Occupation of Independence

The finest things can be appreciated best when they are contrasted with the overall context or milieu. Take the news media. I am convinced it is unhealthy to make a daily habit of consuming their trashy product. Even politicians don't lie as much as the news media. In contrast there are people like Glenn Greenwald. His recent article on Biden's bombing strikes in Syria and Iraq was frank and hard-hitting, but not in an overly emotional way. It was full of integrity and professionalism.  When you encounter something like this you feel optimistic about the future. I am glad to have donated to him. The timing of his article was fortunate. After all, it will be time for another Pentagon-worship national holiday soon, with all the lies and cliches that go along with that.  'Protecting our Freedoms..."  Blah, blah, blah.  

  What a relief it is to be out of the tourist belt! It rejuvenated my appreciation for being alone and only hearing the sounds of nature, instead of relentless noise pollution. I was visiting a place I hadn't seen in years. It hadn't changed much -- is that not the ultimate compliment? I rode along, hoping for semi-smooth dirt road surfaces. Ponderosas hung onto the edge of the mesa and immediately transitioned to sagebrush and grass, without the usual buffer zone of pinyon/juniper trees. Nobody was here, no cars blasting by with thumpah-thumpah sounds coming out, no Razrs screaming by. The ultimate luxury.  What is this coming up? Why are there horses here? It was a mobile shepherd's hut. I believe there is a small company in Utah that manufactures them. They come with a broom attached to the outside of the hut. Two herding dogs noticed me and became agitated. The red heeler was not friendly but I wasn't too disappointed -- you aren't supposed to treat workin'

  What is most people's favorite time of summer? It might be a few weeks from now, when so many vegetables and fruits ripen. But I know what finishes second: taking navy showers in mid-summer. In winter I take a navy shower in the late afternoon when it is warmest inside the trailer. But you always feel a little bit chilly. The navy shower is just OK. But in mid-summer a navy shower is sheer pleasure. When you are wet and the spray is turned off, you feel cool and refreshed, but not chilly. It is quite a reward for making it through another hot day. I said this was going to be the summer when I learned to like summer. And the navy shower can be a big part of that effort. Working things like this out is one reason I like living on a more basic level, such as camping. In a normal, middle-class, stick-and-brick house, you would just crank up the air conditioner, and pay a couple hundred dollars per month to cool 15,000 cubic feet of air.

How nice that the last thing that happened at that vile campground was a nice thing, an interesting thing: I got to watch the parrot eat. His mouth and foot were so nimble and dextrous!   The upper and lower beaks cracked the peanut shell and then the tongue went inside and dug out the meaty seed. With equipment like that it is no wonder that parrots became "linguists". But how and why did their brains evolve to take advantage of their physiology? I always run into this sort of quandary when thinking about how animals evolved. The Wikipedia article didn't help much. It was dry and academic. It is a fairly common occurrence when you get interested in a topic and go somewhere on the internet to learn about it, that you end up reading jargon-filled gibberish. There may be YouTubes to watch that are more informative than jargon-filled articles. Until then I will content myself with imagining a primeval parrot saying, "Well, now that I have this remarkable tongue, what el