Jack Manassas and Company

 After a summer of Wildfires, we thought we would be done by now. In August, when the firefront traveled 22 kilometers in 12 hours, we were sure we were done for. And yet, it's not over yet. Driving to work in the morning, I saw this column of smoke behind the post office, next to my store.   There were various explanations.  "Maybe the firefighters are putting down a new fire break." Maybe the firefighters are taking a break and smoking some of the local (and legal) weed." But it turned out that this was just a brand new wildfire! Several helicopters and a couple of Badger fire-planes dumped water on the fire all day.   The fire was burning in Turtle Valley, near Notch Hill behind the store.  My wife and I took a ride on Notch Hill Road and took some additional pictures: The fire looks bigger.  Firefighters are doing their best.  I hope it is enough.

 In early July 2023, I had a walk-in visitor to my pharmacy.   "Doc, have you got anything for painful sores on my feet?" This was a 50-year-old male, First Nations, Height about 6 feet, weight about 230 lb.  He is self-employed as a chicken-vaccinator;  His full day of work consists of standing inside industrial chicken coops and vaccinating all the chickens against salmonella.  It is difficult work in a dirty environment. He complained that he had developed large sores on one of his feet-- And also a deep sore on his abdomen, near his navel, which he attributed to an accidental needle stick, courtesy of a chicken that had gotten out of control.   He was most concerned with his feet.  The pain from the sores was making it difficult to stand up, and he had to stand up in order to keep vaccinating chickens.  I was able to examine the sores.  The most troubling one was a tunnel about 5 mm in diameter going into the right second toe ab...

 What follows is a fictional story.  It is not actually true. 1. If you are reading this, Emmanuel Goldstein is dead.  He died roughly 72 hours ago, because he was no longer there to prevent the automatic posting of this message to his blog.  Check the blog anyway– Emmanuel was planning to post an expose´ about some recent discoveries he accidentally made on the internet.  If by some miracle the posting is there, print it out as soon as you can, then turn off your computer and hide the printout.  It will be gone very soon. What follows is a brief synopsis of Goldstein’s discovery, not the full story.  This account is really just an afterthought.  Probably I will find it on my hard drive by accident, laugh a bit and then erase it.  But, cautious fellow that I am, I can’t help jotting down a few notes from my larger study.  A trail of breadcrumbs through the forest may help someone else find the same discovery–unless, as Hansel and Gretel ...

 Whenever we go down to Washington State, we always stop off at Hope BC.  We like the park in the centre of town, the impossibly tall Cascades that surround it– and especially, the wood carvings; A lot of these are left over from chainsaw carving competitions; But at least one of them looks like an authentic Pacific Northwest Totem Pole; There was no signature on this one, no date on which it was carved.  There is a raven with its claws firmly on the head of the being below.  All of the raven’s attention is focused downwards.  And what sort of creature has the raven’s attention?   It is almost a bird, but the beak is not long enough, and the carving of the shoulders and chest suggests fur.  Yet it is not a bear.  Possibly an ape of some sort, or a Yeti.     It has a waist, and could be a woman, but the deep-set eyes in the chest, where the breasts would be, make this questionable.   The face coming out of the chest i...