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Captain's Blog, Halloween 2005 :: My friend John, the ex-clown and his beautiful wife Felicia are having a baby. Check out the pictures:

Daddy

Mommy

And baby makes three. Don't really see the resemblance. Kid looks to be a rawk star. Then again, John always was a performer. Back when he was in Chicago, he used to write poetry and leave it on bus seats for people to find. He went to clown school and makes political sculpture out of things he finds on the street. Somehow, Felicia has learned to put up with his behavior. Congrats all around!

Captain's Blog :: September 26, 2005

My friend Geoffrey and I were eating ice cream on the courthouse square when we came upon two books sitting on a park bench, wrapped with a ribbon and labeled with a piece of paper that informed us that the books were part of a movement called Book Crossing. Apparently, people are registering their books and leaving them in parks and coffee shops to get read and passed on. You can bet that I'm gonna start scattering my books to the four winds to see where they end up. OPA!

Captain's Blog :: September 24, 2005

So, I'm sitting in this coffee shop trying to figure out how to send HTML email. Why is it that computers, which were supposed to make our lives so much easier... don't?

Check out the stuff I'm writing these days :: John Wesley Powell Adventure

Captain's Blog: September 13, 2005

Well, I've been hunkered down in Prescott College working on Transitions magazine. It's pretty fun work, though I've felt like I need to be kicked in the head. Allergies, must be allergies.

Last weekend, I went out sailing with my S.O. Art, who nearly succeeded in killing me, and then lived to write about it in his weekly column in the Prescott Valley Tribune. My suffering was the stuff of literary grist. Just goes to show you that you need to be careful who you date.

Some of my activist homies are on the front lines in Louisiana. To check their progress, go to Arizona Indymedia. Supplies may be donated through Prescott College.

Check out the website for Citizens for Reasonable Growth. One way to keep Prescott wonderful is to vote for Lindsay Bell for Prescott mayor. Bell co-wrote the outstanding city plan, passed by 2/3 vote, and says that, unlike some of the folks in office now, she'll implement the thing.

Stand Up Prescott! and the Citizens Water Advocacy Group are some other groups whose focus is advocating for the people and land of this amazing part of the world. Feel free to join up and empower yourself! Don't forget Women in Black meets on the northeast corner of the courthouse square at five p.m. every Friday. Come for five minutes or the full hour.

We also need a professional community, which is why my friend Asa is hosting a monthly photography group once a month. For more info, click here.

Check out BrainShrub.org! Progressive news right from the source. Plus the guy who writes it is a superlative shuttle driver. Also check TheBradShow. Dude's a radio show broadcasting from the scene of the time.

More Pictures of Camp Casey.

Captain's Blog :: August 25, 2004

This is the blog I've submitted to afterdowningstreet.com.

