Americans too often teach their children to despise those who hold unpopular opinions. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place - the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan. — Mark Twain

The Olympic Peninsula, especially the rural parts of the area, are not unusual in the presence of racial and religious prejudice and homophobia.  The best people will blurt out antiquated prejudices, from comments on Hemingway’s biography to just who is shooting at a whale.

But help may be on the way!

Twilight, a series of vampire genre novels for young adults, is set in the western peninsula town of Forks.  A movie may be filmed there, using local characters.

Now Forks is no worse in the presence of homophobia than any other rural American town.  All across this country, homosexual kids always need to watch their backs; being called “gay” has been proven in American towns and the military to being the preparation for a death sentence.  There is no evidence it is that bad in any way at Forks — in so many ways, it’s Live and Let Live out here.  But it’s in the atmosphere.

If a movie is made in the area, Hollywood will be in town.  That’s an industry that can’t afford to excercise prejudice toward anyone with any artistic ability, because it takes a lot of people to film, act, choreograph, costume, edit, compose, advertise, and just move stuff around.  

Arts and media are a refuge and a livelyhood for many in the gay community, mostly because the GBLT community honors and appreciates education, the humanities and the arts.  Arts and music are never despised, ignored, or lost because the funding for the local high school went to the football program (the community up here that let this happen knows which one it is; we don’t need to go into personalilties).

If the smart, hard-working members of the gay community who work in film show up, working with local people, dining in local restaurants, relaxing in local bars, it’s going to do a lot of good.  These people can be role models for smart, artistic or musical kids who have never had the support they deserve in the area. 

It’s hard to practice homophobia when the local kids find out what good people gay people are.

Check out:  http://www.glaad.org

Where’s a video camera when you need one?

Buddha is a handsome, friendly black lab/greyhound cross.  He looks like Anubis with floppy ears.  He prefers to catch thrown rocks (his owner requests he not be indulged).

Last week, while strolling along the surf, intent upon looking for agates, I nearly stepped on a dark, speckled baby harbor seal.  He gazed up at me curiously.  Knowing his mother had either left him while she fished, or he was out on his own, I went around him.

Dan and I went our way.  We kept turning back to watch the seal through our Russian military surplus minocular.  The seal remained on the beach, moving up past the surf, unperturbed by humans walking by, even when the Clallam Bay football team boys came down to run in the gravel.

But then came Buddha.  Oh, no!  Dog and baby seal!  We were too far away to prevent an incident, but we should have known Buddha wasn’t a problem.

He carefully straddled the seal, which stared up at his belly.  Then he barked loudly and angrily at the water, obviously protecting the seal from the surf.  This continued for some time.  Once satisfied he’d done his duty, Buddha went trotting on his way, as the seal continued to watch him.

Buddha may not be the brightest bulb in the socket, but there’s no questioning he has a good heart.

(People have asked so heeeeere’s Buddha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbU7OXV477Q  )

That thing up there is what’s left of a commercial flare.  This article was originally written as part of my freelance journalsit/photographer gig on the upper west end of the Olympic Peninsula.  I’ve added myself as part of the story. 

 A bright red commercial flare, shot into the water near Slip Point, in Clallam Bay, combined with Clallam County’s efficient inter-agency notification system and the ability of a small close-knit community to spread information, could end up costing county emergency services thousands of tax-payer dollars.

Clancy Phillips, of Olson’s Resort in Sekiu, saw what appeared to him to be a burning boat near the Clallam River. He and others at the resort saw what they thought were people from the boat walking on the beach.

Jim (Carl) Bryden, who lives on Slip Point, saw the flare smoking in the water in front of his house. He was joined by Clallam Bay residents Ric Palumbo and Juan Aldana.  

“They think the boaters walked to a local store,” said Palumbo, repeating what he had heard about the supposed victims.

Bryden took a photo of the flare, which he later sent to the Peninsula Daily News — when the following was all over.

The Emergency Medical Team, siren flashing, swung into the dead-end street above the beach, and was soon joined by a Border Control vehicle. The teams, receiving information from the witnesses, and assuming the flare had been fired from the boat, dashed off to Clallam Bay in an attempt to locate the boaters.

I was walking back to the house, convinced that Jim — who is quite calm and reliable — knew what he was talking about.  That’s when I got the phone call from my editor at the Peninsula Daily News, who had received information that the Coast Guard was going out to check on the boat..  At the editor’s insistance — although I did repeat the closest witness accounts — I began my travels around Clallam Bay, hunting for more information.

Dave Weiss, at Al’s Mini-Mart, the store closest to the beach, said he’d heard about a burning boat, but no one had showed up at the store.

The EMT team left with a Clallam Bay Fire Department truck to see if the boaters were in Sekiu.

