Sea Turtles

Sea Turtles. This is an amazing story from the Los Angeles Times, about a colony of more than a dozen giant sea turtles that have found a home in the San Gabriel River, in the heart of Los Angeles, a few miles upstream from the port of Long Beach. The sea turtles, farther north than their tropical range, are attracted by the warm water discharge from a power plant. The poor water quality doesn't seem to disturb them. The giant sea turtles can weigh up to 500 pounds and live for as long as 100 years.

Maybe the turtles know something. Or maybe they just want to be in LA.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Gustav is bearing down on the Gulf Coast. I just emailed a friend in Floresville, in South Texas -- she lives on high ground and 150 miles inland -- safe from the highest winds, but likely to be drenched by heavy rains if it steers toward that part of Texas. But if if it heads toward Houston or New Orleans, Floresville and all the other inland communities will warmly welcome thousands of storm refugees.

Gustav might cause enormous property damage, depending on where it makes landfall. But the mass evacuations should minimize loss of life.

Up here, in the Skagit Valley, we have a lot of soggy wheat. Wheat is not the main crop, but the farmers doubled their acreage this year to take advantage of high global prices. They will still get this high price, but the unexpected August rains have made the harvest more difficult. If grain is harvested when its damp, the farmers have to put it through a dryer to get the moisture out, and that's an extra cost. But if the wheat is completely wet, as it is right now, the thresher will get all gummed up, and they just have to wait for some sunshine. I'm not smart enough to be a farmer, but I hear things.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin calls her husband the First Dude. She's exciting and interesting -- has that "naughty librarian" look. And fully qualified in my mind. If you can raise five children, you can chair a meeting of the Cabinet -- I'm not kidding.

She might confuse Bulgaria with South Ossetia -- but you can learn that stuff.

Anyway, I have heard on the Internet, that McCain and Palin are in Jackson, Mississippi, right now to lend a hand with the hurricane evacuation. Okay -- but if they do the slightest bit of grandstanding about the wonderful volunteer spirit of the Republican Party -- well, they just better watch what they say and do.

If you can't help, get out of the way.

Sarah Palin -- the new Anita Bryant

John McCain may have picked her because she's shorter than he is. McCain is 5 foot seven inches tall.

The candidates' height is part of a long list of things that shouldn't matter, but they do. But I don't think McCain chose her for strategic political reasons, or for height reasons, actually. This was McCain-as-maverick, saying what-the-hell, let's wing it, and this might be fun.

He's right about that. It will be fun. But now, as I think about it, when people say they miss the old maverick McCain -- I don't want that quality in my President. I want a careful thinker -- with some imagination, just not too much.

Many people have compared Sarah Palin to Anita Bryant, she of the orange juice advertisements and the anti-homosexual crusades -- you younger readers can look up Anita Bryant for a reprise of those historic moments.

But, aside from these snarky comments, I will make no criticism of Gov. Palin. Hear her words. Let her speak for herself, and form your own opinion.

As for experience and the lack of it, I have wanted a new face all along, and I found my new face in Barak Obama, so I can hardly deny the Republicans their own new face.

In fact, I have been bored to death with all the commentary attending the Democratic convention. If I ran a newspaper or a website, I would simply publish the unedited speeches. I heard Michelle Obama say that she loved her husband and she believed he would make a good President -- I did not need an interpretation of her words.

I heard Hillary Clinton endorse Barak Obama --- I took her words at face value.

Heard Bill Clinton give a joyful speech, and I realized that no one ever enjoyed being President as much as he did -- Ii think he really misses having that job, and I hope, for his sake and for the sake of the country, that he can found another path of public service.

I heard Barak Obama speak last night, and he did very well. He's my candidate, and he's six-foot one inch tall.

France, China, and America

Why can't the Olympics last forever?

France, China, and America are the three essential nations of the global community. The three official languages of this year's Olympics are Chinese, English, and French.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe flew all the way to Hong Kong, but the Chinese gov't. refused his request to attend the Olympic Games, so Mugabe got in his plane and flew all the way back to Zimbabwe.

At the opening ceremony, the Arab and Muslim nations made a pathetic display. Their women were banned or hidden like nuns.

In America, men liked watching women's beach volleyball. But the gay men liked watching men's synchronized diving.

London will host the 2012 Olympics. Chicago is competing for the 2016 spot, and Capetown, South Africa, is aiming for the 2020 Olympics. The Olympics have never been held in Africa, and it's about time.

We saw George Bush and Vladimir Putin sharing the same bleacher seats at the Olympics, while the President of Georgia was planning to move his troops into South Ossetia.

Putin took off immediately for Moscow to stage his vigorous military response to the Georgian move.

President Bush continued to watch the Olympics -- he loves sports after all. Barack Obama was body surfing in Hawaii, and John McCain was uttering bellicose oaths while the Russian tanks invaded Georgian territory.

Obama, emerging from his vacation, advocated restraint.He was thinking along these lines -- We belong to NATO which stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Then Obama looked at the map, and realized that Georgia was a very long way from the North Atlantic, and so it is not a direct American concern.

Meanwhile, right wing radio is thundering, calling Obama spineless.

My own opinion is that Obama is right. The principle opponents to Russian expansion are the neighboring countries of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Ukraine. It is their problem and their fight. The European community, led by French President Sarkozy, are the neighboring allies who can back up the stance of the small "frontline" nations.

And we, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, are the backup to the backup.

Bush and McCain are fools looking for a fight if we were to initiate any kind of military response. We can help, but this is not a situation for American leadership.

On Fir Island

Fir Island is about the best place I ever lived. It’s a delta island five miles across, surrounded by dikes. You could plow it from one to the other because it’s completely flat, and it is plowed for the rich alluvial soil that has filtered down from the Cascade Mountains for thousands of years. The Skagit River built this island, although it could destroy this island at will.

The dike broke in the flood of1990 and put the whole island under six feet of water. Those with raised-up houses suffered the least, but it was a big mess just the same, everything caked with mud, and debris all over the place.

Living at sea level, we are on the front lines of global warming, so if I tell you that my feet are getting wet, then you’ll know we have a problem.

The farms are plentiful. You couldn’t a find rock as big as tennis ball anywhere on this island. The top soil is deep and fine. The water table is just two or three feet below the surface, and the crops get sub-irrigated.

We have potatoes across the road from the house. They are blooming their little purple flowers and looking bright from a recent rain. Potato plants aren’t really pretty, but you can’t blame them -- they’re not for looks, they’re for making spuds.
The potatoes will be harvested sometime in the fall. They harvest the potatoes last because there’s no hurry. Potatoes, once grown, can sit in the ground for weeks or months with no harm to them.

But it is a question of how big the crop will be this year -- the cold, wet spring meant that crops were planted late and will have a shorter growing season.

We grow the famous Skagit red potatoes -- smaller, and much better tasting than those honkin’ Idaho spuds. Red potatoes fetch a higher price too.

On our side of the road, two wheat fields are golden and ready to be combined. It’s a pleasure to watch the wheat waving in the wind.

Right next to the house is five acres of raspberries. What a treat! I go out for a snack every morning. The farm workers have just about finished the picking, and they said it was a good crop.

We got invaded by about five hundred starlings at the peak of the crop. Starlings come to plunder and raid -- I can’t stand them. Anyway, they’re gone now -- bothering somebody else.

We have a lot of swallows around the house. They are the prettiest, sleekest fliers you could imagine. They come in the spring and build their little mud-daubed nests under the eaves of the house.

One nest was right near the kitchen door. And the little eggs hatched, and the little birds stuck their heads out waiting for food -- they had no fear of humans coming in the door, only two feet away.

But last week the nest was empty and the little swallows were making their own way in the world.

Otherwise, the mama duck still has her brood in the slough behind the barn. The young ducks can fly now, but they still stick close to mama.

