fall falls

Reluctantly I spy into former days at last
summer-loves have gone and past,
so she said back then.
It was an affair of years,
years of exuberance and joy, immaculate.

This summer I visited her together with my wife.
Bonds don't break when your heart is at stake.
For once in my life
I not only take
but let it be,
as is.

visitors

Some people came by I had now clue about, but what the heck, the more the merrier, at least sometimes.
So when are you going to visit the island? You know, this will not last forever! I am already considering to move back to where I belong, to Hobbit-Town.
95% of the islanders either smoke pot or are alcoholics, or both. Not such a fine track record. I'd rather not subscribe to any of these choices. But "The Rock" is a great place nevertheless (that's an other name for Vinalhaven).
So why don't you come up here for a visit as long as the weather is still as gorgeous as it is now.

birds

I shared an Ultra Light Beer tonight with a veteran of the Korean war. His friend was there, a veteran from the second world war.
"We should fight house to house, blow the buildings up as we go, then offer compensation. This is how we could win the war in Iraq."
I disagreed, pointing out that Iraq is not a country, but rather an agglomeration of different tribes, stuck within a border once artificially constructed by the Brits. And then we went on to talk about Israel, an other mostly British flavored product, but I will spare you that part of the conversation for an other time...
So, birds fly over borders and checkpoints without passport or/and visas.
Maybe humans can learn something from them birds.

this one is for Ingrid ... and whoever else cares

I hear a knock at my door, it is 6:30 AM, an unusual time of day to expect visitors. It turns out it is "Doctor Todd" the only mechanic on the island. Every morning he is walking his dogs, passing my house.
"Lukas, I believe there is water in your boat" he said. "How much, can I still bail her out?" I replied. "I don't know, I didn't had a close look. I'll give you a hand once I brought my dogs home."
I rushed to the float to see what was happening. There she was, full of water, the waves dashing in pushed by an unruly sea. I was about to say - forget this boat, let her sink when Todd appeared with his little Wrangler Jeep.
For 45 minutes I was standing in the water up to my balls, a bucket in hand racing against the odds of either getting a heart attack or else loosing the race against the vicious waves.
I won. Smashed up legs and freezing, but no heart attack. All this because I forgot to pull the plug on the self-bailing hull.
Earlier that week the throttle cable on my moped broke (hard to find replacement) - the work situation is uncertain, the mornings are misty and damp.
All images of my present mood.
So you see Ingrid, my motivation to post is somewhat subdued. I am stumbling through the midlife crisis of my island life!

4 down!

Gonzales is the latest senior official to leave the White House as the president approaches the end of his second term in office.
Karl Rove, Bush's most trusted and senior adviser, announced earlier this month that he was stepping down.
Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, agreed in May to step down amid a row over the hiring of his girlfriend.
Donald Rumsfeld, one of the lead architects of the Iraq war, quit as defence secretary after a Republican battering at the polls in November's mid-term election.

I am not a great fan of the Democrats in the US either, but by golly, I can not hide my present content to see those individuals go.

from melting ice to Greek hell-fire

About half of Greece is up in flames, unimaginable!
I have been to Greece several times and adored the beauty, grace, history and friendliness of their people.
As a 14 year old boy I remember taking pictures with a cheap ass plastic camera of the remnants of the Zeus temple in Olympia. I was enchanted and in awe. The fuzzy images of the camera have faded, but my mental remembrance has not. So presently around the town of Zaharo, south of Ancient Olympia in the western Peloponnese, thick smoke blocks out the intense summer sun and can be seen from more than 60 miles away. The blaze broke out Friday afternoon and quickly engulfed villages, trapping dozens of people and killing at least 39. Scores of people were treated in hospitals for burns and breathing problems.
I am devastated - Greece is burning to hell!
My question: Why would people set fires to burn down their own territory - has the world gone insane - do we live amongst total maniacs with a superior death wish? Who are these people?

declining

Six-hundred people posed naked on Switzerland's shrinking Aletsch glacier yesterday for US photographer Spencer Tunick as part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.
Tunick, perched on a ladder and using a megaphone, directed the volunteers from all over Europe and photographed them on a rocky outcrop overlooking the glacier, which is the largest in the Alps.

