Tag Archives: Human Behavior

Why US troops are helping suppress rebels in the Congo

Posted on June 11, 2013 by | 2 comments

jeffdavis3

President Barack Obama:  “Primitive, often non-white people have no respect for the law, private property owned by US corporations, and for the authority manifested in duly recognized goverment.  The Congo must be protected.  Residents must be allowed to enjoy freedom without interference of rebels and outside Chinese attempts to control tropical Africa for the minerals, timber and other resources located there.

“The US is forced to maintain large bodies of troops in Afghanistan and an equally large mercenery force in Iraq at great expense to itself to prevent US military activities on the African continent becoming an international issue.”

2 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Military, US Army

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Forgotten Lost Victories – The Modocs – 1852

Posted on June 11, 2013 by | 5 comments

shelf indian

Bringing civilization to Native Americans was never easy.  Almost every step of the way the tribes selfishly hoarded the lands they depended upon, frequently resorting to violence when whites who needed the land for farming, ranching and mining tried to run them off.

One example was the Modocs in northern California, 1852.  The US suddenly owned the land, having disproved the false claims by Mexico of ownership by invading them and killing as many as they could catch.  But the Modocs were spoiled by being owned by Mexico, being mostly left alone.  When whites came into the Tule Lake area the Modoc slaughtered 38 innocent people.

Ben Wright and a group of miners from Yreka, California attempted to peacefully resolve the situation by having a feast for the tribe, but almost to a person the Modoc unreasonably refused to eat the poisoned food. 

Wright and the miners were forced to fire into the mass  of tribal members, which allowed a third of them to escape.  That failure led to decades more of Modoc attempts to halt the march of civilization and disputing rightful white claims to the land.

hands_off_please[ KC Library

Not until 1873, after seven months of hard fighting and the loss of many innocent white lives were the Modoc finally subdued permanently and the leaders hanged.

A microcosm of the history of the western US where flawed and improper leadership and planning resulted in the needless loss of innocent white lives.

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Posted in America, History, Human Behavior, Military, Native American, Native Americans, US Army

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Finally it begins to make sense

Posted on June 11, 2013 by | 19 comments

first man in space

I read somewhere recently the efforts to teach sign language to great apes since the 1970s gave a lot of them vocabularies large enough to allow IQ tests. The lowest a mountain gorilla ever scored was 97. Smarter than a lot of people. And I read somewhere else there’s only a 1% difference between the DNA of a chimp and that of a human being.

All of which suggests to me there might be sub-species of human beings, not quite human but not different enough to identify as an entirely different species. Politicians, genetic engineers, Wall Street bankers, CEOs of multi-national corporations, along with Hitler, Stalin et al might finally be explained that way.

I’d never considered the possibility aristocrats might be merely close relations to human beings without actually crossing the great divide to become human.  That maybe they’re just a smidgen of lifetimes behind on the reincarnation trail, sniffing along trying to catch up, but getting distracted by the fire hydrants others among them peed on as they struggled to gain humanhood.

19 Comments

Posted in 2013, Animals, Communication, Human Behavior, Politics, Science

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My hat’s off to Jeanne

Posted on June 11, 2013 by | 5 comments

I was talking to her on the phone last night, her feeling down and in fairly low spirits about the art she’s worked on all these years and hasn’t sold enough of to balance the cost of entries in art shows, etc.  We were discussing other strategies she might try when I suddenly heard the word, “AWESOME!”

I thought the connection and gone bad or I was hearing wrong.  Just reaching for the button to hang up when she added, “I sold one off the blog!” 

I didn’t hang up after all, though the word awesome isn’t one I usually allow to reach my ear twice in the same conversation.

Can’t tell you how glad I am for her.  I honestly couldn’t imagine a blog, no matter how much trouble a person took building it, was a place where original art could be sold.

5 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Art

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Vultures fighting for the moral high ground

Posted on June 11, 2013 by | 6 comments

Good morning readers.  For two days now the sky and trees the other side of the meadow have been filled with Democrat buzzards and Republican vultures fighting over the carcass of Brother Coon.  

Both groups find him palatable, but each doing its own part to tear him down into fragments of truth they can convert within their buzzard realities into savory, self-serving  rhetoric.  Watching it all was fun for a while, them pushing and shoving off the tree limbs and chasing one another away on the ground when a choice morsel emerged from the pile of goo.

