"You've learned the most important..."

I guess my life is more prosperous
my storage unit appears to have been "appropriated" by criminal factions...I was in flagville two months ago or so when I left the post office with my USPO money order and put it into the envelope to mail and drove up to the mailbox and there was a fellow there who was standing behind the mailbox and he  stuck his hand out and took my envelope with the storage unit money order payment...I thought that was odd but I had not figured the criminal element in government was quit so overtly criminal...I got a returned envelope with a payment money order last month...wrongly addressed. For 25 years these payment have been made every month...that is more than a third of my life...anyhow I would have thought that an honest postman would (after 25 years) just put the envelope into the right mailbox...but no!...now I must admit for me to have been stalked to Australia and Mexico I should have known that there is no deed to dastardly for these folks to commit...I tried many times to call the storage facility  but apparently my number was being blocked...I pulled into Audubon Self Storage probably in 2001 and unloaded my holiday rambler motorhome into unit #152...on the first day the alpha male major unit renter... I think he had more than 22 units at the time...most of which he did not pay the rent on...was a metal salvage guy mostly and bought many pallets of computers at the state surplus auction every month...he had some compulsive addictive behaviors connected to his acquisitions...he validated his worth according to how much stuff he had...another fellow who had the same addictive personality had a large fenced in lot jammed full of similar auction stuff and he died unexpectidly and mr "sticky fingers" smith (he never used his real name) went to this guys place across town and attempted to steal some of this dead guys stuff...he was caught and held and I think charged with trespass and maybe attempted theft...he had a pretty raging pornography habit and was investigated for "improper" porn and I think made to get counseling...he was also investigated for shipping restricted computer parts to china...so despite all his blathering about his Christianity it was apparent to me that he was a victim of his own making...anyhow on day one mr smith informed me that the facility was "military" and he used to bang around metal components to impress me with that fact...he bought into a lot of current social conditioning...once he showed me a storage unit which was on the corner of a row and inside was a collections of things he said belonged to his "dead" brother...he failed to mention that it was his twin brother...the only people I know who use twins in their "intel" work is the military...but many of the 18 intel organizations may use twins also... I had seen this brother a couple of times but did not place him as a twin...he is a few pounds heavier and has a tattoo of a feather tied to his leg with a thong...you might have seen him around...or not...I do have a photo of mr smith which I took some years ago...the first manager named BOB was on good terms with mr smith as mr smith had his compulsive addictive stuff from one end of the property to the other...after bobs wife began staying away from home for days on end he got discouraged and left with an airstream travel trailer...good guy when he was sober...then the owners son-in-law arrived and started to clean the place up...he worked for years breaking his ass to get the property mowed and painted and put in security cameras  and do what is supposed to be done at a legit storage facility...eventually mr smith was banned from bidding at the auction perhaps due to non-payment...mr smith used to tell me that the owner did not pay taxes on all the money he took in... the new manager used to tell me that he had not got a raise since he started working there...the beer cans were piling up in the garbage every day...once I came to the placed there was a hispanic guy who appeared to be living there in a storage unit a few units down from my own...mr smith said he was there because his roommates were noisy and this guy also claimed to be in the military...army and marines specifically...some other latino men told me he had killed people...mr smith said the mans truck had been stolen with all of his identification...interesting...my theory is that this guy who was called "Roberto' by the latest manager...mr Roberto probably was on the run from charges of homicide which he committed while working for some Latin American military...maybe one of those guys who went in and killed all the villagers to get their land...anyhow records of any kind were scarce to non existent at this storage facility...mr smith was a criminal on many levels...the records for the place burned up in an electrical fire and in the flood of 2016 the records were destroyed in the flood...mr smith had a "special" friend who bought stuff compulsively and had two city busses in a fenced in part of the property...I think my payments were going to pay for his 'special' friends storage rent...once when I drove my van to my storage unit there was mr. smith and a fellow in an "Entergy" truck chopping electrical cables as large as my wrist into two foot lengths...mr smith said he got half of the money he made on the Entergy deals...probably unbeknownst to the utility company's management...when I was at a yard sale in Veneta Oregon I ran into mr smiths twin brother all he said was 'lets do this thing"...the point of all this storage unit remembering is because although my unit #152 had already been searched it was felt by the criminal class that I had "illicit" items in the unit...specifically illicit porn, illicit drugs and illicit weapons...all of these suspicions were based on very poor and prejudiced intel (and deep dis-like for me personally) I had one of those gunstock camera holders which when it was viewed while folks peeked into the unit from the unit behind mind and the porn delusion was just a shot (if not in the dark then in the fading light) and the drugs suspicion stemmed from my long association with pot as a pot addict...a porn addict also...anyhow the unit was recently broken into and searched and nothing criminal was found...unbelievably many folks thought I had a large sum of cash, money, dinero, moola even...right! I was going to wait until money was worth more...sound financial move eh?...anyhow,  after being victimized, scandalized and if mr smith had his way sodomized, I realized it was foolish of me to expect for my "stuff" to be safe...something in the christian bible about theft and rust and other calamities that will happen to stuff...but I must explain the photograph...when I was about 19years old I hitchhiked to Colorado...the guy I hitched with stayed there while I went back to la. and worked to save money and picked mushrooms, after a few months I had filled half a cooler with frozen 'shrooms and had rebuilt the top end of my 1962 ford falcon which I had bought from my friends dad for $25 and after some additional transmission shifting work I headed back to Colorado very little money, no spare tire , insurance probably not, no heater and when I hit a bump the window would fall down...this was in the fall and as everyone knows then you are 19 you are invincible...I got as far as Colorado Springs when the money was gone and I tried to trade some mushrooms for some gas...the cooler of mushrooms was stolen while I talked to the station attendant ...I realize there was nothing I could do...Call the police! I don't think so!...I drove up to the highway and parked on the side of the road and slept a fitful sleep....I awoke at dawn and started the car and saw that water was pouring out of the engine block...I assumed it was a cracked block...(it was actually a blown cold plug which I had never heard of...) ok ...I stand on the side of the road with my thumb out and my harmonica in my other had... I felt as free and unburdened then as I have ever felt in my life...so now I have three harmonicas and probably way too much stuff....but, I think it is the responsibility to expose criminality of the sort that has targeted me for so many years...I want payment for my lost property, I want payment for pain and suffering as I had unreplaceable items of a personal nature in my unit and punitive damages....I have tried to be patient and for nought...revenge is best served cold...eat up!

