Unearthing a life.....

'Extraordinary rendition' .... the Bush Administration's program for spiriting possible terrorists off to the prisons of more barbaric (than us) countries and having them tortured to elict confessions of guilt.

I'm puzzled about how the term 'extraordinary rendition' came into being for this particular usage. To conceal? To obfuscate? To confuse? Or is there some warp of meaning that really does apply?

Extraordinary: 1. Beyond what is ordinary or usual. 2. Highly exceptional; remarkable. 3. Employed or used for a special service, function, or occasion. [American Heritage Dictionary]

Rendition: 1. The act of rendering. 2. An interpretation of a musical score or a dramatic piece. 3. A translation, often interpretive. 4. A surrender [obsolete Old French rendre, to give back.] [American Heritage Dictionary]

Well, yes! The act of employing a special service to go beyond what is ordinary or usual in rendering (as in melting down) a surrender. We now stand enlightened.

[SEE PRIOR POSTING FOR REPORT ON DR. BOOKWORM'S DAY AT THE HOSPITAL.]

Dr. Bookworm and myself spent most of yesterday enjoying the staff and environs at Harrison Memorial Hospital - Silverdale. I delivered her to the "one day surgery" area at 8:00 AM and they immediately whisked her off behind STAFF ONLY doors. No one came back out to instruct me about anything, so I took the elevator up one floor to my appointment with my retinal eye surgeon at 8:20 AM (two weeks ago he gave me a shot of steroid medication in the left eye and I was back to see if it worked). I went through the eye chart, eye drop, eye pressure drill ... and after a long wait, they took a new 'picture' of my retina. A successful treatment! But I'm to stay on the boostering eyedrops for six more weeks.

By 9:20 AM, I was back in the one-day surgery waiting room and almost immediately a staff person popped out and brought me in to where brave, brave Bookworm was swaddled in warm blankets with IV drips .... a little admitting nurse scuttling around tending to her .... a hospital 'rep' was chatting her up and following her through her hospital experience .... a personal friend recovery nurse looked in on her ..... and all was warm and convivial.

However, the Physician had forgotten he'd scheduled surgery for Monday morning and was tolerably late arriving on the scene. The factory 'rep' (for the proposed implant device) called and informed the Doc that he was hung up in Wenatchee and couldn't get there. Our Doc was undaunted and proclaimed "I can do this alone!" [This is the same 'Cowboy' that heroically reduced my softball-sized prostate to the size of a small walnut a few months ago -- while proclaiming that he alone had the skills and experience to do such a thing. He is not troubled by false humility.] At 10:30 it appears that it is all a go and I retreat to the waiting area with the hospital 'rep', where we swap stories till she has to leave at twelve to take her daughter to an eye appointment. Bookworm seemed to think it was a thirty minute procedure, one of the nurses told the hospital 'rep' that it was more like an hour and, so, at 12:10, alone in the waiting room, I was getting very antsy about what might have gone wrong, when friend Jan the recovery nurse stiff-armed the doors open and announced "It all went fine. She's out now and someone will come get you in a bit."

By 12:25, I was back at the side of brave, brave Bookworm who was dying of thirst, but couldn't decide which of the nurse's liquid offerings to request ... so I decided "Apple Juice". Cowboy Doc showed up and ran us through the operational procedures for the device, which is still mainly external. If the device does the job, they will do the actual, final implant next Monday. Bookworm is now wired for sound, has her own personal plug-in and is resting easily and waiting for me to go rent 'Capote' and 'Siriana' for her recuperative enjoyment.

The above photo was taken a few minutes ago and proves she's in jovial health.

I’ve had my Sunday morning waffle, three cups of caffeine booster and my usual go at the Sunday New York Times … which is totally overwhelming in its sheer size and complexity and accoutrements. I buy this paper at the local Safeway store and when I wrestled it out of the little grocery basket and dropped it on the checkout counter this morning, a thick, slick covered fashion supplement slid out of the paper’s innards and fell separately from the main body of the work. The clerk, who was little known to me, seized upon the item and began to interrogate me as to whether it was, in fact, a part of the paper. It came to me that I was suspect of attempted magazine concealment and theft and so went to some effort to find words on the cover that linked it to the NY Times proper. There wasn’t much, but she accepted my claim to legitimacy when I offered to fetch up another copy and produce the magazine from its innards.

