stuffed elephant. But the next time I go up into the mountains, I think I'll be able to find ways to enjoy myself that involve neither overgrown Tonka Toys nor firearms.

Working with the Nature Conservancy

I spent the majority of the day today working at the McCarran Ranch, which is now owned by The Nature Conservancy. If you're not familiar with The Nature Conservancy, you should be (click on the link above). They are a conservation group that everyone should be able to love. They are an environmental organization that works to preserve critical habitat and areas of great biodiversity using easements, donations of land, and other non-confrontational methods. The McCarran Ranch is about 300 acres of land along the Truckee River in the desert just east of Reno.


Not the greatest day for pictures, but above is what the McCarran Ranch looks like. This particular stretch of river was artificially straightened by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1962. The Conservancy bought the ranch in 2001 for the unbelievable price of $300,000 (you can't buy a teardown in Reno for that price these days) and has been working for a few years now to rebuild fish habitat, restore native Cottonwoods and other native plants, raise the water table to help reconnect the river to it's floodplain and thereby revitalize rearing ponds for rare species of turtles and frogs--basically doing everything that should be done to restore a tiny portion of the river and protect it from insatiable developers.

What a marvelous legacy. The land around this ranch will inevitably be developed, the wide-open spaces of the American West will become a little less wide-open, and the world will become slightly less magical than it was. But this tiny piece of the Truckee will be preserved, and I feel pretty good about that.

River Fest a Done Deal

The River Festival wrapped up today. Here's a picture I managed to snap yesterday during the Wine Walk (see below). The really great thing is that this is just the first big event of the season in Wingfield Park. I love living downtown.

Wine Walk

Saturday I managed to talk a few friends of mine into doing the Wine Walk. Normally it's held every third Saturday of the month, but this month they added an additional Saturday to coordinate with the Reno River Festival. The Wine Walk is fast becoming a favorite among Reno locals. For $10 you get a glass and a map, and walk Arts District neighborhood along the river, tasting wines at local bars, restaurants, theaters, etc. The exercise is great, the weather was gorgeous, and man, is it a great cheap buzz. Below are a few pictures of my friends Jacey, Pat L., Jed and Tiffany taken along the way.


Jacey and Pat L studying the route ahead of time.

Beaujolais

Jed, Jacey, Pat L., and the back of Tiffany's head at Beaujolais, along the Wine Walk. Beaujolais is a fantastic little French Bistro a block from my building. You didn't think anyone in Reno knew what the word 'bistro' meant, didn't you?

Jed and Tiffany at Silver Peak

Pat L., post Wine Walk

Big, Big News

First of all, sorry for the long dely between posts. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, this has been a busy time for me.

I have very big news. I'm going to be changing jobs. Here's a look at my new place of business:


I'll be working with the City Attorney's Office in Criminal Prosecution. Suffice it to say, this will a big step up for me professionally. And being a do-gooder like I am, it will be a real honor to be working for the City. This has been a really good couple of months. The new job will start around June 1.

The Suffering is Almost Over

That's right, the bi-annual pledge drive of my local National Public Radio affiliate is almost over. Today is the last day.

I love NPR, have loved it ever since I was a child. I can still remember cross-country car trips from my childhood, my father scanning the lower end of the dial for the faint, crackly signal from A Prairie Home Companion. Or my mother tuning in to Morning Edition on the commute to school, the deep baritone of Bob Edwards allowing me an ever-so-brief respite from contemplating the tedium of the coming school day. To this very day I think their product is untouchable in terms of quality, and light years ahead of television and most print outlets in terms of true sophistication--it is unapologetically intellectual without being boring, cosmopolitan without being condescending, engaging without pandering. I admit, I do miss the old days a little, when they were unabashedly liberal; like the rest of the news media they have shifted rightward in the last few years, but in their case this has essentially made them a centrist news outlet, which I can live with.

Yes, I love almost everything about NPR. Except the two-week guilt-a-thon that is the pledge drive. For two weeks in the Fall and two weeks in the Spring, local NPR affiliates interrupt programs every five or ten minutes to allow their staff to make the same lame jokes, make the same desperate plea for cash, and read the phone number over and over and over and over again. NPR does not, strictly speaking, have commercials (although they do read off the names of corporate underwriters in a manner that sounds suspiciously like commercials), and the pledge drive is the primary way they finance their operation. I choose to think that my local public radio station remains blissfully commercial free for 11 months of the year, then jams all the commercials in a convenient, easy-to-avoid two week shmooze-a-thon twice a year. I am ashamed to say it, but I mostly find other things to listen to on the radio during the pledge drives, occasionally checking back to ensure that yes, they are still asking for money.

