Friday, June 30, 2017

Day 24 (a future history)

Monday, February 12, 2018

Mrs. Madison still isn’t back at school. They said she’s having a sabatical. Or a cebatical. Something. I’d look it up to find out what it means if I could, but I can’t google it, and we don’t have a dictionary.

That seems weird to me, now, not having a dictionary, but I don’t think I’ve used one since, probably, 2nd grade. I think that’s when we learned about alphabetizing and using a dictionary, but you don’t need a dictionary when you have the internet.

I want to talk to her and find out what really happened to her, but I don’t know where she lives. I tried asking in the office, but they wouldn’t tell me, just kept saying “it’s policy” blah blah blah. Which, fine, I understand that about not giving teachers’ addresses to students because they’d get egged all the time if everyone knew where they lived, but this isn’t like a normal circumstance!, and you’d think they’d make an exception. But, no! It’s policy blah blah blah.

Which leaves the internet… Oh, wait, it doesn’t! Fucking Trump and the internet. What I need is a dictionary for people and where they live, but we don’t even have a dictionary, so I’m sure we wouldn’t have one of those, either, even if they made them.

So we’re having subs in her class, a different one every day. Some old lady who used to be a teacher who just wanted us to sit quietly and nothing else. Some young college guy who was an IT major or something but doesn’t have anymore, right now, because, basically, there are no more computers. I haven’t touched my computer in over a week. What’s the point?

He was funny, though, and told a bunch of stories about his friends getting drunk that he would probably get in trouble for telling us if they knew he had. And I suppose he was cute, but ALL of the girls crowded around him at the end of class and it was SO stupid because he had to be, like, I don’t know, at least 22 or something, but Gretchen swears she got his phone number, but she wouldn’t show it to anyone because she didn’t want anyone else to use it. I bet he gave her his cell phone number, so a lot of good that will do her!

Today’s sub was a black guy who wanted to know what we’re studying, or what we WERE studying before Mrs. Madison “left,” because there was no lesson plan. We told him we’re studying poetry but it didn’t matter because the soldiers had taken all our English books.

He asked us what poetry we’d learned and no one could answer. Or no one wanted to. After all our books were taken, it was pretty clear no one wanted to talk about books. I certainly hadn’t told anyone I had a copy of Fahrenheit 451. I even kept it hidden when I wasn’t reading it. Again. Because it’s the only book I have, and I don’t have a lot else to do, so I guess I’m kind of trying to memorize it, just like in the book. Which is kind of funny, I think. And ironic. I think. I think the word is ironic.

I flipped through my English notebook, but the only things I had written down were

Walt Whitman
Emerson
Thorough

I still think Thorough is a weird name for someone to have.

I was thinking about saying something when Abi said, “Walt Whitman.” Then, without really stopping to think, I said, “Yeah, something about leaves and grass.”

And he started laughing! He started laughing and I could feel my cheeks turn red, and everyone else started laughing, too, but I know they were just laughing because he was laughing, not because they knew what was funny. It made me mad which made my cheeks burn more.

But the sub knew, too, and started asking some of them why they were laughing and none of them could answer, which made more people laugh, even me, and it was okay after that.

Then he explained that it was Leaves of Grass and that he would bring his copy from home if he gets to come back.

He talked about poetry for a little while after that and quoted some poems to us that he had memorized, which I thought was cool and was like Fahrenheit 451 and the way I was starting to remember that back, but he did it just because he wanted to or liked to or something not because he didn’t have anything better to do. I never met anyone before who had memorized poems and books and stuff.

Then he told us that poetry isn’t about just poems, and we talked about music for a little bit, and he quoted some songs to us and told us to yell out the songs as soon as we knew what they were, which was funny because it was harder than it sounds like it would be and just because there was no music to go with the words.

At the end, he said poetry can also just be beautiful language, and he quoted some speech my Martin Luther King. I don’t really know who he is other than that he has a holiday and everyone jokes about it being milk day. Oh, and he was killed by someone. His speech was really good, though, but it was a little long. I wanted to write it down, but I got too far behind and gave up. I wish I could look it up, but I have no way to do that at home or anywhere, really. I do remember one part:

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Clone Wars -- "The Unknown" (Ep. 6.1)

-- The truth about yourself is always the hardest to accept.


