Over the next 25 days or so I'll be posting about my experience at RMI's Wilderness EMT (W-EMT) course. At over 200 hours of training the next few weeks will be packed and wonderful. I specifically chose RMI over NOLS for the intensity and backcountry aspects of their training. One of the criticism NOLS fans and other outdoor enthusiasts have made of RMI is that they specifically target those seeking careers in the Wilderness. I see this as one of their primary benefits. as they prepare you for the actualities of emergency situations in the backcountry.

Depending on how I come out of this training and after a few years working as a W-EMT I may seek training in a less industrialized setting. I know of several great programs that specialize specifically in preparing a W-EMT in the challenges such a setting provides.

But, for those of you who know me well, you could be asking yourself how I came to this place in my career journey. So, it all begins with a bit of personal history. I started out my college career seeking to join the ministry. Later as I struggled with the realities of such a decision I found myself moving toward academic professions. Perhaps I could be a good professor. . . but, here the realities of how boring such a job would be to me and that realization that my skills as simply a good student wouldn't sustain a career as a professor hit hard.

After transferring schools and tackling everything from English to Biogeochemistry, I found myself loving my Environmental Sciences classes more than I had all those other courses. However, I looked at the career options that a simple BA would afford and my mounting debt and felt that same sense of dissatisfaction and loss about my future. In many ways I was simply treading water; waiting for my eyes to see land or my feet to touch solid ground.

After a seriously bad start to what was looking to be a lousy academic semester I began seeing a counselor and a career counselor. It was through this time of personal growth and struggle I came across careers in the outdoor field. Where I once couldn't see myself doing any particular job for more than a few years, I could finally see myself being happy and content.

So, now I'm heading off to Washington state (just outside Mt Rainier National Park) to train as a W-EMT. After that, we'll just see. . .

The Smell

Yesterday around 4 o'clock my neighbor banged on my door and exclaimed, "Did you smell that awful stink the past few days?" I hesitated, as she is prone to over react about things, and said I had -- thinking to myself that I'd mentioned to my girlfriend a few days earlier that it smelled like the sewer may have backed up in the basement again. "They found a dead body next door," she blurted out as we walked into her apartment, which overlooks the backyard on the northern side of the building. "The cops have been here for about an hour," she explained shakily. "I was getting ready to go swimming but was waiting for my friends so I walked next door to chat with the neighbors," she continued a little more in control of her voice. "I asked when the mail usually comes, to the guy who was sitting on the front porch reading a magazine; and he was like, 'Our neighbor found a dead body in the shed,'" now her voice beginning to crack with stress.

The neighbor I've never really liked because of his holier-than-thou attitude and the loud parties he's thrown throughout the year, which are invariably busted for underage drinking and noise violations, had stumbled across a dead body hanging in a shed behind our houses. The two homes which have been converted into apartments share the same back yard and both houses walk through the yard to take out trash. The shed is no more than 15 feet away from their house and perhaps 30 feet from ours. Everyone had noticed the smell. It was pungent and smelled of decay; a distinct odor. An odor I will not soon forget.

"Oh my god! This isn't right. This is wrong. I wish I could just hit the rewind button and be in that place I was earlier today," my neighbor's voice now breathless and on the verge of crying exclaimed. With a strange and morbid curiosity my first instinct was to go grab my camera. Now with her full body shaking she begins to wail. Wrapping my arms around her I do my best to comfort her. "Just this morning I was like, Melissa, that smell kept waking me up as it kept wafting into my room all night with my windows open. Like something had died outside or something..." she trails off into fits and starts of full body wailing. "You don't know, I have this thing with death... you have no idea," she tearfully tries to explain. Her small frame wracked with the stress of the situation on her state of mind.

It is clear from her reaction that she's never dealt with death in any personal way. She rambled about seeing things like this in the movies and on TV but it being completely different when it is "in your fucking backyard!" Having lost relatives to old age, acquaintances to suicide, and a good friend to the war in Iraq -- smelling the dead body of a complete stranger in my backyard was more interesting than devastating. After getting her to calm down and drink some cold water I talked to her boyfriend and to her friends on the phone and waited with her until they arrived.

