Will my Flu shot protect me this year? Only time will tell. The Deer have been all over the place -- that now-gone snow might have scared them into eating more while they can.

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris, from my jet-lagged first day by the Seine.
Read more about Ida in Sisters of Salome by Toni Bentley
Click on Exceptionally Yours to find Footsbarn Theatre

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 as Winter sneaks around on us! Click on The Hunger Site every day.

In The Community: I'm updating the Hockaday Museum of Art's Website this afternoon. I'm also looking through my archives for "people pictures" to use in publicity.

Media Watch: As Fred Neil once sang: Everybody's talkin' at me ... reminding all of us that Saturday is November 11th -- A.K.A. Veteran's Day or Rememberance Day. There are only 14 living US veterans of that War To End All Wars.
My contribution to Viet Nam-Era U.S. politics was Draft Resistance -- and not only for myself. I still believe that every person I helped keep out of combat then was a tiny drop of medicine for our diseased society.
Sometimes war is inevitable, but our current debacle in Iraq certainly wasn't. The people who chose to unleash this evil folly should be discredited so that it cannot happen the same way again. How this administration treats the soldiers who have fought on their say-so is criminal, and should be punished too. I can only hope that our new Congress and Senate will undertake their new responsibilities with the seriousness they deserve.
Here's what we're celebrating in Europe and Amerika -- on November 11, 1918 four-plus years of senseless slaughter came to an end in the trenches of Europe. The devastating British blockade of Germany would continue until the ruinous Versailles Treaty was signed. A Flu pandemic started to spread over the world and killed millions more people. The Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, German Empire, and Austrio-Hungarian Empire all fell. The Manchu Empire in China was already gone, but the Japanese Empire was expanding. France and England still had empires, but they were nearly ruined by World War One, and were decaying fast. The U.S. didn't SAY their colonies were part of an empire, but undertook violent counter-action if their rule was challenged.
With several centuries worth of political institutions dead, or severely wounded, international economic collapse further added to the misery of humankind. The worldwide shipping industry fell apart, and localized ruin became planet-wide ruin. Since the USA was one of the few creditor nations, our enonomy didn't formally fall apart until 1929. We remembered the faux-summer of the "Roaring 20's" as a glimmer of hope during the near-glacial winter of the Great Depression and World War Two.
Among the crimes of the radical right wing is their resurrection of the social sickness called "Empire." The Iraq War is an overt takeover of a foriegn country for express economic and political objectives: 14 permanent US bases, and a Super-Embassy in Baghdad, all to be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues -- on the record. THIS is the course the Bush Administration intends to "stay," and why they multiplied the national debt to levels which are beyond insanity, hoping for a big payoff.
These goals are not only immoral, but impossible, and need to be repudiated by Congress, and the citizens of the USA. No one likes to lose, but we've already lost because of the fundamental dishonesty of our government's actions, coupled with incompetence and delusion. So the armies of the UK and US were stronger than Saddam Hussien's army -- that only applies to battlefields. There are no battlefields in Iraq any more -- just somebody else's country, which is occupied by our soldiers for nobody's benefit, except war profiteers who are paid with borrowed money.
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS -- BRING THEM HOME!


Red Cross by Romaine Brooks. Model Ida Rubinstein turned the Hotel Carlton in Paris into a hospital for French soldiers during WWI, and actually performed nursing duties there, as well as appearing at fund-raisers in her uniform, designed by Leon Bakst.