The herons eat frogs and squawk in the slough. The coyotes are around, plenty of them -- you here them at night, and there aren’t many cats left around this island unless they be house cats.

But the coyotes haven’t gotten all the rabbits, because I see them every day.

The big cherry tree doesn’t have too many cherries, nor the plum tree, nor the apple tree, I’m not sure why. Last year we had a ton of apples.

Snow Goose Produce is a mile down the road going to LaConner. Mike and Mary Louise Rust own that business. I often walk down there just to say hi. I bought a basket from them for $8 -- but they’re not really making a living off of the neighbors, mainly they cater to the thousands of visitors who come up from Seattle and elsewhere -- they sell a LOT of ice cream cones.

Going the other way it’s four miles to Conway, a village/town, and there I get on the Interstate to go to work at the hospital in Mount Vernon, another five miles.
---- Best place I ever lived.


TIRE GAUGES AND NUCLEAR ENERGY. The candidates are sparring over energy policy. The rules of their debate are as follows, “If you’re for it, then I’m against it.”
Personally, I want it all. Keeping your tires inflated is “small ball,” and that works. It’s like getting rich by saving your nickels and dimes -- is that wrong?
Nuclear power plants are like a home run swing. That’s okay with me. Recent events show that any energy source is better than getting oil from the Persian Gulf.

The Republicans are singing a one-note song on offshore drilling. I believe Obama has taken that issue away from them when he said, “Okay, we can have a few, if it’s part of a comprehensive program.”

So, the tire gauge and the nuclear plant frame the energy debate. There are a million choices in between those two ideas. Most of these ideas are good ones, at least worth a try. I believe there is no cost-free source of energy, and usually a toxic side effect, so the best choice is a highly diversified mix.

PAY PAL. I’ve added a Pay Pal button on my blog. So if you want to pay the voluntary $25 subscription to Frog Hospital, you choose this convenient method. Subscription income supports the effort and is greatly appreciated.

Freddie Fender

Freddie Fender, the great Tejano singer, was more than a friend to me. This deep-hearted man was my cousin, or the child of my mother’s cousin, Louise Cuny, whatever that relation is. Louise married a Mexican man, in 1930, long before I was born. She moved down to McAllen, Texas, along the border, to be with his people, because my people no longer knew her. It wasn’t like my grandparents to use names, the common racial epithets, but Louise married out, she married beneath us, and we didn’t hear about her.

I asked my folks, “Who is that little girl in the photo next to Aunt Tessie?” My father would say, “Oh, that’s our cousin Louise. We haven’t seen her in years.”
So they never said anything bad about Louise, it was just a closed subject. When I rebelled against my family in the 1960’s, it was because of these secrets. I needed to know about my cousin Louise among other mysteries. I will say now, to interrupt this story, that it was good of my folks to keep their hearts secret from me, for it was not to give too easily, these truths. No, it was for me to struggle and quest for meaning, even the true story of my own family.

So, it was not until the late 1980s that I found out about Louise and her child Freddy. Freddy Fender! My God, he sings my soul, “Wasted Days and wasted Nights”, “When the Next Teardrop Falls,” -- those hit songs of his. They were too sentimental -- it was Mexico, it was Texas, it was Tejano.

I liked his music too much, because every morning I awoke with a sorrow, a longing for the past which I could not understand. Why was I so old-fashioned to like his music?

So I wrote to him to claim kin, where he lived in San Benito, a little town, just north of McAllen. He didn’t write back, but he was not such a huge Superstar, so I knew I could find him. Freddie hung out in the clubs in the Valley [as they say, the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen] -- he hung out in the clubs when he wasn’t on the road. So it wasn’t too hard to find him, and to say “Primo, Como esta?” -- or “Cousin, how are you?” As any Mexican might greet you. But, I meant it truly, that we were blood, and he looked at me, like Pancho Villa, those deep brown eyes, and he saw something in me. I said, “I’m your family. I know your mother. Here, look at this photo. You will see.”

So it began awkwardly, but he gave me a chair at the club. I sat close by to hear him sing. His life was so different than anything I knew, but I could almost reach him.
This was in 1986, when I lived down there. People wondered why I moved to Texas, and why I have gone back there again and again. It was a family secret -- this mixed blood. I could have spoken a long time ago. It seems like nothing now. They don’t even call it mixed marriage anymore, but I was brought up strictly, by the nuns, so I kept that secret.

I went back to San Benito, in 2006, to visit Freddie Fender’s grave, and I left my own tears.

summer days

It’s high summer on the East Coast. The glitterati are enjoying fine wine on the porches of Martha’s Vineyard. The burnished sun sets over sand dunes and water sparkles like diamonds.

It’s nice on the East Coast -- Cape Cod, the Hamptons, the Jersey shore. There’s a town and resort place for every income level. The air is ten degrees cooler on the beach. The sand gets in your toes and into the cottage. The barbeque is lit. Friends come over.

You forget all about winter. You talk about politics, but casually. It’s no more serious than a game of cards. Parcheesi is popular this year, new herbs and spices, a taste of fennel and basil. The ocean breeze makes you feel young and alive.

September is coming. That’s when life changes. September -- not the springtime -- brings new beginnings. Change is in the air. The young people are acting up, but lowering their voices, as if they really mean it.

It’s risky. Senator Barack Obama admits to being a risk, but I’ll take the chance. We need to change just to keep things just as good as they are. Wars end. They always have. Civilization is fragile, there are no guarantees. Conservatives guard against the oppression of government over the individual. But I have no trust for any human institution. I fear the government, yes. I fear the large corporations too. I’ve seen corruption in colleges, thievery in small businesses, and brutality in the family, because evil lies in the hearts of men. And we need to change just to keep it as good as it is.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, gaveled down the Congress and shut off a vote on offshore drilling. Done like a pro, I say. She shut ‘em down, like Tip O’Neil did in the eighties, like Sam Rayburn did in the fifties and like mighty Joe Cannon did a hundred years ago. The Speaker is the boss of the House and not for the first time or the last time.

Because Grandmother Nancy enjoys her summer vacation on the West Coast, in Napa vineyards and Big Sur retreats. She doesn’t care to sully her view with the fumes of oil rigs. She said no and she gaveled them down.
Rest easy, Nancy. It starts over again in September. Enjoy your balmy days, you great writers, you stars of stage and screen on Martha’s Vineyard, you Nantucket sailors, you clam diggers in Maine, you Jersey gamblers.

The rest of us are reading beach novels and eating clam fritters. The days are endless.

BEAUTY FROM BROKENNESS is a book about horses, written by Connie Funk, a neighbor and friend. I started reading in the back of the book to see how it ended. I gave it a one day rest, and then started at the beginning like you’re supposed to.

It’s a clean, fresh book. Connie writes in a very direct style, she doesn’t play tricks. I don’t believe in new stories. It’s all known, but it comes back around. So I say Connie’s book is fresh. You discover what’s known and been forgotten. You must do this. And listen to God.

LISTENING TO AMY WINEHOUSE. I downloaded three of her songs to my laptop, so I’m listening to her as I write. I hate the news and the hype about her. I just want to hear her voice. You can burn your brain out as an artist trying to be something different. Don’t do that. Just be Ella Fitzgerald and Billy Holiday and Betty Carter and Peggy Lee. Just sing.

JAZZ. Speaking of jazz, the great American art-form, I wonder what the Obamas like in that kind of music. I can see them at the Inaugural Ball next January, as President and First Lady -- Barack clean and smooth in black and white, Michelle sparkling, but I can’t see what color of dress she will wear, I’m not good at that.

Their first dance at the Inaugural Ball -- What tune will the Obamas choose? And this will be a change, a good change, because the Obamas will not choose what the Carters or the Reagans chose. The Obamas will dance to another melody. I have been consulting my Jazz Advisor on the choice of music. I suggested Duke Ellington. My adviser said that Duke Ellington is Presidential but not so danceable. He was thinking more along the lines of Count Basie.

