As some of you know, I’ve been pretty invisible here on The Pedestrian Crossing for the past 6 - 9 months.

Some of you told me you figured that was because I’d become enamored with Twitter and had decided to spend all my on-line time there.

While I indeed find Twitter an excellent place to write, read, and connect - Twitter isn’t why I haven’t been here.

I am fortunate to have a lovely creek bordering one side of my property. In 2008 I was delighted to learn that the creek was to be part of a 2009 project to remove barriers to migrating salmon. All I needed to do was give permission for the work to proceed.

There were of course many discussions with the Natural Resource Department about what land areas would be impacted and how the work would get done.

In the course of these discussions the opportunity arose for me to photograph the project at all 17 of its sites, which I most wholeheartedly pursued.

Over the next weeks & months I’ll do a series of posts about different aspects of this wonderful project.

I’ll share some of my project photos with you, I’ll include some of the things I’ve learned, and I’ll tell you a bit about the wonderful people I met. It would be great if you would let me know any questions you have, or if you are interested in any aspect of the work that I don’t seem to be covering. I’ll do my best to find & pass on the info you’re after.

For today, I’d like to share a video with you. It is about 11 minutes long, and was done by a local documentary film company to help the natural resource folks continue to obtain funding for this important work.

Speaking of funding, I want to tell you something I think is very important.

This work was funded almost entirely by grants from various organizations and by reparation monies from utility companies that placed hydroelectric dams on the big rivers in this area of Washington state.

The lion’s share of the $$ did not come out of taxpayer pockets, and it did not come from loans that must be repaid.

To my way of thinking, in these times of astronomical deficits and taxpayer funded bailouts it is important to highlight and encourage projects that benefit the planet, provide plentiful good-wage jobs, and do not increase our burden of debt. I believe this kind of watershed and habitat restoration work is important for the planet, the people on it, and our economies. I will continue to seek opportunities to contribute in any ways that I can.

Enjoy the video, I think it makes a nice introduction to the topic.

Oh, and I should mention that I appear in this video in a couple of places, in case you’re interested

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Chelan County Salmon Restoration from Howell at the Moon Productions on Vimeo.

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5 Comments »       (what is this?)

I’ve been wanting to write a post about my perspective on the current state of things in the US. But doing that has seemed like a rather insignificant gesture in the face of all that is cascading down around our ears.

And then Selma brought up an FDR quote in a comment she recently left, and so I wanted to look the quote up. And I found that the famous quote she referred to “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself” came from FDR’s inaugural address in 1933. Another rather inauspicious time in the US.

I had never read the text of this speech and so I did just now. And I found it pretty inspiring. And I realized that what I had to say about what was going on in the US now, couldn’t really be said much better than what I read in FDR’s speech.

Full disclosure? I think we’re headed down a misguided path by funneling more money into banking and failing multinationals.

I think that providing health care to every single citizen of this nation should be our first priority.

We want to free up innovation? We want people to go out there and champion new ideas for a greener world? We want business to be able to be profitable and pay their employees well?

Well, how about we provide health care to everyone so folks can stop working jobs solely because they need medical coverage and can choose to do the work they feel might really help the world. How about we provide medical coverage so that business is freed from that expense, and can focus on their actual business. How about we make it so the ability to get your teeth fixed and your bones set stops being a class privilege.

Yes, it will be expensive. Yes, taxes will go up. But, we’ll actually get something in return. Folks will be able to take their kids to the doctor when they are sick; they’ll be able to take themselves to the doctor for that annual physical they last had the cash for in 1992.

All of the banking and other corporate bailouts are mortgaging our futures to the tune of numbers I can’t even conceptualize, with little hope, and no promise of returning much of anything. Except more of the same things that got us here in the first place.

I think FDR said it much better than I ever could hope to.

…We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for…Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish…

…The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit…

…Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing…

…Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

[excerpting and emphasis mine]

You can read the full text of FDR’s speech here. And if you are interested some intelligent alternative view points on the bailout etc., my friend Lucio has put together an ever expanding series of excellent articles here.

