Woo-Hoo!

Old news, I'm sure, but I had to post the 30Rock version of Gladys Knight and the Pips:

Happy 4th!

Here is the lost video footage of a 4th of July at Lake Herman, oh so many years ago. Each year, the people who live near the lake get together and put on their own parade. In a counterintuitive move this particular year, the theme was "All the Other Holidays!"

Unfortunately my memory is as blurry as the video resolution, so I can't make out the theme of every float. The first few are confusing but after the guy walking the dog there seems to be the heart covered box denoting Valentine's day, followed by the Grim Reaper driving a tractor with a wagon filled with babies. Next is an Easter Bunny, but I have no idea what the float after that is commemorating...there seems to be a flag on it, so I assume it must be Flag Day. After the Thanksgiving Turkey, we see my personal favorite...an emaciated Santa hanging by his wrists in a pumpkin patch. The penultimate float seems to be another tribute to Flag day (why do the people of Madison love flag day so?) Our hosts tell us that the guy in the cowboy hat at the very end usually figures out a reason to dress in drag for every parade...for reasons that remain unclear, he decided to 'butch-up' for this parade. (I can only imagine that the overall quality of the celebration suffered because of it.)

I know that I was not alone in witnessing this 'live and in person.'' So if Roxy can remember any more details from this fine day, please elaborate in the comments section!

VLP Poetry Reading and Slam featuring Lindy Obach

Join us for the Vermillion Literary Project Poetry Reading featuring Lindy Obach, followed by a POETRY SLAM, a competition for poets, Thursday, June 25, at 7 p.m., at the Coffee Shop Gallery, 24 W. Main Street, downtown Vermillion. Everyone is welcome; the event is free.

Just come up and watch (and enjoy good coffee), or if you have three poems you've written that you'd like to read, you can participate in the slam. Prizes awarded! For more information about VLP poetry slams, visit http://orgs.usd.edu/projlit/poetryslams.html .

About our featured writer: Lindy Obach teaches English courses at the University Center in Sioux Falls. She is also a Dakota Writing Project teacher-consultant.

Gluteal Cleft

On the far side of living the life of "quiet desperation" and near the rung of Mountain Odebt lives the rest of the world - a land often of no ideas and no means. The problem today is not that there is a divide or that the divide persists. The problem is cheek one is sinking and cheek two never got clear. The closer we are together, the closer we are to catastrophe - at least in the aural sense. Answers are easy. Solutions are easy. Action is not. That the "global" group is changing isn't helpful, some of them need to stay home and do some reading. The ones that never left are going to be left again on the stained cheek of the world's sphincter. Where did evil start? Where did the concept of liberty become construed for some and not all? When did we stop living in a world where the cult of personality was subjugated into the cult of celebrity? Whatever it was, I am sure Boomers are to blame, but that won't achieve anything. The time is now to leave all that behind and climb back out of the asscrack of the world.

The creation of Evil

Too often today superlatives in disguise are on display in journalism -- things are the best or worst they have been in five, ten or fifty years. Our Veterans are dying at a greater pace than ever noted before. Healthcare is skyrocketing.

It would seem that we cannot live without having discerned first if what we are living is worth living. Nothing of the sort is true. At the same time all these things might be true. Veterans are dying, but we are reaching the end of the generation that served in WWII - 600,000 people overseas and countless more within the states. Vietnam era Service Men and women are also dying, but there are chronic medical claims still attached to some of those things which I will not comment on.

What concerns me now is the underground god seekers. These are not the Jesus-freaks of the 80's and 90's. These are people with the sole purpose of living a godly life. Of course all their ideas are easily refuted and easily demonstrated as cult guided idiocy.

However, I am also reminded that government is a cult. This is fact in one sense, government's sole obligation is to protect our liberties - at least in the United States (and they do a poor job of that about 45% of the time, I would say.) Instead of accomplishing that task our government is the slave of parties and money.

How did we ever end up here? I think now that one day a man, and it was a paternalistic society then, walked by a tree and was startled by the shadow of a bird that was cast at his feet. That was the genesis of a winged Satan and probably nothing more. Evil was born during a garden walk. We are living the idiotic effects of that event to this day; the religion or the politics of fear.

life is a story

sometimes we get to write the story and sometimes we have to live the story first and tell it later -- economics, politics and religion have only a secondary play in these things.

Where is everyone

Where is everyone...what is everyone doing...have you all defected to Facebook. Here is an update from Topeka. I'm currently watching a rerun of House on USA. It rained today. Been eating lettuce from the garden. Grilled a salmon which was good to eat on the salads. Still collecting seeds for the Seed Bank at Kew Gardens. Farmers market is consuming me on Saturdays. I got a new laptop and now have to buy upgrades for my software to run on vista. I'm not a big fan of change. Spent a bunch of money on my truck because of sensors needing replacing. Selling handmade paper products at the Tallgrass Preserve gift shop and working for the preserve collecting seeds for a bottomland restoration. Thats the excitement from Topeka.