[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]


Technically, we could be through with the whole Clone Wars thing since season six was never aired; however, they did release part of it on disc, so we, of course, own it. And season six has some important stuff in it; in fact, this first arc is easily in the top three arcs of importance in the series and arguments could be made for its being the most important.

So why didn't it air?

I may have mentioned this before, but let's touch on it again.

The Clone Wars was not "cancelled" in the way that TV shows generally get cancelled. This is why season six was so far along in production when the decision was made to end the series with season five. See, Clone Wars was a Cartoon Network show, licensed to them from Lucasfilm on a five year contract but, before the contract was up, Disney bought Lucasfilm. Not a big deal in a general sense except that Disney has its own TV station and didn't want to be licensing out their new Star Wars property to some other network so, when it came time to renegotiate the licensing agreement, Disney made the cost too high to make it worthwhile for CN to pay it and, thus, The Clone Wars abruptly ended at the end of season five with season six production in full swing.

Why didn't Disney just move Clone Wars over to the Disney Channel?
That was about branding.
And, so, Rebels was born as a Disney channel show and Clone Wars was allowed to drop away.
Fortunately, Disney allowed some of the episodes to be completed for a DVD release.

Which brings us to the first episode of season six, as I said, one of the most important arcs in the series as it has to do with Order 66. It also introduces us to the only set of Jedi siblings that I know of. Or, at least, can think of at this moment. Also, Tim Curry as Darth Sidious! And I'd say more, but you should just watch it.


"I am programmed to resist intimidation."

Monday, June 26, 2017

Trump's Economic Plan: Hydraulic Mining

These past few weeks, I've been talking about this trip through gold country that my wife and I took at the beginning of May. It was an enlightening and educational trip aside from the fact that it was just a lot of fun. I mean, I didn't even talk about how we made sourdough pancakes roughly based on the way miners' would have eaten them (evidently pancakes were kind of a thing because sourdough was fairly portable) or any of the other food we made (all amazing!) or any of the places we ate at. Of course, I also didn't talk about the mosquitoes, which reached a horrible peak the night we stayed at Indian Grinding Rock.

And I'm still not going to talk about any of that stuff:
1. Because I don't want to talk about the mosquitoes.
2. I don't have pictures of any of the food, and I probably wouldn't remember all the things anyway.

But I do want to talk some more about hydraulic mining and how Trump wants us to return to those days.

I mentioned that we stayed a couple of nights in a miners' cabin in North Bloomfield. North Bloomfield which now has a population of 8-12 (yes, that's actually what the sign said). However, at one point, North Bloomfield had a population of something in the 2000 range and was a "thriving" mining town. I say "thriving" because, obviously, it was only thriving via illusion. So let's talk about that...

The town of North Bloomfield was settled as a mining town, which means all of the industry there revolved around gold mining. Gold mining for "the Man." Let's just be clear about this, this was not a town settled by "small business" miners working for themselves and making a living at it. This was a town run by the North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company. The miners worked for them, and the miners made shit wages. The miners made shit wages while the owners of the mining company got rich. Super rich.

And remember, this is what the area looks like more than a century later:
Of course, at the time, none of the trees in the foreground were there. Everything below the treeline in  the background was wiped out by the hydraulic mining. Remember, this is a picture I took to be "attractive;" I didn't take any of what's left down in the canyon where it's still full of scummy water and piled rocks. Most of this area will never fully recover. [How do I know? Because there are similar areas to this where the Romans did the same kind of thing to gold mine more than 2000 years ago, and that land still hasn't recovered, either.]

But jobs, right? The destruction of this land supported the jobs and livelihood of 2000 people. But, you know, the government got involved and made hydraulic mining illegal and, so, today, North Bloomfield has a population of 8-12.

By Trump logic, though, we should strike down that regulation against hydraulic mining and put those miners back to work! Put them back to work making their shit wages so that the Mining Corporation could continue to get fat and rich (like a tick) off of them. But, you know, jobs!

