Occupation of Independence

Caitlin Johnstone's writing on the slaughter of Palestinians by Israelis has been relentless and impressive.  If there were a Pulitzer Prize for alternative-media, she deserves it.  Anybody interested in accessing her work (at no charge) might want to go to substack.com  . It takes a bit of effort for me to praise her.  She is a Greenie socialist.  But there is something to be said -- actually, a lot to be said -- for dissolving pundits into their component parts.  If component X is too objectionable to read, then look at component Y or Z. This method keeps a reader from falling into their own echo chamber.  And it depolarizes public discourse.  The method might work for more than pundits. For instance, it is good to dissolve religions into component parts, and not 'throw out the baby with the bath water.'  This is Easter in Western Christianity.  You needn't be a Christian to admire the importance that Christians have attached to Hope. At the risk of turning Hope into

This is the first time I have ever camped in the midst of small groups of "wild" horses, if that is what they are.  I haven't seen any of them mooch goodies from campers, as burros will.  But the horses let me and my dog get within 50 feet of them.  Perhaps there is a spring closer to the mountains where they "water up."   The other day a pretty horse was pawing insistently at the ground.  It reminded me of the book, "The Horse, The Wheel, and Language," by David Anthony.  I heard of the book from the "HistoryofEnglishPodcast.com".  The book said that horses had a great advantage on the Eurasian steppes: they would pound through the snow with their hooves, and find grass in winter.  But cows and sheep won't use that trick. Much of the book takes place in the homeland of Indo-European languages, which is modern Ukraine.  (Of  course, we mustn't confuse our linguistic ancestors with out biological ancestors.) When the linguistics and hi

On a mountain bike ride the other day I had to stop and admire an unusual canyon.  It did have vertical walls about 100 feet high.   But what made it visually impressive was the unusual width of the canyon floor.  It was over 100 meters wide.   There was no water visible of course -- it is southern Nevada, after all.  But the flat canyon floor had such impressive graceful curves, left by rampaging water, that I found myself gawking!  And yet, I didn't take a photo of it, probably because cameras are obsessed with the vertical and the perpendicular.  This was fun in a different sort of way.  But it would have been a great place for an overhead drone photograph. I like to visualize alluvial fans of gravel, coming down from the mountains as a slow-moving glacier.  The analogy is not very close actually, but the image is irresistible.  This canyon was the "fast lane" on this giant ramp of gravel. The whole thing seems metaphorical, with every individual person being like a s

The campsite was a bit too close to the road, but I put up with it because traffic was light and n obody was camped in this part of southern Nevada.  But, when two van/car nomads showed up in the area, I panicked and went to a new site. One of the ironies of desert camping is that there is so little privacy.  This seems to contradict the notion that you are in 'the middle of nowhere.'  You are so visible to others and visa versa.  Sometimes you can read the body language of a car approaching: they have noticed you.  They are actually sucked-in due to some weird psychology when they see somebody else (you!) camping there.  Soon the little paradise you have found will be degraded by neighbors.  So, like I said, I panicked when those two young nomads showed up.  Young people are told what to do and where to camp by the internet.  They might even be contributing to that problem, in person.  The campers in question chose their spots on small promontories, probably for the great vie