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A Belvedere Over Windy Badlands

I won't apologize for my long-standing fascination with desert arroyos, especially when they develop into small canyons. Of course, readers should be warned that you should begin by hiking 'upstream', with the main branch resembling a forearm, which then subdivides into fingers, which further split into sub-fingers. At some point, you turn around and return to your starting point. It is mathematically (topologically) impossible to get lost. Ahh, but what if you are camped on a mesa that lords over eroded badlands ? Then you start walking downstream . A mistake. Normally I feel an urge to dismantle rock cairns. What gives people the right to rob a route of its mystique and aura? But in this case, I was happy to see two cairns, at the first im portant junction on my first downstr eam walk. After all, I was out of practice. The technique that works for me is to renounce the mindset of a tourist. Stop calling things 'beautiful' just because they are freakish

Will Post-Attack France Be as Unwise as America?

Will the French be as stupid after the Paris attacks on Friday the 13th as America was after 9-11? For their sakes I hope not. But there are always those who seize on terrorist attacks to implement their own agenda, an agenda decided-on long before any attacks. The two best editorials I've run across on the recent Paris attacks are described now:  The first was by Andrew Bacevich. This isn't the first time I've been impressed by one of his editorials. The second recommendation appealed, in part, because I am a sucker for analogies. Bret Weinstein wrote in Salon that: But to the nation as a whole that level of damage [from the 9-11 attacks] was about as dangerous as a bee sting.You may find that analogy suspect because bee stings are deadly to those with an allergy. But what kills people is not the sting itself. It is their own massive overreaction to an otherwise tiny threat, that fatally disrupts the functional systems of the body. And that is exactly wh