What a sweet day that will be.

Horse and Giraffes

HANDICAPPING THE ELECTION. Obama is the likely winner, by a thin margin. That's his style. There's no way he's going to throw a roundhouse punch at an old war hero like John McCain. He will treat McCain with the same courtesy that he treated Hillary Clinton. Being much younger than McCain or Clinton, he owes them that much respect. In addition, the majority of the voters want Obama to win, but we don't want him to win too big -- on account of his tender age.

Maybe race has a bit to do with this too. They used to call a Negro "uppity" if he didn't know his place. But now they call him arrogant and elitist. Obama said, “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

HORSES AND GIRAFFES. Connie Funk of Dodge Valley has written a wonderful book about horses, "Beauty from Brokenness." She will have a signing at the Next Chapter in LaConner, Saturday, Aug. 16. I got an autographed copy today.

I started reading the book this afternoon, during quiet moments at the hospital. I've gotten to page 179 so far. But I'm reading the book backwards, starting with the acknowledgments, which list and describe Connie's friends and advisers in the world of horses, children, gardens, and other spiritual delights. After the acknowledgments, I moved to the left, to the Epilog, which is the last chapter -- the book has a Happy Ending! Then I kept moving to the left, going toward the front of the book one chapter at a time.

I'm left-handed -- reading books this way is quite natural to me. Connie is the kind of friend and writer who would completely understand this.

Gee, I'm reading this book and I feel like I know the horses she writes about -- That's a joke. I DO know them, one named Chasta and and the other named Gaela, two beautiful horse girls -- I have visited them often. Connie's house is only a few miles from where I live on Fir Island.

Then Connie writes about a character named Fred who bears an astonishing resemblance to me. This guy Fred has helped Connie prune the roses, the forsythias, the viburnums, the wisteria, the grapevines, and ESPECIALLY the long lovely privet hedge which marches in twin rows to a bower with a wooden cross, said cross being the original wooden cross on top of the spire of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in LaConner, built in 1899.

The old cross is a little bit weatherworn, but it rests underneath a weeping cherry tree and the sturdy privet hedge shelters it from winter winds.

Next to the privet hedge is a giraffe eating fruit from an apple tree. It's a real giraffe, if you mean by that a live giraffe, being a topiary of 8-feet tall, of four cotoneasters, each one being a giraffe's leg, and each cotoneaster carefully pruned up a wire and iron frame, to form the body and long, long neck of a giraffe.

"Fred" has often given this giraffe a haircut with his garden shears. There is a dramatic episode concerning this giraffe, a moment of terror and danger -- but I dare not tell, you must read Connie's book.

Giraffes, as I have seen them in Africa, are the most romantic of creatures. Their long necks are for nuzzling. Their powerful hearts are a surge of passion. A dull zoologist might point out that the strong heart of a giraffe is necessary to pump blood more than six feet straight up the giraffe's neck in order to give good circulation to the brain.

But I say it's love. I watched a scene once, in Hwange Park in Zimbabwe, of two giraffes courting. It was so tender. There were zebras and ostriches cavorting about like ballerinas. But the giraffes lovers held us in awe. It may be, going back again to the very dull zoologist, that the boy giraffe and the girl giraffe have such very long necks and such very long legs, that he is not able to mount her unless she is completely ready, completely willing, and completely cooperative. One cannot rush these things -- as the boy giraffe learned from his forefathers. You must court her, you must dance with her from one thorn tree to another. If you try to force her, you will both suffer.

True. And All the Pretty Horses get Sleepy in the Long Summer Days.

I've never been so clean in my life

I’ve been working at the hospital since October and I’ve never been so clean in my life. I’ve washed my hands about a thousand times. I have three pairs of pants with NO STAINS -- these are the ones I wear to work. I have spotless tennis shoes, clean shirts, and frequently shampooed hair.

In the past, my relation to the soil of the earth had always been close and highly involved, with a hands-on approach to the compost pile to which we will all return someday. I’m grounded, literally. And to this I attribute my robust immune system -- I know from bugs and microbes.

But we keep things clean at the hospital, and I have gotten on board.

THE NEWS. Senator Barack Obama says he wants to send more troops to Afghanistan. I will have to be convinced about this. The null option, the one that got him the nomination, was to bring the troops home, not shift them from one country to another.

Obama has been criticized for acting like the President. Well, somebody has to. He’s moved into a vacuum. De jure President George Bush is fading, and becoming almost transparent. There’s really nobody running the shop right now at the White House.

GOOD NEWS FROM AFRICA. As bad as it is in Zimbabwe, the beautiful starry skies of Africa still shimmer. David Maritz, of Camano Island, reports a wonderful trip to Zambia, right next to blighted Zimbabwe.

Maritz is a native born African with roots he can never shake off. He flew a small plane from Johannesburg to Botswana, and then over to Zambia. The last leg of his journey was by car over Zambia’s questionable roads. He spent a wonderful interlude at his family's abundant game farm far into the country. I’m glad he went, and I’m glad to report this good news.

HEALTH CARE. Doctors and nurses don’t get along well. Nurses don’t know what doctors do, and doctors have no idea what nurses do. There are two completely separate career tracks in health care. Whose idea was that?

It would be good if some doctors rose up through the ranks, like they do in the military, where at least some of the officer corps has served as enlisted personnel.
It would be good if a young person were to start as a nursing aide, rise to nurse, then to nurse practitioner, and then go on to get an M.D. and be a full-fledged doctor.

As it is, doctors give orders to nurses who don’t understand why, and nurses report observations to doctors which are not understood or appreciated.

It is good that more women are becoming doctors. They have improved the profession. Women doctors are not so high and mighty. In fact, most of the doctors to day are closer to the ground -- not God anymore, but still archangels.

More men have taken up nursing, somewhat over ten percent of the corps at this point. This hormonal balance is welcome, but I expect it will top out at 15 percent male to 85 percent female. Women, overall, make better nurses than men do, although it’s very handy to “have a man around the house.”

THE SIXTEENTH HOUR. Nurses and doctors commonly work double shifts. Do you want to be the patient on someone’s 16th hour? Not me. A good question to ask, should you find yourself in the emergency room is -- “When did you come to work today?”

Oh, and at those big city hospitals like Harborview, where you get residents who do 24-hour shifts -- watch out.

I read in a medical journal where a hospital in Maryland has instituted a nap-time for double-shift and night-shift workers. The journal reported breathlessly that this radical innovation has reduced medical error and improved service. What a great idea.

PODIATRY. How could so many people have foot problems? Nine doctors and foot clinics advertise in the Skagit Valley yellow pages. That means that hundred and hundreds of Skagitonians have serious foot problems -- and need those special skills.

HEMOPHILIA. One in 8,000 males suffers from hemophilia, according to the literature. It is a genetic disorder which prevents the clotting of blood. When hemophiliacs become bruised or injured they might bleed to death because their blood will not clot. The disorder is passed on by the female, but only males are susceptible.

Skagit County has 120,000 people, 60,000 of the male. That means that 6 or 7 men in our area suffer from hemophilia. It can be treated, but not cured.

RUDE GOOD HEALTH. Some people enjoy a rude good health. They ignore all the good rules of healthy living and thrive anyway. Such a one has inspired to me to establish the Rule of 75.

The patient -- but I’ve seen several, so this is a composite -- was 79 years old and built out of pure stubbornness, bullheaded to the max. That’s how he got to be 79 and there wasn’t nobody, no high-class doctor, who was going to tell him otherwise.

Well, we had him in the hospital for a low-grade pneumonia -- it was probably not going to kill him -- but he needed a good dose of antibiotics and bed rest.

He was the worst patient you could imagine, and he fought the whole staff for several days. The problem was that he wanted a smoke. He wanted to go outside, have a smoke and a Martini too.