I know the logic behind the pledge-drives, and I know that without them the programming that I love couldn't be produced. And frankly, I usually get the feeling that the local staff that gets stuck with the thankless job of doing the begging hates it as much if not more than we the public do. Still, I can't tell you how happy I will be when I tune in to All Things Considered tomorrow evening knowing that I won't have to hear, "You know, if you love the KXJZ stations as much as we think you do, it's time to pick up the phone and call . . ."

River Festival

Some kayakers warming up for the River Festival this weekend, which will take place across the street from my building. Believe it or not, there's a guy in the orange boat sticking straight up out of the rapid.

View From the Fortress of Solitude

From his perch high atop Arlington Tower (or at least about a third of the way up), crusading vigilante Yukon Sully looks out over the city he is sworn to protect. This is the view from the Fortress of Solitude looking south over the Truckee River and toward the Virginia Mountains. If all goes according to plan, I will own this view on Tuesday. That's when I'm closing on my condo.

Busy Days Ahead

I've got a lot to do in the next few days, so updates might not be as frequent as I'd like. These will be difficult days for our Nation, but if we stay strong and stay united, I'm sure we will get through this period of infrequent postings, and maybe we'll be stronger for it.

Just to let you know why things are so busy I'll give you a quick rundown. First off, I'm in the process of buying Sully's Fortress of Solitude. It seems a little strange to be buying the condo that I've been renting for a year, but honestly I can't think of anywhere I'd rather live right now that's in my price range. This will be the first time I've ever owned a home, and so I'm swallowed up in the whole process of gathering up paperwork I never thought was important (who saves bank statements on your savings account? It's not like you write checks on it, and you can check it over the phone for God's sake!) and ferrying them here and there. Closing is supposed to take place on May 17, which by coincidence is also my birthday. Additionally, I'm trying to get everything caught up at work because I will be transitioning jobs soon--no promises, but I'm hoping to have big news on this in the coming days. Saturday I'm going to be working at the Farm in the morning and doing a Wine Walk in the afternoon (again, details to follow), and Sunday I'm going to be helping on a clean-up project for the Nature Conservancy.

While I'm here, let me share one bit of news that's got Reno buzzing today. The Reno Hilton, of Color-Coded Threat Level fame, has been sold to new owners for a cool $150 million. The buyers are planning on building a resort/condos which will include--get this--America's largest indoor water park. The whole place is going to be renamed the Grand Sierra Resort.

Also, the River Festival starts today, meaning that streets around my building will be closed and trying to get from point A to point B will be even more frustrating than usual. Click on the whitewater webcam link to the left in the 'Links' section for live shots of people with nothing better to do than go kayaking on a Thursday morning. Lucky bastards.

LIMITED, BABY!!!

Melissa is heading over the hill today, a euphamism people in Reno use to describe the two-hour drive over the Sierras and down into the Sacramento Valley. This trip is happening because the poor girl has been without access to a Limited since moving to Reno. The Limited, I am informed, is some sort of clothing store. Apparently Reno does not have one, which is a fact that I have recently found to be the source of considerable frustration to Mel and her friends. They find it bitterly ironic that Reno does have a Limited Too (an offshoot of The Limited that apparently specializes in clothes for young girls) but not an actual Limited. At least it's a nice day to drive over the mountains--the cold and rainy weather pattern of the last few weeks which brought late-season snow in the higher elevations seems to finally be moving on, and the Sierras are rarely more beautiful than on a sunny day after a snowstorm.

By the way, I must call your attention to an important change. As a public service, this blog has been posting the Reno Hilton's Color-Coded Threat Level in a permanent spot underneath the 'Links' section to the left. Last night I noted that the Hilton changed the threat level indicator from Red, White and Green to Hot Pink. Make all necessary adjustments.

Wild Wild West

Interesting news has been coming down lately from my old stomping grounds in Spokane, Washington. It seems James West, the mayor of my beloved little city in the Inland Northwest, has been leading a double life (the link will take you to the NY Times summary of the story; it may require registration).