The entire time I was there the main thought was not with my friend who was in need of my help, she was receiving the best I could give her, but with the scene just outside our walls and a few feet away. Her friends arrive to go swimming, oblivious to the situation and barge in with their usual hippie-esque zeal for friends, and are physically stopped by the sight of their friend half sitting on the ratty love-seat in the living room clearly wracked with emotional turmoil. She begins to haphazardly walk around the apartment trying to regain control by getting things together and making plans "to live tonight." "I'm closing all the windows.... turn on the air conditioner..." she half demands to no one in particular in the living room. I go around closing windows and turn on the air. Her boyfriend arrives and as soon as I was confident she was in good hands I left to see if I could get a glimpse of what was going on.

I call the landlord of our properties, thinking he may not have heard about what was going on his property. "Someone must have stumbled in their... And did what they were going to do..." he says half reassuring me and clearly concerned for his tenants. "Everyone is accounted for..." he says before I say my goodbye and head for the window over looking the scene. The window is directly centered over our backyard. At the moment I felt lucky to have such a good view of the goings on below. It wasn't until later that the clear line of sight into the shed became disconcerting. Their eyes last gaze falling through the dirty windows of the shed onto our homes—filled with college students surrounded by friends and comfort.

The CSI was geared up and combing over the site while snapping pictures of this or that, tagging things, bagging things, and moving in and out of the shed. The body, which had been taken away before I was able to get to my window was, I over hear from one of the crew, so disfigured due to decomposition that the sex and race wasn't visually identifiable. Later I would hear that, when the body was released, from whatever had been used to hang it there, it literally moved with insects and began to just fall apart. Between the humidity, heat, and bugs there wasn't a whole lot they could do to preserve it. Nature is quite good at cleaning up decay.

I was sitting there at my window looking for a glimpse and perhaps an opportunity for a picture of the body. A body that in my mind would have been more like my grandmother's well cared for dead body than the rotting corpse described by those on the scene. I don't know what my reaction would have been. But in my mind's eye, the body is hideous and beautiful at the same time; poetic in its sad ending and slow decay. It is not a nightmare. It is simply mesmerizing; hidden, hanging there overlooking our yard. The CSI deals with these things all the time. Death is a job and I'm sure that like pilots who no longer see the beauty of clouds after thousands of flights these men simply saw a job to be done. I'm not there, and I hope to never be there.

Within hours the scene was thoroughly examined and cleaned up. No trace was left that just a few hours before a team of police investigators had been swarming around the area looking for clues to why there was a hanging body in that shed. It was just a backyard that if I hadn't seen or heard what had happened I would have walked through to take the trash out like any other day.

The body in the backyard was gone. The only thing that remained was the story and the effect this has had on the person who discovered the source of the smell.

Read More:
Lawrence Journal World Article

Fur

Articles of Interest

Scientists challenge major review of global reserves and warn that supplies will start to run out in four years' time.
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2656034.ece

Climate Change Cannot Be Tackled If Existing Injustices in Global Politics Are Overlooked
http://business.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2100838,00.html

Why selling out is a depressingly rational choice for many graduates
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3218/when_college_ends_so_does_activism/

The honor of being called a "jerk" by pro-nuker Patrick Moore
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2007/1554

Farmers take the heat, but Big Ag reaps the farm bill benefits
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3190/whose_subsidy_is_it_anyway/

Forget "I am not a plastic bag" campaign, Spitalfield's Market is where to find London's genuine eco-friendly fashion
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3187/chasing_the_green_pound_in_london/

Combined with energy-efficiency improvements in the near-term, a sane energy future should develop renewable sources in all their forms, with the promise of halting global warming without the threat of replacing it with "global glowing."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003746741_nuclear14.html

It can be considered one of the most unequal battles in the world today. It pits a group of indigenous people in Ecuador, almost totally devoid of material resources, against one of the most powerful oil corporations in the world.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/14/1880/

Local Cooling

Help Fight Global Warming from your Desktop

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By adjusting the power mode settings our advanced algorithms will predict how much you will save based on past PC usage and statistical data. Every time LocalCooling saves power by either turning of your screen, putting your hard drive to sleep when not used or shutting down your PC when you are away your savings stats will start to grow. Download LocalCooling today and optimize your PC's energy efficiency in minutes.

Pew Research Center: Lake Wobegon, U.S.A.

Lake Wobegon, U.S.A.
Where All the Children Are Above Average - At Least by Their Schools' Ways of Counting
by Pauline Vu, Stateline.org Staff Writer
January 31, 2007

State of the States

When her son came home from middle school with a report card showing he'd passed North Carolina's year-end algebra test, Margaret Carnes believed he had the foundation he needed for high school. Then she met with his teacher, who cautioned her not to be too confident. By the state's yardstick, students had to answer correctly fewer than half the questions to pass. In some grades, they can flub two-thirds of the questions and still be marked "proficient."

