Just the other side of nowhere...

So the dawn is still in the east, I am ready to move and now wait for my traveling companions to get up and get ready.
The coffee tastes good as I sit here alone in the bunkhouse, looking over the piles of mail and messages that came in while I was in Oregon.  I have two choices today: I can get some stuff out of the way by culling through the letters and chucking the ones that are just a PITA, thereby saving me time later to deal with the ones that are important, or I can type this blog entry which by my calculation, will allow me to procrastinate a bit longer.  Hmmmmmm...what to do what to do.

I feel like I am on the other side of nowhere sometimes because I see the good that my colleagues are doing; films produced or at least filmed and ready to edit, books and thesis' written, trips made and actual people who can make a change visited with, community meeting held where the communities care enough to come out. Of course I see the dumb-sh*t things people do as well.  Case in point -

I read the paper (on-line version) about the "preacher" in Florida who wants to burn the Muslim bible, then decided not to because he "was promised" by a person who probably did not have the juice to promise spit to this guy, that they would move the proposed mosque/community center away from "ground zero" in New York (not Florida by the way).  He later learned that this was not the case so he "may go ahead and burn" the q'urons anyway.  This bunghole is playing with a major can of gas that may explode in the face of you and me. And, as I sit here on the other side of nowhere, wonder how in the frak did a little preacher man become such a catalyst for destruction?  Are there really that many people in America who just can't get enough of gloom, doom and destruction that they have to court it? And are there really that many lemmings who will blindly follow this goof off the cliff?

Being here in the bunkhouse allows me time to reflect on the crap that swirls around outside and I am worried.  We are headed to Sacramento today for a meeting with one of the politicos we bother now and then to drum up support for a salmon restoration project and a freedom of religion issue.  We will also deliver some "newly-used" clothing to our friends in the Indian Health center there.  The visit to the center will, I hope be appreciated, the other may be a bother to our host but necessary.  At least we aren't threatening to burn any books (although that might get us an audience with folks up the food chain).  Nah, can't do that but it is tempting some time - apparently a threat is as good as an action to stir up some emotion.  Maybe that's what I can do here, stir up your emotions and cause you to react, but in a positive way.

Either way, I'll look for you when I get back from the other side of somewhere - have a good day, I'll be looking for you tomorrow.