By now old Brother Coon’s probably been released to the public, one way or another, so hopefully the show’s over.  Not much of him left in the meadow, anyway.  Even for buzzards the shelf-life on a carcass isn’t that long in all this heat.  Whatever’s left the fireants will take care of quickly.  Might wander out there later to see if I can gather up some teeth for a necklace or a watch-fob.

 

 

6 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Nature

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Something’s happening at Slab City

Posted on June 10, 2013 by | 13 comments

Back when I posted the thing about Slab City, CA, I eventually decided despite my curiosity about the place I just have too many things left I want to do in my life to get out there and check it out:

Slab City, California – An Impromptu Community

The place is so hot summertime only about 100 people stay there during the scorching months.  And winter months there just seemed to be too many other ways to spend the time to justify a visit out there. 

Now they’ve formed some sort of an organization willing to pay someone $400 per month to sweat through the summer months doing some sort of maintenance on Salvation Mountain.  Likely they’ll get a lot of interest in the $400 per month and the fervor among the interested will dwindle rapidly as the thermometer climbs.

But the last RV Workers on Wheels newsletter had this:

CA: Camp Host at Art Preservation Site in Slab City

by Salvation Mountain Inc. – Slab City, California, USA
(Nin-Profit Volunteer Site Manager with Site and Stipend)

Leonard Knight's Salvation Mountain

Leonard Knight’s Salvation Mountain

 

Salvation Mountain is an “outsider art” monument at the entrance to Slab City, created over 30 years by Leonard Knight. Leonard’s unique and enduring vision is one of universal love.

Leonard painted his vision on the cliffs at Slab City over a period of 30 years. He can no longer maintain his monument, due to declining health, so a charitable corporation was formed. The Salvation Mountain Inc. Board of Directors has the responsibility of continuing to preserve Leonard’s dream.

We are looking for a camp host and site manager to work with our board of directors at this monument in the desert. This is a volunteer contract position, where we provide a living space for an RV, a small stipend of $400 per month, plus solar electricity, water, trash removal, and internet access. We also have a park model trailer on the site.

You can learn more about Salvation Mountain at http://www.salvationmountaininc.org.

Slab City is a boondocking “off the grid” community in the desert in Southeast California, just east of the Salton Sea. For information about Slab City, go to this website: http://www.slab-city.com.

Salvation Mountain Inc. is a registered charitable non-profit company charged with preservation of Leonard Knight’s art site called Salvation Mountain. Leonard Knight starting building Salvation Mountain almost 30 years ago. While I, a board member, am not a particularly religious person, I do appreciate Leonard’s dedication and vision, especially his message of universal love. This is not a religious charity, it is an art preservation charity.

We are trying to find a site manger (aka a camp host) to live at the Salvation Mountain site 24/7. It’s a contract position, and there is a stipend of $400 per month to help with expenses. We provide water, solar power, internet and trash removal. We are asking for a one year commitment (with a 90 day probation period to see if the fit is good with our Board of Directors).

We welcome your application and inquiries for this position. We will do a background check (criminal and credit), as this is a position of responsibility.

You can request an application at salvationmountaininc31@gmail.com. Be sure to let us know that you saw our Help Wanted ad on Coleen’s Workers On Wheels website when you contact us about this site manager job. Salvation Mountain Inc. – Slab City, California. Posted June 2013.

I’m mulling it over.  Given my current situation and the violence $400 a month would do to my series of debt responsibilities it might be I could stand the heat.  Going to have a long prayer meeting with the cats to find out whether they’re willing to allow having a look.

13 Comments

Posted in 2013, Adventure, America, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Damned fool dogs that didn’t hunt – Risk taking and priorities

Posted on June 10, 2013 by | 4 comments

wind sock columbus2

If you happen to be one of those people who goes through life making decisions about the dogs you’ve considered buying and they always hunted you probably believe it’s because you’ve been wise and prudent.  Or purely from ‘hard work’.  It’s certainly tempting for the person with that body of experience to believe it’s true, and maybe it is. 

Who the hell wants to believe, having spent his life scrambling with the only goal being ending up eventually with more money than you can spend, that it was because it’s just how it went?  That successfully accumulating a lot of money through a lifetime isn’t a hell of a lot different from just inheriting money?  That when the kids inherit what you accumulated but didn’t spend, the only favor you did them was giving them a leg up to being dirty rich kids turned adult?  Robbed them of the experience of scrambling and making the hard decisions and compromises you made, learned from, and consider vital to your life?