"You've learned the most important jailhouse lesson and most valuable underground skill- you've learned to  "HOLD YOUR MUD".           ken Kesey "jailhouse journals"

 

"Our humanity were but a poor thing..."

                                                this animal seems to have lost its right foot to a trap
 

                                         no surface water for miles around so a small water bowl is nice

                                           this white tailed antelope squirrel likes a treat of peanuts

well the fox seemed to have a good coat and clear eyes and not too thin, the rather disgusting disfigurement of the coyote/wolf only shows the endurance these animals have...the native people said they would be "the last animals on earth"...or not...there is still a good population of kangaroo rats here also...

among some of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth this is the evening before his supposed birth...or Christmas Eve...I highly recommend an excellent and learned final lecture by Bart Herman from UNC where he taught...he is probably one of the best informed  "non-christians" around today....

I have been thinking about a problem for a few years now which is if the entire galaxy, solar system and the earth are moving at high rates of speed and so I guess so are we humans on this planet and if movement affects time can we as humans separate from these moving entities and have out relative age affected? anyhow this about that...

and remember Alan Kurdi...probably not...he is that little boy who was washed up dead on a beach wearing his little boy shorts and shirt and devoid of life...he was just trying to live...

"Our humanity were but a poor thing but for the divinity that stirs within us. Francis Bacon

"To embrace justice..."

spent the night in the Budgethell hotel or maybe the Budgetcartell hotel, the "in their pocket" management allowed persons to rent the room above me to insure there was noise all night from the upstairs mafia...not to mention the cops using their sirens as they drive by...same ol', same ol'...but on to more ambitious criminality...while at the desert site recently I kept hearing  gunfire coming from near the base of the Cargo Muchacho mountains and then a lot of fireworks but hidden in the fireworks there were explosions...either these folks are mining illegally or they are testing their weaponry...either way if the people on the payroll to "serve and protect" don't keep a sharp eye out there will be another 9/11 incident sure enough...did I mention I spotted some ISIS flags flying in a Southern California border town? anyhow I don't imagine that the criminal element intend to "cease and desist"... now or ever...

"To embrace justice by a multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, are the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative wisdom has never found an open passage." Samuel Johnson

 

"Little things console us..."

loggerhead? shrike which always sits on this nearby branch (I think it has broken off recently) not a chicken hawk!

so I see on the BBC news this early morning there is more aftermath being revealed about the "Epstein files"...yeah right...I will now reveal the worst kept secret about human behavior...men like young puss...wow what  a revelation...I imagine that for every female who considers herself "maltreated" by the high profile jet setting sexual opportunists who managed to discombobulate the lives of a whole lot of male associates there are thousands more females who would jump  at the chance to offer up their feminine charms (and bodies) to a wealthy male person...according to O. Taraban all relationships are negotiations and all sexual relationships are a form of bartering...the question I have, have had, and will have is quite simply; were these "exploited" females promised compensation for their lovely company and did they receive said compensation? "Little things console us, because little things afflict us."B. Pascal

spotted some feathers floating groundward and looked up to see this hawk plucking a pigeon..."The falcon cannot hear the falconer..." from "The second coming" by W.B. Yeats...and sure enough the center will not hold...some of the better YouTube presentations I have seen in recent times are as follows..."Crime pays but botany doesn't" is a site from an interesting well educated (way much latin) thick accented (east coast urban? mucho tattooed fellow who delights in plants and finding them in their habitat...desert mostly..."little Chinese everywhere" are taking their reward for the intrepid journeys under harsh conditions and were comped with $500 dollar a day luxury train travel in china...much food but not much adventure...they deserve a good rest...I heard that a famous female vocalist has the top mucsial offering which she recorded some time ago namely "Last Christmas" but I would like to recommend the same song by none other than "Miss Bellamy Clark (miss "B")..she sounds a lot like miss T. Swift!..."How this guy folds and flies world record paper airplanes" is a good presentation from Wired and may allow you to construct some of his amazing single paper aircraft..."The Genius and Mysterious life of Augustus Pablo" from "Reggae appreciation society...I recently bought a "melodica" from the thrift store because I was inspired by this guy...he was always infirm in health and died pretty young but not before he inspired the world with his "mystical" introverted influence on Dub and reggae music...good stuff...of Course Dr. Andrew Huberman has had some good health advice in his interviews with experts such as "Build a healthy gut microbiome" with dr Justin sonnenburg...I heard and interview with a hip-hop performer named jeezy on Sunday morning NPR and this fellow mentioned that he was in the record books for having the largest symphony in any hip hop recording...I miss the importance of this...but he did  say it was the first symphony he had ever seen or heard...holly moly!...talk about learn as you go!...I looked up his work online and came up with "Money real long"...I don't listen to much hip hop but it sounds like it has not changed much in the last couple of decades...more Mystic less plastic please..."philosophize this" has two Shakespeare inspired presentations and I must say these are some of the most erudite reviews of Shakespeare I have ever heard...Mr. West is to be commended for his studious but lucid evaluation of these works...bravo!...I picked up a DVD of "Stagecoach" with John Wayne directed by John Ford...good movie...however the interview with mr ford by a couple of British guys was very interesting...eventually they asked him whether he had racist views...he denied having any...he said his favorite movie was "The sun shines bright"( one hour thirty minutes-1953) which has a lot of stereotypes of blacks (and also southerners I might add) I heard mr Tarantino say he also thought Ford was a racist...it might be helpful to keep the actions in the historical contexts in which they were made...a very good and emotional charged musical presentation I came across is "NINA SIMONE on david bowie and janis Joplin"...neither of these artist are in this conversation...her vulnerable presentation is worth the ten minutes...also there is a "Molly Tuttle and Golden Highway" presentation of "White Rabbit"complete with costumes which is fun...and last but not least is a Ralph Nader radio hour presentation (#609) called "The AI prompt that could end the world"...of course you should listen to this to learn what this prompt is...sometimes I think alarmism sells too danmed well!...if as a species we cannot protect ourselves from our creations we deserve to be extinct!...