Now, let's look at why the state of California stepped in and shut down hydraulic mining, because it wasn't because they wanted to flex some government muscles and put people out of work.
A view across some of the gravel piles and sparse vegetation on the edge of the "pit."

All of this hydraulic mining was happening up in the mountains, and it used a lot of water. "A lot of water" is an understatement. I'm talking about millions of gallons of water a day. All of the water and everything it carried with it went... down. Whole towns got covered in mud and rock and there was devastating flooding in the Sacramento valley, the most fertile area of California and, possibly, the whole United States, considering how much of the nation's food is grown here. Farms and lives were destroyed. Food that was being grown for broader consumption was destroyed so that a few corporation owners could get rich. And, you know, pay shit wages to their employees.

Some of what was coming out of the mountains even made it out into San Francisco Bay, causing even more environmental damage.

So, sure, there were 2000 people in this one town benefiting from the mining and a lot of those people had jobs related to the mining. And there were some other nearby towns that had jobs dependent upon the mining, like Lake City, which existed to upkeep one of the water reservoirs they used to power the water cannons.

But the environmental damage was extensive, to say the least, and the lives affected by the damage they mining corporation was causing was way more than 2000. Seriously, did you get the part where there were whole towns buried in mud due to the runoff from the mine? And entire seasons of crops were lost due to the flooding. So, yes, the State of California stepped in and made hydraulic mining illegal, but it wasn't without a legal fight because the corporation owners didn't want to quit. They didn't care about the damage they were causing because they were getting rich. Richer. They were getting more rich.

When hydraulic mining was made illegal, people moved away from North Bloomfield. Lake City doesn't even exist anymore. Yes, jobs were lost. Those people, though, went on to other things, because that's what you do. So, sure, jobs were lost, and I'm sure that was horrible for those people, especially the shop owners who suddenly no longer had enough business to stay open. But the net effect was tremendously for the good. Incalculably for the good.

Let's not mince words:
Trump's plan for coal, for bringing back coal mining jobs, is the same as if he came to California and made hydraulic mining legal again. There's still gold in them there hills. Billions of dollars worth. It wasn't a lack of gold that made people stop mining. It was the environmental cost.

And the environmental cost of coal is just as high. Climate change is real. The flooding and the droughts and the effects on our ability to produce crops is just as real as the flood waters and debris coming out of the Sierra Nevadas to cover the Sacramento plain and destroy... everything.

The best part is this:
He doesn't care about the jobs. He wants to pay shit wages, too. He's one of the corporation ticks wanting to suck you dry while he gets rich. And I hear you, "But Trump doesn't own coal mines!" (Actually, we don't know that since, you know, he won't release his tax returns.) Sure, Trump doesn't own any coal mines, but his buddies do, and, with them, it's all about scratching each others' backs.

Do I feel bad for the people who will and are losing their jobs because of the dying coal industry? Sure, I do. But I also believe the cost is too high to support the metaphoric 2000 jobs of a few miners at the expense of the rest of the world, because, yes, it is the rest of the world. For the moment, though, why don't you go to south Louisiana and talk to the folks there who are losing their coastline due to climate change. People who are having to move due to the destruction that other people are causing so that a few (a few!) can get rich. Richer. So that a few can get even more rich.
The monster in the mountain. (Doesn't it look like a Pac-Man ghost?)

Friday, June 23, 2017

Clone Wars -- Season Five


Season five of Clone Wars is almost the perfect Clone Wars season. Almost. If not for that pothole... um, actually, I think it's more of a sinkhole... right in the middle, it would be. Yes, I'm talking about the horrible four-episode arc featuring D-Squad and Colonel Gascon, the "frog general." As I'm reflecting over this particular season, I'm just left wondering, "What the f#$% were they thinking?"

I mean, look, season five starts off with a very solid story introducing us to Saw Gerrera, an arc which has a much stronger significance, now, after Rogue One, than it did when the series originally aired. It was a new perspective to go back and see it again because, though I liked the arc a lot the first time I saw it, it was much more enlightening this time.

