Occupation of Independence

No winter is complete without me railing against the Abomination of Desolation, that is, the Pacific Time Zone. But it is too easy to slam. Instead, let's take a moment to appreciate the quiet and real heroes who defy Pacific Time. Algodones, Baja California Norte, is one of those places, as is the Indian casino on the California side. Other places upriver of Yuma use Yuma time instead of the evil Pacific Time. They are Freedom-Fighters! I salute them. Let us hope their spirit of rebellion spreads to eastern Oregon and Washington, Nevada (including US395 in so-called California), and the Idaho Panhandle. 

No winter is complete unless I take a moment to be astonished by the unmanageable hordes of old people in Yuma, AZ. But something was different -- and better -- this year. It was pleasantly cool for a change. I have little patience for being warm in January. The relief put me in a good mood for enduring the traffic and overcrowding in the stores. Strictly speaking it isn't the characteristics of the elderly that is so annoying, it is the fact that there are so many old folks, and they are all in one place, and that place happens to be near me!  Worst of all, they seem a little less old to me every year! ___________________________________ But seriously folks, why is this place so popular? Is it really that important to be a couple degrees warmer than some other place in the Southwest? Aren't their houses, cars, and stores heated? Most snowbirds or campers really don't have  an outdoors-oriented lifestyle, so why is the thermometer so important? And this pl

More than once on this blog I have laughed at all the history books I read, and wondered what excuse there could be for it. There are so many dry facts to wade through -- so many meaningless details! That is even true of the excellent history book I am reading right now on the battle of Stalingrad, by Anthony Beevor. Just before reading Beevor I had read Vasily Grossman's novel of the battle of Stalingrad, "Life and Fate." Actually it was an overly thick novel, difficult to read with all those Russian names. But at one point, towards the end, the novelist described the German retreat, during their denouement. Corpses of men, dead horses, burned out farmhouses, mud... Suddenly the road and the ruined house were caught in the rays of the setting sun. The empty eye-sockets of the burnt-out building seemed to fill with frozen blood. This image literally took my breath away -- and leave it to a Russian writer to come up with something like this! What point is there i

It has been awhile since the alternative-media made a meme of politically-correct crybabies on college campuses. "Snowflakes" they were called. But things become passé very quickly these days. I enjoyed the criticism of college crybabies, and would like to see the 'snowflake' meme revived, in a different context. How about Wall Street? Wall Street and president Trump are acting like snowflakes about the mild steps taken by the Federal Reserve to normalize interest rates. An entire generation of investment professionals has grown up thinking that free interest is normal. Trump apparently thinks that the stock market is a proxy for the state of the "great" economy that America is supposed to have. And how do fake stock prices matter to the average American?