"If it were the apocalypse..."

 big news in the desert...started raining this afternoon which is good...I watched some good videos in the last couple of weeks...I do not often describe a movie as "stunning" but I was stunned by this indie movie...I would say it is a "masterpiece" but it is actually a "mistresspiece" since it was made by two women...namely Hannah Leder and Alexandra. Kotcheff...I might as well expose their background...they met in the third grade and were the only two girls ever to be sent out of class for being "trouble makers"..yeah buddy! sounds like my kind of creatives...ms. Leder has family members in the film industry...I don't think ms. Kotchoff does...these women starred in directed and produced the film "The Planters"...they lived-in a trailer in Palm Springs for 5 months and took 127 days to shoot the film...they had no film crew and the camera shots were always stationary...they busted ass to make this film and I consider it to be one of the best I have seen...ever...this film is about two women who have to accept one another for all their "flaws" and idiosyncrasies...and they aint small quirks...there is only one scene of violence which is when Alexandras character tries to commit a triple murder...but decides not to..."If it were the  apocalypse and I could only save one thing, I'd save my shovel."...Martha

                                    my canine friends appeared once again...glad to see them!

"For an ambiguous refusal..."

I watched an almost 4 hour interview with David Choe on Andrew Huberman's podcast...It was pretty adrenaline producing as mr. Choe has some "ISSUES!"...like more issues than the readers digest...he is known for his art work...he was asked to paint the offices "Facebook" before they had much money and he took stock in the company instead of cash...he created a lot of graffiti style art which was pretty controversial...he says he is 10 years sober now but his meds failed him  in this 4 hour "extreme" interview...I disagree with much of the approach to "recovery" when I involves a lot of "human interaction"...more nature and less people is more healing for a troubled mind..."For an ambiguous refusal/ is but a weak acceptance..." Khalil Gibran ... from "Do not love half lovers.." a prose poem

"...chasing a supposed centrism..."

 this is an optical illusion....what appears to be lines on an angle are actually parallel lines....

after a day in Yumertonville washing my laundry, buying groceries and getting my mail it did not escape my notice that at every turn there was a cop car (city, not sheriff) so my life and lifestyle has incurred the wrath of some of the more "soiled" constabulary...unfortunately this indicates a lot of rot in the system...there is a great interest in making me a felon due to the restrictions which go with this conviction...it seems to me that this attitude is similar to the German SS and the Gestopo and the East German Stasi as well as many other "secret police " types throughout history....I am guilty of much in the way of "non-conformity" but the best thing about living in the USA is the  (supposed) freedom to not be regimented and ordered about...I guess my listening to Thoreau's "Walden" and "Civil Disobedience" makes me a dangerous character...or not...

this is the only coyote I have seen in this part of the desert in a month or more...the gun goobers insist that these animals are vermin...also ravens, foxes and probably "longhairs" (as we un-trimmed used to be called) the current political climate gives license to extreme social views...quite unrealistically....

this is Algodones, Mexico which is a few miles away and this proximity to another country makes for a constant awareness of the political differences which exist in the world...and also the awareness that an arbitrary border does nothing to separate the physical realities of the "sameness" of the people...

I found some very good YouTube offerings from "Back 2 Basics Adventures" which is a couple of Aussis who go to the Solomon islands and Papua New Guinea and such places as that and fish and pick local fruit and eat the occasional kangaroo...these guys are the real deal or maybe the reel deal...also much excitement on the "Little Chinese everywhere" as Yan and Flo battle the cold to cross the 15 thousand foot mountains and the last three episode are fantastic adventures..Yan admits to breaking down and crying at the hardships but big Flo is there to comfort her and they persevere...what a tough couple!...when they encounter some young people across the river on the border of Afghanistan their excitement seems to indicate a thirst to know the "outside' world...maybe allowing the females of this country to enter the USA would be an better alternative to the banning of all Afghanis...

this mode of observation is not effective...but neither are the helicopters...these people are not serious about patrolling the US/Mexican border as they appear to have ignored the use of drones...every time they send up a helicopter they risk the life of the crew and the loss of the machine...when a person can sit safely on the ground and see just as much or more...there seems to be much bogus stuff on the border...

I came across these bones nearby which may be human...however, as many episodes of "Bones" as I have seen I do not claim any expertise in this area...I am more interested in the rocks which may be tools of thousands of years ago inhabitants...

I found Robert Frost reading his poem "The death of the hired man"...which I have always found to be extremely "disconcerting"...as I get closer and closer to "shuffling off this mortal coil" I think about the multitude of situations that might be encountered when the time comes for there to be no more time...and Robinson Jeffers reading his poem "Hurt Hawks" is quite moving also...

seeing more of these since there was a lot of rain in recent months...not a dragon..not a fly...go figure...Sabine Hossenfelder has an excellent episode on "the next big thing' which is "spintronics" so now we can have machines that can run the machines that run the machines that run the machines ad infinitum...as long as nature does not get excluded in the equations humanity is safe...

"....chasing a supposed centrism that avoids the conflicts that have to be faced and the choices that have to be made..."from the article "Second Coming" about the 2nd trump presidency in 11/7/24 N.Y.book review

 

"We live within..."

 one of the daily morning guitar therapy sessions...with the sunrise therapy and the hot coffee therapy and the multitude of other aspects to my days and nights I may just be healing...

the nomads have the right idea....mobility is life...life is mobility...the"INSTITUTE OF NOMADIC ARCHITECTURE " has some very good videos of nomads constructing their housing...humans. are pretty creative about how they managed to live in all environments...

the old and worn and the new and fresh often live side by side...but rarely understand one another...I have watched some great music videos lately...I stumbled across SARAH DELANY BUFFET and her video work...she is a trained cinematographer (although she majored in criminal law) and she decided to document her old dad playing some tunes you don't know by heart...some of these tunes jimmy buffet has only played less than a dozen times in public but they are still on his albums...his recollections of his beginnings in the music biz are interesting and his life in New Orleans, Key West and in the Carribean islands makes for some interesting personal history...ms. Buffet handles the camera work and questioning with great candor and humor...also there is a woman named Alison Balsom who illustrates three different kinds of trumpets and finds she likes the Baroque best...historically educational..."Down that line" by "the leopards" by "silent paprika films" is interesting and these folks have many offerings...

 pipe which was laying on the desert floor apparently run over by a tank during training ops in WW2

the number of people who have been damaged physically and mentally due to societies insistence on pursuing violent conflicts has resulted in societies which have reduced ability to provide for citizens to have even the rudiments of the things necessary for an enjoyable life...war is not the answer...

