Occupation of Independence

It is so ironic: when people think of the best examples of Nature, they think of national parks. They would be more accurate if they thought of the city park. I was in a city park the other day, in a small Oregon city. I was told of a nice dog park there and wanted to give Q.t.𝞹 her first workout at one. She is a bit of a squealer, so I was nervous about this. There were no 'customers' at the dog park, so we just went for a walk to kill time. I couldn't believe the variety of trees -- with leaves! -- to be gushed over. And there was green grass to walk on, instead of stumbling and bumbling over desert rubble. A few feet away, noisy boisterous water gushed through the Grande Ronde arroyo.  Just think how monotonous national forests or BLM sagebrush flats are.  But the city park was vastly wealthy in a variety of real trees.  There were few people at the city park.  Well, maybe the locals didn't appreciate the park but I did -- so we went into the fenced dog park and let

I wonder if a Go-Pro isn't the right technology for somebody interested in outdoor photographs and other applications.  It seems like a digital camera or smartphone is unavailable whenever something interesting happens.  Surprising and moving events seem more interesting than static poses. Younger dogs sure are great at jumping.  The other day  Q.t.𝞹 was charging a tree because she spotted a chipmunk up there.  I couldn't believe her vertical launches!  Was she actually trying to climb the tree? With a Go-Pro mounted on my head maybe I could understand her technique, after watching it in slow motion.  Perhaps her body still had upward momentum when she contacted the tree with her paws, and that made it look like she was taking another jump from the tree rather than from the ground.  After all, dogs have straight claws rather than the curved ones they would need for real climbing. Straight claws are only good for digging in the ground. Grizzlies have straight claws.  Black bear

  Many Baby-Boomers had parents who went through the Great Depression. They would sometimes tell anecdotes to their children that might have seemed exaggerated to the children. The children would also tend to roll their eyes when their parents displayed frugality that seemed laughably out-of-date. I am starting to wonder if there is another reason for the parents' frugal consumer behavior. Last post I talked about how inflation will cause substitution; that is, products will use cheaper and cheaper materials. They will take every shortcut imaginable. How much cheapening can happen before a consumer starts to dislike shopping? When every new purchase produces a disappointment, won't a consumer start to dread buying anything that isn't absolutely necessary? It is hard for older consumers not to make negative comparisons.  Maybe there is a point where the cheapening actually starts to offend and disgust them. Products, companies, and retailers start to seem like scumbags to th

 There was a time in the 1970s, during a decade or more of stagflation, when people must have been discouraged. How could they ever break out of the trap? And then Paul Volcker came along and administered 'shock and awe' to the interest rates. In a year and a half, the stagflation era was over. Can it happen again? I would like to think so, but I can't. The country is just too hooked on low-interest rates and helicopter money. Real life will go forward based on substituting inferior goods for better goods and then using deceptive labelling. When was the last time you bought Swiss cheese? Did you notice that it doesn't have holes in it, anymore? I suppose that is because of "adjustments" (aka, cheapenings) to the aging process. What really matters is that Swiss cheese now tastes like cheap rubber with some yellow food coloring. What is to stop new Extra Sharp Cheddar cheese from being the same as yesterday's Sharp Cheddar? It won't show up as inflation