It can be a harsh wake-up call for children and parents alike. Students are told they are where they're supposed to be academically, but a rude awakening awaits them in high school. "It compels one to ask the question, Have they been prepared?" said Carnes, now managing director for Charlotte Advocates for Education, a nonprofit group pushing for higher state standards.

It's a problem of long standing in U.S. public education. While international assessments confirm that American students lag behind those in several other countries in science and math, many school districts and states keep telling parents that their children, like those in Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor's hometown of fable, are all above average.

(Continue Reading Article)

He's walking in Gandhi's footsteps...

He wants to be a voice for the voiceless. If he is elected to the French Presidency, this will give Americans one more reason to hate the French.

He's walking in Gandhi's footsteps in his own way. There isn't any personal ambition about him. Champion of the oppressed takes on greatest challenge - the French presidency

Angelique Chrisafis
Friday February 2, 2007
The Guardian

He is the walrus-moustached farmer whose fight against McDonald's and globalisation saw him hailed as a modern-day Asterix leading the Gauls. But José Bové yesterday left his sheep farm in southern France, strolled into a labour exchange in a rundown north Paris suburb, took a draw on his trademark pipe and announced he was running for president.

The self-styled country bumpkin who rose to stardom in 1999 for dismantling a half-built McDonald's in the fight against "crap food" is now coming to the rescue of the riot-hit concrete jungles of France's urban housing estates. "I will be the spokesman of the voiceless," he announced yesterday.

(Continue Reading Article)

Waiting for the DDT tide to turn

Findings like these provide teaching opportunities for those who suggest dumping chemical compounds onto our lands. A "safe" product 50 years ago is continuing to bio-accumulate in fish populations 35 years after being banned.

-craig

Federal study shows that fish caught off L.A. County still contain the world's highest levels of the pesticide 35 years after it was banned.
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer

January 28, 2007
Fish consumption recommendations
(Acrobat file)

Many fish caught off Los Angeles County still contain extremely high levels of DDT, a sign that anglers and consumers remain at risk and that the ocean's ecosystem may be far from recovery 35 years after the pesticide was banned.

Newly released data from a federal survey indicate that fish caught in the area contained the world's highest-known DDT concentrations. Among 1,200 fish caught from Ventura to Dana Point, white croaker off San Pedro and the Palos Verdes Peninsula were the most highly contaminated. Fish off Orange County and areas north of the Redondo Beach Pier had low concentrations.

The data, collected primarily in 2002, offer the most comprehensive look at the scope of contamination from a 100-ton deposit of DDT that still covers several square miles of the ocean floor decades after the pesticide flowed into county sewers beginning in the late 1940s.

More recent annual sampling by Los Angeles County, far less extensive than the federal survey, suggests that the DDT levels in fish may be improving but still far exceed safe levels.

Continue Reading Article

U.N. Says There's No Stopping Global Warming

In the strongest language it has ever used, a United Nations panel says
global warming is "very likely" caused by human activities and has
become a runaway train that cannot be stopped.

Continue Reading Article

R.I.P. - Habeas Corpus

It is time to get out your funeral attire. This past week we saw Bush hog-tie, gag, and then burry Habeas Corpus rights. In the name of the War Against Terrorism there shall now be locations (on US soil) that are exempt from the Geneva Convention and one important Traditional American Value--the Constitution.

This clip from MSN's Keith Olbermann is informative and stirring:


(link: YouTube Video)

Habeas Corpus - Lat. "you have the body" Prisoners often seek release by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. A writ of habeas corpus is a judicial mandate to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody. A habeas corpus petition is a petition filed with a court by a person who objects to his own or another's detention or imprisonment. The petition must show that the court ordering the detention or imprisonment made a legal or factual error. Habeas corpus petitions are usually filed by persons serving prison sentences. In family law, a parent who has been denied custody of his child by a trial court may file a habeas corpus petition. Also, a party may file a habeas corpus petition if a judge declares her in contempt of court and jails or threatens to jail her. (source: 'Lectric Law Library)

President tests new ground on habeas corpus

David G. Savage
Los Angeles Times
Oct. 18, 2006 12:00 AM


WASHINGTON - The military-tribunals bill signed by President Bush on Tuesday marks the first time the right of habeas corpus has been curtailed by law for millions of people in the United States.