Glaciers are sensitive to climate change and have been receding since the start of the industrial age but the pace of shrinkage has greatly accelerated in recent years.
The organizers said that the aim was to “establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body”.

Fear = haha!

World shares fall on credit fears
World share prices continue to slide in a second day of big losses, amid fears of a global credit crunch... (BBC)August 10 2007
______________________
OK, so what is this? Unlimited growth, unlimited borrowing is not logical or feasible - just a phantom, a warped philosophy and estranged mindset.
Adams was wrong - dead wrong ... as was Darwin. Species do not survive because they are just posing to be the fittest, species thrive when they take care of the balance in their immediate environment.

So on what kind of spaceship is the US cruising? Will they now run out of fuel?
As far as I understand, every US citizen is burdened with a debt of about $20,000 due to the enormous squandering of the government abroad and within ...
Bridges fall and miners die because there is no money to invest into the future, only money for quick fixes. Yes, and instead of investing feasibly, the US government spends 1.3 billion Dollars a month to uphold a lost war. Pathetic!
Imagine how this money could have been used in other ways ... that taxpayers money!
Anyhow, the latest crunch on Wall Street, and all the other financial institutions world wide, only reflect the tip of the iceberg - yet to melt ...

what is that?

Would you like to live in this house?

what is this?

Europe and such

Das waren noch Zeiten ...


Some things never change.












Walking the fields, scouting on trails in the woods, water dispersed on small falls, having a beer with friends and relatives after the hike.
Some things remain constant, namely the little joys in life. There is no "apres moi le deluge" mood at all. People still seem to embrace the future and wish for common betterment, not only that personal gain thing which dominates western civilization. Embedded in tradition and focused towards new horizons - I still have hope for Europe!
I so much would wish that the "new world" and the "old world" could learn from each other. Perhaps then America (US) would transform it's present state of puberty and become a more mature entity- and Europe would shed it's sclerotic notions of old and learn to be a flexible, inovative and smiling contender again.
For now we just have to wait and see!

old turf

I am away for the time being, strolling down paths of my past.
See you when I get back :)
The picture here is taken in Colmar (France), a small township that lies low between the Rhine river and the hills of the Vogues.
The "Isenheimer Altar" painted by Lukas Cranach can be found here, a remarkable work of art.

more Pirates

No, the dude with the wooden "sword" doesn't win ... she got the real thing. All we had to do later is clean up the mess.
The annual gathering of the Penopscop Bay Pirates thereafter went on smooth and rather jolly, nor more blood shed. Of course I will not tell you the exact location, only pirates are invited on this little island that has no connection to any grid, hence the solar panels and what have you not.
















The welcoming committee was fierce, dedicated and charming. Up to a hundred people and free thinkers = Pirates flocked in. The band which played was grand, some hired Yankees from New York. I joined in for two or three songs, one of them "All along the watchtower" - of course. Had packed my violin into that small vessel before I went there, in foresight. After tons of spiced rum, weed and what have you not, the next morning looked sobering for many. I instead shared a good bottle of Cotes du Rhone and went to sleep under the protecting arms of a tree and awoke to the laughter of seagulls on a gray dawn. The tide was out and some of them "pirates" whined to go home to their day time jobs - but couldn't, low tide. Nature is above technology!
I took the little boat I had come with, avoided the rocks and the mud, paddled out to deeper waters, hooked up my electric outboard, and was gone ....
An overall awesome weekend. Long live the pirates!