On the drive home I passed this neighbor (a slow moving, stately, attractive and weird Indian woman) who I often drive past when she is giving her dog its morning walk. The dog is large and fuzzy and so old that it barely has been creeping along of late. Today I swung around the corner and there she was pulling a large red Radio Flyer wagon with sideboards … and in the wagon was the large fuzzy dog. Four long country blocks from home, she was giving her dog a ride around his normal walking route. Now -- is that dog love, or another little brush stroke of strangeness?

Two things drew my attention in the Times. An article in the Arts & Leisure section about the film Blue Velvet and an editorial entitled 'A Judicial Green Light for Torture'.

The Blue Velvet article was largely about how Blue Velvet is an anomalous film in that is hasn’t become passé with age and still has the same power to trifle with the viewer’s nervous system that it had at release twenty years ago. Over the years, I’ve watched Blue Velvet on several occasions and have to agree that it still has the power to un-nerve. Dennis Hopper is just manic hell ready to flash into explosion at the slightest wrong move. I always expect to find him later, creeping through my nightmares.

The editorial is about a Mr. Maher Arar (a Canadian) who was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport in 2002 on his way home from a family vacation -- as a person suspected of Al Qaeda connections. We shipped him to a Syrian prison under Bush’s “extraordinary rendition” practice, where he was confined and tortured and then finally released by the Syrians when no link to terrorism could be found. Mr. Arar has attempted to seek redress in our court system, but Judge David Trager of Federal District Court in Brooklyn has tossed the case out on the grounds that it would tend to reveal state secrets and imperil our national security. Moral: Canadians should fly non-stop to Canadian territory when returning home from out-of-country vacations.

And what’s up with this Syrian prison business? I thought the Syrians were our enemies and supporters of terrorism themselves(?). Our torture arrangement with Syria probably IS a state secret. I sincerely hope they aren’t send American citizens there. But…..

Extraordinary rendition might also come in handy for domestic transgressors against the Bush Administration. I.E., former FEMA’s ‘Good job, Brownie’ guy could be ‘renditioned’ until he confessed that the hurricane fiasco was all his fault and his alone. Numerous other gnat whomping Administration scenarios spring to mind. But.....

Nothing much is known about how the family fared during the Revolutionary War (1775 - 1782). Evan and Olive did not have any more children until Eli was born (1785) well after the close of hostilities. There is nothing to indicate that Evan ever left his land, his family, or Edgefield District to actively participate in the fighting. There are existing records showing that he served on the Edgefield Petite and Grand Juries during the fray and this is considered "service to his country" by the DAR.

A neighbor, Capt. Drury Pace, saw service in the Continental Army and would later become father-in-law to both Oneas and Abiah M. David Quarles (born 1759?) was claimed to have been a Revolutionary War veteran when he married Olive M. James Abernathy, the likely father of Enos M.'s wife Nancy Abernathy, as well as his brother John, fought with Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox".

Between 1775 and the end of 1778, the British made no substantial effort to conquer the southern colonies. All the armies were operating in the North. Instead, a relentless war between small groups of Whigs (Revolutionaries) and Tories (Loyalists) tore away at the South, with Edgefield District seeing its share of the horrors of neighbor warring on neighbor.

Then a British garrison seized and occupied the frontier town of Augusta, GA, and held it for about two and a half years ( Jan. 1779 to May 1781). And it might be assumed that the local Whigs, including Evan M., kept a low profile and may even have been required to provide food supplies for the garrison.

When the war ended in 1782, Rachel was nineteen, Oneas eighteen, Enos sixteen, Abiah fifteen, Ozias thirteen, and Olive was ten. If they had not been active warriors for the Revolutionary cause, they were certainly six able bodied hands for helping with the farming and household industries.
From the end of the Revolutionary War in 1782 till his death in 1799, Evan M. lived seventeen years as a free citizen, landowner, and farmer in the fledgling United States of America. Evan and Olive's final child, son Eli, was born in 1785. Between 1787 and 1797, five of his six older children would marry and present him with thirteen grandchildren prior to his death. Rachel, the oldest child, never married.

