Occupation of Independence

It wouldn't earn me an 'A' in high school civics class, but I plan on paying little attention to the presidential election this year. Presumably it is not necessary to list all the reasons. Suffice it to say that it is an embarrassment, before a world audience. People in other countries must be amazed that a country that elects presidents like we do, could possibly be a world power -- actually, the world power. So I will avert my eyes to diminish the pain of watching the spectacle. If I were to watch it, the result would be anger, sourness, cynicism, etc.  And what good would any of that do anybody? Nor I am arguing that democracy has no value just because it isn't perfect. Our system is terrible but we don't know how to improve it or won't bother to do so, and we don't know what to replace it with. Let's assume that many Americans feel the same way.  Why then do they think that 'Freedom & Democracy' are such deities? Why do they

Much to my surprise the heater turned on easily, after resting unused in a plastic bag for five years. Equipment, be it a car or even a bicycle, seems to degenerate when it sits around. I've never understood that. The warm orange color of the flame and the quiet hiss were pleasant and reassuring. I was headed over to a colder area to buy a new van, and I needed to be ready for it.   Many people would consider it a foolishly proud project to live without heat. Proud, yes; but not foolish. It seemed oddly significant to finally use a heater in my camper, after five years of heater-less living.  It is so stupid and wasteful to heat thousands of cubic feet of air in a normal house, when your skin interacts with only a tiny percentage of that. Why not just dress for cooler air? So you can think of my heater-less experiment as a protest vote against one aspect of the conventional way to live. Refusing to go along with something conventional and crazy does make an individu

The other day my dog was patiently waiting for me to finish in the coffee shop. She amused herself by collecting one human scalp after another. Her last victim was a girl of age 8. How that little girl glowed as she petted the dog! I couldn't take my eyes off of both of them. Although I will probably have a clear memory of this moment the rest of my life, it would have been great to photograph. But how?  The glass window was in the way, and if I had gone outside, wouldn't the mere presence of a camera have provoked self-consciousness in the girl, and therefore ruined the moment? People who are good at 'magic moment' photographs involving people and animals must have quite a bag of tricks. The only trick I can think of is to have a telephoto lens which lets you move away to a safe, non-intrusive distance. Obviously you must not talk to the subjects and try to coax them into a fake pose. Actually the charm is not all in the subject. Much of it resides in the invis

If you spend any time surfing the travel blogo/vlogosphere on the internet, you will notice the frequent use of the word 'adventure.' Too frequent, I am afraid. Do these people think they are the equivalent of, say, Ferdinand Magellan, as he probed for a route around the southern tip of South America? from Stratfor The modern 'adventurer' travels in bourgeois comfort, luxury, and security, to a degree unimaginable to travelers of 50 years ago. They use the internet to spoonfeed 'how to' advice to newbies on the tiniest challenges of travel. Soon the newbie has found a (linkbait oriented) website that tells them where to camp, how many solar panels they need, and how and where to poop. On and on it goes. And yet, they keep using the word 'adventure' to describe what they are doing.  Of course some of the blabbermouths on the internet are not doing it for linkbait income. They genuinely believe they are being nice guys in helping other peopl