We Aint Fakin

I said come on over baby
we got chicken in the barn
Whose barn?
What barn?
My barn
Well you can come along over
Baby got the bull by the horns
We ain't fakin'
whole lotta shakin' goin' on

(D. Williams, R. Hall)


Scientists find growing land bulge in Oregon


By Teresa Carson

Fri Sep 9, 7:04 PM ET

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - A large, slow-growing volcanic bulge in Eastern Oregon is attracting the attention of seismologists who say that the rising ground could be the beginnings of a volcano or simply magma shifting underground.

Scientists said that the 100 square-mile (260 sq-km) bulge, first discovered by satellite, poses no immediate threat to nearby residents.

"It is perfectly safe for anyone over there," said Michael Lisowski, geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.

The bulge is rising at a rate of about 1.4 inches per year, according to a report issued by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The bulge is located in a sparsely populated area 3 miles
southwest of South Sister, a mountain 25 miles west of Bend, Oregon.

Lisowski said the unnamed bulge was created because of a big cavity, estimated to be about 4.5 miles below the surface, that is filling with fluid.

The fluid is likely magma, but could also be water. It was described in the report as a lake 1 mile across and 65 feet deep.

The bulge is a bare patch of land with no residents, and anyone in the area would not be able to see, feel or smell anything, seismologists said.

South Sister is one of three volcanic peaks called The Three Sisters, which are part of the Cascade mountain range. The range includes four of the 18 most active volcanoes in the United States, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The South Sister probably erupted last time about 2,000 years ago, seismologists said.

Further north, the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens killed 57 people, destroyed at least 230 square miles of forest and spewed ash for hundreds of miles.

Mount St. Helens has rumbled back to life recently, spitting lava, rocks and ash, but has not had another big eruption.

A lava dome is growing in the huge crater created in Mount St. Helens, but that event appears to be unrelated to the South Sister bulge, seismologists said.

"Growth of the new lava dome inside the crater of Mount St. Helens continues, accompanied by low rates of seismicity, low emissions of steam and volcanic gases, and minor production of ash," the U.S. Geological Survey said in a daily report.

Scientists said they would continue to monitor the bulge, most likely over a number of years.

"We haven't seen anything like this in the Cascade range," Lisowski says, "although we have only been looking in the last 20 years."


There's a headless chicken
stalking through the backyard
with a talkin cockatoo
Three sisters got their eye on you
and things ain't always what they seem
And everyday here's friday the thirteenth

Watch out kid best turn around
somebody's blood's boiling underground
Soon they'll cut a Stick
and run ya through
the middle of Madtown!

FEMA -- Female Emergency Matriarchal Army

"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."



well, of COURSE!

business-as-usual in the Matriarchy. . .

MUCH more important to keep them Uppity Males in line than to rescue injured and dying people!

after all, those flood-victims will only be around awhile -- whereas The Matriarchy is Forever, baybee!!

hear them roar!

like a thousand hurricane-trains bearing down on the West!

like a hundred million Screams of Empowerment!

and in every hurricane's eye, i hear their battle cry:

ME! ME!! ME!!!

Frustrated: Fire crews to hand out fliers for FEMA

By Lisa RosettaThe Salt Lake Tribune

-->


Firefighters endure a day of FEMA training, which included a course on sexual harassment. Some firefighters say their skills are being wasted.

(Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune)

ATLANTA - Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: "What are we doing here?" As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters - his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week - a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta. Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.

Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA. On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency. Federal officials are unapologetic.

"I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country," said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak. The firefighters - or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to come to Atlanta - knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.

"The initial call to action very specifically says we're looking for two-person fire teams to do community relations," she said. "So if there is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own departments."

One fire chief from Texas agreed that the call was clear to work as community-relations officers. But he wonders why the 1,400 firefighters FEMA attracted to Atlanta aren't being put to better use. He also questioned why the U.S. Department of Homeland Security - of which FEMA is a part - has not responded better to the disaster.

The firefighters, several of whom are from Utah, were told to bring backpacks, sleeping bags, first-aid kits and Meals Ready to Eat. They were told to prepare for "austere conditions." Many of them came with awkward fire gear and expected to wade in floodwaters, sift through rubble and save lives.

"They've got people here who are search-and-rescue certified, paramedics, haz-mat certified," said a Texas firefighter. "We're sitting in here having a sexual-harassment class while there are still [victims] in Louisiana who haven't been contacted yet."

The firefighter, who has encouraged his superiors back home not to send any more volunteers for now, declined to give his name because FEMA has warned them not to talk to reporters.


On Monday, two firefighters from South Jordan and two from Layton headed for San Antonio to help hurricane evacuees there. Four firefighters from Roy awaited their marching orders, crossing their fingers that they would get to do rescue and recovery work, rather than paperwork.

"A lot of people are bickering because there are rumors they'll just be handing out fliers," said Roy firefighter Logan Layne, adding that his squad hopes to be in the thick of the action. "But we'll do anything. We'll do whatever they need us to do."

While FEMA's community-relations job may be an important one - displaced hurricane victims need basic services and a variety of resources - it may be a job best suited for someone else, say firefighters assembled at the Sheraton.