(G-g-g grandfather) Enos M. was the first to marry and wed Nancy Abernathy about 1786 when he was approximately twenty-one.

Abiah M. married Nancy Pace in 1791. He was twenty-four years old. She was twenty-one and a daughter of Capt. Drury Pace and his wife Mary (Bussey) Pace.

Oneas M. (sometimes spelled Onias) married Nancy's younger sister Rhoda "Rody" Pace about 1793. He was twenty-seven and she was sixteen. They had one daughter, Fanny, before he died untimely young. From Edgefield County Deed Book 12: "29 Jul 1795: Deed of Gift: Rody M., widow of Onias M., to my daughter Fanny M., dau. of the dec'd., Onias M., both of Edgefield Co. SC for love & affection, 100 acres, all my part as a widow, on waters of Savannah river & I delivered unto Abiah M. as guardian for the above named Fanny, a true and legal deed."

In 1795, Olive M. married David Quarles. She was twenty-three, he was twenty-five by some reports and thirty-six by others. If he really fought in the Revolutionary War, then the older age appears more likely. David's father, Richard Quarles, wrote in his 1796 Will...."I give unto my son John Quarles one negro man named Joe if my son gets well of his disorder and gets his reason & is in his right sences, if not, I desire my said son John should live with my son David.....". It appears that Olive received a live-in addled brother-in-law along with her husband and their subsequent children. David Quarles died in 1807 after twelve years of marriage.

At some point after March 1796, Ozias M. married Elizabeth Quarles, David Quarles’ younger sister. It was their two eldest sons, Archibald and Elbert, who signed as witnesses when James Carson wrote his Will in 1822.

Photo: One of my favorites because of the two sisters holding the guitars. … the family of a distant cousin in deep Dixie.

I should add a few words here about the 1767-1770 time gap. There are a couple of instances similar to this. When I found Sterling M.'s first Land Patent in Chariton County, MO (on the BLM search site), it had an issue date about a year and a half later than the actual purchase receipt. Another cousin researcher has found even larger gaps between migration and official land-ownership amongst the ‘M.‘s who went from MO to TX in the early 1850's.

There are some speculative scenarios that could account for the 1767-1770 time gap. Perhaps Evan spent his first two to three years in Edgefield (area) working for someone -- supplementing his funds prior to engaging in farming on his own. Perhaps he rented Jesse Drake's land for a year or two before buying it outright. Perhaps the long trip to Charleston to officially verify ownership was put off till a crop had proven the land worthwhile. Or perhaps some stalling was in order to deny the King some of his quit rents.
The King's "law" did not have a good reach into the Carolina backcountry, so there may have been an attitude of "we'll do it when we get around to it." In 1767, the backcountry was just beginning to emerge from an era when "Regulators" were dealing justice - after a fashion. The Regulators were groups of settler vigilantes who had formed to combat rampant outlawry in the backcountry, but had soon become an oppressive force in their own right.

Time gaps aside, it is clear that Evan M. had removed from Saluda by 1770 and settled some twenty-eight miles to the SSW on the banks of Stephens Creek. Augusta, GA, was about twelve miles further on and across the Savannah River.

Daughter Olive/Olivia M. was born in 1772 and in 1774, Evan received a final land grant for an additional 250 acres. Now we have six children in the household, with Rachel being eleven years old, Oneas ten, Enos eight, etc.,. And Evan's land holdings have grown to 550 acres. It appears that Evan had settled in for good. The Edgefield Deed Books do not show him either buying or selling land over the next twenty-four years. When Evan wrote his Will in 1798, he divided up 550 acres amongst his surviving heirs.

The year 1775 saw James Carson settle on land (350 acres) adjoining Evan M. James was a son of Charles Carson who had settled much earlier back in the Saluda area and who, in 1770, was vested with the right to operate a ferry across the Saluda River at Saluda Old Town. The ‘M.‘s and Carsons were neighbors there on Stephens Creek for at least forty-seven years. Two of Evan M.'s grandsons were witnesses when James Carson wrote his Will in 1822.