"We live within the immediacy of our own personal worlds, where a sense of "normality" is hard to displace, even as "normality" begins to look like an illusion. It's possible that our capacity to adjust to almost any "new normal" may turn out , ironically, to be one of our greatest liabilities as a species." from "What the ocean holds" by Verlyn Klinkenberg in the New York Review of Books 10/17/24

'Haven't I got better things to do on..."

  This is a round object with a square shadow...big doings in the last couple of weeks...full moon inspired me to stay put in the desert for two weeks ...temps in the 60's and only a few days of much wind and blowing sand...read about a young theoretical physicist named SABRINA GONZALES (cuban) PASTESKI  who is studying what she calls CELESTIAL HOLOGRAPHY and has a web site called PHYSICS GIRL...sort of stretches the synapsis to ponder...

both of the glass cooking cylinders imploded on the solar cookers...I ate more baked potatoes and bake apples in the last few weeks than I ever have in my life...I am looking at the parabolic dish solar cookers to see if maybe they are less prone to failure...I must say that I was very favorably impressed with the results of these cookers and may purchase replacement tubes and be more attentive to my cooking procedures....it may be a design flaw which is un-avoidable....

    

currents in life always leave their impressions...however subtle...

a couple of days after thanksgiving a gun goober decided to use a metal plate for a target and use me as a backdrop....I think it was one of the syndicate people...later in the day an ambulance came down the very sanded up road as fast as it could go which was not very fast at all...by the time the sun set and it was dark the ambulance had not come out...I did see it come out a few hours after sunset and I figured one of the gun goobers had too much to drink and there was a fatality...for several days before and after thanksgiving the 4 wheelers were very busy tearing across the landscape...but after the ambulance incident there was no 4 wheelers anywhere to be seen or heard... 

I heard of H."Rap" Browns death while incarcerated a couple of weeks ago...we both grew up in the same town...when I was 18 years old during my first job in an oil refinery I was walking around in the refinery with an older white guy when we came upon some materials in a pile between some refining equipment...the white guy said "that needs to be picked up and moved...but that's nigger work..." and so we moved on...this was in 1972 and in this part of the Deep South there was a lot of talk like that..."rap" Browns daddy who was a world war two military veteran worked in an oil refinery in this city and I rather doubt if he escaped the racist attitude which was prevalent...this sort of attitude is undoubtedly what made "rap" Brown so bent on violence...he was not what the "good 'ol boys" would call a "good nigger"...he was more of a Spartacus type of person...I heard that the local paper did not acknowledge his death but it was well reported in the New York Times...sounds about right...

"Haven't I got better things to do on                                                                                                                         this earth than avenge the Blacks                                     

of the seventeenth century?"   Frantz Fannon from the final chapter of his book "Black skin, white masks"                                                                                                                                                    

"...who have not one virtue..."

after 30 minutes of trying i finally got this image to upload from my photos...

so what in the hell is this internet thing anyhow!?...i looked it up and came across this information "How big is the internet in 2025-Data, websites and users explained" (5 min) Nextzen Tech...and it says 5.4 billion users daily or 67% of the global population...1.3 billion websites...but only 200-250 million of these are maintained...google does 100,000 searches per second or 8.6 billion per day...of course all of these numbers must be taken as possibly inaccurate, some wildly inaccurate...i was recently told that everything i have ever written on these blogs could be erased with a single key stroke...maybe...maybe not...i have probably pissed someone off somewhere...one thing for sure is that humans on planet earth are using the internet very enthusiastically!...i would like to be able to download into my hard drive some of the youtube presentations that i find inspiring...i did just this a few years back but now it seems to be harder...one of the things that i have noticed is that more and more of the presentations are bogus information...should some oversight group edit this crap off the internet?...well, maybe a personal "bullshit meter" needs to be used..."The most mysterious language on earth isn't even human"...(18 min)...this is about bio-semioics which concerns how biological stuff communicates and how "...survival patterns become meaning systems"...mind stretching stuff here..."meaning is never fixed, it lives in context..."meaning may be more fundamental than matter..."wow! this are heavy concepts...chew on this for a while...and now some music i have listened to and enjoyed....mr micah nelson has a very good presentation with "Particle Kid" (this name according to mr nelson derives from his father once refering to him as "prodigal son"... "Golden Hair/ When you dance" these songs seem to be almost incantations and micah presents as a full blown Druid...great guitar work and vocals...more of this!...listened to a lot of older joan armadtading...what a songwriter!...there is a 24 minute interview with ms. armatrading from paul cashmere (Noise11) from australia...and "weakness in me" Radio 2 piano room (3:20)..listen to the words!....show some emotion!..."cotton pickin kids" have a great presentation with "I'll fly away"...excellent  harmony!...also i listen to Juice Newtons (official video) of "Angel of the morning"...brings back memories of long ago...i listened to the great radio show "American Routes" last week with nick spitzer from new orleans and heard some roots music from "The Charioteers" a gospel tune called "All Gods Chillun Got Shoes"....this song is actually about the extreme deprivation suffered by american negros to the extent that they could not afford proper footwear....and now some of them obtain very expensive shoes...(i heard that some "restitution" proponents are saying that according to their calculations great britain owes about 130 TRILLION! dollars to the offspring of former enslaved people...thats a lot! )....you might like a single short lived musical group called "The Dirty Mac" with a video called "Yer Blues" with 4 experienced musicians...namely john lennon, eric clapton, keith richards (on bass!) and mitch mitchell on drums...good stuff...whatever happened to those guys? ...i just heard that "Guns and Roses" will go on a big tour next year...same hair, same hat...same ol same ol same ol...i heard where a musical group called "Deer Hoof" got tired of the big business of music and decided to release their latest offering on "craigslist" ...whatever it takes...i think with current political climate in the USA we should be on the alert for the creeping "GLEICHSCALTUNG"...it might happen here! got to go as the sun is shining bright and "miles to go before i sleep..."