And we follow that one with a story about younglings learning to build their first lightsabers, another good arc. True, it stumbles a bit at places, but, overall, it's good, and it gives us Ahsoka in her first guidance role.

Oh, but then! Then! I mean, where did this whole Gascon thing come from anyway? The story has absolutely no significance in the fabric of the series as a whole. It's entirely throwaway.

Then we have two of the strongest and most important arcs in the entire series. We wrap up the whole Darth Maul/Savage Opress story line, proving that the story of Opress was a tragedy (definitely not a comedy), but how could it have been otherwise? And...

And we see Ahsoka leave the Jedi. That final story of season five might be the most important of the entire Clone Wars run, though there is one arc in season six that's pretty important, too (and one that the Squid is sure to love), but I'll have to watch it again before I can decide which one I think is more significant.

Really, season five is Ahsoka's season. Three of the five arcs deal specifically with her, her growth as a Jedi, and her relationship with the Jedi Order and, specifically, to the Jedi Council. We watch her on more than one occasion choose to not follow orders in favor of doing what she believes is the right thing, something she learned from both Anakin and Obi-Wan but, possibly, more so from Obi-Wan. The season shows us that Ahsoka's story is also a tragedy.

I'm not sure I can say that you can watch season five without having watched the earlier seasons. Certainly, the Maul/Opress story arc won't make much since without the background from seasons three and four, but I think Ahsoka's ending won't have the power it should without having seen her journey. So, you know, if you like Star Wars, you really should watch The Clone Wars.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Clone Wars -- "The Wrong Jedi" (Ep. 5.20)

-- Never give up hope, no matter how dark things seem.


[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]


And so we get to the end of the Alfred Hitchcock-inspired titles. "The Wrong Jedi," of course, comes from The Wrong Man and has roughly the same kind of plot. I say that as someone who doesn't really remember the movie very well since I probably saw it when I was 10, but the synopsis backs that up.

If you've been keeping up, you'll know that Ahsoka has been accused of a crime she didn't commit. And set up very solidly. And no one other than Anakin believes in her. It's the kind of thing that can really shake your faith, and her allegiance to the Jedi Order is a faith.

One of the underlying conflicts of this arc is jurisdiction. It was the Jedi Temple that was bombed, so they believe they should have jurisdiction over the case; but clones were killed, so Tarkin claims that the military has jurisdiction. The result of the conflict over that is interesting, to say the least, but to say more would be to spoil the episode for you, and, really, this is an arc that really needs to be seen. Probably more than any other single event in the series, this is the one where we can best see Anakin losing his grip on what it means to be a Jedi.

But, really, it's not about Anakin, as Ahsoka very pointedly tells him: "This isn't about you."

Really, this arc is pivotal to the whole Star Wars series. Not only does it reveal to us this critical moment for Anakin, but it really puts on display how it is that only a couple or few decades later that people have forgotten the Jedi. It's not so much that they don't remember but that they turned their backs on them.

Hmm... The people turned away from the Jedi in favor of the Emperor and the Dark Side... That's something that sounds rather familiar.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Writing and the Inspiration Dilemma

There are whole schools of thought about writers and inspiration and waiting for inspiration and when to write and where inspiration comes from and whether it's even necessary. As with most things, there's a spectrum here, with people who believe you should never sit down to write unless you're feeling inspired on one side, and those, on the other side, who believe you should treat writing like a job and sit down and do the work whether you're inspired or not.

Let's take a practical look at this.

But before we go on, let me just say that I have nothing against inspiration. I like it. It's great to be inspired and have lovely (or terrifying) ideas to sit down and play with. But I can almost never sit down to do the writing when I have those ideas. I think most of my ideas these days happen when I'm in the car. You can ask my wife; I make her send me notes when I have ideas and we're not home, so she would probably know best whether that most frequently happens in the car or not. I mean, the car is not the best place to write, not if you want to live through your trip.

I used to know this guy. A "writer." He strongly believed in the waiting-for-inspiration-to-strike-before-doing-any-writing model. He talked about it a lot, actually, about how he would lean back in his chair at his desk and wait for the inspiration to come to him. Wait for the universe to open and flood his head with ideas and words. He'd sit that way for hours. If no inspiration came, he didn't do any writing. As time went on, more and more often, his posts about his writing life were only about how he was never inspired and couldn't find any inspiration and was, as a consequence, never writing.

