Ex-First Lady Laura Bush on President Obama: Thurmbs Up!

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Let me tell you, this is a bit of a mindf***er. At a United Nations meeting in Paris, where Mrs. Bush was promoting literacy, she told CNN, among other things:

● Obama "is doing a good job."

● On the ridiculous brouhaha over BHO addressing the nation's schoolchildren: "I think there is a place for the president ... to talk to schoolchildren and encourage them."

● She does not think it is fair for Obama to be labeled a "socialist"

● On her husband George failing to work in a bipartisan manner: "He was disappointed that that was not the way it worked out in Washington."

● Paradoxically, she criticized the excessive partisanship of Washington, while she expressed gratitude for Cheney's decision to vocally "defend her husband's performance," even though he is one of the torch bearers for destructive partisanship.

● While she defended Cheney, she also said her husband still speaks with Cheney "occasionally." As you know, those last couple of years they were at odds, particularly over Bush's refusal to pardon Cheney's henchman Scooter Libby.
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Labor Day, and a reluctant end to summer

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OK. It is technically the last day of summer, although it is supposed to get hot again later this week.

In Seattle, the last weekend means Bumbershoot, and usually, a good weekend--Saturday at Bumbershoot, we saw Mayer Hawthorne and The County, Sheryl Crowe (briefly), The Old 97's, Natalie Portman's Shaved Head (awesome!), and De La Soul.

Today we hiked down the hill in Discovery Park to the beach at West Point. A nice walk--with intermittent sprinkles and sun breaks, as we like to say--to the lighthouse and foghorn just below Magnolia Bluff. It must be scallop season--there were far more scallop shells on the beach than clams, crabs or mussels.
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The anti-performance art manifesto

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An anti-performance art manifesto from an art exhibit at Bumbershoot yesterday...the transcription on the right is mine.

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No performance art!

One of my favorite art exhibits at this year's Bumbershoot was a piece challenging the sanity of performance art. Nice. While I have enjoyed performance art over the years (especially some of my friend Ron Littke's insane performances in Manhattan in the early 1980's), there is always an overhanging cloud of *huh*?

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Jack Brummet interviews Senator Jerry Melin, 1980, New York City

Of the literally hundreds of hours of recordings in The Archives, only one cassette tape has survived. That cassette, fortunately, contained numerous recordings of the late, greatly and dearly loved Jerry Melin. This is one of them. Thanks to Ian Rodia, who digitized the crumbling generic cassette tape. As you can hear, the cassette recorder itself generated a "bump" every few seconds, and the tape is filled with the ambient sounds of buses, semis, glasses tinkling, coughs, and mumbling. Nonetheless, it is good to hear Jerry's voice.

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Digital Art: Incoming Japanese Prime Minister and First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama and Yukio Hatoyama

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Alien Lore No. 156 (in a collector's series) - Japanese first lady abducted by aliens

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Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of Japan's Prime Minister-elect, Yukio Hatoyama, is into macrobiotics, was divorced, was once an actress, and often wears clothes she creates herself. She was also a dancer in Japan's fabled all-female Takarazuka theatrical group (an elite, hugely loved troupe that produces schmaltzy versions of U.S. theatrical and movie productions).

62-year-old Miyuki Hatoyama says she knew Tom Cruise in a former incarnation (he was Japanese), She says if they meet, "I believe he'd get it if I said to him, 'Long time no see'," she told an interviewer recently. Oh, and she was also once abducted by aliens. I love this woman!!!

In her book, "Very Strange Things I've Encountered" she writes that was abducted by aliens while she slept one night 20 years. Naturally, this has vaulted her onto front pages and gossip columns.


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"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus," she explains in the tome she published last year. "It was a very beautiful place, and it was very green."

Her previous husband, told her it was just a dream. She says the soon to be Prime Minister, however, would say, 'Oh, that's great'," she wrote.

Mister and Mrs. Hatoyama met in the United States. She worked in a Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, and he was in grad. school at Stanford University. Miyuki was still married. "The average man chooses his mate from among unmarried women," Hatoyama boasted years later. "I chose mine from among all women."

They say Hatoyama adores his wacky wife. Why wouldn't he?? "I feel relieved when I get home," he says. "She is like an energy refuelling base."
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Auto-tune the news, co-starring the ex Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin

I love these guys. It's not such a preposterous prospect to think that in the not so distant future, all news will be auto-tuned. It just might help TV prevent the decimation that has engulfed their print brethren. . .

Horsin' Around? Shades of the Enumclaw horse sex case--another Washington State man succumbs to the lure of a smokin' filly

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Will this turn out to be a callback to the Enumclaw Horse Sex case? [ed's note: For whatever reason, some of the highest hits on All This Is That from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines are for the horse sex stories we published a few years ago. The other high hits are also usually related to something especially salacious, scandalous, or fictional (which are mostly salacious AND scandalous) that appear here...]

According to the Associated Press, a pantless, Finley, Washington man is accused of harassing a neighbor's horse. And "trespassing." The Tri-City Herald said the horse owner found the man with no pants chasing a horse at three-thirty a.m. Benton County sheriff's deputies identified a 26-year-old man, living next door, as the suspect. He was jailed for investigation of trespassing. Deputies also were called to the home Thursday evening when the owner "saw the same bald man scaring the horse enough to break through an electrical and barb-wire fence." He was wearing a black T-shirt and had pants on this time.

Previous All This Is That Washington State Horse Sex coverage:

Further ruminations on Enumclaw
Horsin' around: update on Enumclaw
Another shocking revelation
Beastiality in south King County
The final horse/beastiality update
Enumclaw Story To Become A Movie
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Seattle Cougar Sightings

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It's been quite a year for animal sightings in Seattle (see: here and here). Now, it's the cougars (a/k/a bobcats and mountain lions) prowling the two neighborhoods adjoining ours: Discovery Park and near the Woodland Park Zoo.

According to The Seattle P.I. (the defunct 'paper that is now a web site), "Residents in two Seattle neighborhoods have reported seeing a cougar. . .In Magnolia, cougar sightings reportedly have been going on for several days."

Dean Ericksen (@dean_ericksen) wrote: "Break out the Aqua Velva."
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Ex-VP Dick Cheney: does it take a myocardial infarction to shut this douchebag up?

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The Trees of Ballard

Tonight, I went for a walk in our neighborhood, meandering through the streets on the way to the promenade/lookout:



And I started keeping track of the trees. . .in 25 blocks or so, I saw:



Bamboo
Alder
Douglas Fir
Horse Chestnut
Oregon White Oak (I think!)
Monkey Tree (aka Araucaria - they have leaves that are brutally sharp)
Western Red Cedar
Crab Apple (Pacific?)
Ponderosa Pine (aka Western Yellow Pine)
Yew
Juniper
Apple
Willow
Red Maple
Cherry
Elm
A couple scruffy palm trees
Dogwood
Ash
Holly
Red Alder

And I saw at least ten trees which I do not know--mainly deciduous...I have the evergreens nailed. Who knows what I would have seen if they hadn't clear-cut Seattle 100 years ago? Probably a forest of fir and alder?
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