I had to deal with his great irritation for hours at a time, but in my humble position I was not able to make a somewhat radical suggestion -- let him have a cigarette, for Pete’s sake. It’s his life. And a dry Martini too.

Instead I have privately introduced the Rule of 75 -- if you make it that far, to age 75, than nobody, I mean NOBODY, can tell you what to do.

I know How to Win a War

“I know how to win a war.” I’ve heard John McCaine say that several times, but that is a wrongful boast. Strictly speaking, you don’t know how to win a war unless you have already done just that.

Like General Dwight Eisenhower, who led Allied forces to victory in World War II in Europe. He knew how to win a war -- but he never said that. When Eisenhower ran for President in 1952, his military record spoke for itself, and he had no need to boast.

And, based on his experience of military victory and its cost, Eisenhower negotiated a truce in Korea between the American led forces and the Chinese and North Korean communists. It was not a total victory. The fighting stopped in 1953. The two armies, after three years of fighting and 33,000 American deaths, fought to a standstill on a border, called the Demilitarized Zone, where soldiers from these two sides still glare at each other.

Eisenhower did know how to win a war, but in the case of Korea his decision, as President and as Commander in Chief, was that a complete victory was not possible.

Let that be a lesson for both candidates.


HARBORVIEW MEDICAL CENTER. I went down to Seattle last week. The water was sparkling on Union Bay. The Space Needle, built for the Worlds Fair in 1962, still looks beautiful. I visited a friend with a panoramic view of Lake Washington. We sat in cozy armchairs looking out the window at the sailboats far away on the lake, far down the hill. And we had coffee and talked about good fortune and hard times, and she was happy to have her view, but other things were taking her life away.

The next morning I took a busman’s holiday to tour Harborview Medical Center, right near downtown Seattle, in the midst of roaring traffic, situated on top of First Hill with dramatic views of Puget Sound and skyscrapers, ferries, and seagulls.

Harborview is the big time -- over 400 beds, a Level I Trauma Center, and a teaching hospital. I work at a small regional hospital with a helicopter pad on the roof, and we send our most difficult cases by chopper down to Harborview where they have fully staffed surgical units around the clock and a burn unit that takes cases from all over the Pacific Northwest.

Harborview is owned by King County, but staffed and managed by the University of Washington Medical School.

My goal was limited -- could I navigate through this nine-story building with several outlying buildings? Could I make contact with nursing staff who might have a moment to speak with me?

I succeeded. People were friendly, they gave me directions, I found the Kidney Research Institute and the hand clinic -- they have a clinic for everything from bunions to broken bones. And people were willing to answer my questions. But then I’m good at this -- I’m good at observing somebody who might have a spare minute. I’m also good at not caring if they brush me off.

My sense, which I trust, is that Harborview is not wasteful or chaotic. Good things happen
there.

I had lunch in the cafeteria. They have the same steam table that we have out here in the country, with the same mashed potatoes and gravy -- an inviolate hospital custom. There must be a tanker truck coming every day out of Idaho, with a spigot that connects to the kitchen at every hospital in the country -- squirts out the mashed potatoes, drops off a vat of brown gravy, and goes on to the next hospital.

Otherwise -- and I’m coming from a smaller place and prepared to be impressed -- the Harborview salad bar wasn’t very good -- not as good as ours up here in the Skagit Valley.

My friend, the one I visited the day before, she used to live in the Skagit Valley and her opinion is that the medical facilities in the big city are superior in every way -- their doctors are the cream of the crop, with better focus and training, and with more experience doing unusual procedures.

I’ve heard that from other people as well. You even hear it on the radio, like “our hospital does bypass heart surgery 450 times a year, so we’re really good at it, and you don’t want to try some general access surgeon who has only done it three times and might be a little rusty.”

Maybe, but I’m not convinced. Harborview is an exciting and stimulating place -- it’s got major sex appeal, right out of a TV show. The atmosphere of research and education is enlightening, and that is something our smaller regional hospital could emulate. I’ve studied this possibility. Medical research is not just for the big prestigious institutions anymore. The online medical journals show an emerging pattern of doctors from every corner of the globe forming collaborative research efforts -- and simply bypassing the bigshots.

That sounds good to me, and I hope they might try this where I work.
--

Real Men Drink Tapwater

The following Frog Hospital fatwas are decreed:

1. Real men drink tap water. Bottled water is for sissies.

2. It is wrong to put croutons in salad. They are crunchy, noisy, and dusty. Croutons are supposed to go in your soup.

3. There is no fruit in salsa. Such abominations as peach or mango salsa are forbidden.

4. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. This is still true but pending reversal.

5. Don't get even, get odd.

SIGN. Sign at the LaConner Produce Market, "Unattended children will be given an espresso and a free puppy."

OBAMA SEES THE WORLD. "Obama will visit a series of European and Middle Eastern capitals with an enlarged traveling press and has carved out time along the way for separate interviews with each of the three network anchors" --- I hope Obama remembers that nobody over there can vote for him in November.

Otherwise, nothing in politics matters right now. The summer doldrums will continue until mid-August, when the conventions begin. Enjoy the peace and quiet, because the Obama v. McCain contest will go ballistic on Labor Day. It's going to be very intense, very exciting, and a little scary. Get your rest now and be prepared for a titanic struggle.

This fall, Obama will be drawing some of the biggest crowds in American political history. McCain cannot draw that size of audience or speak as well, but he is a steady fighter, and this race is going down to the wire.

The economy is in the tank. It's not just a mental recession, as Phil Gramm said, but there is a psychological component to all the ups and downs of the market. And I agree with Gramm on one thing -- No Whining. This is the time to put your confidence into play -- in yourself and in the people you trust. We are a resourceful country and there is nothing wrong that we can't fix.

AMY WINEHEART. Amy Wineheart is a fabulous talent. The way she delivers a lyric is heart-rending. There are so many celebrities about with all their self-destructive nonsense -- nothing people like Lindsey Lohan. But Amy is a major, major talent. I love her music. She gets a lot of press for her offstage antics -- ignore that. "You know I'm no Good." Listen to it on YouTube.

VICTORY GARDEN. Plant your victory garden. Invest in roses, rhododendrons, and raspberries. Put your money in your own backyard and watch it grow, with interest. Grow your own food. It's easy to do, really. I've done it myself. It's not like farming. Farming is when you grow enough food to make a living at it -- that's very hard. But growing a hundred pounds of potatoes in your own garden -- that's something you can learn how to do.

REBUILDING FISHTOWN. This is a tricky thing to write about, because if we announce the plans and put it on the Internet, that will screw everything up. A lot of people want to know where Fishtown is, and what people do in Fishtown, and how do you get to Fishtown, and what do you do when you get there.

I cannot answer these questions. It's one of those things that you find out when you find out.

Fishtown is not on the map and there is no plan.

Bitter Winds in Bulawayo

We be barefootin' in the Skagit Valley now. When it finally gets to be summer here it's really wonderful. Rasberries are ripe. Plums and blackberries will be coming soon. The cold, wet spring slowed all the crops down, but they have recovered nicely. The tourist business is way down on account of high gas prices. Visitors are either not coming to LaConner, or if they do come, they just enjoy the view and buy an ice cream cone and go home without spending money in the gift shops.

Still, Nell Thorn's, the best restaurant in town, is doing a good business -- they get a lot of local business, for one thing. You would give up a lot of other luxuries before you pass up a meal and a drink at Nell Thorn's.

LaConner Mayor Ramon Hayes reports that a high number of houses are on the market in the LaConner area. He said he tracks it on the Internet. A few years ago there was an average of 30 homes for sale, now it is 80. Several LaConner retail businesses are also for sale, but who's buying?

So it's time to bring out the old saying of Louie Nelson, one of our famous oldtimers. He said, "If you live in the Skagit Valley, you're rich."

