Blue Sky Country

US Politics is full of oddities, but one that seemed quite odd to me in the 2004 election was the election of Brian Schweitzer.  He was swept into the Governor’s office in Montana and brought the state senate with him.  A nice article about the election race here and an interview with the Governor himself here (choose the ‘Day Pass’).

Hopi Prayer

Saw this on a website the other day and liked it.  It may seem morbid, but I thought it was worth saving. 

The man’s sister-in-law who’d just passed away had asked that it be read at her funeral:

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there,
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight
On the ripened grain.
I am the gentle Autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there.
I did not die.
My Spirit is still alive…

– Hopi prayer

Update: Ok, so it’s not a Hopi prayer, it’s by Mary Frye. But I still think it’s cool.

The Influence of the Mac

Paul Graham has a nice essay about the return of the Mac.  Mom–you’re starting a trend!

Springtime Socialist

I feel like a full-blooded socialist now.  We got our healthcards on Friday in the mail!  We’re now officially covered under the province’s health plan.  We haven’t had any need for it so far, which is a good thing too.

Last week we also started French classes.  It’s an intro class but a heavy load–four nights a week for three hours.  We take the class at a school in the Parc Extension neighborhood.  The neighborhood is sometimes called ‘little India’ for the number of Indian immigrants living there, but the class is more like ‘the little U.N.’ (without the oil for French class side-scandal, of course).  There’s Amelia and I plus people from Columbia, India, Nigeria, Algeria, Pakistan, Mexico, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Ghana, The Phillipines, Ivory Coast, China and Vietnam–and there’s only about twenty two students in the whole class!  Unfortunately the teaching methods of the teacher are less than inspired so we’re not practicing speaking as much as we should.