"Since the house is on fire..."

 images in order are top desert in town before "development" then view at dawn this morning from hotel door and lastly view across the street from first image desert after bulldozers prepare site for "development"...desert environments must be preserved more vigorously...

i am watching members of the congress interview gov. kristi noem for the position of secretary of homeland security...it occurs to me that many of these people have spent most of their lives getting  elected....this makes for a dearth of practical experience in activities which might allow them to better understand how to deal with practical problems....many of these people certainly hate everything about the previous administrations attempts to govern this country...well i have little hope that the next administration will have any better achievement record...

on a happier note i would like to recommend some music....which along with cuddle buddies helps me to stay positive..."Norah Jones and Mickey Raphael performing "Night Life" is good and Mickey Raphael with Jason Isbel performing "Pancho and Lefty" with Raphael on accordion

also there is a good youtube site from Nautilus research vessel and animalogic has a good segment on oarfish and stephen axford fantastic fungi time lapse is interesting...

"Since the house is on fire, let us warm ourselves.: Italian proverb

"Great Spirit..."

a small rock with a pile of sand next to it 

when the rock is raised the spider hole becomes apparent....i have yet to see the spider...if it is a spider

watched pres. bidens final speech last night...ouch!... now we get to sift through the next administrations output of verbiage...why no fact checking mr Z?... anyhow, it should be interesting...

i guess now that carter is dead i can tell about my Iranian encounter...i was going home from the zoo after doing night keeper duties when about  3 in the morning i see a car on fire...it is a Volkswagen and the rear engine compartment is ablaze...i pull up to the car as the driver is finishing putting out the fire,,,ain't going nowhere in this bug...i see the driver is a is middle eastern looking man and in need of help...i ask him if he wants a ride somewhere...then i tell him there are three empty rooms where i am staying at my recently divorced fathers house...he decides to ride with with me and i put him in the master bedroom while i retire to my room...and when we get up later in the morning i ask him where he needs to go...i forget if it was to the bus station or what but he is grateful for the help and he gives me a ring as a thanks...he says it was his grandmothers and the inscription says "GOD IS GREAT"...actually it says allah is great...before we part he asks me what i thought was a strange question..."if i return will we be friends regardless of what has happened" it sounds kind of mysterious to me but i say sure why not ....well he says he must return to Iran immediately and less than a week later the hostages are taken in Iran...i always hoped that this man had encouraged the kidnappers to not be cruel because of my kindness to him...who knows...

i recently watched a biography of sorts of mark twain during his so called "later years"...he developed an obsession with girls from the age of 12 to 16 years...i think he referred to them as his "angelfish"...ok whatever...he even built a large house with many rooms so they could come live with him...he said he had no grandchildren and he long for them...so when his daughter returned from europe she put the brakes on this plan...too bad sam...i also read about john ruskin who wrote and did art and was a critic of some note...he became obsessed with a 10 year old student of his but was able to control himself until she turned 16 when he proposed marriage...she rebuffed his attention and basically told him to get lost...poor mr ruskin was actually married to a woman but on the wedding night he got sight of her "private parts" and was so alarmed that they were soon divorced...OK...this sad fellow seems not to have had a good grip on reality....anyhow i guess the dating sites might serve a good purpose if even to let folks get acquainted before too serious a relationship develops...

"Great Spirit, give me a heaven not so large as yours, but large enough for me." Emily Dickenson

  

 

"You have power..."

new theory on clean circles in the desert

the only green plant in sight

"i love the sound of breaking glass"...thanks nick

 nearly full moon setting behind the mountain early in the morning a few days ago

the image with the metal ruler is of some dirt tubes which are fairly common...but unexplained as yet...insects of some kind....my theory about the cleaned circles is that these were cleaned so the military could pitch round tents when they were training here during world war two,,,the green plant looks sort of like creosote bush but i do not think it is...all the creosote bushes were brown...

after about twelve days of very strong wind i finally was able to pack up the truck and vacate the desert...setting up the shower tent was out of the question....

