Occupation of Independence

There really are junkies out there who watch too many dog rescue videos.   You know the routine: weepy, sentimental tear-jerkers, with soft solo piano music playing in the background.  So I can be forgiven for eagerly responding to a brown hound dog who was walking up a 2000' hill that I had just driven down. My first instinct, as a lifelong bicyclist, was to keep him out of traffic.  He didn't have a collar.  I was surprised by how tight his eye contact with me was.  (He was a hunting dog, not a border collie.)  Then he looked right at me and did the lip-smacking trick that my own dog does at home when she thinks it's time for dinner. My instinct was to get a bowl of water down, first.  But he wasn't interested.  Using an extra dog leash I fashioned a loop to go over his head.  I brought him to the back of the van and opened a can of pinto beans -- fortunately they had pop-tops.  He was very thin, but otherwise healthy-acting.  He...

I doubt that anything good can come from expressing my disgust with the foreign policy of my own country, especially in Gaza.  Caitlin Johnstone does a better job than I could. And yet there are hopeful signs that many in the Western world are becoming more critical of Israel.  Hope?  That is what interests me today.  Hope, naivete, delusion, wishful thinking, and escapism overlap and become so confusing.   A person can be well-educated and well-read, but does it really help them understand the overlap between these terms, when applied to a specific slaughter like Gaza?  Perhaps the only thing that seems certain is the notion that it is important for people in a 'free' society to actively and courageously confront mass-slaughter.   We also need to be realistic about our ability and stamina to consider such grim and horrible events without giving up.  We all have our limits.  If we overshoot and then surrender our attention to easy a...

Recently I watched an episode of an old TV western.  I didn't care for the episode, nor did some of the reviewers, who called it a knock-off of (1952) "High Noon", starring Gary Cooper.  I didn't even care for "High Noon" all that much, despite it being considered a classic movie. Of course there is more than one level or angle for appreciating a classic anything, and maybe "High Noon" is worth rewatching.  Think of a classic as a general template, a Platonic Form, that can be reincarnated in different eras and locations.  We shouldn't dismiss the reincarnation as an unoriginal knock-off.  Novelty isn't what matters. It is "mind-expanding" to be concerned with a tangible person or situation today, and then suddenly realize that it fits a timeless template.  You walk out of the small pond of Today, Here, and Now and paddle off to a large and long river nearby, one that represents the general flow of the human condition. "High ...

 Now the hounds -- several of them -- were baying their heads off.  The man in the pickup truck came by.  He explained that the hounds had probably treed something.  His Garmin radio collar system told him that the hounds were only a couple hundred yards away. He suggested that I turn my little dog loose to join in the fun.  I was not tempted.  Then the man moved forward aways, parked, grabbed a walking stick, and slid down the steep slope to the tree where the hounds were howling.  I decided to stay on the road where vegetation wouldn't block my vision. He had five hounds at it.  Three of them had run away to chase something else.  "We oughtta' be able to see it," he said. I have a long way to go before the BBC or National Geographic hires me as photographer for one of their wildlife shows.  But I think this one is better: The bear drooled almost continually and pooped occasionally when he was up the tree.  I guess this black bear ...