Something very odd occurred to me the other day; an eagle appeared on my television screen the day before Martin Luther King Day, and it wasn't part of the broadcast. I suppose anyone who knows me might claim that was not an especially odd event, especially since I had originally intended to start this column with a story about my teaching dance classes a couple of weeks ago. Yes, I really did teach dance recently. It is just another of the highly varied twists and turns of my life that I am actually almost qualified to do so, or at least more qualified than most. So, on the scale of "odd" an oddly ghostly eagle on the television hardly rates a blip.

I also don't usually consider myself to be especially superstitious, but on the other hand, I do glance at my horoscope routinely, most days. I tell myself it more to stimulate an openness of mind to the possibilities than looking for predictions as such. On the other hand, maybe I am more superstitious than I am willing to admit. In any case, it did seem to me a rather odd contrast that a "hawk" appeared on my screen on a day before we are marking the rather remarkable life of one person so devoted to peaceful ways of calling the world's attention to things that needed change.

I suppose I owe you a brief explanation, before I get a line of gawking strangers lined up at my front door to see "the miracle". It seems that at just the right hour on just the right day, the sunshine coming in the demilune window above the breakfast table is also intersected by the peak of the neighbor's roof. Add to that the distortion of the angles involved, and the result turned into a hook-billed projection of brightness against the otherwise dim screen of the television. But was it an omen? And was it favorable or not?

I have long held that one of the basic flaws in "investigation" methods, especially in science, but even more so in statistics, and somewhat true in all fields, is the fact that it is rare that we find what we are NOT looking for. That is, that generally all human inquiries are so biased by the expectation of a result, that if we don't see that result we tend not to see anything, or we go back and modify the methodology to "refine" it in the direction that will get us closer to the result we are seeking.

What did occur to me was, when I saw that Barak Obama, Joe Lieberman and John McCain had all co-sponsored a bill to extend the federal ethanol tax credit and the biodiesel tax credits along with targets for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions was that perhaps we were seeing a sign of apocalyptic proportions. Then I remembered it was FOUR horsemen of the apocalypse, and I was again grateful that I am not usually a superstitious person. The bill, though I am sketchy on the details, reportedly, calls for very small rollbacks in carbon dioxide production over a very, very, very long period of time (43 more years, I believe). What it really demonstrates is that "in these troubled times" when everyone's attention is focused on the pressing issue of Iraq, and escalation of US troop levels there, that these politicians are very astute in their ability to attract attention to themselves as "statesmen" at a level above being politicians in the sense of mean and petty partisans for their parties. These days Lieberman and McCain are doing a do-se-do on who is more centrist and who is more the strong right winger for Lieberman is very right for one who still caucuses with the Democratic Party in the Senate. This alliance also silhouettes Obama against the right-leaning Republican group that his traditional position, being strongly anti-war from the beginning, has established for him. Yet the partnership also casts him as the kind of non-partisan that McCain himself, and to a lesser extent Lieberman have claimed as men of principle beyond mere party loyalties. The sad things is that the McCain-Lieberman-Obama bill is so weak that it is almost worse than nothing. Nay, I go so far as to say that by watering down the obvious need for strong legislation and decisive action on the global warming and carbon dioxide emissions issues it is far worse than nothing. It looks like mere jockeying, particularly on the part of Obama, to look like one of the "big boy", serious contenders for the 2008 Presidential Election campaign. Both Lieberman and McCain have been in that fight before (and lost, admittedly) but they are seen as real players on that stage. Obama, meanwhile offered a very strong "hint", as they called it later, during George Stephanopoulos' THIS WEEK show that he would have an announcement "very soon" about his candidacy.

Maybe we need more "statesmen" who can compromise to get things done, but we need statesmen whose compromises are not so watered-down and weak that they defeat their own purposes.

Meanwhile, back on the dance floor, I taught the girls (sadly in this public high school not one boy was in any dance class) an exercise that I did not learn in my dance classes, but from my chiropractor. I noted that every dance should be doing this exercise every day. I explained that it was particularly beneficial to the lower back to avoid strains, and therefore was also especially helpful to "pregnant ladies". That comment, it surprised me, brought an embarrassed giggle from the girls. It seemed that high school girls still giggle in embarrassment from mention of pregnancy. At the time this seemed odd to me. Even the television censors (pardon me, the "Standards and Practices" folks from the networks) have gotten over shyness on that linguistic evolution. Then I realized my error. They thought I was teasing them about being pregnant in high school because I had been calling them "ladies" all day. Funny how you can make a joke without even realizing it sometimes.

In the "more than one way to skin a cat" category, a company called "Alternative Energy Sources" announced that it plans to build a 110 million gallon ethanol plant in Greenville, Illinois. The company CEO is Mark Breemer, a former executive with ADM (Archer Daniels Midland Co., the agricultural giant and largest ethanol producer in the United States). This is the same company that recently announced the appointment of former USDA Secretary Mike Espy to its board of directors. The company stock is traded over the counter as OTCBB:AENS.OB according to the Kansas City Business Journal, and with movers and shakers like this at the helm, this might be one to watch. The E85 flex fuel revolution is almost upon us.

I have had some interesting email exchanges with California recently and I hope to contact some folks in Arkansas this week too. Let us hope that I don't have too much trouble explaining the similarity of sawdust and sewage to all concerned. Biomass is an exciting field to be exploring now. I hope that the enthusiasm is infectious too.

love

Stafford "Doc" Williamson