Category Archives: Human Behavior

Hitch-hiking from Beatnik to Hippiedom

Posted on August 1, 2013 by | 5 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

When I got out of the Army, summer 1964, I had a lot of ideas about my bright future.  Shopped around the Portales area for a while and found a quarter-section cotton farm I thought briefly I’d buy and become a starving-to-death farmer, which fell through.  Worked meanwhile, for Abe Ribble at his cement operation, and applied for the Peace Corps, knowing I wouldn’t hear from them for several months.

I was hanging out with a number of other young guys who were at loose ends, drinking coffee and walking around town, sitting on benches around the courthouse trying to figure out the meaning of life.  Going out with a waitress out at the truckstop when she got off work at midnight.  A young woman with goals, and confidence that no matter what a man might want for himself, she could mold him into something more to her liking.  Once she got him nailed down on all the corners.

The World Fair was going on in New York that year.  I could feel the walls of Portales trying to close in on me, and the guys I’d been spending spare time with were mostly thinking of themselves as beatniks, to the extend a person could be a beatnik in Portales.  A slight beard and a beret went a long way in that direction.  Sketchpad and a piece of charcoal, or a lot of free-verse poems jotted on cafe napkins were the tools.

So another aspiring beatnik, Stan Sexton, and I, decided to hitch to beatnik heaven.  Check out the World Fair.  Visit a couple of New Yorker weekend beatniks who went to Eastern New Mexico University, but were home in Westchester that summer.

I’ve told elsewhere on this blog about that summer, about sleeping on the Brooklyn Bridge, about catching the freight-train out late-August, jail in Rochester, and eventually hitching, driving the school bus to California, etc.  About all those would-be beatnik women and the “Eh?  YOU don’t believe in free love?” pickup line that always worked.

When I was accepted for Peace Corps Training and headed out of New York I had no idea I was seeing the dying gasp of the Beatnik phase everywhere.  That a year later everyone who was anyone would be Hippy.  That Greenwich Village would be replaced by San Francisco as the center of ‘what’s happening in America’.  Kids would be burning their draft-cards and taking acid trips.  Doing ‘Love-ins’ in the park.

By the time I got back to Portales to spend my time waiting for the Peace Corps India X training to begin in Hawaii the world had begun a sea-change, though it didn’t know it. 

But at least some of the pressure was off in Portales.  The waitress had found someone else with better prospects for a bright future.  Cotton farmer, he turned out to be, if I remember correctly.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, History, hitch hiking, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Peace Corps, Portales, Senior Citizens, Solitude, Spirituality, Trains, Transportation

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Learning debts incurred Universe-wise

Posted on July 31, 2013 by | 6 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I’ve been asking a lot of questions lately, learning a lot, some of which might be false, but I learned it anyway. Now that I’ve blown out enough tires on two different RVs to satisfy my curiosity I’m willing to try to apply some of it. Even though it robs my macho because of not knowing it before when I knew all manner of things.

First off, there’s the thing about tires. They ain’t as good as they used to be. Old guy behind the counter at the tire store and I conversed about it a while when we shared mutual memories of having bought junkyard tires and run them until they were down to the threads. Lots of them, and neither of us remembered much in the way of blowouts.

But now the DOT mandates they date those tires. And as a consequence, he opines they blow just about when the DOT predicted they would. The DOT gave the tire industry a leg up against criticism by providing them an “I told you so!” escape and they made great engineering use of it. Supposition, but possumly true.

Secondly, another old guy pointed out all the tires I’ve blown were right-rear dooleys. Beginning with inside ones. He opined that what I’m doing is running with that right rear wheel too near the pavement edge, maybe off it, forcing the inside-rear tire to carry all the weight. Which makes a hell of a lot of sense.

I’d been mulling over the fact every blowout I’ve had happened on highway RR479 north bound and wondering at the coincidence. It’s a fairly good Texas Ranch Road with a lot of hills and curves. Might just be I’ve been letting it drift, one wheel off the pavement instead of hugging the centerline.