Ahah or Ahlah, like playing the lottery

The dude is probably long dead due to kidney failure. Nevertheless, the US senate doubled the bounty on his head, now being $50 MILLION!
I wonder if the State Department or any other US agency has DNA samples of Bin Laden, you know those tissue samples who can prove if you were the rapist or murderer. If not, it might well be worth to construct his capture and killing. What will it take to create a fake scenario that will convince the world ... one, two , even ten million?
It's easy. Even if you invest 20 million dollars in staging a fake display of his death and then win, you'll be left with a profit of a staggering 30 million. That's what I would call a good investment, ingeniously done , or perhaps just a lucky move of sorts.
But believe me, Osama is dead. A suffocated dragon, drenched in his own blood. Simply dead, basta, finito! The more interesting question is: Why does the US right now double the reward for his capture in the political climate we presently live in? Why now? If 25 million didn't do it for a camel herdsman in the past, are 50 millions gonna do the trick or any difference subsequently from now on? Why is it so that the US is playing lottery with Osama? Don't they know that this kind of ticketed gamble has almost a zero chance of return, a poor mans taxation at best?
I guess the empire is getting desperate. They don't know either way in or out anymore.
So - where is it people, of that what is left, that what they once used to call the true spirit of America?
Freedom reigns only to the ones who are honest and true by heart, nothing else will suffice.
America take heart, literally ... otherwise you'll be left treading down paths of Mordor, stranded without the help of hobbits or Gandalf.

Parades and Pirates

Not knowing what to expect, I watched the celebration of US Independence Day (4th of July).
Some of the island youth decided that enough is enough and the only way to regain independence is to become active.
After all, counterinsurgency might actually save Democracy, or that freedom we are always bragging about in this country.
Let's savagely regain our liberties, stolen from us by the cronies in power = become a pirate!

Vinalhaven snail race

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

done

After some weeks, this project comes to a conclusion. There will be new tasks to follow, that is for sure. May it be in construction of buildings or building of different matter. All we have to do is create and keep on shaping this world. Doomed are those who procrastinate.


"Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further."
(from Letters R.M. Rilke)

youth-hangover

Coming home at 4:30 in the morning, sleeping three hours, then getting up and facing a new mission seems to be a frequent occurrence for young people these days.
In the old times, when I grew up, we simply got a spanking from our parents trying to put us back in line. Those days are gone. Not that the spanking had any revolutionary effect, but it slowed us down, at least momentarily.
The present generation of parenthood, whilst upbringing their kids, subscribe and rely mostly on that "dog-treat-training" method: "Honey, if you don't bark and you'll promise to be a good kid, I'll buy you a new CD player" ... or what have you not. I believe that method is doomed as much as the old fashion ways were. Actually it is worse. It creates spoiled brats waiting for life opportunities to be served on a silver platter.
So what is there to do?
I have a friend who lives in Vienna, Austria. He sends my daughter weekly parcels of junk from China via the internet. Should I be grateful? No, I should spank him the old fashion way! His only achievement for now is to put my daughter in a state of delusion, believing that material happiness is delivered by mail, for free of course. What a moron.
In the "very old" days they used to recite: "No matter is without spirit, and no spirit is without matter." That should be the doctrine taught to these youngsters - instead we flood them with fake artifacts made and assembled in a far-eastern manufacturing slave compound ... just in order to keep their temper tantrums down. Sick. The "West" is spoiled rotten ...
And all it takes to turn this around would be to teach our kids fundamental values again. Values of grace and awe, not shock and awe - and perhaps some modesty.

what is tradition?

The "Harbor Gawker" is tradition, that's what it is. Fine deep fried food, not good for your arteries - still tasty though. We make a point to arrive by boat. This time it was Caleb's vessel. A lot of scooping out water on the way. But I have to give this man credit, he build this boat by himself, with his bare hands. And actually it looks pretty.





So anyhow, what is tradition? Well the "Harbor Gawker" is. Every Tuesday we meet there (am I repeating myself?). The journey today was longwinded and a bit sketchy (considering circumstances). But the MikMak woman and his Aussie friend paddled along gracefully in tandem while we were using the electric trolling motor. But that is "neither here nor there" as Mister Dweller would say ...
In the larger pic you will recognize the art teacher of this island, a very fine woman indeed. After all, she helped me to get a teaching job withot a blinking of her eye.
So yes, we made it back safely but we lost a bottle of wine down by the wharf. What a bummer! Maybe that's good.
Not all good things derive from alcohol.
Learn that one ...

take your shoes off

Wild and weary, the nudes still capture audiences, you bet...
No, there is no poem or other trivia today.
Politics can kiss my ass for the next 24 hours.
So there.