More Stuff

Here are some more things that may or may not interest you.

Movies - The Wizard of Oz is my favorite movie. It’s hard to name a second favorite, but West Side Story and Avatar are both contenders. Other favorites include Hatari, How the West was Won, Shenandoah and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Books - I was a bookworm when I was young. A couple early favorites that I recall are Shag: The Last of the Plains Buffalo (Robert McClung) and a book by Ernest Thompson Seton. I don’t recall the title, but I do recall a poem that I can’t even find on the Internet...

I very seldom read books these days. I’m just too busy working on my websites. When I was in college, Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac became my Bibles. Though both focus primarily on the environment, Desert Solitaire also helped instill a passion for politics in me.

While on a fishing boat in Alaska, I read Far From the Madding Crowd. I thought English classics would bore me to tears, but it turned out to be a very beautiful book. A Tale of Two Cities was another good book.

Nature books I’ve enjoyed include Cry of the Kalahari, No Picnic on Mt. Kenya and Jungle Cowboy (by South American naturalist and TV star Stanley Brock).

Two books that have had a major influence on me even though I haven’t read them are The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein) and The Motorcyle Diaries (Che Guevara). And one book I really want to read is Open Veins of Latin America (Eduardo Caleano).

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a lot of fun, The Little Prince very touching and provocative. I’m also a fan of just about anything by Dr. Seuss.

In researching a series of articles about bachata (a music and dance genre from the Dominican Republic), I read Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music by Deborah Pacini Hernandez. That was the last book I read.

Music - I grew up listening to Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, The 5th Dimension, Glen Campbell and other 60s pop stars. For some reason, I didn’t really listen to rock that much until I joined the Navy. It was in Newfoundland that I fell in love with The Moody Blues. I later began to enjoy jazz as much as rock, maybe even more.

My music tastes changed dramatically just a year or two ago. I now probably listen to Latin music about 95% of the time, primarily Latin jazz and dance music (salsa, cha-cha-cha, bachata, samba, etc.). I also love Andean music. Sergio Mendes’ version of Mas Que Nada was my favorite Latin song for a long time, but I now have too many favorites to count - including several versions of Mas Que Nada and The Girl from Ipanema.

My favorite inspirational songs include Children of Sanchez (Chuck Mangione), Freedom Theme (from the movie Braveheart), Song of the Volga Boatman (The Red Army Choir), The Roads to Moscow (Al Stewart), Indian Drums (Johnny Cash) and Shenandoah (especially the version by the AMA Choir). Indian Drums has become sort of a personal ballad, with its connection with both education and West Dakota.

However, I still enjoy all kinds of music - even some country music. (Johnny Cash, Sonny James and Glen Campbell are among my favorite country stars.) In fact, Latin music has made me appreciate non-Latin music even more.

Dance - I haven’t really learned to dance and probably never will...at least not unless I get to visit some place with a real Latin dance scene, like Puerto Rico or Cuba. However, I’ve taken salsa, cha-cha-cha and bachata classes and enjoy all three. If I was younger, I’d also take classes in ballet, modern dance, etc.

Sports - Hockey is probably my favorite team sport, with soccer a close second. I’ve always hated baseball, football and basketball, and I hate them even more after witnessing the endless pro sports corruption here in Seattle.

However, I almost never watch sports. Watching hockey was fun when I lived in Newfoundland, but it isn’t popular here on the West Coast. I watch the World Cup soccer games every four years, and that’s about it. (I HATE the Seattle Sounders soccer team, whose members wear jerseys that advertise Microsoft’s Xbox. What’s THAT all about?!)

Mountain climbing is an awesome sport or hobby. I’ve only climbed a few mountains, but they’re all memorable: Mt. Rainier, Mt. Baker (a technical climb, using an ice axe), Mauna Loa, Mt. Kenya (though not to the summit) and a nameless peak in Alaska’s Brooks Range that I climbed about midnight.

Food - I like just about everything dark - dark chocolate, dark chicken meat (or pheasant, which is even darker) and imported dark beer. My favorite fruits are probably peaches, strawberries and watermelons (though melons are popularly regarded as vegetables). My favorite vegetable is sweet corn.

I don’t have a lot of experience with foreign food, but I’ve become a big fan of Thai food in recent years. I also love Mexican food.

I’m not a vegetarian, but I don’t eat an awful lot of meat, for a number of reasons. Like many people, I eat way too much ice cream.

Drink - OK, I’ll confess: I’ve been drunk three times in my life - twice in the Navy and once in college.

In fact, I couldn’t stand alcohol when I was growing up. Now I enjoy an occasional glass of wine or dark beer. I don’t think I’ve ever drank more than one beer at a time in my life. I love kahlua and milk.

But I usually drink non-alcoholic beverages.

Hobbies - None to speak of; at the moment, I spend almost all my free time working on my websites.

Quotes - “A revolution without dance is a revolution not worth having”

Actually, there are many inspirational quotes to choose from. One of my favorites is “A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government” (Edward Abbey). Another gem from Abbey: “Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Another cool quote I discovered just recently: “A bayonet is a weapon with a worker at both ends.”

From Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” And from Chief Sealth: “All things are connected.”

There are so many to choose from, I just added a new Quotes section to my Politix website. I may add similar sections to other Geobop websites as well.

