Occupation of Independence

What I miss about my former lifestyle is taking a mountain bike, dog, and camera out onto a new trail everyday. And sleeping away from city noise. And walking up arroyos with a dog in the winter.  I was never much interested in what I saw through the windshield. There's still a couple years until I can start withdrawing my IRA penalty-free, but it's fun to fantasize about the next boonie-mobile. I no longer want to tow, and be 40 feet long in total. Short trips around the Southwest are all I want; no more full-timing. I want something that gets 20 mpg or more. Inside there needs to be a 3" Thermarest air mattress, water jugs, a solar shower bag, a cookstove, and porta-potty. I would not try to make a pickup cap look like a finished RV, with all the useless overhead of middle-class respectability or feminine decorativeness. It isn't supposed to be a cute witto house; it's supposed to be a sleepable vehicle. As much as I dislike pickups, I don't think tha

At one point during the recent turmoil in Egypt I saw a video of unarmed Muslim protestors kneeling on the street to pray right in front of a water cannon, which merrily blasted away at them. That had quite an effect on me. I wonder how many proud secularists in the West felt uncomfortable watching that video, and if so, did they know why? Was it because of the obvious cruelty or was it something else? There is a connection between this contemporary image and a point made by George Orwell in his review, written in the early days of World War II, of the unabridged edition of Hitler's Mein Kampf. [Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all Western thought since the last war, certainly all "progressive" thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security, and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his child

Recently Obama got a question from an audience about the high price of gasoline. Obama, half-jokingly, suggested that if the questioner was driving a vehicle that got 8 miles per gallon, he should trade it in for something better. This outraged the blogosphere, since it was interpreted as a "let them eat cake" wise-crack. But I thought his response was sensible and candid. At this point the reader's eyes are starting to narrow because he suspects that a foot-and-pedal partisan such as me is rolling in schadenfreude over gasoline approaching $4 per gallon. Very well then, I admit that it is 70% of the reason why I agree with Obama's statement, above. But let's discuss the remaining 30%. I'm old enough to remember when the average American drove an automobile, rather than a monster pickup truck or truck-based SUV. Is the nostalgia of old age playing tricks with my mind? I remember passenger cars doing pretty well; many drivers loved their cars. Only farme

Another Protest Friday has come and gone in the Middle East, with Syria becoming a big headline grabber. I have appreciated the commentariat comparing current goings-on with the aborted revolutions in Europe in 1848. This is a subject that doesn't get enough attention in the history books. My first year RVing in the Southwest I was surprised to learn of the unsuccessful German revolutionaries of 1848 who moved to the Texas Hill Country, and left their names on many of the towns. But rather than choose 1848, why not choose the more recent 1968? Those of us who were a bit too young to be a part of the "Big Chill" generation have probably always held a grudge against those who were; and we learned to mock those whose brains froze in that year. But let's play nice and say that there were some serious reasons for 1968 being a year of riots, such as the Vietnam War, racial problems, etc. I still can't help believing that 1968 was put on the map primarily because of