Ain't that the truth. Life is good here in the abundance of nature. Income tends to be optional.

BITTER WINDS IN BULAWAYO. Time and again, when I was in Zimbabwe ten years ago, I wanted the facts, but I couldn't get any. Africa is the world's largest fact-free zone. Visitors might ask "What time does the bus get here?" And the natives smile and say, "Well it will come today at some time, God willing." But isn't there a schedule?
Yes, there is a printed schedule somewhere, but you really have to let go of your need for information while traveling in Africa.

And then, are they telling me the truth, or what they think I want to hear? Or they might get bored giving the same answer, so they make up a new answer. This can be very creative and highly amusing: "I had a dream last night, and there were two leopards with beaming dark eyes staring at me from deep in the bush. They bounded out into the path, and one of them seized my leg. But then the leopards turned into friendly dogs, and I began to pet them. The next day I realized that the leopards represented the Leopard Bus Company, and so it is highly doubtful that the bus will be punctual today."

Okay, I have to work with this. They do have leopards in Zimbabwe. They are rarely seen, but ever present. And the saying is, "You don't see the leopard, but the leopard sees you." And also, one of the major private bus companies paints a leopard logo on their bus to symbolize speed and power.

But the man who told me that story was probably just making it all up. Or I might be making it all up. Maybe it was my dream.

So how can you tell what is really going on in Zimbabwe right now? I got an email from an American friend, a nurse, who has lived in Zimbabwe for many years. Her message was of common daily activities with no hint of danger or troubles or hardship. So, perhaps, the troubles have not touched her community. Or perhaps she is constant danger, but she doesn't want to talk about it. Or maybe she is afraid that someone from the government is intercepting her emails and she had better be very careful about what she writes.

I can't tell. How can I know for sure?

So I can only say one thing with certainty. It is cold in Zimbabwe right now, and bitter winds are blowing in Bulawayo, the southern capital. July is the Southern Winter. Bulawayo sits on a semi-tropical plateau, at an elevation of over 4,000 feet. And every year at this time, they get six weeks of winter with overcast skies and raw winds. It's flu season, down to 50 degrees and lower at night. A frost can be expected. No one has any heat. Most people just bundle up in every available sweater or jacket.

More prosperous people will use a working fireplace indoors, or else an electric space heater. But the average folks just stamp their feet and hope the cold weather won't last long.

Harare is equally chilly. The deciduous trees are bare of leaves. But the people of Zimbabwe have visions of hell fire and Robert Mugabe consigned to the flames. And this dream will keep them warm at night.

MEETING, NOT MEETING. ARMED, NOT ARMED. The MDC denies that they are negotiation with Robert Mugabe's people, but they are talking to each other, trying to find a way out. I discovered the first rumors of MDC militants seeking to arm themselves and take to the bush. This may be just talk -- but I have not heard this talk before.

They are meeting and not meeting. They are armed and not armed. Anything can happen, but the doom is not sealed.

Madonna and Michelle

Michelle Pfeiffer at 50 ( you can find 100 photos on Google) is so much better looking than Madonna at 49.

I will explain.

Of course, I never liked Madonna, not since she came out at the same time as Cyndi Lauper in the early 1980s. I liked Cyndi Lauper much better.

But Madonna is back in the news because she has been linked to A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez, who plays for the New York Yankees.

I began to despise Alex Rodriguez when he deserted the Seattle Mariners and went to Texas -- Texas! -- to play for big bucks for the Texas Rangers. And then A-Rod went to the Yankees for even more money.

Only I put this weight on A-Rod -- He will never play in the World Series -- because I don't like him.

Anyway, A-Rod gets linked with Madonna and the tabloids are going nuts. They are meant for each other as far as I'm concerned. Two brass-plated marriage wreckers in the same bed. They'll make a fortune for the divorce lawyers. Geraldo is salivating.

So, this morning at coffee, Stuart was saying that Madonna is pretty hot for 49. Jimmy said yeah, because she works out. But I said phooey, you can buy a figure like that if you have enough money, and she's much too skinny for an Italian woman.

But I've said that before, and they thought I prefer women on the plump side. I said no, fat, thin or in between, it's all good. You start out with who you are and you make it better. It's about posture and attitude and how you carry yourself. That's good looking. Well, they began to see my point.

Madonna at 49 is trying -- trying! -- to look like she's 25. Wrong.

Then I remembered Michelle Pfeiffer. Beautiful, lovely Michelle, beautiful at 50, not trying to look 25, not trying to look like someone she used to be. But looking like who she is, only more so --- and you should be able to afford her hairdresser and jewelry which can be a big help no matter who you are.

Michelle Pfeiffer is better looking than Madonna. It's a matter of aesthetic judgment, which is not entirely subjective.

MBECKI WARNS ABOUT CIVIL WAR IN ZIMBABWE. President Thabo Mbecki of South Africa went to the G-8 summit meeting of world leaders and warned them about the dangers of civil war in Zimbabwe. World leaders have been pressing for tough economic sanctions against the Mugabe regime. Concerned people all over the world have wondered about Mbecki's "go easy" approach to Mugabe. They say it's appeasement, but that is a term with no context in Africa.

We should take heed of Mbecki's warning. Daily reports from Zimbabwe describe dozens of murders and tortures by rampaging thugs. Yet a civil war would have ten times that level of brutality. As bad as it is, Zimbabwe can get far, far worse.

And the African context, not the European context, is the one that counts. It is a memory of horrible civil wars in neighboring Angola and Mozambique -- wars that raged for decades and reduced the human population to savagery and beggary.

Besides that, there is no message from the Zimbabwe opposition, neither stated or implied, that suggests any armed resistance, and we ought to respect that. We might choose to take up arms under such provocation, but the people of Zimbabwe have not made that choice.

What we can do is pay attention and pray.

BARACK OBAMA'S SUMMER. Obama is floundering and flipping right now, unsure of himself. This is to be expected. He's only 46 and he rose up much higher and faster than he expected to. He is faced with an overwhelming responsibility.

Sure, he wanted to be President, but now it seems that he will be President. In private moments, he is shaking in his boots. In public moments he is making false gestures. I say, give him a chance to gather himself up.

Besides that, it's summer. The real fight with John McCaine begins in September. That's the time of Judgment.

Things are not what they seem

In Africa, things are not what they seem. There was a widely published photo that I used in the last issue of Frog Hospital -- of an injured Zimbabwean baby. The baby's legs were broken by Mugabe's ZANU thugs -- so it was said, but it might not be true. It might be that the baby was having its club feet repaired -- nothing more than that.

And yet it is so easy to find credible accounts of torture in Zimbabwe, and I have seen many very gruesome photos. I picked the baby's photo because its cry was so poignant. So we know two things from this -- that life is very bad in Zimbabwe right now and that things are not what they seem.

Anything you think you know for certain might not be so.

THE HIGHER POWERS SANCTION ZIMBABWE. The world leaders, at the G-8 Summit, are considering economic sanctions against Zimbabwe. President George Bush is urging this proposal. Bush has wielded an effective policy toward Africa -- and I cite no less an authority than Senator Barack Obama.

I heard, with my own ears, at Obama's speech in Austin, Texas, on the day before the March primary, that George Bush had a good policy toward Africa.

Things are not what they seem. George Bush has been a very bad President, but he has been effective in African affairs.

It is good to remember that the United States was not a colonial power in Africa, and that African leaders have a much higher mistrust of European powers.

Nevertheless, African leaders are rejecting this interference by the G-8 powers --- "Stop interfering in our continent. Only give us the kind of help that we ask for."

It is the legacy of colonial rule and the history of slavery. Always remember, never forgive and never forget, that is the mantra, and I support that.

But shouldn't we reserve our anger for current abuses? Shouldn't we ask who is being harmed now?