Thirdly, I’ve also satisfied my curiosity about whether I’m interested in arm-wrestling lug nuts put on with impact drivers. Even with a 5 foot cheater, even with a T-bar after they’re loose, I was having to take breaks between lugs. And after I put them back on and tightened them, I’d stop a few miles down the road to check, they’d always be loose enough to require a little more tight with the bar. Half-dozen times between here and Kerrville. If an impact tool’s able to take care of just that problem of reality and confidence, it’s worth the price of admission.

[Debating with myself here, can’t recall whether 4th is spelled, Fourth, or Forth – what-the-hell]

Next: Careful examination of the half-inch drive corded hammer-drill suggests it might function as an impact tool, but it’s going to need a half-inch adapter between the drill-chuck and male socket whatchallit. If it works it’s going to be a lot cheaper than an off the shelf impact tool, and it doesn’t have a battery to go kerplunk.

Next: That trim above the right-rear wheel well [see pic] was destroyed when the tire blew. No way that piece of trim is going to jump out of the Universe at me to be replaced, so I’m going to have to find a way to innovate. Not entirely for aesthetics, but some places are pickypickypicky wanting to see pics of the rig before they’ll consider a person who wants to clean up their trash, mow their grass, listen to complaints of RV owners. In exchange for a pad with hookups, etc.

Last, I’ve been troubled because my ALT gauge doesn’t tell me squat about whether the alternator’s working or not. Couldn’t figure why. A guy on one of the vintage RV groups answered my question about it by telling me he had the same problem. Bought a cheap digital gadget plugs into the lighter socket. I got one yesterday and hot diggety damn. Yes, HOT diggety damn! You heard me right.

But I’ve digressed. The crux of it all is that, after having been provided all this new stuff to learn, I have to live long enough to use it, damn me if I don’t. Got myself a karmic debt on my Credit Card with an obligation I might carry spang into my next lifetime if I kick before using it.

So now, instead of just having to live long enough to pay back Keith and Rich for the lifesaving loans to get the RVs, instead of just having to outlive the damned cats, I’ve got to spend the remainder of my life changing blown tires and unscrewing pesky lug nuts.

Sheeze.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, Education, Government, History, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Politics, Senior Citizens, Spirituality, Texas, Transportation, Trucks

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Texas Gals Kick Ass

Posted on July 30, 2013 by | 21 comments

Tastefully tattooed on the inside of the thigh of the Goldilox behind me in line at Walmart.  She saw me trying to read it and lifted her leg to make it easier.  “Awsome?”

“I’ve seen worse.”  I was a lot younger and mostly drunk, but a number worse ones still came to mind.

She frowned at meand I squinted my brain trying to figure out just what the hell “Texas Gals Kick Ass” could be intended to communicate to readers.  Luckily the cashier interrupted.  “You want the two-year return plan for $5 more?”

Me grabbing for straws welcoming any distraction, “Yeah.  Sure.”

A person gets a statement tattooed anywhere there’s bound to be meaning hiding in it.  Something intended to happen in the mind of the person who sees it.  From now until she’s my age.

Hell, maybe she’s into Kung Fu, or plays soccor.  Maybe she’s a wild-burro rider on the rodeo circuit.  I was surprised by the ‘gals’ part… wasn’t my impression young women today would sit still for being called gals. 

The ‘Texas’ part?  I count it a relief.

I honestly don’t like to think about gals outside Texas going around kicking ass, or saying they do.  Thinking they do.

Not bad in the thigh department, though.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Government, Human Behavior, Nature, Relationships, Senior Citizens

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Tequila sunrise

Posted on July 30, 2013 by | 2 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Old Ms. Niaid managed to off Brother Rattler without any consequences evidently, so she’s going to have to find something else to flesh out her life experience, I reckons. Her long hair’s growing back from the sheep shearing when the hot weather hit, and it’s filling up with beggar’s lice and grass burrs, which might serve to fend off whatever’s around here dangerous to aging bachelorette felines.