Photo: My G-G Grandfather Peterson, seated in the chair, with his family in Sweden, ca late 1800’s …. joined by my time-traveling grandson Allie. These Petersons are from my mother's side of the family and are not, and did not become, Americans.

A Pace family researcher (that I stumbled onto a couple years ago on the InterNet) wrote that Evan and Olive's son Abiah (who eventually married a Pace girl) was born 27 October 1767 in Saluda, Edgefield District, SC. If this is factual, it indicates that the family arrived in the area at least a couple of years prior to obtaining their own land.

If this 1767 location for the Evan Morgan family is correct, it places them in the same Little Saluda River area as the original Carsons (whose son James settled adjacent to Evan on Stephens Creek between Edgefield and Augusta) and the Abernathys (who may be the source family for g-g-g grandmother Nancy Abernathy). Again, this is some of my "reconstructive speculation".

Some ‘M’. Family researchers give Evan M.’s birth date/place as "ca 1735, Pennsylvania." I have seen no evidence to support this, so must retreat to the position of "birth date/place: Unknown." Evan and Olive M.’s first child, Rachel, was born in 1763. If Evan became a father at the age of 22, he would have been born ca 1741. If he became a father after becoming more "established" (i.e., at age 28), he could have been born ca 1735.

Daughter Rachel was followed by two sons, Oneas (born 1764) and g-g-g grandfather Enos (born 1766). Thus it was a family of five that migrated from somewhere in the Colonies to the Edgefield area in the South Carolina Colony. By the time Evan bought his first hundred acres on Stephens Creek in 1770, the family ranks had been increased by the births of Abiah in 1767 and Ozias in 1769. Now it was a family of seven....with five children ranging downward in age from 7 year old Rachel.

Shortly after buying Jesse Drake's 100 acres, Evan acquired another 200 acres by Grant of King George on June 8, 1770. This brings up a question. How does Evan, with only tiny children in the family, manage to farm 300 acres, most of which probably had to be cleared first? We know Evan was a slave owner when he died some thirty years later, but this need for manpower in 1770 suggests that he may have had slaves at that early date. Which further suggests that Evan Morgan may have arrived in Edgefield with some "start up" money in his pocket.

Photo: ca 1904 -- Great Grandfather Thomas M. with wife Rachel and several sons and their wives and children (his wheat harvest crew in the Palouse of SE Washington State), with Allie looking in on things (suggested by 'noapologies').

Photo: A distant cousin who served as a Confederate officer during the Civil War.

The earliest documented evidence of G-G-G-G Grandfather Evan M.'s existence in Colonial America is a "Memorial" declaring his 7 April 1770 purchase of 100 acres of land in Granville County, Colony of South Carolina, from Jesse Drake. This "Memorial", dated 30 April 1770, is a declaration of ownership for the King's taxation purposes.

Jesse Drake had inherited this land from his deceased father. The Drakes had ownership of the land for about fifteen years prior to Evan's purchase of it. It is possible, then, that the land may have already been cleared and put to crops and might even have had a dwelling house on it. But that is speculation.

I have not found any evidence, either documented or circumstantial, that indicates where Evan lived prior to that date, where he was born, or who his parents were.

Writing in 1893, Evan M.'s great grandson Rev. A. M. Cartledge (1817 - 1895) stated that..."My ancestors on both sides, were from Wales: and settled first, in the Colony of Virginia. My grandfather Evan M. was related to Gen. Daniel M., of revolutionary fame."

I've done some research into the family of General Daniel M. of Revolutionary War renown, but was unable to establish any evidence of connection or relationship. It appears that a lot of people claimed kinship to the famous General.

It is safe to say that Evan was most likely of Welsh extraction* and that he was definitely a Primitive Baptist, a church with decidedly Welsh roots.
The area where Evan settled was in the South Carolina backcountry, between Edgefield, SC, and Augusta, GA. Although he lived in the same place for the remainder of his life, the area went through a number of name changes: Granville County to 96th District to Edgefield District to Edgefield County...and changing size and shape with each new name.

