Occupation of Independence

I felt it welling up inside me: disgust and anger.  And yet it was glorious! Arizona is having a February heat wave , as if being ungawdly hot for 9 months a year isn't good enough.  And I was working outdoors, during the heat of the day, on rebuilding my wooden leveling ramps.  I tried to work in the shadow of my van, but the verticality of the sun in late February was making that difficult. "Glorious" in the first paragraph was not meant to be theatrical or facetious.  This is ranch country in southeastern Arizona, and it has become quite the little tourist trap, commemorating its glorious cowboy past.  But how do you experience the reality of ranching in 1890?  By looking at pretty sunsets?  By researching the area on the internet?  By going on a ranger-led hike?   Hell no, it ain't about prettiness, although there is quite a bit of beauty here: It is about soil and grass and grazing cattle or horses.  I still don't understand h...

 Before I left the desert-wasteland for this winter, I did a double-take at a certain saguaro cactus : You might think, What's the Big Deal.  It's just a classic saguaro postcard.  But that's the thing: I spend most of the winter in deserts that are marginal for saguaros.  You might be surprised how sickly most of them look.  The specimen above is thriving! Did it just get lucky genes?  Or are saguaros so picky about conditions, that perfect soil and weather only occur occasionally?  I wish I knew more biology .  Sometimes I start doing homework and become instantly bored with all the jargon and memorization needed. How could plants so picky about conditions even come into being, in the first place?  And then you have plants and critters on the other side of the spectrum: they are so adaptable or so tolerant that they can live just about anywhere.  Consider the coyote as the perfect example of that. At any rate, we have fled the desert ...

 Do you remember how people watched, time after time, the 9/11 videos of the Twin Towers coming down?  People couldn't believe what they were seeing.  There was some cheering in various parts of the world.  The gist of it only took a couple spectacular seconds. What would happen if Iran sends some missiles into the big, beautiful armada of the Trumpanyahu regime?  Imagine a burning, smoking aircraft carrier.  It could make for an hour of spectacular video footage.  Imagine the mighty symbol of American strength listing at an extreme angle, support ships hovering nearby trying to rescue lifeboats, sailors jumping off the sloped deck into the water, and flames and fuel explosions! It might provoke a world record of  schadenfreude.   That wouldn't be surprising, considering that Washington DC and Israel might be the two most hated nations in the world. In the future, history books would always show this image when writing about the end of the A...

 Whether it is good or bad, I seldom try to watch new movies.  But I made an exception on Tubitv.com with " The Music of Silence ", a semi-biographical story of the blind singer , Andrea Bocelli .  It deserves praise for a good story and the lack of the usual components of modern movies, such as insane violence, bedroom scenes, rainbow flag worship, etc. It is enjoyable for most viewers to stick for an underdog, and that is especially so for a blind person.  But it is almost too easy.  Most people remember the " Miracle Worker ", with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke , in the Helen Keller story.  So the path has already been well explored.  Halfway through the movie, I started to think that the viewer needed more of a challenge, in the same way that an outdoorsman needs to get off of heavily-used trails that have a brown, carsonite sign every 100 steps. Much to the movie's credit, it showed a scene when a heavy female singer spontaneously joined Bocel...

 The ATV'er slowed down and then stopped to talk.  Was he a javelina hunter ?  It turned out that he was a ranch hand at a nearby ranch.  He was taking out big brown blocks of food for the cattle.  I love asking questions about How Things Work and how people make a living.  And how animals make a living. He was quite scientific about the nutrition of these big blocks, but struggled a bit with the verbiage.  Finally I helped by saying, "So you mean that even the ranchers near [redacted] are hippie-dippies ?"  He nodded yes and laughed. Our talk helped me slip into my annual infatuation phase with grasslands and trees in southeastern Arizona .  That might sound strange to some people, but spend a couple months in mid-winter along the lower Colorado River and you will feel a lust for anything that isn't rubble or cholla . Arizona Sycamore Tawny grass and live oaks Planet Earth certainly has some goodies, but the desert isn't one of them. T...

 Do you ever think you are too easily and eternally pleased with something, and that you should try harder to be dissatisfied?  Maybe you just aren't raising the high jump bar high enough? Ahh, but what a fine thing it is to be completely satisfied, time after time, year after year!  When I find a spot in Arizona that isn't choked with chollas, like some places: ... I am satisfied with it -- with no questions asked.  We can put up with cactus spines and goathead thorns with no problem.  But damn those chollas! And here we were, finding another interesting arroyo within walking distance of my camper.  We had never walked this one before.  It was pleasantly cool and was totally unused by the motor-crazed morons.  What a nice surface it was for doggie paws. I unsnapped her because she usually stays confined to the arroyo proper.  And running free is so much fun for her.  Then the coyotes started yipping, close.  She is only 21 pounds, ...

 I stubbornly cling to the notion that it is good for a person to pay attention to what it is happening in the world.  But it is important to give yourself some relief, some soothing thoughts, during all this. For Americans, books and movies about the Battle of Midway can provide soothing thoughts.  On the British side of the pond, it might be even easier.  I downloaded "Mrs. Miniver" from  Archive.org .  In the movie, Brits of all classes were working together.  Nobody had any doubt about the necessity of the war.  Everybody knew who the good guys and the bad guys were. Such a mindset is a bit believable.  People got their news from the BBC , virtually a branch of the British government.  Naturally that does not make for brutal truth-telling.  But that is not our concern in this post -- soothing is. The movie had quite an effect on me.  Everybody was so polite and wore such nice clothes.  The actresses were lovely, ...

 " Independence " is an easy word to praise.  It is not so easy to practice.  Once this winter a friendly camping-neighbor approached me.  We had several good and long conversations.  These days I try to respond positively when somebody else takes the initiative, but I never take the initiative myself.  Call it the 'triumph of experience over hope.' Spending so much time alone makes a person feel a bit unhinged or cranky.  You are free to develop opinions that are out-of-step with the ignorant masses.  Then you wonder if you are getting a little crazy or whether the other people are. For instance I have rolled my eyes at the pickup truck trend of the last 20 years.  Finally I ran into a channel that put out the same sort of rant that I do.  Validated, at last!  It is fun to find worthwhile channels on You Tube and to shout them out.