Occupation of Independence

Yes, 'predictions are very difficult, especially about the future.'  That won't stop me.  Through the year of 2025, expect: 1.  The Trump Derangement Syndrome will morph into the Musk Derangement Syndrome. 2.  Trump will fall into the trap of becoming the new owner of the Ukraine war debacle. 3.  100,000 civilians in the Mideast who are alive today will be killed directly or indirectly by Washington and Israel.  They will be called "terrorists", not murdered civilians. 4.  Zelenskyy's regime in Kiev will be over.  5.  The US government debt will expand by several trillion dollars.  High inflation will continue to be endemic in the American economy. I am still working on coming up with a positive development.  There's got to be something!  Wait, I've got it: 6.  America will not take over Canada, the Panama Canal, or Greenland. from calendar.com

It is that time of year, when visitors to the desert rhapsodize about red sunsets.  Here is my contribution:   I didn't deliberately do anything to enhance the colors, and yet it didn't look this red in real life.  The lying cheating camera added the color.  Even the cameras of the world have now been programmed to shoot for the maximum number of hits and clickbait income.  Sigh. Most people probably run their sunset photos through the editing software and then scream about how red the sunset is.  Who do they think they are fooling?  Hell, these days, you could take a picture of dog crap and then edit it into blazing red. There was a time when a red sunset was impressive and real; when a Jimmy Buffet song said, "Sunset is an angel weeping...holding out a bloody sword."  No longer.  I started losing faith in photography ten years ago when photo editing took over. For an analogy, consider when I was shopping for cars a few years ago.  I h...

It is strange  that "hiking" usually means walking in the mountains, when in fact, there is nothing in the mountains in  the desert Southwest.  Mountains are just heaps of rubble.  Sharp rocks.  Nothing green.  No animals, except a "borrego."  Stumble and bumble, slip and slide. In the arroyos in my neighborhood, the world seems lifeless, too, but only from a distance.  Close up you are surprised by all the green vegetation.  The ironwood trees can be 30 feet high!   I can't resist pronouncing the name, ahhrrrnwood.   I am camped low, where the arroyos flatten out.  The "streams" split and then rejoin in the most confusing way.  This is not true closer to the mountains, where the arroyos have steep banks or sidewalls and where the confluences are sensible and predictable.  This put me in a whimsical mood.  My mind drifted off to a Jimmy Buffet song that by chance I had listened to again, a few days back...

Maybe my little dog needed a Christmas present.  It can be frustrating and expensive to bounce around with different doggie boots before you finally find something that works.  Arizona might well convince you the trouble is worth it.  Surprisingly my little darlin' has pretty tough feet. We humans are so spoiled, walking around in shoes, in this gawd-forsaken wasteland.  Stickers, thorns.  Even the damned rocks are so sharp you wouldn't touch them without leather work gloves.   How does she do as well as she does?!  An Arizona dog needs hooves rather than pads. It is almost operatic to dwell on how awful the land is here.  Let it sink in.  Surrender to the horror.  It is quite cathartic.   The good news is that there is a way to beat it.  There are two types of terrain that are kind and gentle for those doggie pads.  Well-traveled two track roads are mercifully easy.  But the supreme highway to heaven in the dese...