Poem: [Let the blue turtle go]

By Jack Brummet

Let the blue turtle go

Train your eyes
Like a bobcat

Leave the knife beneath your cloak
Let things pass
Because all things must pass

Awareness of danger

Brings fortune

As you cross the cold cold sea

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What the night sky will look like in five million years

ESA’s Gaia mission's scientists created this simulated animation of how the Milky Way will evolve over the next 5 million years.

Via Kottke.org:

"Stars in the Galactic Plane move quite slow and faster ones appear over the entire frame. This is a perspective effect: most of the stars we see in the plane are much farther from us, and thus seem to be moving slower than the nearby stars, which are visible across the entire sky."

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The Slender Thread movie with Anne Bancroft and Sidney Poitier

By Jack Brummet

We have an annual screening of the film The Slender Thread at the Crisis Clinic, and I finally made it for the showing tonight. It is a pretty amazing movie on a topic (suicide) that was not really talked about in the 60s. Or the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and even now. Anne Bancroft, Telly Savalas (and his brother George), Sidney Poitier, and Ed Asher are the lead actors. Bancroft and Poitier—the suicidal woman and the phone worker—are the focal points of the story. A lot of it is outdated and nothing like how we work now, but it is still fascinating and touching if you have ever done this kind of work. The movie, directed by Sydney Pollack, was based on the Seattle Crisis Clinic, which was one of the first hotlines in the country.

I worked on a crisis line in 1971-72, and the movie is pretty realistic about that era. We were flying by the seat of our pants, without a lot of professional help from shrinks/MSWs, etc. When I returned to this work a couple years ago, it was much more buttoned-down and professional (and effective). When I was on the Kent crisis line, we had four hours of training provided by the Seattle Crisis Clinic (where I work now): two hours on active listening and communications skills and two hours on suicide work. The next time around, it was 80 hours of training, with four days of in-service training each year, and continual ad hoc feedback on your work.

As corny as it was at times, the movie was moving. They got a lot of it right, which, for Hollywood, is pretty good. It's an almost noir looking black and white movie with footage (including aerial) of 1960's Seattle. Another reason this really hit home was that the woman committing suicide lived a few blocks from us in Ballard, and a lot of key moments occurred at Golden Gardens, just down the hill from my house.

I don't know if it is available streaming, but the DVD is for sale on Amazon.

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The smell of books ("Smell of heritage: a framework for the identification, analysis and archival of historic odours")

If you're a "bookie," you'll love this scholarly article on the smell of books by Cecilia Bembibre and Matija Strlič. The chart of smells is fantastic. The article appears here.

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Drawing: Faces No. 1932 — NSA Trajectory and Ballistics Analysts

By Jack Brummet

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Sean Spicer's latest flub

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Drawing: Faces No. 1930 — The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) field team

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge or save

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Mayor Ed Murray

By Mona Goldwater, Social Mores Ed.

In the 90's, the press published graphic descriptions of The President's private parts based on depositions and news reports. With our Mayor, we now have a callback to those days. Read the article from The Washington Post here.

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The real Rock and Roll High School

By Jack Brummet

This is kind of a mindf***er. Staples high school in Westport, Connecticut, in the early days of US touring rock, had concerts over two years by:

• Sky and The Family Stone
• Cream
• The Doors
• The Animals
• The Yardbirds
• The Rascals

A documentary is on the way:

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Lennin's red hand

Over the last couple of years, I've seen Lennin's hand in Fremont painted red more often than not.

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Drawing: Faces No. 1928 — eHarmony match #3

by Jack Brummet

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Ramtha, via J.Z. Knight, comes out in support of President Trump

By Mona Goldwater, Paranormal Ed.

Who, quietly in December, and now very publicly, has come out in support of President Trump? None other than Yelm, Washington's 35,000-year-old warrior Ramtha (via his channeler J.Z. Knight). 

Ramtha predicts that the 45th President will receive a honor guard of UFOs while flying in his jet: "The first time he looks out the window … when he sees two silver disks as escort, he is going to know it all — and this is a man who is not afraid — he is going to know it all.' " 

Click here to read a recent article in the Seattle Times. 

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White House Battle Fatigue

Outrage Outage by John McNamee. A name for the battle fatigue many are now experiencing.

 

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Ken Kesey's prescient thoughts from 50 years ago: "Be aware of the bear"

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Faces No. 1727 — Old Metal "X"

by Jack Brummet

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Poem: The Painting (with illustration)

Poem by Jack Brummet,
Illustration by Jack Brummet

The figure you brushed in,
Stuck under static skies,

Wants off the canvas.
He will not be your Man With Blue Banjo anymore.

He wants to be what he will be,
Not sailing scumbled seas

Under impasto thunderheads.
He is tired of the dark sun

And wants to lie down and rest.
No news comes from a far country.

The real estate around him —
A confabulation of blue and red stone —

Chills in an un-harbored sea.
The black sun was pushed, fell, or jumped,

To shine back upon itself.
He knows the sun will never set.

He cannot open his mouth to scream.
The oars will never move.

The island of color
Will always be eight inches away

And the boat
Will always be sinking.

The tattered sails hang in the wind.
The next day refuses to begin.

He clutches the blue banjo
As the ship tilts toward heaven.
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Seattle's massive tunneling machine, Bertha, breaks through the wall

The (formerly) world's largest tunnel-drill machine Bertha broke through its final rock just before 11:30 a.m. today (after years of delays).

