WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
![[UPDATED ] Of Forest Fires and Portland Riots](https://americandigest.org/wp/wp-content/plugins/contextual-related-posts/default.png "[UPDATED ] Of Forest Fires and Portland Riots")
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
Gerard Van der Leun
Through the wild cathedral evening the rain unraveled tales
For the disrobed faceless forms of no position
Tolling for the tongues with no place to bring their thoughts
All down in taken-for-granted situations
Tolling for the deaf an’ blind, tolling for the mute
Tolling for the mistreated, mateless mother, the mistitled prostitute
For the misdemeanor outlaw, chased an’ cheated by pursuit
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
— Bob Dylan
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Delighted to spot my absolute favorite titanium trim hammer in Mr Wadsworth’s tool belt! Great minds and all. Sure seemed expensive at the time, well over a hunnie, but I’d get another without even batting an eye if I could. Ruger made it. If you ever see one, get it, I doubt they are even made any more.
I use Paslode cordless angled finish nailers
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Paslode-16-Gauge-Cordless-Lithium-Ion-Angled-Finish-Nailer-902400/203410132
and Ryobi cordless brad nailers
https://www.homedepot.com/p/RYOBI-ONE-18V-Cordless-AirStrike-18-Gauge-Brad-Nailer-Tool-Only-with-Sample-Nails-P320/203810823
cause I don’t have the luxury of taking all day to get stuff done.
Hammer: Stiletto FH10C
Different subject, just came thru the Bootleg fire in southern Oregon between Chiloquin or, and Lakeview Oregon, fires brutal,200;20 thousand acres, zero containment. At1700 I sat in on a meeting with the lake county Commissioner’s.
The fire bombers and helos in Lakeview have no JP4 fuel to fly suppression missions. Zero,ziltch, Alturas Ca has zero fuel, Modoc County,,, Cal Fire is supporting two large fires their, they can’t fly suppression missions with.
Bend has fuel but non to spare their battling huge fires outside of Sisters Or themselves.
If I understood it correctly, Oregon Air Guard Portland is heading south with 1 twin trailer. Which creates a different problem. Mil planes and these civy birds use a different style of fuel connection.
Watched the CET “single engine tankers” roll out each carrying 400 pounds/ retardant in the sump
tank. These look like crop dusters but sporting a turbo prop power plant. Appears USFS rules only allow JP “A “ Fuels,, not high octane small aircraft fuel now.
Very educational day for me, only went to help a friend redo a vacuum line in his C 185-
VI
The front entry needs leaded glass.
I want that guy to work on my house!!
Ghost, I used to work in, but not for, The Home Depot. A merch company looked after all the products in a department; my department was hardware, which included Paslode nailers. Since I was in the store 40 hours a week, I had trained the returns folks to call me when someone brought in a big ticket item that seemed used.
That day, it was a Paslode nailer, which uses butane explosions to drive the hammer. Solid, reliable and fairly light, since there was no cord or hose. The customer had a receipt from the previous day, and said this nailer wasn’t working.
The first thing I noticed was that the Torx screw heads on the body were packed with sawdust. That doesn’t happen in one day. Next, the code on the body told me it had been manufactured three years earlier. And of course, I could see the carbonization on the drive mechanism. I told the customer that this was not the tool purchased the day before, and no refund would be given.
The customer promptly pitched a fit, demanding a manager. I waited for the manager to arrive, and pointed out all of the things I had seen. The customer said it was probably one that had been sitting in the overhead for three years. I told him, no, there were six there right now and all were no older than six months.
For once a retail manager had some courage, and told the guy to get the hell out, and we would be holding on to the unit and receipt (so he couldn’t pull this at another store).
You should have seen what horribly abused wet/dry vacs were returned.