Ms. Tabby, on the other hand, has a nose and front-of-her-face of the usual Tabby-summertime variety. Can’t keep her nose out of cactus, or out of the business of something capable of adding color and romance to an otherwise nondescript Tabby face. I’m thinking when we get out of here she might turn out to be a regular-looking cat.

I decided yesterday I’m going to add mothballs to that storage building to get those rattlers out where they can enjoy life instead of bickering and snarling inside that dark storage building. Can’t tell when someone’s going to want something else out of there and the anxiety level trying to find it ain’t worth not stepping on a snake some night going from the RV to the cabin to check my email.

Today I’m going to nurse the Escape Route V 2.51 into Kerrville on three tires on back and have the two blown ones replace with respectable 10 ply exceptions to the rule. Provided the spare on the ground right-rear doesn’t decide to blow the plan. I’ll try to take back roads and get the roadwork done early before the pavement gets too hot.

Keith emailed me a while back he’s planning to be in New Mexico late August or September, and I’m going to tentatively plan on getting out to visit while he’s in the area. Hopefully by then everything will be settled out here and I’ll be able to think of out-there as home for a while.

Maybe get me a nice little piece of ocean-side ground on the east, or west coast of New Mexico, once all the damned ice goes away and raises sea-level to a reasonable altitude. 4000′ mean sea level might be about right. Maybe the cats and I will open a little bait shop on the west coast near where Arizona used to be. Or maybe rig a surfboard and hang ten mornings after we pray the sun up.

I figure the west coast will probably be less jam packed with Arizonians than the east coast will be with Texans because those Texans already all go to New Mexico deliberately to ski and gamble at Ruidoso and Angel Fire. Arizonians and Californians never go to New Mexico deliberately unless they’re just going through it to get somewhere else.

By the time they wake up and discover they’re living in a salt-water swimming hole I’ll have things nailed down on all the corners, wave to them as they swim to shore, or ride in on their bass boats. Sell them some bait, maybe.

Big plans for the future here.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, Country Life, Gambling, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Kerrville, Nature, New Mexico, NM, Outdoors, Solitude

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Pore old Brother Rattler

Posted on July 29, 2013 by | 7 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.

Gale had a hip replaced recently, and he’s doing the recovery routines. Called me a few days ago asking me to search around in one of the storage buildings for a wheel chair and walkers stored in there somewhere. I used to store chicken feed in there and hadn’t looked inside much after I got rid of the flock.

So I opened the door and began clearing away all manner of things before the first rattler announced himself, followed by another somewhere on the other side of the path I was creating. I moved something else and a third, maybe a fourth kicked in to the orchestra.

I tippee-toed around and carefully got the wheel chair and walkers out without anything attaching itself to my leg, called him to let him know it’s all down here where it can be picked up. We discussed the plethora of rattlers, how to get them out of there. And whether I actually wanted to get them out of there before I’m ready to hit the pavement.

On reflection, I like them a good bit better in there than outdoors where they can get underfoot. My thought is I’ll leave them to themselves for a while if they’re happy there. When the time comes he can run them out with mothballs or ammonia. He’s thinking he’d like to try forcing them out the hole they came in and have people standing around to shoot them as they emerge. Which I want no part of. I mostly have no argument with pore old Brother Rattler. If he’ll leave me along I’m content leaving him alone, tending his own affairs.

However, half-hour ago I was inside the RV when Niaid announced she’d come on prey, or caught something. I looked out the screen door and watched her leap on something in the weeds. Quicker than I can tell it she had a 3 foot rattler in her mouth dragging it toward the RV, meowing out the sides of her mouth as she came.