"It's a misallocation of resources. Completely," said the Texas firefighter. "It's just an under-utilization of very talented people," said South Salt Lake Fire Chief Steve Foote, who sent a team of firefighters to Atlanta. "I was hoping once they saw the level of people . . . they would shift gears a little bit." Foote said his crews would be better used doing the jobs they are trained to do. But Louis H. Botta, a coordinating officer for FEMA, said sending out firefighters on community relations makes sense. They already have had background checks and meet the qualifications to be sworn as a federal employee. They have medical training that will prove invaluable as they come across hurricane victims in the field.

A firefighter from California said he feels ill prepared to even carry out the job FEMA has assigned him. In the field, Hurricane Katrina victims will approach him with questions about everything from insurance claims to financial assistance.

"My only answer to them is, '1-800-621-FEMA,' " he said. "I'm not used to not being in the know."

Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie said his crews would be a "little frustrated" if they were assigned to hand out phone numbers at an evacuee center in Texas rather than find and treat victims of the disaster. Also of concern to some of the firefighters is the cost borne by their municipalities in the wake of their absence. Cities are picking up the tab to fill the firefighters' vacancies while they work 30 days for the federal government. "There are all of these guys with all of this training and we're sending them out to hand out a phone number," an Oregon firefighter said.

"They [the hurricane victims] are screaming for help and this day [of FEMA training] was a waste."

Firefighters say they want to brave the heat, the debris-littered roads, the poisonous cottonmouth snakes and fire ants and travel into pockets of Louisiana where many people have yet to receive emergency aid.

But as specific orders began arriving to the firefighters in Atlanta, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew's first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas. lrosetta@sltrib.com



president bush IS the "devastated area"

here's an etymology on Katrina from the site Behind the Name

KATHERINE

Gender: Feminine Usage: English Pronounced: KATH-u-rin, KATH-rin

From the Greek name Αικατερινη (Aikaterine). The etymology is debated: it could derive from the earlier Greek name ‘Εκατερινη (Hekaterine), which came from ‘εκατερος (hekateros) "each of the two"; it could derive from the name of the goddess HECATE; it could be related to Greek αικια (aikia) "torture"; or it could be from a Coptic name meaning "my consecration of your name"....

Hecate is the uber-Witch of Greek "mythology," and her association with torture here is noteworthy

Hecate was never incorporated in the classical Greek pantheon, but remained a goddess of womens' religions -- i.e., a deity associated with ritual/blood magic and the earlier matriarchal religions, which the Greeks, understandably, did not want poisoning and commandeering Olympus

The Force of Dreams Betrayed

this excerpt is from a 1986 interview by Michael Ventura with "science fiction" author Steve Erickson, and is extremely relevant to the problems plaguing modern America:



PHANTASMAL AMERICA BY MICHAEL VENTURA
From The L.A. Weekly, August 29 - September 4, 1986

Erickson’s style echoes the approach of a character in Norman Mailer’s story The Man Who Studied Yoga: “He does not want to write a realistic novel because reality is no longer realistic.” A literary descendant of Faulkner, Henry Miller and Philip K. Dick, rather than of Hemingway and the literalists who followed him, Erickson tells a story by re-creating the essence of the world rather than describing its surfaces. Rubicon Beach, in its first part, gives us a Los Angeles in which a wide river passes through downtown, a Los Angeles of deserted buildings and noisy waterfront bars where a few remaining citizens travel by boat on canals, and where Hancock Park is an island populated by whores. This Los Angeles is an annex of America Two, where people who remember America One are arrested as subversives.

But this isn’t the future. In Part Two we see that the Los Angeles of Part One exists just under the surface of the present, in our nightmares and in our mistakes. It is an L.A. and an America that are already quite alive, in inner life rather than daily life.

Then, in Part Three, this is all taken frighteningly further. In elegant, intricate plot twists the characters realize that they have come together under the auspices of “a dream that destroys what is not fulfilled.

What an idea. What a force loose in the world. I have never seen it expressed with such precision. To have a dream -- as individuals, as lovers, or as a country -- is to subject yourself to the law that your very dream will reach out to destroy you if you fail its demands. Erickson is saying that this is a plight not only of America today, but of the 20th century itself. Our society is being demolished from within by the force of the dreams it has betrayed.



like individuals, nations and cultures make certain agreements when they come into being, and as Erickson understands, America is unconditionally bound by its stated principles and values, which have the force of "natural law"

when the nation contradicts its own deepest aspirations and dreams, it begins to implode like Manhatten at Ground Zero

in the Old Testament, for example, we see the same collective, self-fulfilling drama played out between God and Israel (or, if one wishes, between the natural law of projected collective consciousness, and a tribal proto-nation)

put alternately, ancient Israel -- exactly like modern America -- "mapped" its own destiny, and then was obliged, in very real and often traumatic ways, to live their collective dreams out, with "Yahweh" acting as a kind of National Judge

but unlike individual "mortal" judges, Yahweh could not be bribed or intimidated or unduly influenced, because he was the accurate, unexpurgated reflection of the Hebrew people, rising up through the unconsciousness of their shared Dream into incarnation, going like a desert storm "before and behind them" (meaning, simultaneously and atemporally "dreaming up" Israel's collective future, while "sweeping up behind": holding them accountable for their actions)

America's stated ideals and Living Dream are demanding, and so America's "Yahweh" will likewise be