West is the very Conservative Mayor of the idyllic little city of 200,000 just over the border from Idaho. Like much of the new breed of Backlash Conservatives (borrowing a label from Thomas Frank) he spends a lot of time giving off a lot of 'God, Guts and Guns' macho bluster that helps blue-collar men feel better about themselves as right-wing political policies make their lives more and more difficult. Of particular note, he has always stood in the way of gay rights, or anything that even looked like it might promote acceptance or tolerance of homosexuality. Or at least he used to.

The local newspaper in Spokane, the Spokesman-Review, has managed to catch the Mayor red-handed, getting involved in an on-line liaison which appeared to have been leading toward a sexual relationship with what the Mayor thought was an 18-year-old man. This has lead to a great deal of shock and embarrassment, both for Mr. West and his supporters. Other accusations, including that Mr. West sexually molested two young boys over 20 years ago, have also surfaced.

Perhaps there are those who feel a certain amount of glee at the exposure of yet another hypocrite among the "traditional values" crowd. But I am not one of them. Honestly, I feel badly for the Mayor. I feel badly because he exists in a world where simply being who you are is not acceptable. How difficult it must have been, to lead a life of such duplicity for so many years, towing the party-line but unable to escape his suppressed personal identity. I take no delight in the exposure and possible downfall of this man who had possible designs on the governor's mansion, even though I do feel somewhat relieved that there is one less powerful Backlasher out there, thrusting the one-two punch of corporate hedgemony and moral authoritarianism on the rest of us.

No, I don't feel that the Mayor should step down. Though his "lifestyle" is now a matter of public record, the evidence of any criminal activity is questionable, and thus far no criminal charges have been filed. No, I think he should continue to serve, and to remind the fanatics of the Culture Wars by his very presence that gay people are not the predatory monsters of their own nightmares (and perhaps insecurities?), but instead are usually capable, decent, productive citizens deserving of our respect.

As for Spokane, well, that pretty little town set among the Ponderosa Pines just can't catch a break. What a shame, too, because those who know it know that it is a wonderful place to live. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world thinks of Spokane--on the rare occasion that the rest of the world does think of Spokane--as not much more than a backwater haven for white supremacist, end-of-the-world zealots and other assorted weirdos and low-lifes. And now they have the unwanted publicity from all this to sort out. Living with a stagnant economy and perpetually lost in Seattle's long shadow, poor Spokane just can't win.

The Mafia's Finest

Something happened to me on the way back from lunch today that was both strange and yet somehow perfectly in character for my little neighborhood in downtown Reno. My walk to work takes me through a small public square alongside the Truckee River. It's one of those concrete amphitheater-type spaces leading down to the water, an open space where the city puts up it's Christmas tree in December. The little park is right next to a vaguely alternative-feeling coffee shop called Java Jungle and a small apartment building that advertises "dorm-style living" (i.e. no kitchens, shared bathrooms) at very cheap prices, so a transient population of young, underemployed people is always hanging out there. Most of them look vaguely punkish with a little goth thrown in, some are sort of hippie-ish, and I think a few just sort of wear whatever they can find and don't bathe often. On top of this, there's a Greyhound bus station just up the block, and this brings in a never-ending supply of itinerant laborers, vagrants, the mildly mentally-disturbed and other colorful characters. This little concrete public space is often the first place they find after getting off the bus from wherever they just came in from, and quite a few seem to like to chose to continue to hang out in the little park until some good motivation for leaving come along. In my experience watching what goes on there, this can sometimes take quite a while.

I don't want to give the impression that I dislike these people. I doubt any of them are dangerous or even potentially dangerous. Often they will ask for spare change (which I'm usually pretty free with--somehow they always seem to know who the suckers are) but that is usually the extent of the interaction I'm likely to have with most of these men and occasionally women. But a lot of these folk seem to be lacking whatever switch exists inside the brain of most people which keeps their inner-monologue from being spoken outloud. Often they'll just say whatever pops into their head to no one in particular, and this can lead to some amusing results. One morning I remember passing a small, thin bald man on a street corner who was angrily screaming at the top of his lungs in a raspy voice, "Smokin'!!! Drinkin'!!! Sex!!! Jerkin' Off!!!" I and everyone else on their way to work simply walked by this strange and probably disturbed man as though he were invisible. This sort of thing isn't a daily or weekly occurance in my neighborhood, but it's not particularly uncommon either.