Brother Rattler was still trying to grasp the fact he was dead, his head and neck squashed. Squirming and wiggling between her forelegs as she brought him to show off.

I’m keeping a close eye on her. No way of telling yet whether she was bitten, but she seems okay. Not favoring any body parts.

Life in the big city, I reckons.

Old Jules

7 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Animals, Country Life, Homesteading, Human Behavior, Nature, Senior Citizens, Texas

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If you can’t trust the Japanese, then who?

Posted on July 28, 2013 by | 8 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Most of you will probably agree the Japanese are the most intelligent, advanced, scientifically advanced, politically and economically savvy people on the planet. It’s the reason most of you are driving Japanese automobiles.

Think about it: Japan invaded and raped East Asia for a decade, was bludgeoned to death by a costly sea war followed by two atomic bombs before they’d surrender. And within half-decade the US was at war defending Japan. “Korea,” Doug MacArthur declared, “is a dagger pointed at the heart of Japan!”

Obviously the Japanese were one hell of a lot smarter than those governing the US. The bombed-out Japanese industries were rebuilt by US taxpayers, providing them with decades newer steel mills and manufacturing capabilities than those on US soil. Ultimately the result was decline in US production and the slippery slope decline of US economic stability.

Think about it: Today the Japanese have a better space program than NASA:

http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl.t10.6/search/web?fcoid=417&fcop=topnav&fpid=27&q=japanese+space+program&ql=

Japanese Space Program
JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (former Nasda) is Japan’s version of Nasa.

  • Hayabusa was launched 9 May 2003. The probe sent to gather samples from asteroid 25143 Itokawa. After numerous glitches, the probe returned to Earth. Scientists have not yet opened the sample container.
  • In 2006, JAXA launched Akari, an infrared astronomy satellite. Its mission is to survey the entire sky in infrared. On 6 August 2007 it has surveyed 94 percent.
  • Selene was launched September 14, 2007. Selene was the largest lunar mission since NASA’s Apollo, Selene orbited the moon for 20 months. It provided data used to improve topological and gravity maps.
  • Oicets – This experimental satellite was designed to demonstrate optical communications between distant satellites. Launched in 2005, it was retired in 2009.
  • H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) first flew to the International Space Station on 10 September 2009.
  • In 2010 IKAROS probe was the world’s first spacecraft to use solar sailing as the main propulsion

The best engineers in the world are Japanese. Agreed? The most competent scientists in the world are Japanese. Agreed? The most savvy politicians and economists in the world are Japanese. Agreed?

If any scientists and engineers anywhere can be trusted to be right about important matters involving human science, engineering and environmental issues, the place to look for affirmation should be Japan. Agreed?

Japanese science and engineers designed and produced the three nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima power plants.

Are the most competent, advanced scientists and engineers in the world concerned about manmade climate change? Are they concerned about contaminating the North Pacific with radioactive cooling water? Obviously they are not.

After the disaster, then until now, have the most advanced, competent scientists in the world bothered to do anything to contain the cascade of environmental problems supposedly associated with nuclear fuel rods exposed to the atmosphere and sea water? They have not.

Japanese scientists and engineers knew everything they could know about the tectonic environment of Japan. They designed those plants and built them with all that in mind, took the worst possible scenarios into account. Obviously.

So how is it the populations of nations with less competent scientists and engineers, the people who drive Japanese automobiles, come to believe anything their own scientists postulate concerning other matters involving advanced science?

The most advanced, most intelligent, the most savvy scientists and engineers on the planet proved themselves capable of ignoring the obvious, of assuring Japan their nuclear power plants were safely constructed.

How can anyone bring himself to believe what any scientist, any engineer, any politician says about manmade climate changes? Particularly any scientist or engineer who isn’t Japanese.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Education, Government, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors, Politics, Science

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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein circa 1966

Posted on July 27, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

Just when you think the early work of RAH is bogging itself down in frozen-in-time anachronisms he drops a mickey into your martini.  Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one such.

