A very snowy morning. I had to drive my way out of trouble when my car wouldn't stop at the bottom of a hill -- luckily I was able to enter traffic without discomfort to anyone. Before the storm began last night, a yearling deer was grazing through the front yard.

Yet another update at: Theater X-net

Featuring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley

Visit: Michael's Montana Web Archive
Theater, Art, Flash Gordon, Funky Music and MORE!

Charity Alert: Keep that resolution in February too! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: My one video of Jim Soular reading one poem from The Thousand Yard Stare. is uploaded on Ariana Huffington's blogsite now. I am going to try and place the Gold Star Mother poem there instead. They didn't tell me (I didn't ask, either) that there was less than 15 MB available, so I couldn't load the two I had planned. Gold Star Mother is the shorter, and more timely, of the two. (It's online NOW!)Front Line Poetry
Check out the rest of the Contagious Festival at Huffington Post.

Media Watch: I was reading Asteroids by Curtis Peebles (2000, Smithsonian Institution Press) when I saw some things I hadn't expected to see in this kind of layperson's science book. The Department of Defense monitored collisions with large-scale meteors, comets, and asteroids and Planet Earth from the 1960's onward. The data was declassified in the early 1990's. Satellites capable of tracking flashes of light, and ground based low-frequency acoustic equipment which "heard" glancing impacts with our atmosphere, established a scary fact -- at least once a year an asteroid or spent comet explodes over the earth with a measured yield of 15 kilotons, and a dozen more explosions have yields measured in single kilotons annually. Luckily, these objects all bounced away, or disintegrated, like the interplanetary wanderer which caused the Tunguska Event on June 30, 1908. I witnessed one of these atmospheric collisions myself in the summer of 1965 at about 10:30 at night (MDT) -- it was as bright as daylight for a second all over Western North America, but nobody heard any sound.
We may have a couple of ideas, but humankind doesn't have a proven technology for diverting a space rock large enough kill us all if it actually struck the surface of our planet.

Now for something REALLY frivolous --
Three shows concerning ballroom dancing on TV last night! ABC's Dateline covered the fad as a good-natured news story. PBS started their series about a ballroom dance competition in Ohio ala the great Juliet Prowse shows over a decade ago. Marilu Henner acted as host, with a knowledgeable dancer as commentator informing overwhelmed viewers like me about whom and what I was watching. While the men largely stick to black suits, the women wear costumes which are cut up and decorated in all sorts of ways -- super-reflective sparkles festoon every gown and mirror the bright lights like tiny stars. Their makeup can be EX-treme -- I swore I saw fake eyelashes as long as an inch and a half. One thing that "stood out" was everyone's noses -- they all looked long and prominent because of slicked-back hairstyles for both sexes, up-looking postures, spray-painted makeup, and flashing teeth. 12 couples left to go, so they say, most with East European names.
Ms. Henner needed one of these makeup artists herself -- a combination of her hairstyle and lights distorted her features, making her look cross-eyed at times. She could have used a more flattering dress too. This series may already in the can, but I hope the producers made some adjustments after the first show.


(Right) A montage from America's Ballroom Challenge on PBS
(Left) Sheryl and Drew -- our favorites on Dancing with the Stars
All photos property of their copyright owners

Dancing with the Stars -- Stacy Kiebler and her partner kicked everybody's ass right at the start. They got three 10s from the judges. We still voted for Drew and Sheryl, who danced last, and got three 9s. Jerry Rice did as well as George Hamilton, but the judges gave "Hammy" three 8s. (His partner is a TERRIFIC soloist.) "Lips," the Soap Opera Lady got a 25, and it looks bad for personable, but slow-moving Tia Carrera.