He's not a writer anymore. I'm not sure he could ever have been called a "writer" since he has no completed work to show for his time as a "writer."

The problem is that I know a lot of people like that, people who quit writing because they relied heavily on being inspired and never did any of the work of writing. It's like this:
Writing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
And, well, inspiration doesn't come unless you're doing the work.

So you can probably guess which side of the spectrum I'm on.
The truth is that if you look at successful writers, the writers who make a living from their writing, with few exceptions, these are the people who sit down to do the work of writing whether they're "feeling inspired" or not.

"Writers" who wait for the inspiration to happen first lead lives of not writing and, thus, never have anything to show for being a "writer." Sure, they may have a few pages of this or a few pages of that, but you can't legitimately call yourself a writer if you can't finish anything. You can be a writer without ever publishing anything, but you can't be a writer without work to show for it.

Which brings me to my actual point.

The other day, I heard a bit of an interview with a "voter" about why he hadn't voted in an election. He said it was because none of the candidates had inspired him...
Wait, what?
Yes, he said he didn't vote because he hadn't felt inspired by any of the candidates to get out and vote.

Which I realized is what has bothered me so much about last November's presidential election, people complaining that they didn't like either candidate so they hadn't bothered to vote at all. These people are "voters" in much the same way as a writer waiting for inspiration is a writer, which is to say not at all.

Look, it's not a candidates job to be inspirational. It's not the campaign's job to inspire you. Sure, I get that it can help. Like I said, I have nothing against inspiration. It's great.
But that's not what voting is about!
As a voter, it's your job to make the best decision from the available candidates and to go out and vote!

For example, if you have two candidates and you've rated them on a scale of 1-10 and one of them is a 0 (because Trump didn't even make the scale) and the other is a 2 or, even, a 1, you go out and vote for the better one (not that I thought that Clinton was so low as a 1 or a 2, but I know a lot of people felt that way). You don't wait for a 7 or higher to come along and inspire you before going out and doing your job, because it is your job. If you have two candidates whom you don't like and one of them is an authoritarian fascist asshole, you go out and cost your ballot for the other candidate.

Period.

You want to know how I know? Because France just did just that! FRANCE! Dudes... if France can do it, if France can do the right thing, certainly we here in the United States of goddamn fucking America ought to be able to do the same thing. Ought to be able to.
Because, obviously, we're not capable of that, as the even more recent election of Greg Gianforte kind of demonstrates.
Seriously, what the fuck?
And you call yourselves Americans?
If the people of France can get themselves out to vote for Emmanuel Macron, a guy no one really liked, for the sole purpose of keeping Marine Le Pen out of office, then no one in the United States has any excuse.

When the choice is between the lesser of two evils, you fucking vote for the lesser of two evils.

So all of you people who didn't vote need to own up to your lack of doing your fucking jobs as citizens of the United States and get up off your asses now and register your protest against the fascist asshole "running" the country.
Running it into the ground.

Sorry (not sorry), fuck inspiration. And that goes to you "writers," too.
Do the work.
If you do the work, the inspiration will eventually come.

Friday, June 16, 2017

Gold Country (part 4)

This is the stream where we panned for gold. I think we lasted about 10 minutes.
Really, I was just more interested in taking pictures.
I did find some pretty non-gold rocks, though, not that I kept any of them.

The path through China Garden.


Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Clone Wars -- "To Catch a Jedi" (Ep. 5.19)

-- Never become desperate enough to trust the untrustworthy.


[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]


The title of this episode is another reference to an Alfred Hitchcock film: To Catch a Thief. As far as I know I've never seen To Catch a Thief, though that might not be true. There are a lot of old movies I watched as a young teenager that I don't remember anymore, and I watched a lot of Hitchcock films, so it is actually possible I've seen this one. Either way, I still get the idea they're going for from looking at the summary of the movie. It does make me wonder if "Sabotage," the first story in this arc, is also a reference to a Hitchcock film, a reference that I'm just not getting. Oh,wait, it is! And it's actually called Sabotage. I suppose I'm going to have to watch all of these again, now, or for the first time, depending. I'm pretty certain I've never seen Sabotage.

