Video of our office during the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake

In February, 2001, we experienced a serious (6.8) earthquake in Seattle. This is a video shot at our office during the 'quake. Sort of. According to the Wikipedia:

"The Nisqually earthquake was an intraslab earthquake, occurring at 10:54 a.m. PST (18:54 UTC). on February 28, 2001, and was one of the largest recorded earthquakes in Washington state history. The quake measured 6.8 on the MMS and lasted approximately 45 seconds. The epicenter of the earthquake was under Anderson Island, about 17 km (11 mi) northeast of Olympia. The focus was at a depth of 52 km (32 mi). Tremors were felt as far away as Portland, Oregon, across the border in Vancouver, Canada, and 175 miles east in Pasco, Washington. The quake caused some property damage in Seattle and surrounding areas. Although there were no reports of deaths directly from the earthquake, local news outlets reported that there was one death from a stress-related heart condition at the time of the earthquake; the quake also caused approximately 400 injuries."

"The quake is sometimes referred to as the Rattle in Seattle, similar to the nickname "Battle in Seattle" for the protests surrounding the WTO Ministerial Conference in 1999."


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Highly Placed Source: "We'll go back to wooden legs and hook arms while the insurance companies behave like drunken, rampaging sailors on shore leave"

By Pablo Fanque,
National Affairs Editor

Pablo Fanque filed this story via a Gmail email this morning as he departed the country to trek in the Karakoram. He left this note: "I met ___________ at the White House just before President Obama left for his Martha's Vineyard vacation. This highly placed source asked a few reporters to breakfast for a colloquy on the national health care 'debate.'" [ed's note: When Fanque uses the phrase "highly placed source" he almost always refers to either the principal of the story (in this case, President Obama), or to a member of his closest inner circle. Inner circle in Obama's case means one of his top advisers--most likely either David Axelrod, or Rahm Emanuel.]

“It’s disturbing so see the very people this would help most storming town halls and congressional offices, pressing the agendas of the insurance lobby.

“What we do today will either break the system open or we will irrevocably lock ourselves into a two-tiered system—one for the wealthy, and another for the unfortunate rest of us. Sure, at this moment, the majority is insured. But five years down the road with medical care continuing its upward spiral and employers chiseling away at, or eliminating medical benefits? We are actually heading toward a single tier system.

“It is galling to me that even one Representative or Senator oppose any form or nationalized health care or a public option to the insurance companies. These people enjoy a Cadillac federal system of insurance. But what is good for the goose is apparently not so good for the gander when it comes time to pay the bill.

“Congress would bring back the days when you walked the streets and saw hundreds of people limping, walking with bent frames; when life expectancy was under fifty years of age. They can live with a country where once again people must live with glass eyes, wooden legs, cleft palates, and hook arms, and where almost any major illness is a virtual death sentence.

“These folk would lead you to believe we will not only have death panels, but giblet and joint panels where a board decides just who gets the livers and kidneys, and who gets a new hip or a cornea transplant. But they don’t mention those—they talk about government funded massages, breast implants, and Viagra prescriptions!

“The thing is we can’t let the insurance companies--and their co-conspirators, the medical profession--have their way. We tried that with The Banks and Wall Street. Look where it got us! And the insurance companies—if this is possible—have even less scruples. Almost completely unfettered since Bill Clinton left office, they have behaved like drunken, rampaging sailors on shore leave.”
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Poem: The Jitters

Not even counting the corner cases—
Fruitcakes, the conspiracy phalange,
Or even just a generalized case of the jitters—

We almost always feel less
Safe than we actually are.
And not feeling safe sucks up

A lot of bandwidth,
With its high noise to signal ratio,
Leaving almost nothing redeeming

In its wake, unless you find
Paralysis by the heebie jeebies
Or undue caution and stealth redemptive.
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Quotations about Seattle, Wash.

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"What do they call this--Bar Mitzvah? Where you come out as a man? I think Seattle was kind of like that for me. . .all of a sudden I had to become a man. There were a lot of faces around Seattle, and I tried to make mine familiar so I could keep working. . .I could see that in a city like Seattle--a place which was more sophisticated and open than I was used to--my act was going to pay off." - Ray Charles

From a New Yorker cartoon about Seattle: "They're backpacky, but nice."

"Our grandfather started a sawmill and helped to clear-cut Ballard. And he gained wealth here. He was a very aggressive businessman. . .Now our generation is very much into nonprofit and here we are operating a foundation giving away as much money as we can to save the forests that my grandfather did not cut." - Harriett Bullitt, former co-owner of King Broadcasting

"Many a morning in June, I've come upon slugs three feet up on my asparagus plants, rocking back and forth in the feathery foliage like a sailor relaxing on a hammock." - Jim Hollman

"When somebody associates someone with being a resident of the Pacific Northwest, there's a lot of Paul Bunyan notions of people raising Cain out in the hills." - Bruce Pavitt, co-founder of Sub Pop Records