Today is an unusually cold day for May (see previous post) and walking back from lunch I was wearing a heavy peacoat over the usual shirt and tie. My pants are a dark gray, almost black. As I passed by the movie theater at First and Sierra Street a white-haired man who looked to be about sixty approached me in the other direction. He was completely alone. As he got to within about ten feet of me he said in a full voice dripping with sarcasm "Oh great, the Mafia's Finest." As he passed I looked behind me to try to determine what he was talking about. There was nothing there but an empty street and sidewalk. Then it dawned on me; he could only have been talking about me.

I suppose a comment like that should be written off as the silly and possibly dellusional ramblings of a vagrant, but I couldn't help but wonder what it was that made him see me this way. Yes, I was wearing a shirt and tie and a dark coat, but other than that as far as I can tell nothing about my appearance would make one think "organized crime." As far as I know the Mafia has no predilection for peacoats. And yet, this was his first impression upon seeing me. Seeing me in a dress shirt and tie, was he trying to make a statement about corporate corruption? The dangers of conformity? My ridiculous fashion sense? Or more likely, was he just a loon? I can tell right now that for whatever reason, this is going to be something I wonder about for a while.

Enough Is Enough

I don't know what to make of this weather. The high today is supposed to be only 53 degrees, and there are rumors of snow on the valley floor tonight.

This has been one of the most depressing Springs in Northern Nevada that anyone can remember. The pattern has been repeating itself for what seems like an eternity; gray skies roll in, bringing us three days of rain and cold weather, followed by a single sunny day just thrown in to tease us, and then the next morning you wake up to more gray skies. The local news euphamistically calls these "unsettled" weather patterns. Whatever you call it, it's really starting to piss me off. It feels like Spring will never come.

Of course the water is good for agriculture, which has been suffering through a drought in recent years, and on the rare occasion when the sun does come out it is wonderful to see the hills around Reno, normally dry and brown, now sporting a brilliant shade of green. But the truth is, I'm tired of waiting. This is May. The second week of May. According to the calendar Spring started over SIX WEEKS AGO!

In the end it isn't the rain that I mind, or the chilly temperatures. It's the gray skies. Waking up to day after day, month after month of drizzly, sunless skies is one of the things that made me glad to leave the state of Washington two years ago. This year, I have the horrible feeling that the weather from the Pacific Northwest has somehow finally managed to hunt me down.

The weather forecasts say that we will have two more days of this "unsettled" weather, followed by a transitional day on Wednesday, then sunny skies and temperatures in the 70's, where they should be this time of year. If true, this will be such a relief. Part of me just want's to sleep until Thursday.

The Farm

I went out to the Farm for the first time in almost a month today. Driving the hour or so to Silver Springs is generally a weekend ritual for me during the warmer months of the year, although for various reasons I haven't done it for the last three weeks.

I always enjoy the Farm. I don't think many people understand why exactly I give up a Saturday or Sunday almost every weekend to drive out into the mostly empty desert and labor at a tiny, two-acre Farm. I could say that I like the idea of eating organic produce, or supporting small farms and local agriculture, or just the chance to get out of town on a regular basis. All of these things are true, but none of them are the primary reason.

The truth is, I just love the work. It is fulfilling in a way a modern office job could never be. It connects a person with the environment and nourishes the soul as well as the body. I love making things grow and I want to understand the process of farming better so that I might own a small farm of my own someday. Small-time agriculture, never an easy proposition even in the best of times, is now practically impossible as a paying proposition thanks to globalization and corporate farming. So how I'm going to make this happen, I'm not sure. But I will find a way someday, and when that small farm or ranch of my own becomes a reality, I'm going to want to know what I'm doing.

May is a vital month for us. This is when the vast majority of the planting takes place. Although the farm appears brown and dead right now, I have the advantage of knowing what it will look like come harvest time. The rewards will come, and the rewards will be much more than simply the food that will be produced.

This is the Farm's tiny orchard. We grow apples, apricots, peaches and cherries. Toward the rear we have a few grapevines.

Ray and I got a lot done in terms of soil preparation and (believe it or not) working to prepare some of the vulnerable early crops from freezing temperatures anticipated for early next week. 

Virginia doing bed preparation.  

This is Bear, the carrot-eating "watchdog" at Custom Garden. Though he is a giant, he's generally gentle as a lamb. 