BARACK OBAMA'S SUMMER. If Senator Barack Obama is no more than a mainstream Democrat with a bit of charisma, many people will be happy with just that. All signs point to a summer strategy of Obama saying, "I'm just like you."

He is addressing an unstated concern, "Yeah, but you don't look like the rest of us."

Indeed not. In fact, a rarely discussed by easily noticed fact is his hair. Barack Obama, if elected, will be the first President of the United States with hair that is not like mine.

Never mind skin color, I mean his hair. It is not straight and lanky and brown, like mine. It is black and short and tightly-coiled.

My hair blows in the wind. But Obama's hair is stiff and sculptural. Ask any barber. African-Americans shop in the same grocery stores, live in the same neighborhoods, go to the same churches and schools as the rest of us -- but they don't go to a white barber.

I'm not talking about the ladies' hair, which is on a wholly different level. I'm talking that black men go to black barbers because their hair is different. It is a natural difference.

A black man's hair is soft and woolly, or it might be springy and bristly, it all depends. The thing is that you can't touch it just to find out, unless you're about four years old. If you were a four-year old white child, and you had never met any black people, then when you did meet one for this first time, you could say, "Hey mister, how come your hair is like that? Can I touch it?"

But you're all grown up now, and you don't get to ask questions like that. Barack Obama knows that. That's why he's going around the country this summer, making very bland mainstream statements about politics. That's his outward agenda. But his real purpose is to let every one know that he's just like the rest of us, except for the hair.

FROG HOSPITAL READER SURVEY. The results of the reader survey were gratifying. Respondents endorsed the current mixed of topics. They said there was no need to focus on a single topic, but that my writing represented a coherent point of view which they found interesting. Thank you for the reinforcement. I will carry on.

Broken Babies

Atrocities and hyper inflation continue in Zimbabwe. The legs of this baby were broken because the father is an MDC official. See the photo broken baby

Neighboring Botswana, an intelligent, democratic country, is amassing troops and armor on its border with Zimbabwe -- to deflect an expected flood of refugees.

There is talk of military intervention by neighboring countries. Idi Amin, the terrible killer of Uganda, was finally overthrown by an army invading from Tanzania in 1979. Amin settled prosperously and anonymously in Saudi Arabia after he was deposed.
One hopes that similar arrangements can be made for Robert Mugabe.

And yet, who are we to watch and worry? It is an African problem, so let them solve it. That is what African leaders say -- but that is not what the people on the street say.
The common people do not display the racial fears of their leadership. The common people welcome friendship, investment, and support from any decent party.

But the African leadership is threatened -- by their own incompetence and corruption, which is on display on the world stage. And they excuse themselves by saying that others are just as bad.

But I would say -- No, Africa does not belong to you alone, it belongs to the world, because we hear the cries of your broken babies.

And when you are wrong, it does not matter if someone else is worse.

AMERICA IS FOR SALE ON CRAIGSLIST. Craigslist.com gives a global view of property prices. From Copenhagen to Rio de Janeiro to Tokyo -- every major city on earth has a presence on Craigslist -- with jobs wanted, and personals, just like here in our country.

What I have found especially interesting are the property for sale listings. You can cruise the world and find out what a condo costs in Paris or Singapore.

What also struck me is how many American properties are listed on foreign sites. The weaker dollar and the housing bust make American homes and businesses a bargain right now.

Smart investors from Europe, Asia, and Latin America are checking out the deals in the USA.

Our country is in a recession and facing a host of problems, but foreign investment in American property shows that some people have confidence that we can turn this around. So this is good news.

Or it might not be good news. In Zimbabwe, so-called "vulture funds" are buying property right now -- houses, game farms, resorts -- sold by desperate people at fire-sale prices for pennies on the dollar. It's a long shot bet -- that the Zimbabwe economy will ever recover -- but some sharp-witted profit-seekers are willing to take the chance.

THE SUMMER OLYMPICS will be in Peking this year. The Olympics Games, since their re-establishment in 1896, have never been held in Africa. Capetown in South Africa made an unsuccessful bid to host the games of 2008, but this beautiful city was turned down -- because it was "too far away" -- from who?

The Olympic Games have been held just once in Latin America -- in 1968 in Mexico City. Latin America is also "too far away."

What does this say about the so-called international, multi-cultural spirit of the Games? It's all about the money.

HEALTH CARE. People make mistakes, in every manner of human endeavor -- the administration of medicine, for instance. The nurses learn the Five Rights -- you must give the Right Medicine to the Right Patient in the Right Dose at the Right Time, and by the Right Route.

The Route means if its by mouth, or by an injection or by other means.

If you don't get all the Five Rights, the patient might be harmed. Take this hospital where I work, with over a 100 beds, not counting the ER and the birthing center. And many patients are taking five or more different kinds of medication.

That is a very complicated procedure -- subject to intense and constant scrutiny. The order goes from the doctor to the nurse, to the pharmacy, back to the nurse, and then to the patient, and it all gets documented and signed off and counted, and there are all manner of checks and double checks.

It's a good thing I'm not in charge of that.

DATING DOCTORS. I dated a doctor a few years ago. It didn't last long. She was researching a disease that she had herself, and I thought that was a very bad idea. I'm not a scientist, I said to her, but where is your objectivity? And she thought it was none of my business, and I said yeah, I guess we don't have much to talk about. That was it.

I was right, by the way.

OSTEOPOROSIS is the weakening of the bones in old age. It mainly effects women, because of their different hormones, so I am not likely to have this problem. But every hospital in the country has a constant stream of hip fractures -- women of 80 years who fall down -- just an easy fall, but their bones got so brittle that it broke at the hip.

The surgeons can pin the bones back together, but it heals very slowly on an elderly person, and often the patient will never walk again.

Osteoporosis is a growing problem -- in a way it's a good problem -- because so many women survive so many other diseases nowadays -- and then live long enough to get brittle bones.

Vitamin D and calcium tablets are supposed to help prevent this problem. Zoledronic Acid is a new drug being tested now. I've read about it in the medical journals. Then I looked up the price on the Internet pharmacy -- about $800 for a 4 milligram vial. That's enough for one injection, and one injection should get your bones all right for a year. Plus whatever the doctor charges you for telling you to take it, plus the nurse who gives you the injection. If you have the money or the insurance.

FROG HOSPITAL ANALYSIS. I am thinking to write exclusively about health care, in order to give this newsletter an identity and more coherence.

I know I want to trim the wide-ranging subject matter and reach a sharper focus.

The other topics of which I have an ability and an interest are: Africa and national politics.

I have also written knowledgeably about agriculture, gardening, and some cultural matters.

I would appreciate your opinion about this -- tell me what you think.

--

HEALTH CARE -- BUT FIRST THE NEWS:

I have a variation on Donald Rumsfeld. This is what I've been telling myself at those times when I think I ought to have a better, higher paying job:

"You don't make money with the job you want, you make money with the job you have."

It's the summer doldrums as far as the election goes. I wish both candidates could agree to a simultaneous two weeks vacation. It would do them and us a world of good.

Obama's Father's Day speech was excellent. His speech on patriotism was also well done. His endorsement of faith-based social action groups surprised many.

McCaine is viable. He is behind but he is not losing ground.


BACK TO HEALTH CARE. I met a nurse last week in the medical library at the hospital where I work. She said she was going back to school to become a Nurse Practitioner. I told her I was very glad she was doing that, because --

America needs about a 100,000 more nurse practitioners and a 100,000 primary care physicians.

While Obama and McCaine debate who is going to pay for health care, the underlying problem remains --- a top heavy health care system with million dollar MRI's stacked up like so many SUVs in the parking lot. Sure, you don't have to wait for an MRI scan, you just need a $1,000 in your pocket, or an insurance company that will pay for it.

It's like if movie tickets cost $50, you would never have to wait in line either.