Although the debate about the law focused on trials at Guantanamo Bay, it also takes away the right to go to court for immigrants and non-citizens in the United States, including more than 12 million permanent residents, if they are declared "unlawful enemy combatants."

No one has suggested the Bush administration plans to use its newly won power to round up large numbers of immigrants.

But before Tuesday, the principle of habeas corpus meant that anyone thrown into jail had a right to ask a judge to hear his case. He also had a right to go free if the government could not show a legal basis for holding him.

Many legal scholars predict the law's partial repeal of habeas corpus will be struck down as unconstitutional.

"This is an outright slap at the Supreme Court, and it is heading for invalidation," said Eric M. Freedman, a law professor at Hofstra University and an expert on habeas corpus. "This is a core principle of law that was established by the prisoners who were tossed into the Tower of London by the king, and it was preserved in the Constitution. Now, Congress is saying it doesn't apply to this disfavored group of prisoners."

The new law says: "No court, justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined ... to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination." In early drafts, the bill would have cut off habeas corpus only for unlawful combatants detained "outside the United States" and at Guantanamo Bay. However, the final version deleted that phrase.

Now, it not only bars the men held at Guantanamo Bay from challenging their detention in court, but it also closes the courthouse door to non-citizens who are arrested in Los Angeles or Chicago and held by the military as a possible "unlawful enemy combatant."

The new law also defines this term broadly to include not just terrorists and fighters but also people, including American citizens, who have "materially supported hostilities against the United States." While a citizen could be arrested as an "enemy combatant," he or she could still challenge the government's action in court.

Some legal experts say the fate of this repeal of habeas corpus is uncertain because it is entirely unprecedented.

"This is one of the great unresolved questions because this has never happened before," said Duke University law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky, a critic of the Bush administration. "The question is whether this is an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus."

The Constitution makes clear habeas corpus can be "suspended" but only during extreme emergencies.

Pepperdine University law Professor Douglas W. Kmiec said Congress and the White House were on solid ground in seeking to cut off legal appeals from foreign fighters held by the U.S. military abroad, including at Guantanamo Bay.

"I would say habeas has no application to wartime detention outside the United States," said Kmiec, who's generally defended the administration. After World War II, the Supreme Court ruled German military prisoners held by U.S. authorities had no right to challenge their detentions through a writ of habeas corpus, he noted.

But detentions within this country have been seen differently, he added. "This is one of the most difficult questions posed by this act. There is no question that a habeas right has existed within the territorial United States for citizens and legal residents," Kmiec said.
(source: AZCentral)

Civil liberties suffered an historic setback this week, when President Bush signed the un-American Military Commissions Act of 2006.

The president now has Congress's blessing to hold people indefinitely without charge, take away protections from horrific abuses, use hearsay to put people on trial, authorize death penalty trials based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and slam shut the courthouse door for those accused, lifting our time-honored habeas corpus rules.

"Nothing separates America more from our enemies than our commitment to fairness and the rule of law," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "But the bill signed today is an historic break because it turns Guant�namo Bay and other U.S. facilities into legal no-man's-lands."

Americans across the political spectrum have serious concerns about this unconstitutional law. From now until the November elections, the ACLU is urging everyone who cares about justice and liberty to tell Congress we need them to stand up to the administration—not rubberstamp these abuses of power.

And voters in four battleground states have voiced a strong preference for House and Senate candidates who will oppose the president's policies on Guant�namo detainees, torture and CIA kidnapping, and secret searches of Americans' private records. Last week the ACLU announced the findings of a poll conducted in Connecticut, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania, four states that will play a strong role in the makeup of the next Congress.

What the poll found is heartening: Those of us who care about liberty and justice are not the minority. For most voters, no matter their party, protecting the civil liberties of all Americans and upholding the Constitution are key issues in the mid-term election. Now, it is essential that concerned citizens speak out as they head to the polls this November. You can take action today to help make civil liberties one of the top issues as people head to the polls next month. Sign our "This November, I'm Voting My Values" pledge and please ask your friends to sign as well.

Six Flags: Take A Bite Fright!

This note came from a close friend. Stunts like this, and those utilized by shock-TV shows ala NBC's Fear Factor, are inhumane, degrating, and pathetic.

From SixFlags.com:

"Put a "bite" in Fright Fest this year! Eating a live cockroach will be your Ticket to Terror -- and the front of the line! Courageous volunteers who opt to chow down on one of these creepy critters will be granted a place at the front of the line for some of Six Flags' most popular rides. Daring guests willing to eat their way to the front of the line will have to be quick! Cockroaches can run at a speed of three miles per hour. The nutritional benefit? Cockroaches are extremely low in fat and high in protein. Complete details available inside the park. Limited quantity. Hours and restrictions apply."