Cindy Sheehan returned to the site named after her son scant seconds after a flood of media folk. They surrounded her and filled the air with the insectile clicking of camera shutters as she paused to lay flowers at the base of the cross bearing the name Casey Sheehan.
Several names no longer grace the solemn field of Arlington south, among them Justin Garvey, and Louis Qualls. The fathers of the two fallen soldiers relocated them to a growing collection of crosses in front of Fort Qualls, site of a bustling counter-protest on mainstreet Crawford. Some of the names show up two or three times, the consequence of repeated visits to the cemetery to clear their sons names from an installation they call an epithet instead of memorial. On this last trip, they were told in good faith that the veterans maintaining Arlington South would stop replacing those crosses.
The mock cemetery has other challenges. Marq Anderson, the national tour manager of Eyes Wide Open: The Human Cost of War, which displays the boots of fallen soldiers, shipped five boxes of boots, but only three arrived. The other two were still in Dallas. "The UPS driver said she'd bring them all the way here if she's driving tomorrow," he said yesterday.
Last evening, during the dusk vigil, reporters followed Cindy and Joan Baez into the field of crosses to get still more pictures. At one point, she turned away in tears, and Baez restrained the throng from following her. Later on, Former Marine Lance Corporal Jeff Key, who plays taps each evening, made a request to the media that they shoot from the perimeter to honor the hallowed ground that the memorial has become. Key, incredibly tall and striking, radiates an aura of kindness that's hard to refuse.
His presence is but one facet to the phenomenon of Camp Casey II. Set under a tent that Bush once used for a fundraising event, Casey II is the place where the grassroots meet the mainstream. The roar of generators breaks the prairie idyll. This is the money end of Camp Casey, the place where the engine of Cindy Sheehan's media success moves her message forward. In the days before Cindy's arrival, it seemed like more writers wandered beneath the tent peaks than did actual protesters.
Camp Casey I, by contrast, was the very picture of calm yesterday afternoon. The generators were conspicuously absent, leaving only the wind in the trees to make music. The ambient calm masks the conflict between protesters and counter-protesters taking place at the crook of two roads in the middle of Crawford nowhere.
The folks down at Casey I are self-selecting; they could sleep up in Camp Casey II with it's relatively flat ground and amenities, but they stay in the extreme sideways discomfort of ditch living. Veteran Joe Mourney, stationed in Camp Casey I, classifies each camp in the following manner: "There are different elements to this protest. The Peace House is the foot, Camp Casey I is the heart, and Camp Casey II is the head."
Blogger Paul Van Hesen describes Casey II as a blanket and hot water operation. "After a day or two of being here, you get bored and eventually volunteer. It's like the doctor tending the heart attack patient who sends onlookers running after blankets and hot water."
The statement is close to true. A woman bearing the name tag Dr. Marie circulated constantly with icy towels and a squirt bottle in search of anyone who might be suffering from heat prostration. A slight figure clad in an orange vest marked with a cross and wooden crucifix, Dr. Marie descended on Laura Barnett, a lady from Wisconsin, covering her with three cold towels and spritzing her hair like a medical hairdresser. Later on, I got the same treatment as I tried with limited success to get over the heat exhaustion I suffered while directing traffic.
The heat culls the efforts of most of the non-locals. Thoughts slow, stomachs turn and stuff gets lost. Anyone who says that our presence is gratuitous need only look to the folk laboring at the Camp Caseys. As Joan Baez said this evening, "If you people knew how tired you look…"
Of the backbone of this movement, the middle aged women with soldier children, Rebecca Bahr of Military Families Speak Out said, "We're middle aged women and we're sitting in the heat. This is the last thing I need to be doing for myself."
After two weeks waiting for answers from President Bush, Bahr looked exhausted. "I'm here for all the children. No one wants any children to be mis-used," she said. "They volunteered to do a job and expect reasonable, truthful leadership. They didn't volunteer to be lied to."
Late in the night, after Joan Baez had gone to bed and the emerald tones of her music had settled into the grass, Cindy Sheehan echoed that sentiment. Though it was four in the morning, and though her exhaustion showed in her blanched face, she continued the dialog that her supporters had kept up in her absence.
She was back up early, and meeting with the press in a cogent manner in a press conference she shared with other Gold Star Mothers and Marq Anderson. Jeff Key forcibly removed photographers from the cemetery when Cindy ended the conference by kneeling in front of the grave of her son.
“This land is hallowed ground now,” he said.

Captain's Blog :: August 24, 2005

Father of fallen soldier Gregg Garvey flashes a rare smile in front of the Arlington South. Garvey is based out of Fort Qualls, and is working on creating memorials for the fallen soldiers of the war on terror.

Near the ditch that served as the first Camp Casey, a small cemetery and coffin are visual reminders of the vigil that several Gold Star mothers maintain in the absence of Cindy Sheehan and answers from George Bush.

Crawford Peace House.

Captain's Blog :: August 23, 2005

Well, it really is as hot as everyone said it would be. It's beautiful,too, tall oaks and rolling pastureland that fades here and there into the wet haze, so I can see why Bush loves the place. Scary to think that if he has the heart to love it here, why he lacks it in so many other regards.

Joan Baez is still here, sweating it out with the rest of the folks, who, by virtue of Cindy and Bush's absence are mainly press and a few die hards. I've heard tell that she'll be performing yet again tonight.

Brad, who slept not at all during our overnight drive from Arizona, is currently crashed out under a table on a couple of T-shirts. I'm stalking reporters, including Jean Ellis of the Lone Star Iconoclast, who might actually stalk me back later on today.

Many different interests have sprung up, and there's a push to keep the goings-on here under the Tajmatent focused on Gold Star Mothers and their quest for answers from Dubya.

All around the Tajmatent bloggers, of both the radio and written ilk type and talk into their equipment, sending the story out that the mainstream media wants to neglect. They are here, though. I caught up to a couple of guys from NBC and explained that if they quit blowing me off, I'd do my best to stay out of their camera frame. The man, who claimed that for reasons of impartiality (a common refuge of mainstream media) he wouldn't identify himself, said that they'd been out in Crawford for several days covering the story. Ah, impartiality. I could maybe use some myself.

