Occupation of Independence

Think of the conversations you've had over the years, usually with males I'm afraid to say, who hear one wrong buzzword out of your mouth. That's all it takes for their "mind" to snap closed, and off they go onto an angry rant, spewing out absolute opinions. The rants are mental recordings which the fellow gets off on. Digital thinking of this type poses as manly forcefulness, while in fact, it is emotionally self-indulgent and mentally lazy. The best essays and blog posts are those that allow a wide range of readers to be in partial agreement. It would please me if people read my posts who think that 15% of my opinions are not complete crap, and therefore I might be redeemable. And yet, brutal honesty requires us to admit that there is something gratifying about going on a rant on the internet. Occasionally. James Quinn outdid himself recently in an anti-consumerist rant about credit cards, big screen TVs, McMansions, SUVs, sprawl, etc. In a similar vein I w

So maybe Robert Falcon Scott and Richard E. Byrd (author of Alone ) wouldn't be too impressed with the "cold" that we've been having here in the highlands of southern New Mexico -- after all, it's only a Dry Cold. But then again, so was theirs.  Last night I got overconfident and slept without wearing my winter parka. Big mistake. When I jumped out of bed this morning I wondered first if the water had frozen inside the RV. In my rig, freezing the plumbing is not destructive since the plumbing runs off of the water pump and inside reservoir, which makes for plenty of air spaces in the plumbing. It hadn't frozen, but the water pump hesitated like the starter motor in a car, after a cold winter night. Since I was getting suspicious of a "hard freeze" inside the RV, I had implemented standard winter survival techniques, such as filling a pan of water the night before. In the morning, if you do discover a freeze, you can still get breakfast going.

On a standard mountain bike route the other day, I was passing by the western edge of a hill. The first runner that I've seen in a long time came by and joked about how cold and windy it was. I had to agree, but wouldn't complain about sunny, cold, and windy weather. It is New Mexico after all. A few seconds later I was at a cliff face that faced west, where a raven was showing off, thanks to ridge lift . The raven was so close. He folded his wings in and, for just a second, paused, suspended in space with all the drama of an Olympic high diver at the edge of the board. Then he fell straight down. The fall was so different than the flight, and yet, they both borrowed from something outside that individual bird. The raven was borrowing the Will of Gravity and Wind, combining them, and composing something that befitted his intelligence and playful mood. In all the rides and walks that I've been on, over the years, I've never seen anything quite like that. 

This creepie-crawlie was on the pavement one cold morning recently. If you count those two spindly forelegs, there are eight total. But scorpions have high tails and a pair of front pincers. Perhaps this is an immature scorpion in one of its numerous manifestations (molts). (The photos on the internet never show immature critters.) I gave icy glares to passing motorists. Somehow the creepie-crawlie made it through the car tires without being squished. Forgive me for not carrying it to the other side of the road.

There are plenty of arroyos (dry washes) in the Little Pueblo, but bein' az we're at the foot of the mountains, they are usually soggy and full of plants. They just don't make for the peerless walking of the arroyos of lower Arizona. Forgive me for feeling a little nostalgia for them; during my traveling years I'd be in Arizona at this time of year.  My dogs and I hardly ever walked real hiking trails in the uplands there, since the rocks were too sharp for dog paws. A woman in the campground here sewed up a boot out of cloth for her dog. She was amazed how short the boot's life was. But even leather doesn't stand a chance. I spent a couple years trying different brands and materials before finding Neo-Paws . Contrast the prickliness of an Arizona razor-rock hike with the pleasure of an arroyo. Cactus and mesquite grow on the banks, but not in the middle of the "stream." As if that wasn't relief enough, the rocks and gravel are mercifully round

  My favorite spot at the arroyo, where desert-grasslands and riparian plants get confused. At any rate it makes this area a good place for wildlife.

Nobody likes a thermo-wimp. Early winter's cold caught me by surprise, and I struggled to make it through the night without using heat in the RV. How could 45 F inside conquer a man? Off I went on a mountain bike ride, one cold windy sunny morning. Carelessly or deliberately I under-dressed, for the first time in years. It turned out to be a blessing. Being chilled brings on fear first and then anger, finally leading to combat. At some point I stopped at the top of a small cliff by an old mining area and faced the foe, the cold wind. I love visiting and writing about ridgelines, but this was different. It was bloodthirsty, vengeful, and triumphal. Maybe a book was working on me. In The Discovery of the Mind , by Bruno Snell, he talked about Homer's language being quite different from later (classical) Greek; Homer used 'skin' or 'limbs' in situations where later Greek or English would use 'body.' "Thus the early Greeks did not, either in their lan

The internet is abuzz with howls of protest about the TSA's new procedures for screening airline passengers. I wasn't too interested in this at first, probably because I haven't flown for years. But then I saw an angle that did interest me. When an issue fits neatly into the Left-versus-Right paradigm, it can be quite boring. All the shibboleths and slogans are so predictable. If you ask somebody for their opinion, it ends up being a mere recording. But it is much more interesting when an issue produces mixed feelings and cross-currents on both sides. Let's consider the poor Democrats first. A good liberal's instinctive reaction to some -- nay, to any -- new or expanded federal government program is that it must be a step towards Progress. At least its intentions must be good; what else matters? And yet, this is part of the War on Terror, which is Bush's War. And the airline unions hate the new procedures. Furthermore privacy issues are a not-insignificant pa