Ahsoka's on the run...
Now, let's step back a moment:
Much of the tension in Clone Wars is derived from Ahsoka and the fact that we know she's not around for Revenge of the Sith. We know something has to happen to her, which is something my kids started asking me during season one back when we were first watching the series. So what does happen to Ahsoka?

This arc is the beginning of the answer to that question, which is about all I can say without spoilers. What I can say is that this is one of the best arcs in the series. Plenty of action, plenty of drama, plenty of character development. Because, you know, anything that affects Ahsoka is also going to affect Anakin, and, more than anything else, Clone Wars is here for us to see the subtle shifts that led to Anakin's fall.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Day 21 (a future history)

Friday, February 9, 2018


We had to get pictures for our ID cards today. I don’t like having my picture taken ever, but this was even worse. We’re going to be required to carry them “at all times” so anyone who wants to can “verify our identity.” If we ever get stopped for something and don’t have our card, we can get taken to a detention center.

It’s bullshit.

We’re also going to have to use them to check into school everyday. They’re going to have some kind of chip in them, like a credit card, and we’ll have to use them in some in some card reader thing when we get to school AND when we leave school! It’s ridiculous!

Next thing you know, we’ll have to use them to get in and out of our own houses.

We also have to use them anytime we buy something, even if we’re paying with money. I mean paper money. They’re going to start making us use the stupid cards for everything!

If they make us use them to go to the bathroom, I’m going to start peeing on the floor!

Getting the pictures done was weird. A lot of my friends were treating them like school pictures and came to school all dressed up. My mom wanted me to dress up, especially because I didn’t dress up for actual picture day, but I hate taking pictures and I’m certainly not dressing up for it.

But none of that’s what made it weird.

My group went in, and there were still a few people from another class having their pictures done, and no one was smiling. All these girls all dressed up and not a single one of them smiling. They all had these super serious expressions on their faces, even Katy, who always smiles. Always!

Then Joe went up, the first person from my class because his last name is Anderson, and he, of course, smiled.
And they yelled at him for it!

“Don’t smile.”
“What?” looking confused.
“Don’t smile. Just look at the camera.”

Joe looked at the camera more as a reaction than because he was doing what he was told. He had a kind of bewildered look on his face, but that’s when the guy took the picture.

Then they called “Baker, Abigail,” and, of course, Abi smiled, and the photographer yelled at her, too. Abi argues with everyone, so she tried to argue with the guy, “But I want to have pretty pictures…”

“You’re not getting pictures. You’re getting an ID card.”
“But…”
“You don’t get any pictures, just the card. Now, look at the camera and don’t smile.”

Abi scowled, but he just waited a few moments, looking bored, and took the picture as soon as Abi relaxed her face a little. She was so mad! And stomped off like she was going to try to go get him in trouble.

It would have been funny if it all hadn’t been so weird.

After one more of those, no one smiled anymore.

Until it was my turn, because I was mad.

And I never smile for pictures.

“Just look at the camera. Don’t smile.”
“I’m not smiling.” I wanted to be laughing, so it was actually kind of hard to hold the smile.
“I’m serious, kid. Quit smiling.”
“I’m not smiling.”

I got detention, but I’m smiling in my picture.


It was worth it.

Friday, June 9, 2017

Gold Country (part 3)

We spent two nights at Malakoff Diggins where we stayed in an actual miner's cabin that's still standing from sometime in the 1860-1880 range.
Yes, the chairs are new.
The cabin is located in what is left of the town of North Bloomfield which is located within Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park. They have camping, too, but staying in an actual miner's cabin was something we couldn't pass up.