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9 Comments »       (what is this?)

Hi folks - just a quick note on something I just saw. There is a trojan currently being spread via fake Obama websites. The link here is to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center article on this - please read for the scoop - it is very short and easy to understand.

Beware - links to these sites are being spread via email. An example of what such an email might look like is in the article linked above.

This all began a couple of days before the inaguration, but the article was updated most recently 22 Jan 09 so this thing is still a problem out there.

2 Comments »       (what is this?)

I’ve had an idea for using Twitter to do prompted writing for almost a year, and I’ve finally gotten it together. Many thanks to my friend & colleague JA for kicking my butt on this repeatedly over the last month.

Each day, Monday through Friday, I’m pulling a random word from the dictionary and posting it for writing responses.

You have 140 characters to put together a cogent piece of writing. Any kind of writing is fine of course, it just needs to make some sort of sense.

Working to such a tight character limit encourages every letter, space, and punctuation mark to really matter, to really be essential.

This is an excellent way to build writing muscle, vocabulary, and precise phrasing.

And I am having a heck of a good time with it, I must say.

You can read and participate via the following link. My screen name for this is poetwitter  poetwist and my real name (Kayt Hoch) is in my profile, as is my avatar.

Twitter is easy to sign up for and its free.

I hope to be twittering with you soon !

A couple of tips:

<<>> putting up your avatar or some image is really useful for people who are following you

<<>> the phone setup (if you want to update via your phone) requires your country code (without zeros) in front of your phone number for it to work right

15 Comments »       (what is this?)

Hey - it’s 2009

And I want to say a heartfelt thanks to all my new blogging friends and send each and everyone of you my best for a joyous, peaceful, and prosperous new year.

Thanks for all the great conversations, writing, artwork, and most of all inspiration - I am honored to share this space with you!

I’m not one for resolutions, and I’ve long since gotten over staying up all night and then dozing over the toilet bowl on the first day of the new year, but there is something fresh feeling about putting up a new calendar and taking a moment to pause and think about new directions and adventures.

And on the topic of adventurous feeling things, I wanted to share this NASA image with you. The work these folks are doing is just so cool and new to me.

I pretty much thought antimatter was more or less a Star Trek fantasy, but apparently not.

This is an image of the Bullet Cluster.

And the image is made up of an image from the Chandra x-ray observatory, and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Magellan telescope in Chile.

As a digital image person just all that is cool enough to totally wow me, but read the excerpt below the image to find out what these folks are studying. This kind of stuff makes me want to jump on a star and get out there in person.

Man, just beam me up…

In this latest research effort, the Bullet Cluster was used to search for the presence of antimatter leftover from the very early universe. Antimatter is made up of elementary particles that have the same masses as their corresponding matter counterparts — protons, neutrons and electrons — but the opposite charges and magnetic properties.

[via NASA - Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/M.Markevitch et al. Optical: NASA/STScI; Magellan/U.Arizona/D.Clowe et al. ]

May your new year be filled with wonder, delight, and new discoveries.

Looking forward to exchanging more data bits with you in ‘09

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Selma over at SES posited this question as part of the writing prompt this week.

And it is a wonderful question.

An important and critical question for our world.

I believe that our global society is at a critical juncture. That we are living in a time of tremendous potential for humanity. That we are on a road to a better place.

Peace is possible, and each of us is essential to its unfolding.

That sounds pretty definitive. But I really believe it is true.

I believe the universe reflects back to us what we ourselves truly believe. Not what we wish we believed, or think we should believe, or say that we believe. What we actually believe. Deep down in our foundations.

Sometimes I think that sorting out what we actually believe, from what we’ve been told we should believe, or what we ourselves think is nice to believe can get a little confusing. But it can been done. We just need to look honestly at how we behave.

As the adage goes, actions do indeed speak louder than words.

You know exactly what I’m talking about. Actions say it all. They are real events. Tangible. Concrete.

(more…)

9 Comments »       (what is this?)