Believe It Or Not, This Is The Nevada Desert

I stopped by the side of the road to take this picture today, because I don't know when it might be seen again. Ray and Virginia, who have been farming in Nevada for over 20 years, say they have never seen the desert so green. This has been the benefit of this year's gray, wet Spring.

Whitewater Webcam

Here's something I just came across. Click here to check out the webcam the city of Reno has set up by a particularly popular whitewater pool on the Truckee. This is just outside my building; if the camera were to pan up and a little to the left you'd see Arlington Tower, which houses Yukon Sully's Fortress of Solitude. This section of the whitewater park is often crowded with kayakers on sunny days (unlike today).

I'll be out at the farm tomorrow. Hopefully the weather will be better and we can get some work done. All the snow this past Winter and all the rain this Spring has turned the desert east of Reno green as a golf course in some places, but it's an illusion. This is dry country and the growing season is very short, so raising the large variety of crops that we produce is going to require a lot of intense work over the next few months. Click on Custom Gardens in the Links section to the left to check out Ray and Virginia's place, or wait until this weekend, when I should have some of my own pictures of the farm up.

It's Cinco de Mayo, and the Cubs are done

Is it time to start thinking about mathematical elimination already? Last night the Cubs managed to walk in the winning run in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. They're six and a half back of the Cards and suddenly a game and a half behind the Brewers. The Brewers!

My mother, the most devoted Cub fan I have ever met (and believe me, a team that hasn't won a World Series in just under a century is either going to have very devoted fans or none at all) e-mailed me today to let me know that she's essentially given up on the season already. It's too early for me to throw in the towel just yet, but I know where she's coming from.

But neither this, nor the fact that Spring just absolutely refuses to come to the Truckee Meadows (the highs for the next few days will barely top 60 degrees) has gotten my spirits down. Today I noticed that at some point the fences around the green grass of the amphitheater in Wingfield Park have been taken down, and on a symbolic level this is very important because it means that Summer can't be all that far away.

Wingfield Park lies just across a bridge from my building, on an island in the Truckee River. Already the whitewater kayak park that surrounds the island is almost daily full of brightly-colored boats who's riders seem content to spend hours turing flips and spins in the whitewater park's pools and rapids (looks sorta dull to me, but then again some people like needlepoint, so who's to say?). And soon sunny days will bring couples, families, pets, a whole thriving community enjoying the numerous free concerts and events put on by the city of Reno in the Summertime, which culminate in a fantastic monthlong series of events in July called Artown (you'll hear much more about Artown on this blog as we get closer). On warm summer evenings, the music from those concerts in the park wafts up to my 8th floor balcony, where I like to sit and enjoy the desert air and long sunsets. It's one of the best reasons I can think of for living downtown. That, and the endlessly entertaining schitzos that are always getting off at the bus station up the block.

Carson City, Swearing-In Ceremony

Melissa and me outside the Nevada Supreme Court. This picture was taken just after I was sworn in.

Taken Just After I Took The Oath Of Attorney

Two friends and co-workers of mine; from left to right, Sigrid, Me and Carlis.

How Cool Is This?

Okay, I know what a major dweeb this makes me, but I think this is pretty damn neat.

Me and The Man, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.

While being sworn in as a member of the Nevada State Bar yesterday I got to meet Nevada Senator Harry Reid. Mock me if you will, but we both know that you're just jealous.

MiMi's Done With Law School; Sully Gets a Letter From The Future Gov.

Big props to Yukon Sully friend and consigliere MiMi on getting done with Law School! Despite conventional wisdom to the contrary, the world needs more good lawyers and Mimi will be one of them.

In other news, I got a letter from my Congressional Representative and probable future Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons yesterday, congratulating me on passing the state bar exam. Thank you Congressman, passing the state bar certainly meant a lot to me. And by the way, a few weeks ago when you said people like me should be sent to Iraq and used as human shields, I'm sure you meant it in a nice way.

I'll be in Carson City today to get sworn in as a member of the Nevada State Bar Association. Pictures tomorrow.

Hitting the Nail on the Head

I've been reading Barbara Ehrenreich's fantastic book 'Nickel and Dimed' lately. The book is a great example of the kind of journalism that people just don't do any more. Ehrenreich, a New York Times bestseller, takes an honest stab at joining the ranks of the working poor in various parts of the country, trying to survive at at the sorts of miserable, low-wage service industry jobs available to those masses of people without access to education or helpful connections. Her efforts provide a vivid illustration of the fallacy behind some of the notions that we like to comfort ourselves with, i.e. that the poor deserve our contempt, that their condition is a result of their own laziness, and that all a person needs to do is work hard to pull themselves out of the lower levels of society.


