Wildlife: A big Bald Eagle soared over Middle Foy's Lake yesterday morning. OK -- you're in the blog, birdie, if that's what you wanted.



Visit: A Tale of Two Movies

Weather: A millimeter of snow all over my neighborhood this morning, and a frozen birdbath -- one clear and sunny Friday was unfolding everywhere else I could see.

Charity Alert: Click here and help somebody: The Hunger Site

In The Community: Well, it looks like I'm still working for the Hockaday Museum of Art. Since I never really quit, I'll call it a scaling-back of my duties -- more grunt-and-groan, plus some digital photography. Hockaday Museum's Web Site
Peter Held from A.S.U. in Tempe, Arizona did a beautiful illustrated lecture about David Shaner, the man and the artist. Some people travelled hundreds of miles to hear it, and see Shaner's exhibit before it is removed later this month. (HINT!)
Right now, I'm off to deliver a mini-lecture about Footsbarn Theatre, India, and Indian Culture (including Bollywood movies).

Media Watch: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy in Texas reinforced some stereotypes with a somewhat recalcitrant client who was a real cowboy -- uhh -- horse trainer.
I started reading Galactic Derelict by the late Andre Norton, who died not long ago at the age of 92. She had class -- a solid writer in an often-shallow genre. Did she ever break new ground? No, but she grew a damn good garden without many weeds.
Ursula K.LeGuin wrote this on her website:

In Memoriam: Andre Norton

My first published novel was an Ace Paperback Double — the kind where you read the book to the middle of the book and then it stopped, The End, and you turned it over, and there was a whole other novel starting upside down on the other side. It may sound ridiculous, but for fifty cents it was a bargain. Fifty cents was pretty much what the author got paid, also.
Anyhow, it was my first published novel, and I was proud of it, but nowhere near as proud as when I got a letter about it from Andre Norton. The letter is in my files at the U. of Oregon now and I don’t remember the words, only that she praised the book discerningly, and encouraged me to write more. As she was, in the mid 1960’s, a Major Person in the field of imaginative literature, it seemed miraculous to me that she had taken the time from her own work to write a newcomer at all — let alone telling them, hey, it’s good, write more!

I treasure the memory of that letter, and the kind, shy, brilliant, and generous woman who wrote it. It was completely characteristic of her. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Wildlife: Turtles are starting to share the log-in-the-lake along with the Mallards. These cold-blooded reptiles are more reliable signs of Spring than Robins.



Visit: A Tale of Two Movies

Charity Alert: Child Health Site -- DO something, even if it's just clicking a mouse!

Weather: A little moisture every day, and snow sticking on the foothills just over my head.

Media Watch: I'm reading a reprint of Kingsly Amis' New Maps of Hell from 1960. It is an early critical survey of Science Fiction/Fantasy by a competent writer from outside the field. My friend Brian W. Aldiss wrote the more comprehensive Million Year Spree a decade and a half later, and revised it as Billion Year Spree in the 80's.

In The Community: Flathead Valley Community College's Honors Symposium presented Dr. John Wilkerson from the University of Washington's Political Science Department last night. He spoke on The Politics of Health Care in America. It wasn't the best lecture in the series, but it made the point that the USA spends more for HEALTHCARE than any other country in the world without having the best HEALTH in return for all that money.
He didn't say so, but I will -- The Healthcare Industry is skimming our inflated bills like a crooked casino, and paying off our politicians to keep things this way.

Next Big Thang: Peter Held's lecture on David Shaner at the Hockaday Museum of Art Thursday night at 5:30. Exhibits at the Hockaday Museum