Suddenly he’s taking a close look at political revolutions, at the institutions of marriage, at the relationships between men and women [and why they become what they become], why revolutions don’t work usually, and how to prevent them from becoming what revolutions invariably become.  He throws in a quickie about how you can always, always come out ahead betting the horses.  And an imaginary penal colony on the moon, several generations later when the prisoners are only a tiny percentage of a population composed mainly of the descendants of prisoners.

A society where males outnumber females 10 to 1, where the earth is on the brink of starvation and depends heavily on the labors of the Luna population for wheat production, crops catapulted to the earth surface to land in the Indian Ocean.  Depleting inevitably the water-ice reservoirs on the moon with no attempt to replace, even pay for the labors of folks who physically will never be able to ‘return’ to earth.

This was a great read in 1966, the first time I read it.  2013 I read it again, and aside from pickypickypicky details, it’s still a great read. 

Sheeze, catapults on the moon hurling rocks down the gravity well turning out the equivalents of H-bomb explosions after the earth governments dig in their heels and bomb moon colonies as an alternative to replacing the water required to grow the wheat.  A computer gone intelligent.  Marriages lasting 150 years through dozens of multiple-husbands and wives, always being replaced when one dies. 

I’d rank it one hell of a lot better than Stranger in a Strange Land.

Old Jules

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Posted in 1960's, 2013, Book Reviews, Books, Government, Human Behavior, Police, Politics

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Fad science and self-made a monkeyof-ism

Posted on July 27, 2013 by | 12 comments

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by.

Some of you thought I was joking with my recent post about climate change and the current yakyakyakyak by the excitement industry concerning ‘manmade global warming’.

Some of you probably also didn’t notice the comment by Trapper Gale remembering a time four-or-so decades ago when the previous generation of the same institutional experts ran in increasingly small circles setting their hair on fire predicting a coming ice age.

AmericaLaurentideIceSheet.jpg

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/climatechange2/01_1.shtml

http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/virtualmuseum/images/AmericaLaurentideIceSheet.jpg

“The last of the ice ages in human experience (often referred to as the Ice Age) reached its maximum roughly 20,000 years ago, and then gave way to warming. Sea level rose in two major steps, one centered near 14,000 years and the other near 11,500 years. However, between these two periods of rapid melting there was a pause in melting and sea level rise, known as the “Younger Dryas” period. During the Younger Dryas the climate system went back into almost fully glacial conditions, after having offered balmy conditions for more than 1000 years. The reasons for these large swings in climate change are not yet well understood. “

Which is an understatement.

Academians have a vested interest in manmade climate change today. They get their names in the journals and newspapers through the power of positive speaking. If they can stir up enough fear by presenting what they don’t know as ‘not yet well understood’ they generate government grants, jobs, power and prestige within their fields. Further study of what they don’t yet well understand, it’s assumed, will provide better understanding in the direction of their assertions.

Somehow the fact their disciplinary ancestors also didn’t yet well understand similarly the precise opposite interpretation of the data. Mined it for all it was worth at the time in study, grants, power and prestige. Opened new frontiers for their progeny when the time came, by reversing what a few decades later remained not yet fully understood.

I’m not suggesting there’s no manmade climate change. Maybe there is. And I’m not suggesting that if there is, it won’t speed the natural progress of planetary warming.

What I am saying is that anytime scientific observers examine data with an expected, hoped-for outcome, [especially when power, money, career advancement and prestige are factors] they have a way of observing selectively.

Same as human beings are prone to do in all other walks of life.

What I’m also saying is that three, maybe four decades from now there’s a reasonable possibility they’ll have mined this crisis dry and be setting their hair on fire with a new crisis to be mined for power, prestige, money and career advancement. Humanity induced plate tectonics, maybe. Earth’s decaying orbit because of atmospheric drag created by airliners.