And this... Well, this is a water cannon:
Hydraulic mining wasn't invented in Malakoff Diggins, but it really became a thing there. See, here's what happened:
You know how people thought during the gold rush that they were just going to "zip" over to California and find gold lying all over the ground and become rich? Of course, that wasn't true, but in Malakoff Diggins it was almost true. There was so much gold in the streams in the area that it took a couple of years for them to clean it all out. Except they realized there was always new gold in the streams after a rain, so they began searching around in the dirt, but that's hard work. Not that panning isn't hard work, but it's so much easier than digging around in the dirt. So someone asked the question: How do we get all of this dirt to the water so that we can sift all the non-gold away?

Which is where the water cannons came in. I'm not going to go into the whole process of hydraulic mining because the important part is that you aim the cannon at the mountain and wash everything down. Everything.
The bare rock, there, and everything below it was hydraulic mined. Prior to mining, the whole area was just like above the mining zone. All of the trees in the foreground are new growth from the last century, but let me make this clear: It's been more than 130 years since this happened, and the area still looks trashed.
Bear in mind, these are the "scenic"pictures, because I didn't take any pictures of the really horrible looking areas, because they were horrible looking. Of course, I wasn't thinking about this post at the time, or I would have.

All of this runoff caused problems. Lots of problems. Basically, it all ended up down around Sacramento and caused all kinds of flooding and damage. People weren't happy. Someone sued. It was one of the first, if not the first, environmental cases in American history, and the result was that in 1884 hydraulic mining was made illegal in the state of California.

Let me state again: It's been more than 130 years since hydraulic mining in the area of Malakoff Diggins was halted, and the land has still not recovered!

And I just want to point out that the kind of environmental regulation that Trump wants to do could very easily lead to more environmental disasters of this nature. Thousands of acres of farmland ruined every year on top of the destruction of some of the greatest wild areas of California. But, you know, if there's profit to be gained, Trump and his ilk don't care about any kind of destruction anyone else might face. Let the future deal with that. They're too old to care what kind of results there will be in 20-30 years.

Next time: More Malakoff Diggins, but only the pretty stuff.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Is It Real or Is It...? (pictures I like)

The above two pictures are the original pictures and, interestingly enough, they looked photoshopped, like the image of the trees have been laid on top of a landscape of dead grass, even though they are not.
The below picture has, though, been manipulated, which is funny (at least to me) because it now looks more natural, as if it is the unedited picture.
heh

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Clone Wars -- "The Jedi Who Knew Too Much" (Ep. 5.18)

-- Courage begins by trusting oneself.


[Remember, you can sign up to join the Clone Wars Project at any time by clicking this link.]
[Well, actually, considering that we're into season five, now, probably no one new is going to sign up, BUT! Hop over to The Armchair Squid for his take on the current episode.]


I'm sure the title of this is a reference to the Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much, but it's been so long since I've seen that movie that I don't know how the episode relates to the film.
Fun fact: The 1956 film featuring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Alfred Hitchcock was a remake of his own 1934 film of the same title. I've only seen the Jimmy Stewart version so, now, I need to watch both of them!

Anyway...

This is one of the most pivotal story arcs in the entire Clone Wars series. Everything changes here, and I think this story more than any other one gives insight into the fall of Anakin, though, ostensibly, this arc isn't even about him. Having seen it before, it's interesting re-watching it now and seeing how they put it together, because it feels like I should have known what was going to happen before it happened, kind of like watching The Sixth Sense for the first time.

Tarkin is back and back with a renewed agenda to cut the Jedi out of... well, out of everything but, initially, out of the clone war. Tarkin's presence in this arc is also a sign of the significance of this story.

And all of this, again, makes me really wonder where they were going to go with this series because it feels like everything before was just leading up to this stuff here at the end of season five (and the limited amount of season six that was later made available), and this stuff is great. It's intense. It's moving. It's powerful. You should watch it.

Monday, June 5, 2017

The Voice of Freedom

There's been a lot of talk in the last six months or so about the lack of leadership in the Democratic party, which is true. When Obama left office, he also stepped away from any and, seemingly, all roles of leadership. And that's too bad, because he's the closest thing to a unifying leader the Democrats have right now. But, honestly, it's not a lack of leadership that's the problem.

It's the lack of a voice.