From The Seattle Times:

Bertha began tunneling on July 30, 2013. It’s expected to finish on April 4. That’s about 1,345 days, or about 32,280 hours. The machine traveled about 9,270 feet (1.755682 miles) over that period, which puts its speed at about 0.00005438915 mph. 

For comparison, garden snails travel at a rate of speed more than 10 times faster (0.000621371 mph or 1 meter/hour), according to a British researcher.

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Sasquatch/Bigfoot season has just begun

By Jack Brummet, Unexplained Phenomena Ed. 

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Drawing: Faces No. 1928—The Sasquatch awake from hibernation

By Jack Brummet

Northwest Sasquatch awake from hibernation around the same time the cherry trees begin to blossom.

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Bob Dylan raps on a 1986 track by Kurtis Blow

"Danny [Lanois] asked me who I’d been listening to recently, and I told him Ice-T. He was surprised, but he shouldn’t have been. A few years earlier, Kurtis Blow, a rapper from Brooklyn who had a hit out called “The Breaks,” had asked me to be on one of his records and he familiarized me with that stuff, Ice-T, Public Enemy, N.W.A., Run-D.M.C. These guys definitely weren’t standing around bullshitting. They were beating drums, tearing it up, hurling horses over cliffs. They were all poets and they knew what was going on." — Bob Dylan, in his biography Chronicles, Volume 1

As Dangerous Minds wrote, "It’s not terrible by any stretch but it is surely slight; the tracks true virtues all flow from Blow."

You can hear Dylan (sort of) rapping at the beginning of the song, and at 6:12.  

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Drawing: Faces No. 1926 — State of confusion

By Jack Brummet

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Keelin Curran and Pete Curran, Hillyard, 1957

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Drawing: Faces 1925 — District 6 logistics steering committee

By Jack Brummet

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U.S. Marine Corps women's boot camp, 1943

By Jack Brummet

This is a photo of my mom, Betty, in Marine Corps boot camp in 1943. She's in the top row, fourth from the left. On her right is her friend Loa (she named my sister after her).

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Drawing: Faces No. 1924 — In the priority lane

by Jack Brummet

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Drawing: Faces No. 1932 — Witnesses 1-130, The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

by Jack Brummet

click to enlarge or save

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Poem: [You can't see earth]

By Jack Brummet

1 
You can't see earth
From the dark side of the moon
But maybe that changes

With the accelerating deceleration
Of the moon and earth.
A waning Gibbous moon

Dangles 1.3 light seconds away,
The Sea of Tranquility
A menacing sinkhole.

2
The moon
And fog
Are in cahoots.

Do our brains have a tide?

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Drawing: Faces 1922 — waiting for a four top

By Jack Brummet

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Sonnet: The green knight

By Jack Brummet

On the floor in the distance
Bercilak de Hautdesert
Battle-axe in one hand
A branch of holly in the other
Walks toward you
And asks if you want to play a gameYou swing the axe
His helmet flies
And the head tumbles down the hall
The Green Knight picks it up
And tells you to meet him
At the Green Chapel New Year's morning
For his exchange blow
The head is laughing in his arms.
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Drawing: Faces 1921 — India Ink scratchboard

By Jack Brummet

Digitally reversed scratchboard:

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Truckin': The President tries out a big rig

The President met with a group of truckers and trucking CEOs at the White House Thursday afternoon, "to discuss healthcare."  Here are images from the photo-op.

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Richard Nixon's Commandments of Statecraft

1) Always be prepared to negotiate, but never negotiate without being prepared.

2) Never be belligerent, but always be firm.

3) Always remember that covenants should be openly agreed to but privately negotiated.

"Public tactics tend to harden the opposition. 
Successful diplomatic or business negotiators resist the temptation to grandstand or make public demands that can be interpreted as threats."

4) Never seek publicity that would destroy the ability to get results.

5) Never give up unilaterally what could be used as a bargaining chip. Make your adversaries give something for everything they get.

6) Never let your adversary underestimate what you would do in response to a challenge. Never tell Him what you would not do.

7) Always leave your adversary a face-saving line of retreat.

8) Always carefully distinguish between friends who provide some human rights and enemies who deny all human rights.

9) Always do at least a much for our friends as our adversaries do for our enemies.

10) Never lose faith.  In just cause faith can move mountains. Faith without strength is futile; but strength without faith is sterile.

11) "Sometimes leaders are hesitant about executing strong and controversial measures in the belief that a less than full-hearted operation mutes criticism. When you once decide, go with all your might."

12) "When saying 'always' and 'never,' always keep a mental reservation; never foreclose the unique exception; always leave room for maneuver. A president always has yet to be prepared for what he thought he would never do." 

A message from God on a church readerboard

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Drawing: Faces 1919 — The gallery at the Gorsuch hearings

Detail:

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Statues from Rapid City, Iowa's City of Presidents (with images of Nixon, Van Buren, FDR, Coolidge, Harrison, and Grant)

To learn more, do a search on City of Presidents statues, or start at the Rapid City presidents website .

They do not yet have a statue of Barack Obama or Donald Trump.  President Obama's is on the way.  President Trump's will come after he finishes his term (in whatever fashion!).

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WunderTütenFabrik— The most unsatisfying video in the world

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Just one phone call, officer

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Faces 1918 - Six Sleeper Cells

Drawings by Jack Brummet

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