Animals - I can’t really name a favorite animal. I’ve long thought of the wolverine as a symol of the northern wilderness, so seeing one was one of the highlights of my trips to Alaska. An encounter with a polar bear - another amazing animal - was also memorable. Other exciting encounters in Alaska include a couple whales trapped in a hole in the ice near Barrow, a white wolf that was walking towards me until it smelled me when it was less than fifty yards away, and an arctic weasel that was so fearless I was able to follow it for a ways as it prowled the tundra.

The highlight of my visit to Maruata was probably a leatherback sea turtle nesting on the beach one night. I’ll never forget the sight of green sea turtles bobbing in the surf during the day, waiting until the cool of the night to come ashore.

Africa...where do I begin? I almost stepped on a leopard just above tree line on Mt. Kenya. It ran away from us so fast we barely got a glimpse of it. I also remember the sunbirds - similar to New World hummingbirds - that mistook red coats for flowers. Higher on the mountain, we discovered the slopes littered with white butterflies. Apparently, a cloud of butterflies either flew or was blown to a high altitude, where the cold killed them; someone told me it was literally snowing butterflies.

Brushes with Death - I’m not a thrill seeker, but I love adventure, and a little danger does make life a little more exciting. I’ve been temporarily lost at least four times - once in a blizzard on the Arctic Ocean, twice in the fog in the Aleutian Islands and once in a dense forest laced with winding river channels in the interior of Alaska. I was alone the last three times, which made it even scarier.

A brown bear ripped my tent open during my first backpacking trip in Alaska. Fortunately, I wasn’t in the tent at the time. A polar bear approached me and a companion near Barrow, Alaska one day, but we scared it away with a few gun shots.

But my closest call in Alaska came when a careless helicopter pilot started bird watching when he should have been flying. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion and everything turned black. It quickly got light again, and we saw the problem: He had flown into a tree. Fortunately, it was dead; the rotors chopped right through it, blacking out the sky with sawdust. Amazingly, the copter was undamaged, and we just flew away.

I had several close calls while I was a student pilot - three or four on one cross-country trip alone.

But the only time I’ve been clinically close to death was when four men attacked me on the way to work and kicked me in the head. I woke up in intensive care with bleeding in my brain. Amazingly, I walked out of the hospital the next day. I believe the attack politically motivated, but that’s another story.

Heroes - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is probably my greatest living hero. I respect just about anyone who believes in something bigger than themselves - that is, people who care about a cause that helps other people.

Other heroes include Che Cuevara, Fidel Castro, Evo Morales, Eugene Debs, Helen Keller, Malcolm X, Smedley Butler, Edward Abbey, George McGovern, Paul Wellstone, Crazy Horse, John Ledyard and Spartacus.

Religious Beliefs - I’m spiritual.

Political Affiliation - Radically Independent

Favorite Political Article - Well, my favorite political article focusing on Seattle is probably the classic Who REALLY Runs Seattle? Another favorite is The Olchefske Files. Just trying to count the scandals and conspiracies mentioned in the article is a challenge. As a bonus, the article itself is part of a conspiracy (the Seattle Weekly, which published both articles, is very corrupt) - and it mentions me. :)

Writing Accomplishments - I’ve self-published two books, (IR)Rational Parks and Teacher With an Attitude. I’ve also had a few magazine articles published. The most exciting was a series of articles about Montana’s state symbols published in Montana Magazine during that state’s Centennial.

I even had a contract for a series of books about Fossils of the 50 States with a major publisher, Lerner. Unfortunately, they cheated me so bad, I felt I had no choice but to back out.

Now I do virtually all of my writing on the Internet, via my websites, blogs and Facebook. Over the years, my sites have been viewed by tens of thousands of people.

Other Cool Experiences - I took a tracking course from Tom Brown (aka “The Tracker”). Tracking animals is both an art and a science, with a little witchcraft thrown in. I will never be an accomplished tracker, but just learning the basics was a wonderful experience.

After I began working at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, I got a scholarship to England’s Jersey Zoo. From there, I went to Paris, where I spent a week.

After the late Seattle Schools superintendent John Stanford died of leukemia, I was quoted in the New York Times and USA Today. (I was Stanford’s biggest critic.)

While other people talk about creating a viable new political party, I’ve already founded one: The Fifth Republic Party. OK, it’s a clumsy attempt, but you have to start somewhere, right?

If I could live my life all over, what would I do different? - There are so many cool places to grow up! Imagine the cultural experiences one could enjoy growing up in New York City. Imagine what it would be like to grow up in the Alaska bush - or the African bush.

Yet West Dakota is a powerful place in its own right. I can’t imagine growing up anywhere else.

One major regret is all the time I wasted watching TV when I was young. And TV’s even worse today!

Things I’m really passionate about include physical fitness, music, dance, travel, languages and socio-political activism. So I wish I could have done more of those things while growing up. I’d exchange all the time I sat in front of the boob tube for dance and martial arts classes any day.

I’m very slowly learning Spanish on my own and would like to learn a little Portuguese as well. French is another language I’d love to learn. Sign language is cool, too. I’d like to travel to just about anywhere, but Latin America is probably tops on my list at the moment, because of my interest in both politics and Latin music.