It is generally accepted that Evan's wife's name was Olive (some say Olivia) and that she was a cousin....which doesn't necessarily mean that her maiden name was also 'M'. Evidence has surfaced (in the Obituary of Olive’s daughter Olivia) which indicates that Olive’s maiden name was Newsom -- a Solomon Newsom had land adjoining the land that Evan M. originally settled on near Edgefield. The Newsom neighbors had arrived in South Carolina from Virginia, which meshes with the Virginia origin claimed by Rev. A. M. Cartledge as noted above.

* My DNA haplogroup indicates that my (and thus G-G-G-G Grandfather Evan’s) ancestral roots go back to the Vikings of Norway/Denmark and would most likely have entered the British Isles via the invasions of Scotland around 800 A.D.

I agree with BrownShoes in that the Olympics seem like they've been hogging up the Telly for eons. I can't decide which Olympics coverage enrages me more - Summer or Winter. I am grateful for the demise of the "UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL" sketches that used to substitute for real coverage of actual events. But this time around, KING 5 TV is being careful to not broadcast anything important till after 11:00 PM .... at which point I am dozing off from a combination of fatigue and sour mash whiskey. So I've been cutting away from the Olympics to watch American Idol, House, Bones, Invasion, Survival, Gray's Anatomy, etc., without much fear of missing anything stunning.

But it is sort of like being sucked into a black hole .... you know going in that you're going to be dragged through endless advertising breaks for the first three hours before the dangled bait is finally dropped onto the screen. Plop! I ALWAYS read the silent results on the evening news to see if it's going to be worthwhile. Plop!

The next Winter Olympics will be in Vancouver and Whistler (I think) and perhaps we will be getting some live coverage of live events.

We have survived the four-day vacation from the ever-present grandson Allie and now he is returned and operations are back to normal ..... meaning lots of crumbs on the family room rug, cartoon channels on the TV, and toys drug out for Grandpa to assist in the playing with of. Today it was Leggos and tower building. And the best part of building towers (I remember distinctly from when I was a kid) is causing them to topple into destruction afterwards. So today we built towers and destroyed towers, re-built towers and re-destroyed towers, ad infinitum. Until the bus whisked him off to kindergarten.

Took this rather nice detail shot late yesterday afternoon (low angle light source) at the statue on the boardwalk near the Bremerton ferry terminal. I assume the statue is a tribute to the jouneymen shipbuilders who passed their skills on to young apprentices in nearby Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. This apprentice is very young, but in the 'olden days' they started a lot younger. I was eighteen when I became an apprentice in the shipyard ... fifty-four years ago. How time flies whether you're having fun or not!

Something appropriate for Sunday morning viewing (along with Meet the Press, the New York Times, and a Snoqualmie Falls waffle).

Today's a teacher's day (sans kids) then the weekend then Monday's a Day for Presidents and as a RESULT Allie and Grandpa get a four-day vacation from each other. Kind of like the Walrus and the Carpenter going their separate ways.....

You can tell by the photo that we need a break from each other (?).

A visual metaphor for many things. Some spring to mind:
1) The current federal Administration. 2) Cheney's torturous route to the assumption of responsibility. 3) My struggle to get stable vision in my off eye.

Actually, I think the Veep is secretly the leader cum laudy of the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. I believe it is behooven on the Shrub to show America that he has confidence in his running (and shooting) mate by going elk hunting with him next weekend. Sans Secret Service. Just George and Dick, armed to the teeth, on one of those 'coming of age' adventures that so often find their way onto the Big Screen.

On a brighter note, I went to my favorite eye surgeon (retinal) this morning and he surprised me with the news that my vision was skidding in that ol' left eye an' he whipped out his steroid needle and stuck it in my eyeball. It never ceases to amaze me how much structural violation an eyeball can absorb and still go whistling along in its original round shape and gathering in the visions.

So now I have hundreds of black spots floating around in my vision as they deliver curative balm to the poor swollen area of my retina and ... AND ... renewed hope that it will stabilize, get well, and be done with it. I mean to tell you my current vision is such that if I came under shotgun attack by a Heart Patient in High Office, I would be at a disadvantage when it came to shooting back.

Just to play with scenarios here, what if? What if that Millionaire Lawyer had somehow maintained consciousness and had bounced to his feet and returned fire? Would the Secret Service have finished the bungled job of taking the guy out? Would we have had to wait for 24 hours to hear about that? NOT! The gentleman's survival caused the time problem. Did anyone call the local CSI team?