Gary Ryan, of Van Ripper’s Resort in Sekiu said, “I saw the fire. There was a lot of smoke, and orange flame coming off the water. Then I saw three people in the water.”

Troy Berger said, ‘Local kids saw it. They said it was a commercial flare. They said they saw bubbles where the boat went down.”

Cassie Burrow, of Olson’s Resort, used binoculars to sight the fire.

“I saw it out the window, real close to shore,” said Burrow. “You could see a big huge ball of fire and smoke trailing off to the right. I called the Coast Guard.”

Larry Brooks, standing overlooking the Sekiu breakwater, said, “I saw two men with binoculars watching and so was the lady inside. There was no flame but what else could make that amount of smoke?”

Back at Slip Point, a Coast Guard search boat scudded around the bay, searching for any evidence of a sunken vessel.

Bryden asked, “Was it possible the people in Sekiu saw us three?” referring to himself, Palumbo and Aldana. “The flare was in the water about fifteen yards off the beach. We watched it burn.”

EMT team leader Gene Laes, watching his team walk the Slip Point beach, said, “Three or four people said they saw smoke, and then a boat that disappeared.”

Coast Guard BM-1 Brenden Conny said, “At this point, it’s a flare, according to the report from the EMT.”

A Coast Guard Dolphin helicopter arrived and circled the bay several times before leaving the area.

Cassie Burrow later said that, considering the colors and smoke, she and others were beginning to agree that what they had seen was a very large flare.

Two large red flares were shot off by non-professionals on the beach during the Neah Bay fireworks display. Dan Barr, who served in Vietnam, said they looked familiar.

“When I heard them, I flashed back to what we’d used in Vietnam,” said Barr. “They looked like military flares.”

“That covers a lot of different types of flares,” added Barr.

Barr said that he’d been in the back room of his house when he heard a pop, as though from a firework, about 10:30 on Thursday.

“It was pretty loud. I thought it was echoing off Bear Kill ridge behind us,” he said. “Our cat turned and looked at the same moment I did.”

Renee Duncan, who lives on Slip Point, shook her head and said, “This is why people should never use emergency flares except for emergencies. This will cost a lot.”

Several days later, Dan and I found a blown flare body on the beach near the Clallam Bay bridge.  Photo above.

Folks want to put in a bio-fuel plant up here.  It will run on wood waste from logging.  They say it will attract tourists who will see it as a green-friendly move.

But how will those tourists come up here if they have to drive by the clear-cuts that provide the wood waste?

Anybody who thinks that green dollars will be spent on logging museums has not been doing their homework.  The kind of tourists who come out to see forests do not view them as a monoculture “crop.”  They view them as ecosystems. 

Ecosystems are far too complicated for humans to deal with over long term, at least in monocultural terms.  Cropping sees alders as competative “weeds” and poisons them out.  Ecosystems require the alders as the nitrogen pump that will support the future wood crop.  Ecosystems pump oxygen back into the massive planetary air system — a system far too vast and complicated for us to control or provide for.

Cropping = short term.  Ecosystem = long term.

Or, to put it in generational terms:

“I only care about my own livlihood.” vs. “Where are my grandkids going to live?”

Ecosystem tourism no more wants to visit a museum of frontier logging than they want to see the history of the buffalo hunts — except as a planetary mistake.  If people want those green dollars they’re just going to have to accept that those are histories that will not attract a living. 

Because the people who don’t care about the green are the people who can live with nothing but concrete.

Sequim, anyone?

(While I’m at it, I’ll note that, as the child of a paper-mill town, fermenting wood stinks to high heaven, and the massive chemical influx sends out fumes that peel paint off the walls.  Fermentation-mill towns are not tourism towns.  They stink, they need masses of water — which we’re already short of — and they will knock health costs through the roof.  THINK.  RESEARCH. FIND OUT FIRST.

Oh, and as a artist and publisher:  wood paper is the crappiest paper on the planet.  And not just for the high acid count.  It’s only useful for toilet paper.  That’s right — we’re flushing our oxygen-production system down the crapper, along with our water.)

PLLLEEEEEZE all the white people stop the argument about “legal” or “illegal” aliens.

It’s EMBARRASSING.

Most of the “illegal” aliens are part native peoples.  Their ancestors were on this continent a lot longer than ours.

My first white ancestors got here in 1632.  We were totally illegal.  We stole everything in sight.  Later on, we set up that Ellis Island thing and convinced the rest of you gullible newbies that you had to go through us to be “legal.”  You might as well have gotten passports from the mafia.  My later ancestors fell for the legal/illegal thing, too.  But then, the early thieves were English and the later applicants weren’t.  The English can always fool the Swedes, or, in my case, the Germans.