"...who have not one virtue to rub against another in the field of active life, and yet perhaps, in the life of contemplation, sit with the saints." robert louis stevenson from "The lantern Bearers" (1888) here he describes some of the people in his community who seem simple but have rich inner lives.
 

"...creation is ALWAYS the successful resolution"

top image is of the insect when first encountered after a rainy night...the next image is of another giant rainbow which was only visible for about 40 seconds, the camera was handy...the next image is of the same insect after some of the water drops were knocked off it...the bottom image is of shattered glass....which is how my mind feels occasionally....

 in the last couple of weeks or so i have encountered some very stimulating ideas from the internet and reading some great articles in the "new york review of books"...an especially stimulating presentation from "the silent thinker" entitled "Spinoza explains why guilt is the oldest disease of the spirit" (34 min)..i don't know why i have not read more of this humble lens grinders ideas...this poor guy was thrown out of his jewish church and it was forbidden for anyone to speak to him...he was way too intelligent to be sucked into the very flawed world view that was being propose at the time...he died at the age of 44 probably due to glass dust in his lungs...mr steven west on "Philosophize this!" has a couple of interesting segments on Spinoza also...another radical presentation i encountered (i doubt if any of these youtube presentations i encounter are strictly random chance) ... "What does lying do to your energy field?" the hidden library (20 min) this view astounded me...and makes sense on several levels...and "Living with synchronicity: Marie-Louise von Franz and C.G. Jung " (the Jungian Aion) 38 min...some excellent learned commentary is presented regularly by Sabine Hossenfelder with her "bullshit" meter "Is it pointless now to fight climate change?" and "What the HELL is wrong with Europe"...ouch!...i always like to see what "Animalogic" and Danielle Dufoe has to offer and i was especially pleased with her "Andean Cat- the rarest cat in the world" these tiny felines eat a lot of viscachio? which look like a sad rabbit...i worked at a place that had several of these animals which are strictly forbidden in the USA...also the veterinarian at the N.O. zoo after much research figured out how to do artificial insemination in felines....this might be of some interest to these rare cat conservationist...also Ms. Defoe said something i have never heard anyone say....which is that people might want to get a game camera and set it up at night to see what critters are around...i think more citizen science would help the professionals with more information...much as the large population of birders have become an important source of information for bird conservationists... i looked at a lot of music videos...with the recent death of Jimmy Cliff one of the better known "island" music performers i came across Ernest Ranglin the so called inventer of reggae and ska , a very good guitar player...more later past my bedtime...."

"...creation is ALWAYS the successful resolution of internal conflict or anxiety..." Dale Salwak 

 

"Be a channel...."

 like so much we encounter in the visual world there are sometimes only shadows to inform us

this beautiful lake in the desert attracts birds and vegitation

this western grebe was a constant resident in this place where the water flowed at all times

lost/misplaced my so called smart phone yesterday morning...this is a more traumatic experience than i had assumed...had to buy a replacement at the walmart yesterday and set the damned thing up...well the phone lady in the phone department was adamant that she had no obligation to help me with a "pay as you go" phone...and so she was no help at all....the news seems to be pretty negative. as the federal government of the USA has not figured out that no funding stalls a lot of government activity...i think the other governments (city/county/state) are determined to keep society more or less running...i did not plan to fly anywhere anyway....enough of the human errors in the world...some of my reference material was/is on the errant phone (lost or stolen ) so i will look to the notebooks and my memory...since new york city is much in the news recently i will start with a very good article in "The New York Review of Books" from may 23, 2024...the article is about the building of supertall buildings  in new york city....'".., in light of all the other urgencies the profession should be addressing instead-climate change and social equity being the two most urgent- the devotion of so much talent, money, and effort to erecting ever higher "supertalls' and "megatalls" verges on the obscene. The world is burning- literally and figuratively- this flagrant waste of capital and imagination makes the biblical parable of the Tower of Babel all too easy to comprehend as both the most ancient and most modern of human follies." last lines from "Supersize that?" by Martin Filler...i think they should allow people to jump from the top of the tallest buildings with and without parachutes...there is a very good youtube presentation by Dr. Andrew Huberman who interviews Dr, David Fajgebaum about "Using existing drugs in new ways to treat and cure diseases of brain and body." (2 hours)..this fascinating discussion illustrates how multi-disciplinary approaches to treating ailments has proved to be very productive...this just in...elon musk allowed mucho money by tesla board...like a trillion bucks if he can make tesla stock price rise...the robot army awaits..."Ultra Hardcore" is a good article in New York review of books (jan.18, 2024) which gives some history of elon musk...his life is different from your life...and i do not begrudge him is wealth as it seems to me most everything he has sought to develop is a positive influence on humanity..."Seeking the truth"(30 min) is a good youtube presentation about the author leo tolstoy 

this guy was born into a wealthy family and inherited the family estate when his parents died...he inherited 330 serfs (slaves?) which was a great influence on his life...