Words cannot express the disgust and anger I feel about this. Cockroaches or otherwise, no living creature deserves to be used, suffer and die in a cruel and senseless promotional stunt. I will never again visit a Six Flag park, and I will spread this word among every friend and family member I have.

I hope your parks can find a more suitable and less inhumane way to dare people during the Halloweeen season.

Ryan

Phil Kline: Did You Get The Memo?

Living in a state where the Attorney General participates as guest preacher in churches, those who do not ascribe to such sectarian beliefs have cause for pause. However, if the Attorney General is able to keep his own moral beliefs aside in their pursuit to uphold the state constitution and laws of the land, there is no cause for concern. When the Attorney General, as Phil Kline has, "aggressively" utilizes the mobilization of church leaders and sectarian monies in his re-election campaign the concern is real.

Topeka — Atty. Gen. Phill Kline often talks about his Christian faith.

But a leaked memo shows how Kline has mixed religion and money as part of an aggressive strategy to raise campaign funds and win re-election.

“Get the pastor to invite 5 ‘money people,’ whom he knows can help,” Kline told his campaign staff in a detailed, four-page memo titled “church efforts.”

The anonymously leaked e-mail memo provides a rare, behind-the-scenes look at political fundraising and the methods the incumbent Republican is using as he faces Democratic challenger Paul Morrison, the Johnson County district attorney.

Kline is a frequent visitor to Kansas churches, often appearing as guest preacher. But the memo makes clear Kline is out to spread more than the Christian message when he takes the pulpit. And he wants to hit as many churches as possible:

“The Goal and Objective – numbers,” Kline wrote to campaign workers Bill Roche and Sylvia Chapman in the Aug. 8 e-mail. “Please try to get me in front of the largest crowds as we move through the remainder of the campaign schedule. Also, please maximize my presence in a community. Where possible, get additional churches involved. Am able to preach at several churches where service times are different.”
(Continue Reading LJWorld.com article)

Joe.My.God.: That Day

Joe.My.God. remembers 9/11

Manhattan, September 11th, 2001

That day, I got to my office on 42nd Street at about 8:55am. About ten minutes later, I got a call from Terrence in Orlando.

"Honey, you should look out your window because a plane just hit the World Trade Center!"

I have a fabulous view of the Chrysler Building from my office, but to see the World Trade Center, I had to go downstairs and walk over to Fifth Avenue. There was already a crowd on every corner, shielding their eyes against the morning sun. All we could see was a plume of smoke. Just as I got back into my office, the word spread that a second plane had struck.

A few minutes later, someone reported that the subways had stopped running and it only took about another 15 minutes before office decorum began to dissolve. Davita, our normally stoic sales manager, began sobbing, worrying about getting home to her daughter in Brooklyn. Some of our staffers nervously took post at our windows overlooking Grand Central Terminal, watching the sky over the Chrysler Building, one block away. We all tried calling our families but got nothing but busy signals.

Our CEO called us into the conference room at 10am and announced, "It appears that the United States is under attack. I'm suggesting that we all try to make our way to our homes at once. Please call the office tomorrow before you come in, to see what our situation is." His voice was overloud, his nerves overcoming his normally lilting Liverpool accent.

A moment later someone with a radio announced, "One of the towers just collapsed." That sent the office scrambling for the door. A few minutes later, I was on the street. I headed towards my apartment on 22nd Street in Chelsea and had just turned south onto Sixth Avenue when the second tower collapsed. I watched the top half of the building slide from view. Everybody stopped walking and stood in silent horror. From our distance, there was no noise.
(Continue Reading)

Movie Trailer: Jesus Camp

A growing trend among the far right of the Evangelical movement in the United States is empowering children, to rise in America's political and religious ranks, through intensive training camps. Jesus Camp,a documentary exploring one such retreat, offers a chilling view into this world.

Learn more about the film here.

See the trailer here:

Music Video: Calexico - Cruel

Garden Ruin is the newest album from Calexico, a group that I have come to enjoy more and more. Garden Ruin is, however, a much more mainstream faire than their previous albums. Still enjoyable? Yes. Will it have the staying power in my rotation, I'm not sure. Enjoy this music video of "Cruel" from Calexico's Garden Ruin.