And please stop arguing about legal/illegal in the local papers.  Or claiming you’ve been here for 3 years longer than the other white guy.  I can just hear the Makah and Quilleute laughing their butts off at us.  Rueful laughter, but laughter all the same.  Jeeze, I have to pass these people in the mini-marts.

Stop making us look like bigger idiots than we already are.

“That airport is more than just a ribbon of fragile asphalt.”

Robert McChesney, executive director with the Port Angeles Port Authority, made that statement when he addressed the noon speaker meeting of the Clallam Bay/Sekiu Chamber of Commerce, held in the Sekiu Community Center, Wednesday, March 11.

He was referring to the Sekiu Municipal Airport, a small landing strip that provides fixed-wing and helicopter access for emergency flights, Gary Fernandes’s flight service, and fly-ins by government officials with business in Neah Bay, as well as Clallam Bay Correctional Facility personnel.

Also present was the new editor for the Forks Forum, Chris Cook, who introduced himself to the chamber. His background, from an isolated community in Hawaii, made him feel right at home in the West End.

McChesney said that most Port Authority activities are concentrated in central Clallam County. The Port Authority is advocating for a bioenergy project in Forks. It maintains the eastern part of the Boat Haven Marina reconstruction, which should begin in June to the tune of 7 million dollars. The Authority was involved in mediation with the Elwah Tribe over the Port Angeles graving yard. Its strategic projects menu covers sixty million dollars.

McChesney stated that the Sekiu airport loses funds consistently, at a rate of about $50,000 over five years. This is manageable, but the Port Authority has not figured out a way to make improvements. The airport, originally built and maintained by Arlen Olsen, of Olsen’s Resort in Sekiu, suffers from surface drainage problems. McChesney said preliminary engineer studies said this problem could not be rectified without a new subsurface bed and drainage restructure.

Olsen has said he could donate equipment and time if the Port could supply materials.

McChesney said that the Port had always cooperated to maintain the airport. There had been a discussion about chip-sealing the surface, which remains brittle due to subsurface instability and a hydrology that undermines the subgrade and needs to be re-directed.

“You can’t just put in a ditch around the airport,” said McChesney.

He emphasized that the Port needed to find out what it was in for, including requirements by the Department of Ecology.

The Federal Aviation Association will not fund maintenance for the airport, leaving it up to Washington State. The Port Angeles Port Authority loses up to a quarter million dollars per year for improvements, but this is funded by the FAA.

Pat Ness, chamber member, suggested partnering with private developers to put in ground leases for hangars. World-class fishing boats, that usually arrive behind vehicles after being towed from Bellingham or Seattle, could be stored locally. The airport could handle up to sixty such boat hangars.

“The Port acquired the property,” said McChesney. “We’re not sure how. But we wouldn’t simply sell it. We’re not going to profiteer from the airport.”

Chamber member Martin Brand said that the strongest reasons for maintaining the airport were homeland security and emergencies. Chamber member Pat Ness and Advisory Committee member Patti Adler both stressed that, in a major emergency, air flights, both fixed-wing and helicopter, would be the West End’s only means of maintaining vital links to the outside world.

“It’s life or death for us,” stressed Adler. “This area is in a critical situation. We just need one major disaster and we’d be in trouble.”

Ness pointed out that according to Jeff Rob, Port accountant, the airport requires $34,000 to operate, of which the Port receives $15,000 yearly in rental, and $13,000 in taxes, leaving a red balance of only $6,000.

“We can look for this money and we’d be happy to,” said Ness. “But we need real figures.”

The Chamber recently finished a grant to the Clallam County Economic Development Council to fund a program director for West End tourism, a position that would include locating and applying for more funds by a paid employee. The position is vital, since chamber members act as volunteers, and can’t take much time from their own jobs as business owners to put in full time employment finding grants. The entire chamber worked to bring in the grant well under deadline.

The Sekiu Fly-in, scheduled for the Memorial Day Weekend, brings in small planes from the west coast for an event luncheon. Ness joked that now the chamber is worried that the planes will come.

“You’re behind the eight ball,” said McChesney. “You have growing tourism and a declining airport.”

“The Port isn’t going to shut that airport down,” he said. “We’re not walking away from it.”

Ness said that the airport was not zoned as commercial, and that before any industry is approached to occupy the land, the airport be zoned for industrial use. This would preclude difficulties during future negotiations with companies.

Adler pointed out that box-store development was not a consideration or a worry, since it is not allowed by the State of Washington.

Some trees at the end of the airport block direct flight access, but chamber members agreed that could be rectified by judicious pruning or removal of select trees, after obtaining permission from private property owners.