his best known book is a huge volume and he said it was not a novel...he kind of rejected the life of social parties and self indulgence after a while and the plight of the economically oppressed interested him much...never read it...but his was an interesting life....i listened to one of the latest musical offerings from Ms Florence Welch called "Buckle"...a very good vocal presentation and good lyrics...this poor girl has not had much luck in the relationship department if her songs are to be taken as personal experiences...she is one of my favorite female vocalists and sings with great power...HOWEVER! i did notice that at the end of one of the presentations of "Buckle" (the one one where she is facing to the left and wearing a sort of veil thing)...there are at least a dozen or more persons or entities shown (credits)...she got robbed! the crook (shirley kurata) who gets credit for "costume design" had no costumes to design...that veil don't hardly count as "costume"...and the rest of the vultures should be given the boot also...ms. Welch needs to spend some quality time with lucas nelson and study his wonderful musical presentations like "Hallelujah"...the one where he sits crosslegged on a bed with a camera and a guitar....forget the damned superfluous production crap...this woman has too much talent to let it be "produced" to death...by the way she is pretty but needs to come to the realization that she is older today than she was yesterday and she will age like everyone else...get over it..."Ancient Aboriginal (australian) History" rock carvings deeper meaning (22min)(rob dogs vlog) this is a good not overproduced viewing of some old, old, rock carvings...GET AMONGST!..."Little Chinese Everywhere" is still putting out some great youtube presentations....visiting a village with german inhabitants was exciting for Flo who speaks the language...a couple of weeks back Mr. Flo had a splitting headache as they ended the show...well DUH!...he was eating any food that was dropped on his table which is a big no no...undoubtedly poisoned by some jealous russian..."trust your friends, but cut the cards"...is a good reminder to be cautious at all times....

"Be a channel, not a dam"...a huberman

"Considering the unforeseen events..."

 being in the desert gives one much incentive for reflection on the human condition....

lets start with some good news for a change..."High school basketball team gives up title after the coach discovers they didn't actually win." (3 min)..."The most beautiful wingsuit flight I've done" (3:34) Joanne's/ wingsuit...."Teen workers save restaurant as owner spends months in hospital(4:27)...also I found some really good music from a person whom I met long ago..."Eliana" (4:05) is a superb piece of musical nostalgia which is mr Steve Conns speciality. Also "Annalee" is well done..."20 Ph.D's in the time of one,  how AI is changing college" (9:51)Bloomberg Television... "Improve your lymphatic system for overall health and appearance' by dr Andrew Huberman (1 hr. 40 min) is about something one does not hear about nearly enough and how the lymphatic system is essential to good health...Also I really enjoyed "Trinity sessions revisited Cowboy Junkies with Natalie Merchant (57 min.) this is one of the most artfully presented musical concerts I have ever seen...the director of photography is Eugene O' Conner and deserves special mention...I think this was filmed in "Church of the Holy Trinity in 2007...ms.Merchants voice is remarkably dynamic...there is a very good interview with Michael Timmins  the superb guitarist of the Cowboy Junkies which illustrates the special qualities which this musical group brings to their performances at "Rock and Roll ghost (S14 E1)...this concert is as much a seance as a music performance!...also as a fan of the Clark Creative ensemble I like to go back and review the presentations from some time ago such as "You can call me Al" the Paul Simon tune...Ms. "B" is undoubtedly one of the most animated performers ever to take the stage...she also has a presentation where she performs with a hula-hoop....only Shakira come close to her degree of animation...I am sure that her Mom is behind the camera giving her cues on "dance" moves....good fun!....

"Considering the unforeseen events of this world, we should be taught that no human condition should inspire men with absolute despair." H. Fielding

"A stone thrown ..."

 as I was gathering my belongings into my truck to move yesterday morning (it only took 5 hours!) I nearly gathered up this beautiful reptile before my monkey brain recognized the potential danger of doing so...I got it into a bucket and dumped it 50 yards away unhurt except for its pride perhaps....

as I watch the early morning news I see where the federal government has not figured out how to make government work...yet...I listened with some interest of the Albanian governments utilization of Artificial Intelligence in their government..actually in the position of administrator of some sort...this makes much more sense than waiting for elected persons to do their job...to the detriment of a smoothly operating government ....when the supplemental food allocation is not available I am sure that hungry people will be less controllable than the well fed...however...as more businesses reduce their workforce more people need to find "rewarding" occupation of their time...when I look around to see what needs to be done it occurs to me that there is much trash that could be picked up....just a suggestion....the television is quite keen on the jewelry which was stolen in France...not edible...lets move on...I hear a lot of dis-satisfaction about the current POTUS guy tearing down a building to put up another building...one of the problems in the USA today is the ossification of society/government....change is needed to keep fresh ideas coming into use...AND!!!...the current POTUS guy is old and will "shuffle off this mortal coil" soon enough...buildings are the least of the problems in this country....some useful Youtube presentations (with hopeful ideas) are as follows..."Why doctors say "OpenEvidence" is a game changer"...this presentation illuminates how effective AI will be in reviewing massive amounts of information to make better and faster medical decisions...."the operation was a success but the patient died" is not a good thing..."What is Biocomputing" (BBC news) 6:41 is about using living cells for computational purposes....PsycHacks "Weed is more dangerous than you think" is concerned with the psychological reasons people get high...some true some not...Lex Fridman interviews Julia Shaw about her specialty which is "criminal psychology of murder"...she also speaks eloquently about sex and sexual preferences etc...well worth the time (2hours 42min)..." How Chinese cartels took over Maine with no law enforcement response" ...this is pretty scary stuff...."How English Archers Made Knights obsolete in one afternoon"...ouch! this intriguing historical documentary gives one much food for thought about the future of all warfare...(22 minutes)

got to go now..."miles to go before I sleep"

"A stone thrown at the right time is better than gold given at the wrong time." Persian Proverb

"I had rather have..."

 

top image first morning...quartzite...second image...last morning in coconino forest 23 degrees F...last image the savior mechanic....mr Franco....