Photo taken 02/12/06 at Waterfront Park, Silverdale, WA

Another happy, spring-like day, but cold weather forecasted to be creeping down on us. This morning I cruised through Silverdale's Waterfront park with my camera. A really neat little park now that they have all the construction wrapped up. The playground equipment sits in this greenish area which in turn is surrounded by sidewalks and benches. I was appropriately startled when I cut across the green surface and it was spongy underfoot! Later a park attendant told me it was made of ground up tires and tennis shoes. He also said that during the just past storm, the waves crashing against the seawall were flung up over the nearby trees and flooded the playground. There are some nice design touches here .... and I especially like the large round stones incorporated here and there within the flat concrete walkways ... a nice tie-in with the stony beach.
The photo above is a 'detail' from one of three colorful artworks atop tall poles on a little hillock (Courtesy of the Silverdale Lion's Club).

Sometimes I get a photo that strikes me as just really perfect ... and of a ridiculously imperfect subject. In this case, a storm or ball-field drain outlet on the beach at Lion's Field, Bremerton, WA. The lines that fan out from the bottom edge right-of-center make a pleasing composition ... and the dark shadow at center keeps the viewer's eye corraled ... and the color variations are nice. And if I planned any of this, it was NOT with my conscious mind .... a happy happenstance (?). My camera and I have a particular fondness for rust, wreckage and advanced delapidation.

The young lady who has been writing the Sleepless In Sudan blog from Darfur, Sudan, has been transferred elsewhere by her employer .... so she is closing down the site (not sure what that entails, but the site is still 'up' for viewing). I will retain my link to her and check it now and then .... if her site goes black, I'll delete the link.

Americans are traditionally blind to genocide. See no genocide, speak no genocide, hear no genocide. I speculate that most Americans see Third World peoples as a threat to our WAY OF LIFE and would prefer to see them dead.

....so his 'other' grandmother comes along and insists he only gets apple slices for his afternoon, after-school snack 'cause he ain't eating supper to her specifications ... so I do that - instead of his usual hotdog - and today (second day) I end up eating the apple slices to keep them from turning brown. Well ----- maybe if he eats nothing and I eat the apple, maybe we'll both shrink a little. Probably not.

...and nice to have such a large shirt on a chilly morning when Papa Jim forgot to turn on the furnace....

Seahawks by 20 points?
Perhaps I was brain damaged.
Perhaps they did win ... in another dimension.
And by 20 points.

Gameday (Super Bowl 40) arrives in Puget Sound with a burst of sunshine. Good Karma, ay? Yes! I rushed out with my camera (to Lion's Field) and found this tail-gating party of rabid Seahawks fans (pic above) ... when I mentioned that it was only three hours till kick-off, they hit the skyways and set a course for Detroit (pic below).

We have power, we have an operable TV, we have beer and wine, we have chips and salsa, we have Dubliner cheese and water crackers, we have pizza ... and 2 and 1/2 hours left to savor the prospect of watching the SEAHAWKS do some serious buttkicking on the steelers.

Twenty-eight hours till Super Bowl kick-off after a thirty year wait here in Puget Sound and PRESTO BINGO! the biggest wind storm in seven years hits the area. Trees rooted in ground that has soaked up water for six weeks are toppling and powerline transformers are making like popcorn. Will there be power tomorrow? Will there be TV? Will there be a watching of the Super Bowl? Tragedy is teetering on our doorstep.

As you can see in the pic above, limbs have been breaking off the big maple in back, bouncing thunderously off our metal roof, and crashing and shattering on the lawn. We've lost power five times since midnight .... the three today have been only of a few seconds duration .... KNOCK ON WOOD! Gusts of wind tore one of my backporch wind chimes apart and sent it crashing down on the concrete stoop (see pic below). Heard three crashes on the roof while putting this post together.

In lieu of a sunbreak, anything yellow will do!
But a sunbreak would be nice...

I'm in total agreement with my circle of local blogging friends .... this bloody rain should cease to fall ... unless, of course, this is the End of Days, but for that I was expecting fire, not yet one more flood. Is there confusion at the Throne of Power?