Ring-necked Ducks, colored gray and white, are paddling outside. There were clouds of Swallows darting around in the rainy mists of the last two days. If anyone wanted to visit Glacier National Park over this holiday weekend, I hope they brought their cold-weather gear!

Funk Master Bernie Worrell at: Theater X-Net

Starring: 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!
NEW! Spitfires of the Spaceways
Watch Dale Arden rescue Flash Gordon for a change!

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

Sitemaster Sez: A search engine sent someone from the Phillipines here who was researching work in Holland -- can't help ya' there! A couple more USA visitors were reading about my adventures with B.B. King on the way to Jackson Hole last Fall -- look at the May archives for Tanya's topless picture, guys! Google keeps sending you to the WRONG PAGE. (Glad you stuck around to read it.)

Media Watch: There are stupid and exploitative war movies all over the tube this weekend. Sometimes the truth sneaks in to these flicks, but it's not necessarily entertaining, so we don't see it much. The real news about our own illegal, immoral, mis-handled, criminal war in Iraq, and our loused-up Afghan adventure is horrible today -- staying this misbegotten course will ruin our country.
Book TV showed a presentation by a Washington Post reporter from her college in Decatur, Illinois last March -- the book is called Tell Them I Didn't Cry, and tells about her experiences covering the Iraq war. It is also about her twin sister in the USA, communicating with her sibling from halfway around the world -- and it was a good thing Sis was on the ball! The reporter fell seriously ill, and got progressively worse, but she was too stubborn to seek proper medical attention for fear she'd be sent home. Sis sent an email to the Washington Post, and very likely saved the life of her twin.
During the Q&A, the reporter declined to state her opinion about the politics of this war. She bemoaned how the mass media have "been discredited by making themselves part of their stories." She told about being embedded with the U.S. military during the attack on Fallujah, and how she and the soldiers related to each other as they each did their work. Right after she was done, an older man came up to the microphone and said he had heard nothing from her praising our troops (!) It was hard to hate him, (he was an Iraqi immigrant to the US) but he made a thorough jackass out of himself when he ignored what was said right in front of his own face moments before.
This war seems to have turned people's brains off somehow.
MY OPINION: By the way, or actually to the point, our nation's raid on Fallujah was a war crime, pure, simple, and hideous in it's arrogance. The contractors protected by our armed forces are thieves, who have nothing but contempt for the sacrifices of our young men and women. If you want reasonable military policy over there, ask Rep. Jack Murtha. I'm done with this subject.

Now For Something Completely DIFFERENT: I called John Kilby at Footsbarn this morning EARLY! (Too early for me.) Damn if he wasn't available -- when I opened my email five hours later, he'd written to me about an hour after I hung up. I was still groggy, but managed to write back and accept his offer to call him this Friday at 7:30 A.M. my time -- I'm off work that day. Hmmmm -- there's another opening reception at the Hockaday Museum Thursday night, so I'll be recuperating from 13 hours of work -- good thing I'm EXCITED by all this stuff!


DAMN RIGHT WE REMEMBER! The Memphis Belle was a B-17 'Flying Fortress' bomber which was used for a morale-boosting campaign in World War Two, reportedly after the crew's allotment of missions was completed. I was privileged to know a WWII bomber crewman when I worked at the copper smelter in 1968. They flew over Berlin during daylight, and the Germans threw everything they had at them -- it was deadly. Two movies have been based upon the Memphis Belle story, and a B-17 with the name Memphis Belle still appears at air shows. The B&W picture shows the cast of the 40's movie, with the George Petty figurehead painting facing OUT. The color inset (from an air show) is the starboard side with the Petty Girl facing IN. The port side painting has her wearing a blue bathing suit, but it is red at starboard.