I'll upload some pictures later on, but meanwhile, know that the information revolution is happening on truthout.org and small face with Susan Christenson, amongst other outlets that will soon find their way onto my home page. Currently, Radio Blogger Brad Friedman of bradshow.com is interviewing Lonestar Iconoclast Editor and Owner Leon Smith; he'll be here blogging for the duration. He's got quite the radio voice- ya'll should check him out. Or better yet, come on by, because it's well worth the price of admission.

Lots of love, Erica.

Captain's Blog : August 21, 2005

Going to Camp Casey!

Well, I was out covering a Stand Up Prescott! meeting when I ran into Brad Martin as he prepared to travel to Crawford, TX. One thing led to another, and now me and my super car Gerty will travel with Brad on Sunday, 8-21, to stand in solidarity with people from around the country who are finally getting the truth out to the mainstream media.

Perhaps we've a critical mass. As I learn more about Camp Casey, I'll let you all know.

Peace and Love, Erica.

Captain's Blog : August 2, 2005

Adrian Adams made it into Flagstaff two days ago, his feet and back aching, but otherwise in fine form. As I write this, he's advancing to the top of the peaks. Go Adrian!

Pig Arnold has told me that he's staging another long run in September. If you want to join us, drop me a line and I'll get you the info. You can get it from him, too. He's oft-sighted around PNF, Coffee Roasters and the Yoga Studio. Just look for the feral guy with the bare feet and lightning-quick reflexes. And then get out of the way. Both those guys are helping keep Prescott an awesome place to be. Yay!

Check out the website for Citizens for Reasonable Growth. Another way to keep Prescott wonderful is to vote for Lindsay Bell for Prescott mayor. Bell co-wrote the outstanding city plan, passed by 2/3 vote, and says that, unlike some of the folks in office now, she'll implement the thing.

Stand Up Prescott! and the Citizens Water Advocacy Group are some other groups whose focus is advocating for the people and land of this amazing part of the world. Feel free to join up and empower yourself! Don't forget Women in Black meets on the northeast corner of the courthouse square at five p.m. every Friday. Come for five minutes or the full hour.

We also need a professional community, which is why my friend Asa is hosting a monthly photography group once a month. For more info, click here.

Captain's Blog : July 23, 2005

We've got some hardcore folks living in Prescott. Adrian Adams, a larger-than-life character known among other things for his epic appetite for beef jerkey, departed on a three hundred mile hike to the top of Humphrey's Peak. Derailed by megablisters, he returned to Prescott to heal up, swearing to try again- this time wearing sandals.

Both he and Pig Arnold have been helping George Seaman do surveys of the upper Verde River with an eye to record its beauty and defend it against those who would use its water to build golf courses.

Stand Up Prescott! and the Citizens Water Advocacy Group are groups whose focus is advocating for the people and land of this amazing part of the world. Feel free to join up and empower yourself! Don't forget Women in Black meets on the northeast corner of the courthouse square at five p.m. every Friday. Come for five minutes or the full hour. There are different ways to protest. My friend Space Alien Donald was out campaigning for the now famous nude mayoral candidate Paul Katan with a rainbow flag and the message, Take it off, don't blow it up!

We also need a professional community, which is why my friend Asa is hosting a monthly photography group once a month. For more info, click here.

Captain's Blog : July 13, 2005

Back at the ranch. This weekend saw Thomas "Pig" Arnold and his friend Jessie run 50 miles in one day to benefit The Catalyst Infoshop. I ran the last five with Pig and was glad that he was tired. Between the heat and my own poor out-of-shape body, I almost didn't make it.

In order to recover, for the next several weeks, I'll be housesitting and using my mornings to finish a novel that I started eight years ago. In the afternoons, I'll keep up with my periodical writing, and play in the stultifying pre-monsoonal summer heat. To survive, we need water here, lots of it.

We also need community, which is why my friend Asa is hosting a monthly photography group whose next meeting is Wednesday, July 13. For more info, click here.

By the way, if you have a small business, you might consider sending out a press release, which is an inexpensive and effective way to garner publicity. For press releases, web content, articles, business letters, or resumes , click here for info or call (928) 255-0191.

Click here for Women in Black

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Those who do not hear the music think the dancers mad.

-unknown

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