mjh's blog

Bosque del Apache, New Mexico

Bosque del Apache is a magical spot not quite 100 miles to the south from our door. Bosque is located close to the Rio Grande but is a largely artificial wetlands, capably managed to attract tens of thousands of bird in the winter, including massive flocks of snow geese and sandhill cranes. The cranes and geese, in particular, fly out at dawn and in at sunset in wave after wave of birds. Even without the birds, the bosque is beautiful, surrounded by mountains in every direction.

Merri and I went to the bosque at the beginning of December, 2009, with our neighbors, Joe and Sally. We didn’t take our annual expedition and moveable feast with other friends at the end of December. We did return to the bosque on a perfect day, February 1st, 2010. For the very first time in 25 years of trips several times per year, we walked one of the 6+ mile loops, which offered us even more birding opportunities than the bosque does on a slow drive. Of the 300 plus pictures I took, here are 35.

Bosque del Apache click for 35 pix & fullscreen slideshow

Wanna see what happens when you drown Government in the bathtub? Visit Colorado Springs, CO

No, that’s not the new advertising slogan for Colorado Springs – there’s no budget for advertising. CS is home to the Air Force Academy and Focus on Family. I won’t miss it when it dries up and blows away.

Colorado Springs cuts into services considered basic by many – The Denver Post 

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

"I guess we’re going to find out what the tolerance level is for people," said businessman Chuck Fowler, who is helping lead a private task force brainstorming for city budget fixes. "It’s a new day."

Some residents are less sanguine, arguing that cuts to bus services, drug enforcement and treatment and job development are attacks on basic needs for the working class.

Colorado Springs cuts into services considered basic by many – The Denver Post

It’ll be interesting to track the back-pedaling and flip-flopping on the Right. Like when they say Duhbya wasn’t *really* a conservative. Yeah, right.

101°

101°

Glenn Gould plays Bach
as I step on that distant shore.
Handing my coppers to the boatman,
I look up the bank for you
among the crowd
scanning the new arrivals for
old friends
to lead across the fields
when the dog barks –
1 head, not 3 –
I’m not dead yet,
as Charon’s ferry folds
into the sofa,
where I shiver
in fevered dreams
between two worlds
not ready for either.

first published 3/9/05

Chinese New Year in Albuquerque, New Mexico

Mer and I attended the dress rehearsal 2/6 for the Chinese Cultural Center’s performance, which will be held 2/14. The dress rehearsal was sparsely attended – the ‘real’ day will be jam-packed. The performances consist of routines executed by different combinations of Center members in a variety of silk outfits. These routines are somewhere between martial arts exercises and dances and involve swords, fans, ribbons, flags, and empty hands. All to the accompaniment of the drum group, which includes our yoga teacher and friend, Gail Rubin. My favorite performers included Tiffany Lin and the Monkey King.

Chinese New Year 30 pictures

Click the picture above for the album and a full screen slide show.

Flickr photoset from 2007 (8 pix):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/sets/72157594537596955/

‘Progressives damn the Constitution and the People’ – a Conservative says so, so it must be true

The end of Calcified Cal’s latest column is enough to make you think The Error of Limbaugh-Beck-Fox is coming to an end:

Cal Thomas Official Web Site – The President and the Republicans 

Still, it is hard to disagree with what the president said in his opening remarks to the Republicans: “I don’t believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job security. I don’t think they want more gridlock. I don’t think they want more partisanship. I don’t think they want more obstruction. They didn’t send us to Washington to fight each other in some sort of political steel-cage match to see who comes out alive. … They sent us to Washington to work together, to get things done, and to solve the problems that they’re grappling with every single day.”

A real debate about who is best equipped to solve those problems (and what created them) is what the country needs. The public wants to hear competing ideas discussed in a civil, if spirited, way. We are fellow citizens, after all, not each other’s enemies. There are forces that wish to destroy us. We shouldn’t help them by destroying ourselves with partisan bickering that does not serve the interests of the country.

President Obama promised to continue the public dialogue. He should. It’s good for him, for the Republicans and for the country.

Cal Thomas Official Web Site – The President and the Republicans

Oh, but let’s rewind to the beginning of that same kiss-and-make-up column:

Cal Thomas Official Web Site – The President and the Republicans 

“I am not an ideologue,” the president claimed, but of course he is. Dictionary.com defines “ideologue” as “a person who zealously advocates an ideology.” President Obama is a self-described “progressive.” A progressive is a throwback to the early 20th century. Progressives believe in an intellectual hierarchy that gets to decide what is best for the “uninformed” masses. They use government to impose their worldview on others. Progressives generally seek ways around the Constitution and its philosophical foundation, the Declaration of Independence, because they see these documents as impediments to their objectives. Note Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s comment to the press about comprehensive health insurance reform: “We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in.” Damn the Constitution; damn the people. That’s the attitude of progressives.

Progressives use the tax code to enforce their utilitarian view of the world. They believe that if I make more money than others, I “owe” the others.

Cal Thomas Official Web Site – The President and the Republicans

So, we are “fellow citizens, not enemies” but Progressives (Liberal-Socialist-Communist-Fascists) damn the Constitution and the People. Thanks for that olive branch, Cal. Asshole.

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Think Progress » ABC Panelists Criticize Ailes’ Evasion Of Why Fox News Cut Away From Obama-House GOP Conversation 

As ThinkProgress reported last week, Fox News was the only major cable news network to not show the entirety of President Obama’s conversation with House Republicans at their annual retreat. Fox cut away from the event 20 minutes early and instead began attacking the President for “lecturing” to the lawmakers.

Yesterday on ABC’s This Week, Arianna Huffington challenged Fox News President Roger Ailes about this decision:

HUFFINGTON: Roger, you clearly are in ratings, but if you are in ratings, can you explain to me why FOX went away from the meeting the president was having in — why did you go away, 20 minutes before the end?

AILES: Because we’re the most trusted name in news.

Guest host Barbara Walters cut off the conversation though, since the show was over. However, discussion on the topic then continued in the green room, even though Ailes wasn’t present. Both Huffington and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman criticized the network for its hypocrisy:

HUFFINGTON: Their framing of the President is that he’s radical, that he’s taking us down a dark, fascist or Bolshevik future — depending on the day. And there he was, rational, charming, and in full command of his facts. So the narrative fell apart and so the cameras stopped showing what was happening.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, I mean it’s — I thought it was actually quite funny except it has real consequences. There you have Roger Ailes, with this powerful, popular news network, whining about how the media are unfair to Republicans. I mean, he is a powerful person in the media — and of course, you know, “Fair and Balanced” is truly Orwellian and we know that. So it’s clear that Fox — I felt like yelling to him, “you can’t handle the truth,” because that was what was actually happening on the Fox coverage.

Think Progress » ABC Panelists Criticize Ailes’ Evasion Of Why Fox News Cut Away From Obama-House GOP Conversation