And I don't mean the lack of a voice for the Democratic party; I mean the lack of a voice for Freedom. The Voice of Freedom, right now, is silent.

Which is not to say that there are not rumblings from it, but, so far, since the rise of Trump, no one has picked it up and shouted it with a unifying Voice as key individuals have done in the past:

Abraham Lincoln
Mahatma Gandhi
Winston Churchill
Martin Luther King, Jr.
even Ronald Reagan with his stance against communism in the 80s

Sometimes, that voice is sung, as it was in the late 60s by people like
Bob Dylan
Peter, Paul & Mary
Simon and Garfunkel

Or in the 80s by
U2
The Alarm


Today, the Voice of Freedom is silent and needs to be picked up as a unifying cry against the Voice of Fear that Trump continues to spew out of his horrible maw in the same way that Hitler did.

See, the Voice of Fear is loud and has provided a rallying point for Conservatives (because studies show that Conservatives are more prone to fear and have a much greater fear of change (and, let's face it, the times they are a changin')), and they have responded to that call with a vengeance. A vengeance which includes white supremacists feeling like they have been empowered to murder and terrorize and that that is somehow patriotism (to use the words of a white supremacist terrorist).

Not to go all Star Wars on you, but the Voice of Fear is the Dark Side. It's not more powerful, but it is quicker, easier, more seductive. People like quick and easy and don't like or want to put in the work for Equality and Freedom.

And, just to be clear, the Voice of Freedom is also the Voice of Equality, because real Freedom, true Freedom, cannot exist without equality. The equality of all people to have the same access to healthcare. The equality of all people to have the same access to education. The equality of all people to have the same access to opportunity. The Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, is the Voice of the People.

The Voice of Fear is the voice of slavemasters, those who want you to put up and shut up and just do as you're told. It's time to throw off Fear.

"We want to play for you now a gospel song. A gospel song with a restless spirit."
It's time to pick back up the Voice of Freedom, the Voice of Equality, and sing it and sing it loud.

Friday, June 2, 2017

Gold Country (part 2)

Day two of our trip through gold country took us up to Empire mine, one of the richest hard rock gold mines in California. It was also extremely informative. For one thing, gold mining is not what we think it is. At least, it's not what I thought it was, and I'm pretty sure my thoughts on it were not outside of mainstream thought.

Well, okay, one part is what I thought it was: gold panning. That's a form of placer (the "a" is like in cat) mining. We did that, by the way, but I'll get to that later. But mining for gold down in the ground is nothing like what I thought it was. There are no "veins of gold" just running through rock that you can go in and pull out. The gold is infused in quartz, so the process of hard rock mining is much more complicated because it involves bringing vast quantities of quartz out of the ground, smashing it up, and using dangerous chemicals like mercury and cyanide to draw the gold out. According to our tour guide, they got about 1/2 an ounce of gold per every TON of rock brought up. To me, that's just insane.

There's still plenty of gold down in the mine there, by the way, but, even with gold at over $1200/ounce, it now costs more to bring it up than they can make from doing it.

How about some pictures?

This is a three dimensional map of the mine and its tunnels.
The little paper signs  on top are the locations of various businesses and buildings.
I don't think you can see it in this picture, but there's a sign for Safeway and one for the post office.
Core samples.
A drill used for boring holes into the rock walls for the placement of explosives.

The mine administration building.
None of these trees existed when the mine was in operation.
The entire top of the mountain had been clear cut as fuel for running the pumps (to keep the mine shafts free of water) and to operate the stampers (the rock crushing machines).

William Bourn II had a vacation home and elaborate garden built on the mining site. He stayed there two weeks a year. Because it was there, it was also used to entertain guests, but the purpose of it was just to be there for those two weeks when Bourn was on site each year.
Those were the tennis courts off to the left.


And a few more shots of the mine grounds:
I believe the open area here is where the stampers used to be.
They ran non-stop (yes, 24/7), creating a constant pounding, which is probably why Bourn only visited for two weeks out of the year.
This is a piece of a small stamper, nowhere near the size of the ones the mine used.
A shot down the primary mine shaft.
You're looking down 100-150 feet.

Next stop: Malakoff Diggins.