Nickel and Dimed

One extraordinarly insightful quote caught my attention, and strangely it dealt not with economics or social justice, but religion. While attending a service at a revival tent in Maine and being preached to of our collective debt owed to the crucified Christ, Ehrenreich observes:

"It would be nice if someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the minimum wage. But Jesus makes his appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to say. Christ crucified rules, and it may be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth."

I worry about discussing religion here (it seems that it doesn't pay to rock the boat on this subject in this country these days), but I have to note that this passage really spoke to me. How often I have thougth that it is this tendancy in Christianity as it exists in many parts of America, the tendancy toward the subversion of the actual spoken message of Jesus in favor of a puritanical mania obsessed with the sexual behavior of believer and non-believer alike, that drives so many people away from organized religion. I can't help but think sometimes that if many of today's fundamentalists would actually listen to the words of the man that I remember reading about in the Gospels--a man who so far as I recall never mentioned gay marriage but who did seem to care greatly about the poor, the outcast, the very people that society considered the least desireable--they might have some interesting things to think about.

Katy Back in L.A.

My little sister flew back to L.A. yesterday to resume her quest for stardom. Unfortunately, this is how I see my family these days; in three or four day increments a couple of times a year.

The hardest thing for me about living where I do is the fact that I am so isolated from my family. I live in the West by choice, and there's nowhere I'd rather be; I fell in love with the mountains one summer about ten years ago and have never looked back. But it's not without it's price. My only niece, Kira, lives in Atlanta. She's going to be three years old in August. Sadly, I've only been able to visit her three times in her young life. It's like that with everyone in my family these days, and every time I come home from an all-too-brief visit or a family members leaves for their home this void in my life is thrown into sharp focus. This is the place I've chosen to try to make a life for myself and that isn't going to change any time soon, but I buy it at a very dear price.

In Cubbie-related news, it looks like Kerry Wood will be out at least three weeks. With lackluster hitting and a bullpen in disarray, this is not the news that the Cubs needed right now. Especially with the dastardly St. Louis Cardinals winning games 10-9 by scoring seven runs in the ninth inning. Why does God hate the Cubbies?

I Really Don't Have A Joke About This

This is just too funny. There's nothing I can think of to add to this. Except to mention that Rumsfeld is also wearing a codpiece.

A Follow-up To The Last Post

Here's a little taste of the Maxfield Parish Exhibit, going on right now at the Nevada Museum of Art.


It's not the Met or anything, but the Nevada Museum of Art is a great community asset.

Max Parrish v. Peter Griffin--the Steel Cage match you've been waiting for!

Two important cultural events to note this morning.

First, the Nevada Museum of Art here in Reno is now hosting an exhibit of the artwork of Maxfield Parrish, one of the most popular and beloved American artists of the 20th Century. If you're in Reno, you should see it.

The other item of note is the return of Family Guy, on the greatest TV network in world history, Fox (yes, I'm being sarcastic) on Sunday nights. I like Family Guy; it can be hysterically funny at times, even if it is a sort of watered-down Simpsons with the biting social commentary mostly replaced by non-sequitors and pop-culture references that anyone who isn't a 30-something white guy isn't likely to get. As an example, on last night's episode there's a little drama playing out that most of us probably remember from High School: Chris Griffin, the teenage son, is at a school dance when he's caught with some booze that was given to him by a friend. Into the middle of this familiar scene pops Hawk from G.I. Joe, who gives one of those "knowing is half the battle" speeches that you remember so well if, like me, you used to watch G.I. Joe cartoons. If you 'get it' it's funny; if like most people you didn't 'get it', the whole thing probably made no sense at all.

Still, it is better than most of what's on TV these days--or ever, I suppose. It seems strange that the last bastions of truly brilliant satire, or even relevant social commentary, is animation. I suppose animation gets away with a lot more than live-action since it's so clearly taking place in un-reality, which makes people slightly less uncomfortable with challenging or controversial ideas but which still manages to get the point across in a funny way. And for the record, the one I really wish they'd brought back is Futurama.