I was up at dawn last Thursday to pack up and go into town for my blood work etc...appointment at 1:30 I am on the road by 2 pm headed west and south...the truck is "not well"...I miss my hwy 95 south turn and take the second hwy 95 south turn at needles ,calif....if you have ever not wanted to break down this is the road you do not want to break down on...winding, hilly, desert dangerous...the truck is "not well"...after what seems like hours I finally get to I-10 intersection and the truck barely makes it up the hills headed east towards Quartzite...I feel like a disaster is about to happen....the truck is "not well"....I go up the hills with my emergency flashers on at 25 miles and hour on the interstate...I finally get to the first Quartzite exit and when I take a left towards Main Street I wonder if I should leap from the overpass onto the highway...too messy I decide....I take a right onto Main Street and after a few hundred yards the engine stops and the red battery light comes on...the truck is "terminally ill"...I coast into an empty lot next to a store that is closed and imagine the truck is ready for the crusher....I sleep a fitful sleep sitting up in the passenger seat...at dawn I turn the key in the ignition and GLORIORSKI!...the engine starts and I put it into gear and the truck moves ahead!....I pull into a driveway with a "honey for sale" sign that I have been to before....the honey salesman is gone but another vendor (in a town of vendors) is taking about vendors stuff and life as a vendor etc...I ask him if the knows of any decent mechanics in town...he has a business card on a desk which has the name and number of a mechanic....I am not hopeful however...I drive out onto the road and marvel at the very fact that the truck moves...I go towards the scratched and dented tent (this is quartzite Arizona and 3/4 of the town is here on a temporary basis.)..I call the number on the card and the man says he is at the corner with all the statuary...never seen it but I will find it....I buy 14 dollars worth of groceries and head towards the statuary corner...I find the mechanic talking with another guy and I open the hood of the truck and start the truck...I tell him the transmission is shot...he looks and leans and listens for a few minutes...he says it ain't the transmission....I say the spark plugs are 20 thousand miles past due to be replaced...he says yep...lets do that first...he says I should go to where I am going to camp...(Quartzite is surrounded by thousands of campsites in the desert) I go to the auto parts store and buy $225 worth of plugs and boots then head to the closest desert camping area (14 days for free)...the next day the mechanic shows up and like a man obsessed begins working on changing the spark plugs...several mechanics shops I had asked about changing the spark plugs said it was too hard and they would not do it...this mechanic has worked all around the world on ships and on farm equipment and whatever...life is a challenge to him and he takes that challenge...he finished the job in more than two hours but less than 3 hours....I drove the truck 8o miles to the closest town with another auto parts store and got a serpentine belt and he replaced that too...I drove the truck 70 miles south to Yumertonville with the air conditioner on and it seems to run fine and after two years NO ENGINE LIGHT!...I suppose I should consider this truck breakage to be pretty normal but I was so sure that it was the end of "life as we know it" that it feels more miraculous than normal....

"I had rather have a fool make me merry than experience make me sad."   Shakespeare

"Indeed, the dictum..."

black  cattle (Angus?) are a great improvement in herd management over the boney longhorns
 

 these red headed caterpillars seem to be specific to a single species of plant..many of the elk hunters seem to think that driving down the pipeline right of way is sufficient scouting to get an elk...however if you walk around a bit you can see where the elk have fed and pooped...and also enjoy the rest of nature...

rain, rain and more rain seems to be the weather forecast today...up at 4 am and by now I have ground considerable coffee beans with my recently purchased coffee bean grinder...super heavy duty and capable of producing a finer grind than the USB powered one I already own...munched half a dozen croissants and consumed 2 mugs of coffee probably to the detriment of my nervous system...I have done worse, much worse...was remembering my months (10 months) in New Orleans in 1984 when I often walked home from Miss Mays Place pool and bar in the early dawn light after listening to jazz music in Tylers beer garden till 2 am or so...one would think I would be a much better pool player than I am after spending so much time in pool joints...anyhow, I survived that episode of my life and suppose it was a learning experience...for someone as stupid as me "it takes a whole lot to medicine to make be believe that I'm somebody else"... (thanks randy)...I just listened to "Philosophize this'  on the stoics...mr west does a good job of explaining how mr Aurelius managed to come to write his "meditations"...this mans writing is some of the first philosophy I ever read...and found it engaging enough to continue a lifelong pursuit of other peoples philosophic world views...and I have come to realize that everyone is living according to some worldview or another... but that does not allow us to be regarded as philosophers any more than scribbling some doggerel makes us a poet...however ones self image is more important than how others view us...I was awakened at 2 am this morning by  the talking outside my room...also the regular horn sounding on the auto outside the room was a way of harassing me...alas and alack I am forever being subjected to meanness by a rotten segment of the population...I think that since I published the names of several of the constabulary from Oregon who were convicted of crimes of a sexual nature (actually most of these cops were guilty of failing to report the sexual abuse of co-workers) such is the way some people use their power...and in calling for the release of Rap Brown who killed a couple of cops during a time when blacks were being executed by rogue cops I have incurred  the rathe of more than a few officers of the law....well so be it...yesterday I was stalked by a member of the more soiled contingent of the local law enforcement community... this happens regularly and often these folks like to refer to me as "the perv"...which is not a compliment....but I don't care to retract any criticisms I have made about corruption...police work is very difficult and needs to be supported not condemned...a few of the better YouTube presentations I have viewed recently are ..."Organisms are processes, not things"Wahida Chandler (20min) and "Heidegger's They-Self: WhyYou're Not actually living your own life"...this entire lecture needs to be listened to for it to be understood..."How to control your inner voice and increase your resilience" Dr. Ethan Kross (3 hours 9min.) a good explanation of inner dialogue and how it effects you...

"Indeed, the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecutions, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into common places, but all experience refutes." J.S. Mill

  

"I wish men to be free..."

 I have baked corn muffins, onions, potatoes, apples, peaches, fish, beans and eggs in my solar cooker

a fat happy cow munching mucho grass in the silva grazing area...more water is needed however...

