Occupation of Independence

The vague discomfort that I always felt in Yuma overlapped in some way with how I felt around RVers in general. The whole thing seemed like a big revolving door. Every year there's a new crop of newbies with the standard notions. The romance of pretty scenery and escapism is not long-lasting; that and normal human aging soon put them on a lot in Yuma. Recently Peter Yates died. He directed the movie Breaking Away circa 1980, about growing up in an Indiana college town, with a subplot about bicycle racing. The best speech in the movie comes from Dennis Quaid, who plays the ex-high school quarterback. (All of the boys are 19 year old townies, bored and unemployed, and not college-bound.) With some envious resentment they watch the college football team practice one day, when the ex-high school quarterback soliloquizes: You know what really gets me though? Here I am, I've gotta live in this stinkin' town, and I gotta read in the newspaper about some new hot shot kid, the

Recently I was commenting on someone else's blog when the subject of Yuma AZ came up. It is a snowbird magnet, as are Sun City and Green Valley. I rented a lot there during three winters. It was interesting to me to rethink Yuma because so many issues about retirement and relocation seem to coalesce there.  Yuma is famous with retirees and snowbirds primarily because it is the warmest place in the southwest, although not as warm as south Texas or Florida. And there are practical advantages, such as low cost dentistas and farmacias right across the border in Algodones, one of the few border towns that won't frighten middle class gringos. Years ago Yuma was considered a bargain: you could buy a gravel lot and plunk down an RV for a few months, or you could even build a normal house, although living in Yuma for twelve months per year is a perverse idea. On the negative side, Yuma is desperately congested in the winter. Just going to the grocery store can be a nigh

 

My sporting advice to liberals is to keep blaming Palin for the Tucson shooting, despite its apparent failure as shown by recent polls. Oh dear, here comes a military metaphor: they can fail tactically while winning on a strategic level. Attacking Palin solidifies the notion that she is the front runner, the heir apparent. If Republicans fall for this and "rally 'round the Palin", the liberals will end up getting the last laugh, since she is a weak candidate.  Palin is unqualified, dumb, and unpresidential. Is it not obvious that Palin was chosen to fight the "tired old white guy" image that McCain had? (Think Bob Dole in 1996.) Also, the first (half) black candidate for president was generating a lot of excitement on the Democrat side, so the GOP didn't want to be completely left out of the affirmative action presidential sweepstakes. I think that trend has become passe. The example of Obama will bring Americans back to the sensible notion that a half

No doubt I need to do a better job of highlighting positive news instead of offering my usual complaints about the decline and ultimate demise of Western Civilization. Once again there is some perky news about the decline of Vegas, which is a proxy for hope for America.

It is a common complaint, almost a cliche, that politics has become increasingly partisan and bitter over the last few years. Everybody bemoans this, but nobody does anything about it. The aftermath of the Tucson shooting -- more than the shooting itself -- seems to suggest a frightening political volcano lying dormant just below the surface. For a sense of perspective let's look at a quote from Boswell's Life of Johnson , circa 1770. Johnson says: I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual. Sir, the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man. What Frenchman is prevented from passing his life as he pleases? It was easy for Johnson to make that argument. No matter how tyrannical a government was in his day, it could have only the smallest impact on everyday life compared to what it can do today, whether it be tyrannical or benevolent. The machinery simply didn'

Why is the old boy on top conquering the female's heart? The lower male seems more colorful.

If, in the privacy of their own hearts, many Leftists jumped to conclusions or even felt a brief moment of dark glee upon hearing of the Tucson shooting, they shouldn't be blamed too much; after all, most restrained themselves while waiting for more evidence. The most notable exception to responsible behavior was Paul Krugman at the ever-shrinking New York Times. But that was expected. After all, the Democrats took quite a "shellacking" in the midterm election, causing it to be compared to 1994. Naturally a shocking act of violence instantly brings to mind the Oklahoma City bombing, which Clinton was able to use to his advantage in becoming the Comeback Kid. My advice to the Left is that they not be misled by seductive analogies. So far, Obama has shown none of the political acumen or good luck of Clinton. In the mid-90s, Talk Radio was the only crack in the Leftist hegemony over the Media. (Fox News didn't hit the big time until later in the 90s.) But today the int

I'm not any good at identifying birds in silhouette. But the tuft grabbed my eyes from a long distance, and he let me approach. Update: the two commenters were right. It's a phainopepia. I forgot to check my own Picasa web album before giving up on the silhouette above:

There should be more pundits and "news" sources that take a time-agnostic point of view: "Oh so that's what happened today, is it? Well who the hell cares." But the Media focuses on the trivial and ephemeral. I'm afraid the internet is just making it worse, with its obsession with how things are "trending", and with who's hot and who's not. In the political news, the Media obsesses over tweaking this or that tax policy or government entitlement program to the Left or Right. When are we going to focus on something important for a change?! We live in a Democratic age, as opposed to the earlier era of an Aristocracy or Monarchy. We think that the very legitimacy of our political establishment is based on "the consent of the governed." And yet, we have created trillions of dollars of debt or unfunded entitlement programs that will have to be paid by people in the years of 2020-2050 A.D. Some of them aren't even old enough to vot