"A Seattle native is a Californian, Minnesotan, or Iowan who has lived in Seattle more than six months and knows how to pronounce Sequim (or Puyallup)." - Jean Godden, Seattle columnist and former city council member

"I like Californians. When I'm down there." Emmett Watson, Seattle author, newspaperman

"The real misconception that outsiders have about Seattle's rain is that it's a bad unpleasant thing. True Northwesterners, on the other hand, like the misty, foggy weather, with its beautiful moody promise of regeneration." - Bart Becker

"It will stop raining, won't it?" - Richard Eberhard, a poet on a 1967 visit to Seattle

"Despite what the fish and game department likes us to believe about fishing, gardening is easily the number one avocation in the Pacific Northwest. . .We may treat the local Orca pods as wildlife celebrities, we may reinvent the spotted owl as our symbol of wildness, we may expend vast amounts of money, time, and self-respect trying to get close enough to grab a salmon under the gills, but it is the slugs we know best. And most often. Slugs: our primary window into the heart of the wilderness." - Jim Hollman, Seattle writer

"A newcomer to Seattle arrives on a rainy day. She gets up the next morning and it's raining. It continues to pour for the rest of the week. Leaning out her apartment window she sees a little boy playing on the stoop below and asks, 'Hey, kid, does it ever stop raining around here?' The kid looks up at her and calls back, 'How should I know? I'm only six.' - a joke that made the rounds a few years ago
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Excerpt from Chief Seattle's Oration On The 1854 Treaty

THE AUTHENTIC TEXT OF CHIEF SEATTLE'S TREATY ORATION 1854

by Chief Seattle a/k/a Sealth

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

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Poem: A whisper in the night

It starts as a murmur in the dark.
You brush it aside
At first, doubting your own ears.

When it emerges with authority
You no longer know
Which voice is real

And which voice is a doppleganger
Or imposter; soon the bleedthrough
Takes precedence.

You can no longer differentiate
Between your Jiminy Cricket voice
And the one ordering you

To leave your home
And dice up the first luckless person
To cross your path.
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Poem: A whisper in the night

digital art: pictures of life

click to enlarge
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It looks like Seattle's Mayor Greg Nickels just got his walking papers in this week's election

Mayor Greg Nickels appears to have come in third in our top two primary. I guess we will have to rename Nickelsville:


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Greg Nickels: "It's time for my bootheels to be wandering"
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Joke: An American Tourist

An American tourist goes on a trip to China where he is sexually promiscuous and rarely uses a condom. Not long after arriving home in the States, he awakes one morning to find that his penis is covered with bright green and purple spots.

He immediately goes to see a doctor. The doctor, never having seen anything like this, orders a battery of test and tells the man to return in two days.

When the man returns, the doctor says: "I've got bad news for you. You've contracted Mongolian VD. It's very rare and almost unheard of here. We know very little about it".

The man looks perplexed and says, "O.K., so just give me a shot or something and fix me up, doc".

The doctor answers, "I'm sorry, but there is no known cure. We're going to have to amputate your penis".

The man says, "Absolutely not! I want a second opinion".

The doctor replies, "Well, it's your choice, of course. Go ahead and get a second opinion if you want, but surgery is your only option."

The next day, the man finds a Chinese doctor, figuring that he will know more about the disease. The doctor examines his penis and proclaims: "Ah, yes, Mongolian VD. This is a very rare disease."

The guy says, “I know that, but what we can do? My doctor wants to operate and amputate my penis."

The Chinese doctor shakes his head and laughs: "These American doctors always want to operate. They make more money, that way. There is no need to operate!"

"Oh, Thank God," the man replies, and wipes his brow.

"Yes", says the doctor, "Don't worry! Just wait another couple of weeks and the penis will fall off by itself!"
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digital art: Istanbul's Blue Mosque

click to enlarge the blue mosque
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Summer reading - some books I read this summer

Here are the books I remember reading this summer. It's a pretty normal mix for me--a touch of Shakespeare, some fiction, some music books, poetry, several expedition books, and a lot of history and nonfiction.


NF - nonfiction; F - Fiction; M - mountaineering/expedition

The Tempest - William Shakespeare (F - more or less, in verse and play form)
The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier - Bruce Barcott (M)
Coltrane: The Story of a Sound - Ben Ratliff (NF)
Moo - Jane Smiley (F)
Julie & Julia - Julie Powell (NF: a cooking memoir)
The land where blues began - Alan Lomax (NF)
The story of Butch Cassady - Charles Kelly (NF)
Searching for the sound - Phil Lesh (NF)
Marvin Bell - Iris of creation (poems)
How to tell a secret - R.J. Huff and J.G. Lewin (NF)_
The last picture show- Larry McMurtry (F)
Montana's righteous hangmen - Lew Calloway (NF)
Memoirs of Fanny Hill - William Cleland (F)
Pop. 1280 - Jim Thompson (F)
In the presence of grizzlies - Peacock and Peacock (NF)
Dark Summit - Nick Heil (M)
Forever on the Mountain - James. M. Tabor (M)
Havana Nocturne - T.J. English (NF)
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