Maybe they’ll be right. Hell, there’s even a remote chance they’re right about of what they’re saying today. Some piece of it-or-other.

The damned problem is you can’t trust them. They watch the same television you do. They know which way the wind’s blowing and muddling along trying to sail downwind getting the most out of it while it’s hot. Joining the gold rush with the knowledge when this one plays out there’s another lode in Alaska or Nevada they can move to.

Same as the rest of us.

Old Jules

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Posted in 1970's, 2013, America, Current Issues, Education, Government, Grants, Human Behavior, Nature, Outdoors, Science, Survival

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Climate Change – A matter of perspective

Posted on July 26, 2013 by | 15 comments

Morning to you, readers. Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Now that the planet’s finally recovering from that last ice age, all the glaciers and permafrost finally melting, maybe things can get back to normal, the way things used to be in the good old days.  All that ice covering things up has been one hell of an inconvenience.

We’re lucky to live now instead of a while back when the Great Lakes were covered by half-mile of ice.  But things are getting better, just as they’ve been getting better all along as the ice receded.  Imagine how tough it would have been for all those automotive manufacturers to turn out cars if Detroit had been under half-mile of ice.  And those super-highways?  Heck, how do you build an Interstate on top of melting ice?  Same with all sorts of other things we spent the past few centuries doing.

Sure, things are going to change when things get back to normal.  And nobody can guess what those changes are going to be, how a normal climate’s going to manifest itself.  Nobody who lived during normal times was writing anything much down about the situation at the time. 

But the good news is that the planet goes a longish while between ice ages usually.  So once things are back to normal folks living then will have all kinds of time to get used to it.  Besides, they’ll be busy as hell working to pay off the debts the people living today are promising they’ll pay.  Maybe they’ll find some new ways of doing it in places where the ground’s covered with ice.

Running around screaming and setting our hair on fire isn’t going to keep this planet from doing what it’s going to do.  Those glaciers are going to keep receding.  No stopping it.

And there aren’t any laws, any human behaviors anyone’s going to change to keep it from doing it.  Any more than humans before this ice age came along could have done anything to keep it from happening.

Might as well relax and enjoy it.  The forward thinkers will find ways to make money from it, get rich off it one way or another.  The stainless steel agers will find ways to exploit whatever’s been hidden under all that ice.

Cultures, religions and civilizations will rise and fall, same as they always have.  Everyone will think it’s perfectly normal.

Nothing to get excited about.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2013, America, Education, Emergency Preparedness, Government, Human Behavior, Science, Survival

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At least nobody calls us the Great Satan

Posted on July 25, 2013 by | 16 comments

Hi readers.

We followers and practitioners of the older, more traditional, more mature and simpler stone and copper age religions are frequently scorned and ridiculed by followers of the younger bronze and iron age religions.  But I’ve never known it to go further than that.  Who ever heard of anyone getting burned at the stake for praying the sun up, or praying the moon up?

Fact is, once the later religions got going well they were too busy killing one another off to bother with anything as simple and harmless as sun worship.  They had important matters of nuance, doctrine, hair-trigger ‘kill-them-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out’ heresies.

Iron age Christians frequently refer to Catholics, for instance, as ‘the Great Satan’.  Iron age Muslims, similarly often refer to Christians as the Great Satan.  Nobody’s ever been called the Great Satan for praying up the sun in the morning and down at night.

Bronze age Hebrews, meanwhile, were slaughtered and dispersed from the Middle East by bronze age Romans following a hybridized bronze age religion.  After which the bronze age Hebrews were accused of killing Christ and treated as criminals and worse throughout Europe and Russia for 2000 years.

Nobody ever accused anyone who prays the sun up in the morning and down at night of killing Jesus.  Nobody ever ran sun worshipers out of any country I can think of.

Fact is, though, someone should do something about the damned moon worshipers.  Those people really piss me off.

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2013, Human Behavior, Nature, Science

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