i was displaced by a person in a travel trailer who is just one of many new folks who are trying to "take over" this area...i suspect the "syndicate" is responsible...hoping to eventually put in a development probably...that is to say ruin the environment...i think these people are afraid that i might photograph an endangered or threatened species which would make developing this place more difficult...a few weeks ago two guys opened fire with some large caliber rifles to discourage me from going to a BLM camping area...BLM and Imperial county have pretty much turned over this beautiful desert to a criminal element which has no desire to preserve anything...i have been told that most people do not come to this area due to aggressive criminal activity...which being a few miles from the U.S./Mexico border is not surprising...otherwise the weather is very nice and the desert lovely

one thing about being inside the truck for several days due to the strong winds is that i got a chance to view some good YouTube....such as ms. "little chinese everywhere' yan's latest offering "Buddhism Land" (18:26) which details the art that is made by this community of Buddhist ...also a good presentation is "The return of musk oxen" by Vasili Sarana...very well done...and "The surprising life of Toulouse Latrec..the painter of Parisian nightlife" was good and "How the pursuit of Pleasure can ruin our lives; Aldous Huxley and Modern Slavery"...it must be remembered that mr huxley thought jazz music was crap...i watched "the life of PI" which the blurb on the package said it was the next "Avatar"...not even close...a hyena might kick a tigers ass from what i have seen of these two species...i watched "R.I.P.D." with jeff bridges as the dead dude who is batteling "dead-o's"...it is pretty funny..also "Lucy" with scarlet johansson was good story about a person who manages to use 100% of their brain but the end result is...well everywhere...

i heard some comments about my describing Judaism as a "real estate cult"...i picked up a great book called "Historical Atlas of the Ancient World" for a buck which shows the regions now known as Israel and Palestine as well as the surrounding countries...these lands changed hands many times over the centuries...i was surprised to learn that Israel and Judea are two different countries...also since the term "anti-semitic" gets used a lot these days i copied this definition of what are semites= speakers of semitic languages which originated in Arabia and western Mesopotamia...including Akkadians, Amorites, Canaanites, Hebrews, Aramaeans, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Sabeans and Arabs"...yep thats a big group...

well as a person who has had to take many classes about safety including fire-fighting i will remind people that there is what is known as the "fire triangle" which is needed for there to be a fire...namely FUEL...OXYGEN...HEAT... i would recommend that the people who live around an abundance of fuel think about reducing the fuel before the other two elements come together and the fuel will reduce itself...

"You have power over your mind-not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength."                                                                                                                                      Marcus Aurelius

"We've got enemies..."

always tempting to guess what makes mysterious marks in the sand

"bigger head red" ants...much quicker and more aggressive than the others

most of the ant/spider holes are surrounded by fuzz to keep the sand out

this hole has a small sand berm surrounding it and looks like it may be a spider hole

new oilyens is not a city that stays in mourning for very long...LE BON TON ROULET!..so the "in the back luigi"shooter was identified in less than a week and truck boy in new orleans was sorted out quickly and much of the responsibility for this goes to the FBI...don't let anyone fool ya...they be good at they job...

picked up an auto-biography called "Satchmo" my life in new orleans" by louis armstrong written in 1954...an incredible story of a man who gave his life to music despite abject poverty and slim education...born in 1900 he reveals the harsh reality of life for blacks in new orleans in that era...not a pretty sight...

i must mention an excellent youtube presentation about max planck called "Max Planck; the father of quantum physics believed in a divine mind"(9 min)..it gives a person much to think about...also little chinese everywhere yan does a great job in her latest adventure across the longest road through a shifting sand desert...excellent music and drone videos...plus she always samples the local fruit and vegetables...i looked at a video about albert caraco called :"life is a mistake disguised by society and religion" this guy killed himself so i cannot recommend his world view..some of the most negative views ever recorded...i do recommend "philosophize this" simone weil segments especially the "vessels of god" segment...much more upbeat...

i picked up a new guitar at the pawn store a 1980 takamine nylon string for $80...looks like it has never been played...no case and 3 strings missing...now my best girl friend..she sounds solid as a rock...nice

i lost 2 mini SD cards..one with documentaries and one with music videos...after 3 days of weeping and cursing i finally found the music sd far beneath the seat of the truck and the documentaries was found 20 yards away laying in the sand...as mr trump says ...never give up!

"We've got enemies; we bomb these people every day." General Honore'

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