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Yesterday morning at 8:27 am our family lost our beloved Dessie Olver. She passed away peacefully at the age of 93 surrounded by her 2 daughters, 2 granddaughters and 2 grandsons.

Dessie was my mother-in-law for almost 20 years and she was my only “mom” for the last 12 years. It was an honor to know her and to love her and I will miss her a lot, but I take comfort in knowing that my wife, Marty, was able to get to Portland in time to spend one final night with her mother. Marty frequently reminds me that God has a Plan, and this week has certainly been proof of that!

Dessie will be buried Friday, June 25, 2010, at the New Tacoma Cemetery, Tacoma, WA, after a private grave-side service.

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.” - Thomas Campbell

I read the other day that Portland, Oregon had already received 4 inches of rain during the month of June, making it one of the city’s wettest Junes in recorded history. Here in La Paz, we average 0.01 inches during the entire month of June, and so far we’ve had zero. In fact, we haven’t had any measurable precipitation in months – literally!

I’ve included a link to the current MSN 10-day forecast for La Paz, along with these statistics from The Weather Channel:

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Warning - graphic image

Ocean correspondent Frank Pope, in London’s Sunday Times, reports that conservationists are concerned that the decline in the world’s shark population will prompt chefs to turn to the slaughter of manta and devil rays to satisfy the Asian elite. What the Hell is the matter with these people? The only explanation is that they must have far more money than brains!

Shark fin soup is NOT a basic necessity and it’s not a dietary requirement. It’s expensive ($10 to $65 per bowl) and it continas high levels of mercury so it may actually be a health hazard. If you haven’t seen the pictures of what the butchers (and I mean that literally) do to the sharks to meet their clients’ demands, I suggest you Google “shark finning” but here’s one rather graphic explanation I ran across:

“Finning” refers to the practice of cutting off only the shark’s fins and discarding the body. Sometimes sharks are dead when they’re pulled into the boats, but often, they’re still alive as their four fins are cut off with a knife. When they’re thrown back into the ocean the sharks either bleed to death, or they drown, because sharks can’t swim without fins, and they need to go forward to get oxygen. Divers have discovered hundreds of dead finned sharks at the bottom of the ocean in huge shark graveyards.

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Nice, huh? And now these bastards have their ghoulish eyes on the graceful and majestic manta rays as their next victims. Between the Asian appetite for endangered species and the American appetite for illegal drugs, you have to wonder how long the human species will survive – or if it even deserves to.