Chris Cook, the Forks Forum’s new editor, introduced himself by describing his background in journalism in Hawaii and Idaho. He was accompanied by Jenine Howell, the Forum’s business manager, who was a great help during the paper’s difficult three months without an editor.

Cook remembers growing up on Kuwaii, in a climate that, while warmer, was even wetter than the West End, getting 460 inches of rain a year. Further in the mountains, at 5000 feet, the cooler air made the climate much more like Forks.

“I think of Clallam Bay being like the lee side of the island,” said Cook. “Forks is like the windward side. They’re like sister towns.”

Cook grew up around native Hawaiians, whose independence and interest in their own rich culture reminds him of West End tribes. As an islander, he understood the local concern for air contact.

An ardent surfer, Cook said that the area around Clallam Bay’s Slip Point reminded him of the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island.

“I want to tell my Hawaiian friends, don’t go to New Zealand – come out here!” said Cook.

Cook, who has worked with the film industry, said that the West End’s resemblance to the verdant tropics could be a lure to film projects.

“Try to protect what you have,” he said, referring to the West End’s magnificent natural resources.

Pat Ness said Cook would just have to come back to the tourism committee meetings and brainstorm.

Kathleen Haney, president of the West End Youth and Community Club, provided an excellent chicken dinner, for a $7.00 donation to cover costs.

Yesterday we placed a stunned surf scoter next to the hollow end of a log on the beach.

Today, near the same place, we disturbed an ancient gull sleeping on the sun-warmed pebbles of the beach.  He was weak, hunched, ragged of feather and sunken of eye, obviously at the end of his days.  He limped further up the beach, and settled in almost in the same spot where the scoter had rested.

A young eagle flying over startled the old gull into skittering into the scoter hollow.   Protected, warm in the sun, he drifted off to sleep.  He was still soundly asleep (but for the occasional head twitch) when we walked quietly by an hour later.

If the only thing we can hope for in common — the only thing that can happen to us all — is a good death, that bird could do worse.

Well, I’m probably the only person you know who’s picked up and carried a live surf scoter.

Yesterday it was brilliantly sunny.  We gave up trying to think or work inside and headed out for a long walk on the Clallam Bay beach. 

Dan spotted a black thing rolling around in surf.  It was a fat, healthy-looking sleek black male surf-scoter, in full breeding plumage, but very limp.

Alive or dead, we pick up floating animals and get them away from the surf.  If they’re dying, at least they won’t have drowning to deal with.  Then we go away, because nobody wants a predator hanging over them as they die.  If they’re dead, it’s just a dignity thing.  If we do it for animals, maybe somebody will do it for us.  What goes around comes around; the only heaven we’ve got (and the only hell — make nice to get nice).

I reached down and closed my fingers around the bird — and it startled awake.  Now I had a live surf-scoter in my hands, but still very limp, head dangling.

Heavy, sleek, soft, warm — reminded me more of a mammal than a bird.  I turned him over and carried him up the beach, and settled him under the end of a log, in the sun.  The wind was cold, but any sun would quickly heat up those black feathers.

As we walked away, we looked back with binoculars and saw the bird woozily raising his head.  When we’d walked a little farther, we saw that he’d settled his feet more comfortably under him, and was more in control of his neck.

We were gone for about an hour, but when we came back, he was gone.  No blood, no feathers, no sign of a struggle.  No bird floating in the water.

Scoters feed on shellfish by diving hard and swimming in the roughest water.  We think he’d stunned himself on one of the old piling butts in the surf.  When I put my long gripping claw-like split paws around him, we think I set off a response to a predator, and it was like a shot of adrenalin to his heart, waking him up.  At least that’s what it looked like. 

And it was neat, picking up a wild wet bird.

If you weren’t at the Clallam Bay Dragon Dance, you missed a real Northern Exposure moment.

40 folks showed up, with plenty of noisemakers.  The dinner afterwards was a feast of fancy Chinese dishes.

 The dragon awakened beautifully.  Also check out Other Films By This User for three more videos.

 Jane heilman poses with the head of the dragon she built with her husband terry for the New Year’s dragon parade, celebrating the Year of the Boar, Sunday, February 18, starts at dusk at Sue’s Gallery at 16732 Highway 112, Clallam Bay, WAshington, USA

Community members are encouraged to bring noise-makers – Including DRUMS! — and invited to contribute to and enjoy a Chinese potluck at the Winter-Summer Inn, 17615 Highway 112, Clallam Bay; drop off dishes before the parade.   AND to volunteer to be dragon legs!

The new owners of the winter-summer Inn, Hwai-Kee Tsiang and his wife, Sandy, will provide Chinese music CD’s.

Business owners are encouraged to invite the dragon to dance before their doors, in the spirit of health, happiness and prosperity for 2007.

For information call Kathleen Haney at 360 963 2220.