More dangerous driving! Ice layers on the roads every morning from rain and snow falling all night. The college was especially icy because of the river and mists -- the crew has a hard time keeping up with things.

Footbarn's Celebration of Theatre: Theater X-Net

Starring: Ida Rubinstein Belle Epoch Russian/Parisian beauty.
Ida's Places in Paris -- from my first jet-lagged day by the Seine.
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 as Winter decorates the Holidays with snow. Click on The Hunger Site every day.

Media Watch: NFL Football -- Dawg-assed visiting team San Francisco put the big hurt on playoff-bound Seattle, playing at home. The 49ers' defense only allowed one score until the last minute. The Seahawks underestimated their opponents for sure.
Real Books --Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World by Colin Wells.
Constantinople/Byzantium was the center of a beleaguered Christian empire for a thousand years. This author spins three threads of it's long, convoluted history. I finished the first about reintroducing knowledge of Ancient Greek to Western Europe via Italy, despite the barbaric depradations of fellow-Christian Crusaders, and the valiant failures of pioneers Boccaccio and Petrarch. It was well worth trying again and again. Next is their long defeat against the Four Caliphs, Umayyads, Abbasids, Seljuk and Ottoman Turks as they led Islamic armies over what we now call the Middle East. To further compound the Eastern Empire's troubles, the Slavs invaded from Central Europe, repopulating the Balkans and points north. Greek scholarship eventually won out to some degree, even though the hapless Byzantine political leaders lost most of the time, and the physical seat of Eastern Orthodoxy fell under Islamic political rule after 1453. (Except for Mt. Athos, it's still that way.) The Russian Czars tried to gain hegemony over Eastern Orthodoxy, but it was too damned big for them -- St. Cyrill's alphabet triggered a mighty cultural achievement.