Another great woman leaves us... Former Texas Governor, Ann Richards

And another Texas treasure, Molly Ivens, says a personal farewell:

One of the most moving memories I have of Ann is her sitting in a circle with a group of prisoners. Ann and Bullock had started a rehab program in prisons, the single most effective thing that can be done to cut recidivism (George W. Bush later destroyed the program). The governor of Texas looked at the cons and said, "My name is Ann, and I am an alcoholic."

She devoted untold hours to helping other alcoholics, and anyone who ever heard her speak at an AA convention knows how close laughter and tears can be.

Ann Richards was probably the first politician to openly discuss her recovery from alcoholism. Back then I was about 5 years clean and sober, underemployed and trying to determine if my insanity was curable or was just a personality trait. (Turns out it was 50/50.)

From Texas all the way to Alaska, Ms. Richards got my attention. Her work with the poor, minorities and her attempts to open the Texas government up to everyone won my support...so much so that for the first and last time, I donated money to an outside campaign...her unsuccessful 1994 run for re-election.

If you haven't already, I recommend reading more in the New York Times article.

Indian Summer and new "retirement"...i.e. excuses why I'm not writing...

This has been the first couple of weeks of my new, voluntary unemployment after 15 years in the Feds.

It's really hard to concentrate on anything serious, as my daughter is demonstrating quite well in this picture. This past week has been beautiful!

However, today was rainy so I started writing again.

I'm slowly working on a series of posts regarding the disservice, union-busting and demonizing being done to Federal Civil Service workers. There's so much material it's just flat overwhelming.

However, I promise I'll have the first part posted by Tuesday. It would be earlier except that I...ahem...will be boating in Seward this weekend!

This is actually pretty common...the tourists are gone and now the real Alaskans are trying to cram in as much "summer" in these last couple of weeks as possible.

I'm taking my camera so I hope to get some good pictures!

On my list of "Books to Buy Immediately!"

I happened to catch an interview with one of the authors/editors on Thom Hartmann's radio program Friday.

This is the book I've been waiting for!

It's an expansion on the Popular Mechanic's article published back in 2005 which had actual engineers and scientists with structural experience providing information, rather than some friggin' Astronomer or retired manager claiming "expertise."

I'm going to pick it up sometime this week and I will report back.

Also, Media Matters shows that ABC's "The Path to 9/11" is at best a very crooked path, and at the very least a road that leads nowhere. They summarize the long list of discrepancies, misleading dialogue and outright falsehoods portrayed as fact in the docu-drama.

But then again, you already knew that Clinton was to blame for everything, correct?

Check out the new picture in the header...

It was a glorious day yesterday to take a drive to Palmer and my daughter and I were not disappointed!

We went over to her godparent's house to pick crabapples and cooking apples...I have about 5 grocery bags total so I hope ya'll don't mind Crabapple Butter for Christmas! On our way back, we had rain and sunshine so...Voila! Instant rainbow!

After I took this picture, however, it eventually turned into a double rainbow and from the highway, you could see the entire rainbow from end-to-end covering the entire Valley! It was just a gorgeous day to drive!