I see on the BBC news channel this morning that some people are expecting the death and destruction in Gaza and nearby places to slow up...to quote Waylon Jennings..."I'll believe it when I see it and I haven't seen it yet..."according to General Russell Honore' (Retired) the USA gives 11.5 million dollars a day to Israel...shame shame shame!...AND! in the last two years the USA has given Israel $21.7 billion bucks....shame shame shame...If Trump is "Putins Putty"...he has been "Netanyahu"s Ninny"...I would like to see a more scientific approach to keeping the peace...there are some excellent Youtube presentations pertaining to relationships...I have taken to putting my phone in the top pocket of my vest to listen to the YouTube presentations while I walk around doing photography in the morning and also while I am cooking breakfast etc ...in keeping up with the current state of affairs in the ever interesting (DULL, DULL ,DULL!)...such riveting stories about such buttheads as mr. Diddy Combs..."here is Diddy thinks with his testicles and  all his sex is spectacles"...more money than brains...some helpful presentations might be "Freud, Hollywood and the Male Gaze" (The British Academy) 15minutes..."How to understand emotions' Dr. Lisa Barret (2hours and 20 minutes) Huberman #129..."How to find build and maintain healthy romantic relationships" Dr. Esther Perel...Dr. A Huberman...this is an excellent presentation and covers a lot of subject matter with Dr. Huberman contributing his extensive research experience...in the evenings I watch a lot of music videos and BOPFLIX has a lot of musical offerings of a certain genre...

"I wish men to be free, as much from mobs and kings- from you as me." Lord Byron

"Communication= from the latin..."

 top image = probably 2 species of caterpillar...next image is metal lid from a container of axel grease...from back when there were wagons crossing this area...the next image is of 4 small obsidian flaked tools all of which have a similar small half circle flaked spot which I think was used to scrape sinew clean for use...just conjecture on my part...

I have been able to listen to a lot of YouTube presentations over the last month or so, and I am amazed at how didactic these scholarly offerings are...I do however take umbrage at some of the comments I have heard about "social media"...it is buffet and it ain't all healthy...so choose well and nourish your mind...or not...there is a fellow who goes by the moniker "internet anarchist' who has said about Lex Fridman..."he rarely adds anything meaningful to the conversations and even when he does it's rarely anything interesting..."....this is the opposite of my impression of Dr. Fridmans many presentations...and he probably also has the best screen in screen additions...he is a master of making things clear for his viewers...he had an interview (# 482) with a mr Pavel Durov who founded "TELEGRAM" which is a messaging application I think...it is known for being able to transmit information without being hacked by others than the intended  recipient...supposedly....mr. Durov spent some jail time in France while the French authorities tried to convince him to turn over his "keys" to the kingdom as it were...he allegedly resisted...this interview which is 4 hours and 34 minutes long is interesting in that mr. Durov  explains his history as an academic in Russia as a teenager and his decision to create this popular application which has brought him some wealth and fame...his image online without upper body clothing illustrates the result of his intense exercise regime...and also may account for his attractiveness to women and his 106 offspring...some of which were as a sperm doner...Dr. Fridman seems to be enthusiastic about folks who are disciplined in their exercise routines...however, since I also exercised daily at my labor jobs I cannot but wonder if some of these folks might not be more "useful" while expending energy... as Capt. Elon Musk often says "BE USEFUL"...towards the end of this interview Durov says with some enthusiasm that he is a fan of "Snoop Dogg" and mr. Dogg has a telegram account with which he managed to sell a lot of snoop dog gifts otherwise known as useless plastic crap...in his latest "musical?" offering mr Dogg  seems to be suffering from the effects of a lifelong pot addiction...amazingly Mr. Durov does not use drugs or alcohol or even coffee...so what his attraction is to the the pimp and pothead mr dogg I cannot imagine....however, one of the things that mr Durov holds sacred is "anonymous communication"...that is to say no restrictions on communication...this is the opposite of what Ralph Nader advocates,,,who says no anonymous communication on the internet is best...something between these two views might be best..."Communication= from the latin "communicatio"= making common...a fundamental concept in the study of behavior, whether by humans, animals, or machines that acts as a frame of reference for the concept of language. Communication refers to the transmission of information (a message) between a source and a receiver, using a signaling system.""Communicative Shift"= speech developed 50 to 60 thousand years ago... Script developed 5500 years ago...Print developed 500 years ago and now artificial intelligence which is less than a decade old and which appears to be poised to dominate human communication...a phase shift in what humans can expect to encounter...

'NOT HAVING ENOUGH..."

                                       ALMA...femme fatale?...muse?...inspiration?...composer...

large herd of golden ants under a rock

micro lithe...small obsidian tool...well thought out and useful

old refridgerater door...old technology abandoned...cool is still in use however

the advertisement is from a 1959 science fiction magazine with some very good writing 

the baby horned lizard almost made me want to "rescue" it but I figured I would let nature take its course

I watched some very good YouTube presentations over the last couple of weeks..."Lone star pork; Texas hog Meateater (21 min)... and "I can't believe that this really happened"(22 min) ..Sabine Hossenfelder...yep she got booted from her university position for being a heresiarch...called too many ideas "bullshit"...certainly the funniest physicist since R. Feynman...and also in the funny category is  "Nina Conti's swearing monkey puppet"..the ventriloquist...rather than go to bed with negative thoughts i look at comedy and music in the evening ( I usually turn in about 8 PM) ...jimmy Carr is pretty hilarious...and very quick...the colt clark family band has several hundred tunes picked by the best dad ever who has created a good group of musicians from what was initially a novelty act...also I found a wonderfully uplifting presentation with 4 year old Claire Ryan and dad singing "You've got a friend in me" I think a randy Newman tune...she has many presentations as her latest one has her as a 12 year old vocalist...then there are the PsycHacks of dr Orion Taraban presentations...he posted one recently which I found quite startling..."AI relationships..."the future of dating"...his advice is that it is better to have a mediocre relationship with a computer program than a bad relationship with a person....how about a relationship with nature...Dr. A. Huberman in his great interview with dr David deSteno "Science of God and Faith" (2:24:18) says his relationship with God makes him never lonely...sounds good to me...in contrast to the obsidian edged tools there is another way to make edged tools as seen in "Most Amazing process of making skinner knife" (22 min.)...quite complex actually...as I see more and more energy being used to hurdle humanity into a dubious future of uncontrolable complexity I am glad to have been fortunate enough to have sidestepped machinery beyond my control...wheelbarrow and shovel served me well...just bought another solar cooker ( I have 3 now) which can cook a potato in 25 minutes....and bakes bread too...more simpler is more better maybe...

"Not having enough sunshine is what ails the world.-Make people happy and there will not be half the quarreling, or a tenth part of the wickedness there is now." Mrs Lydia M. Child (abolitionist)