But the real need is at the level of basic care. If Congress passes a bill for universal health care, we will quickly discover that we lack the manpower to deliver on that promise -- because we lack the resources on the ground.

Got to MD Salaries on the Internet for a look at physician salaries around the country and in various specialties. Cardiologists and Anesthesiologists make the most money, often well over $300,000 per annum.

But Primary Care doctors and Pediatricians are at the low end, averaging around $125,000. That's still a pretty good living, but who can blame the docs for going for the high-paying specialties.

So, we need more Family Doctors and somehow we have to encourage and reward those who choose that profession.

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart is not waiting for Congress to act. They have plans to open more than a thousand medical retail clinics in their stores. The clinics will be located right next to the pharmacy. They will be staffed by Nurse Practitioners who can diagnose common ailments and write prescriptions. You don't need a doctor for the common cold, a diaper rash, or an ear infection.

The Nurse Practitioner can quickly judge if the problem is more serious, but most often she can deal with it herself.

A visit to these clinics will cost less than $60. No appointment necessary. It's quick and convenient, and half what it would cost at a doctor's office.

Of course, it doesn't solve the whole problem. Like what if you don't have the $60.

But it's a step in the right direction.

Frog Hospital does not favor government or market-based solutions. We are only interested in what works.

So, on this Fourth of July, let's salute our American heroes -- the Nurse Practitioners.

Mugabe's Insane Hatred

Robert Mugabe is like Jeremiah Wright on steroids -- there is a parallel at least in that both men are angry about conditions that no longer exist, fighting battles that have already been won, and hating enemies that died years ago.

When Barack Obama speaks about change, I believe he means about the difference between himself and his former Pastor. Wright's anger was appropriate at the time. It was the angry determination of the African-American community that overturned the regime of segregation in this country. But that anger is misplaced now, and Obama has moved past it.

In Africa, Robert Mugabe lives only in a dream world of old Rhodesia. His heart burns with hatred of the British colonial masters of those days. Back then a white man was always addressed as "boss" and a black man was always called "boy." Those rules were strictly enforced in old Rhodesia, and Robert Mugabe hated that regime, and fought it, and destroyed it. Old Rhodesia is gone, except within the foul heart of Robert Mugabe.

This is 2008, white people, in Europe and North America, have rejected those old ways. There are still a few virulent racists among the exiled Rhodesian community -- but they are not gaining any converts.

In fact, the best thing that could happen to the desperate countries of Africa would be an influx of professional, middle-class Europeans and Americans -- also Asians. People with education, people with a modest amount of capital, people with no overt racist intentions, people who would willingly adapt to the language and customs of the African people, people who are very different than their parents or grandparents -- but people who could bring their own skills and abilities to a continent that desperately needs them.

I'm not talking about do gooders and social engineers. I'm talking about plain old economic opportunists who would come to Africa and take their chances -- not especially to do any one a big favor, but to do an even better thing -- make an honest living and build a home for themselves. Africa needs these kind of people.

Yet it is these very people who are most feared by the racist leadership of most African countries -- a hatred expressed most virulently by Robert Mugabe, but shared by the more moderate leaders of other African countries.

LACONNER TEARS. Former LaConner Mayor Wayne Everton had this to say in a recent email to Frog Hospital

I think I discovered many years ago that the La Conner merchants aren't really interested in doing those things that would improve business. I think they'd rather bitch than be creative. I see what Anacortes does, I even see what Sedro Wooley does and I don't see what La Conner does except spend $20,000 putting brochures in racks with several hundred other communities.

Twenty years ago people came to La Conner whether we wanted them or not. It was "quaint" and "cute" and "warm. Now other towns have learned to be "quaint" and "cute" and "warm" but we, for some reason, think competition doesn't exist.

It's interesting, and ironic, that when we had a volunteer Chamber of Commerce business was good. Now that we have a highly paid professional Chamber business has fallen off. I wonder if there's a connection.

--- So that's what Wayne Everton thinks, and he has a good point


Meanwhile, Anna Ferdinand is a rising star at LaConner's weekly newspaper. Her story about Georgia Johnson's school lunch innovations was most excellent. It's too bad the LaConner weekly doesn't have a website -- because Anna's reporting needs to go around the world.
Speaking of art, one of LaConner's best artists, Joel Brock, had quite a show last week --- in Edison, not in LaConner. In fact, Brock is no longer a LaConner artist -- he moved to Edison some years ago. Why did he leave LaConner?

Why is Edison the most creative hotspot north of Seattle, while LaConner is becoming the capital of Old Fogeys eating ice cream? Sic transit gloria. Or, as Ernest Hemingway said, "It's a Moveable Feast" and it sure has moved out of LaConner.

African Tears

Robert Mugabe is at war with his own people. Bishop Tutu called him a Frankenstein. Morgan Tsvangirai is in asylum at the Dutch Embassy in Harare the capital of Zimbabwe. The Security Council at the United Nation is discussing the matter -- but what can they do? African leaders utter condemnations -- but Mugabe owes them nothing.

All eyes turn to Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa, the leader of the most powerful government in Africa. Mbeki is the one man who can do something about this, but he will not.

A part of Mbeki supports the deep racial hatred of Robert Mugabe, who blames the old British colonials for every recent harm.

David Maritz,a resident of Camano Island, but with strong family roots in Zimbabwe, wrote this:

"It will change when the useless Thabo Mbeki is out of power and stops keeping Mugabe in power."

Maritz also said, "The ultimate strength of a democracy is a vibrant middle class. It is the buffer that keeps the upper class from turning the lower classes into powerless starving masses as Mugabe has done. Mugabe can buy most of the masses with a bag of mealie meal and beat up the rest."

But it is the very middle class professionals -- doctors, businessmen, teachers, nurses -- who have fled the country.

It is also very possible that the crisis will destabalize South Africa. Already millions of Zimbabweans have fled to South Africa and there have been mass riots and killings by angry South Africans who are unwilling to share their resources.

It is a wonder that Mbeki does nothing when his own country might suffer so drastically.

But Mugabe, at age 84, did say that only God can remove him from office. Africans are strong believers in the power of prayer and many have beseeched the Almighty for this very thing.

Cruelty in Zimbabwe

Gangs of violent thugs are rampaging in the cities and villages of Zimbabwe, in a frenzy of looting, burning, raping, and killing. All known or suspected opponents of Robert Mugabe's regime are in peril for their lives. It has come down to this awful place. There is no future and no hope. This site, the Zimbabwe Situation, summarizes all the terrible news.

The people of Zimbabwe, despite the direst provocation, show no sign of rising up in arms against the despot. Neighboring countries, especially South Africa, lack the determination to intervene. No one knows what will happen next -- if the destruction and violence will finally destroy every good thing in this once wonderful country. It's madness.

Why has Zimbabwe gone over the brink into insanity? Why does it happen there and not here? Are we lucky to be in America? Are we God's special friends? Are we doing something right? Because we have problems, but life is much better here than in Africa.

I attended the Zimbabwe Independence Day party in Seattle in April. This is an annual event and many immigrants from Zimbabwe come to have a good time and to celebrate their culture. This year, I saw many new faces -- new immigrants from Zimbabwe who were young, talented, and energetic. They had escaped a savage dictator. They were working and sending American dollars back to their hungry families. A slim hope of salvation rests in this exiled community, not just in Seattle, but in most big cities in the English-speaking world -- immigrants who are safe, for the time being, who will never return, or who hope against hope to return some day.
But how will Zimbabwe survive this calamity?

A CAR DEALER LAMENTS. If he makes half as much this year, he still won't be poor -- that's what I thought. But it was still an outstanding spectacle -- a car dealer, a well known man in this area, who said that his business is terrible. He's got a fleet of trucks and SUVs that he can't give away.

Car salesmen are the soul of the American economy -- they are the ultimate source of our national exuberance. They are the truest of true believers -- and the most cynical.
It doesn't make me happy to see them brought low.

GIVING AWAY HER SUV. A friend of mine had been driving an 8-year-old GMC Yukon -- it was a good vehicle, but a gas pig. So she replaced it with a Subaru Outback because of its good mileage.

Anyhow, she couldn't sell the old Yukon for peanuts, but decided to give it to one of her relatives. "I can always use it when I need to haul a big load," she said.

I was making fun of the philosopher's group in the last issue -- they do not actually get drunk at the LaConner Tavern, but there is a real group of men who meet on weekday mornings at the Next Chapter in LaConner and listen to taped lectures before discussing the works of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, and other great thinkers. It is a discussion that has been going on for more than a thousand years, and I have joined in.

DELIRIUM. People should understand, in my own defense, that I spend my working hours in the company of delirious people at the local hospital. "Daft" I call them, or "addled" -- there are lots of words for this, but delirium and dementia are medical terms that are well-defined.

The problem is that people with serious medical problems, such as a broken hip, or a urinary tract infection, can be so seriously impacted by the illness that they temporarily lose their marbles -- to use another common phrase. This delirium is a symptom of the underlying illness -- and my job is to stay with the patient and help them work through it.

This babbling of nonsense and fluttering of hands can be very difficult for loved ones to view. Imagine your parents or your spouse -- solid and sensible people -- only know they are howling at the moon from their hospital bed. So I counsel these people as well.

It can be a very hard job. And it's not really about skills so much as it's about attitude.
I have a very strong belief in my own sensibility and consciousness. I use that strength to project a return to reality upon the patient. I don't always succeed, but I never give up.

But, in order to keep myself in good shape for this job, I need to spend my off hours with clear-headed, healthy people -- like those morning philosophers I just told you about.

Uncertainty as Considered by various philosophers

Sunshine and receding floodwaters in Iowa caused a small dip this week in the price of corn at Chicago's commodity markets, but those same markets await a more accurate estimate of flood damage to crops. Right now, corn is hovering between $7 and $8 per bushel -- a price higher than anyone imagined. You just have to remember that for every buyer there is a seller, and if you're a consumer of corn -- and you are -- you're going to pay more. But if you're selling corn, it's a happy day.

Think of the Iowa farmers who did not get their fields flooded -- they're doing all right. As for the speculators at the commodity exchanges -- they are necessary creatures. Most of them have never seen a cornfield. They inhabit the dark canyons of LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago, screaming frantically at each other day after day, feeding off every rumor of crop failure, government coup in far away countries, or drought in Australia.

We don't know -- we have fear of uncertainty. What is the cost of not knowing what the cost will be? The price of corn, wheat, all foods, oil -- sure, the price is going up, but how high? How can you plan? How much will it cost to fly to Denver at Christmas to see your family? You don't know, and no one can tell you.

In the best of times, prices rise steadily because of our increased productivity and the extra value added. But everything is catterwonkus now. And the weather isn't cooperating either.

So with everything so screwed up, this is an excellent time to consider the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, an important German philosopher of the 19th century. I don't often think of Schopenhauer or Kant or Kierkegaard, but there were several fellows stumbling out of the LaConner Tavern late last night, in their cups, and arguing intensely about the primacy of Will.

"You Hegelian buffoon," George roared at Handsome Jim, who smiled back, knowingly, and smugly.

"Yes, I am a Hegelian," Handsome Jim finally said, "and I can reduce his entire philosophy to one word -- Becoming."

"But the key figure was not Hegel -- his work lacks certainty. There is no ground left to stand on. It was left to Schopenhauer...." George said.

John, the Designated Diviner, intervened at this point and attempted to summarize: "As you know, Schopenhauer was born in the eastern Prussian city of Danzig in 1788, and as he grew up and found his calling to philosophy, he became an ardent follower of Immanuel Kant -- not merely to broadcast Kant's ideas, but to develop them further.

"Schopenhauer believed the function of art to be a meditation on the unity of human nature, and an attempt to demonstrate to the audience a certain existential angst. A wide range of authors, from Thomas Hardy to Woody Allen, have been influenced by this system of aesthetics, and in the 20th century this area of Schopenhauer's work garnered more attention and praise than any other."

"Oh, horse puckey," George said, and he began weaving down the street, stepping one foot into the gutter and one foot on the sidewalk, chanting "Either, Or, Either, Or, Either, Or."

June-uary in the Skagit Valley

They're calling it June-uary in the Skagit Valley because it's been so cold and so wet. The slugs and snails are eating everything. Anybody who planted a garden has to re-plant their beans and cucumbers and any tender-seeded vegetable.

Onions and peas are doing all right, though, but just growing slowly.

The farmers are looking at a disaster. Strawberries are rotting in the field. Some potato fields haven't even been planted. Everything else is either late or soggy.

Farmer Dave once said, "I can add anything but heat." How true, all the fertilizer in the world won't make up for a lack of warm, sunny days.

The farmers seem remarkably calm in the face of financial ruin except that farmers, more than anybody, know that weather can be fickle and the best plans of mankind are puny. All this talk about global warming is very welcome -- it seems that urban people are beginning to realize what their country cousins never forgot -- our lives depend on the weather.

Out on Fir Island, where I live, at the mouth of the Skagit River, I have spent a lot of time walking up and down the slough in the back of the house. The slough has wheat fields on either side, and I can tread a narrow path between the emerging wheat and the cattails that tumble into the water. The wheat is 8 inches tall now -- it keeps growing in this cold, wet weather, but slowly, and any fertilizer or herbicide might get washed off and be useless.

The slough is bursting with wildlife -- schools of minnows darting about, probably sticklebacks, but I'll bet the salmon fry get in there too. The little fish feed the stalking herons -- some pretty big bull frogs too.

What do the ducks eat? I could ask Meynard Axelson, he lives one mile down the road and he keeps more than 30 varieties of ducks and other waterfowl in a half-acre sized pen with a net roof. Meynard is known far and wide as the go-to guy if you have a duck problem.

I did ask Meynard about the nest of duck eggs I stumbled across. It was in a side ditch near the slough, with eleven eggs, and the mama duck burst out of the tall grass and flew away as I approached. Meynard advised me to avoid going near the nest until the eggs were hatched.

He said the mama duck usually tucks feathersand grass over the eggs when she goes off to feed to keep them hidden, but if the mama duck leaves suddenly, she leaves her eggs exposed to the crows and hawks. He also said some possum or raccoon might follow my foot trail and discover the eggs.

So I will walk another way for the next couple of weeks. Otherwise I can still watch the red winged blackbirds and the sparrows and this beautiful yellow bird I saw yesterday -- but I don't know what it is.

There's a beaver, one or two, that lives in the slough somewhere. I saw it swimming around last month. Around here, the beavers dig burrows in the bank. I discovered one burrow, but it seems not be used anymore because there are no fresh tracks.

Meanwhile, and everywhere, people are complaining and talking of gloom and doom. All you readers have no doubt joined in these gripe sessions. It seems that most people don't trust the oil companies, to put it mildly. But there is a development of great importance which has not been reported in the media, but you will read it here, in Frog Hospital.

The news is that we have definitely embarked on a course of energy independence. The media reports how the Republicans favor nuclear power and off-shore drilling while the Democrats favor conservation, wind power and other alternatives. This is a vital debate. But the underlying and unreported premise to this debate is that ALL NEW SOURCES OF ENERGY WILL COME FROM WITHIN OUR OWN COUNTRY. This is great news and this is something we can do, because nation building begins at home.

Every conceivable source of energy comes with a toxic cost -- there is no free ride, there is no 100% clean, pollution-free supply. And every solution to our energy crisis will create further problems which will, in turn, require further solutions.

That means stay flexible in your thinking. Don't be discouraged and NO WHINING -- because I'm getting tired of hearing gripe sessions day after day. After a while, you gotta stop talking and get your rear end in gear.