Alternatively, for people who muddle along staying in the middle of the bell shaped curve, or those who buy dogs that didn’t hunt tend to blame it on someone else, or outside factors.  The government, rich people, or just lousy luck.

Seems to me the problem with all this is the measuring stick, and it’s a disease of modern life.  Something we condition ourselves to early and never do enough thinking about to examine carefully.  So we fret about whether the chips on the table are $1 chips, or $100 ones and let the place they occupy on the value system influence whether we stay, or raise, nevermind the cards we’re holding.

I’m writing this because the game I’m in at the moment seems to be a high stakes one where I’m sitting.  People nearby ain’t saying so, but they believe I’m a damned fool for the buying the Toyota RV, believing what the guy who sold it to me told me about it, not knowing enough to assure it was the truth.

I’m not denying it’s true.  I thought the guy was honest and maybe he was.  He never checked a lot of it out because the guy who sold it to him was a good Christian in his church and he believed what he’d been told.

So I borrowed the money to buy it from a close friend and I’ll be paying him back for a longish time at $100 per month, whether that RV is in a junk yard, or has the coach stripped off and is earning its keep as a hauling cargo vehicle.  The buck stops here.  I’m not going to lie or misrepresent what that truck is and put some other poor bastard into the same position I’m in.  I’ll junk it first and swallow the loss, screw all the yardsticks.

So now I’ve got another RV staring me in the face, all my mistrusting sense organs fired up from the last time I trusted anyone.  Stakes being roughly the same as before, but seeming higher because I borrowed money from another friend I’m going to be paying back $100 per month for a couple of years, win, lose, or draw.

And knowing no matter how much checking I do, how clever I try to be, there’s a better-than-even chance the guy’s lying about something important I won’t be smart enough to catch.  Or maybe he’s telling the truth and buying the thing will be the smartest thing I ever did.

Either way, I’ll still be the damned fool I was before, the only difference being whether I think I was smart, or blame the government, or rich people, or Lady Luck.

Hell of a deal.

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, Adventure, America, Gambling, Government, Human Behavior, Transportation, Trucks

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Bummer if that tree fell on your house

Posted on June 9, 2013 by | 7 comments

He said NEVER!

Ever noticed how many people hang around discussion boards of every description watching for things they can tell other people NEVER to do?

NEVER play with matches! NEVER ride a bicycle with no brakes! NEVER point an acetylene torch at your face when you light it! NEVER try to get inside a tree shredder while it’s running!

I think there must be something about typing a command about never that feels validating, self-affirming. Telling people what they’ll either have better sense than to do anyway, or who will pay no attention and will do it anyway.

And the fact is, it could as easily be said in ways people might listen to because it wasn’t so offensive and presumptuously downtalking:  How about, “Sure would be a big bummer for a person to get his hair caught in that fanbelt.” Something along those lines.

About the only response I can think of appropriate to the NEVER command is “NEVER say NEVER!”

7 Comments

Posted in 2013, Communication, Internet

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I might be forced to find me a woman

Posted on June 8, 2013 by | 22 comments

Don Giovanni

At least for a while.  I’ve been kicking it around in my head a lot lately.  If I’m going to do any serious trekking into the high mountains for more than a few days I’m going to have to have someone looking after the felines.  And if I want to spend a season work camping somewhere they almost always require couples, as opposed to singles.

Fact is, I run across a lot of men who might be a lot easier to get along with than a woman, but most of them have their own ideas about what they’d prefer to do with themselves as opposed to doing what I might wish them to do.  And women tend to be a lot easier to come by in my experience.  The problem is keeping things clean and well lighted, the parties of the first and second parts each knowing where the other’s coming from, and where they’re going.

That can get complicated.  Mainly because one of the two parties is working on more than one agenda without coming out and saying so, figuring the agenda of the other can be modified after the hook is set better.

But a lot of the things I want to do before I die are going to require someone to lift the other end of something.  Finding someone willing to lift the other end and take joy in doing it is no easy matter.  Whatever the object needs lifting, whatever the agenda.

Afterthought:  A woman who owns a couple of mules or a string of pack goats and a few acres of land up near the continental divide might work out well.  Also a stock trailer and something to pull it.  Probably can find something on Craigslist.

Afterthought #2:  I can’t, in good conscience, recommend me to any woman.  In fact, I’d counsel strongly against me as a consideration.  Fact is, I’m a nice guy.  Got an honest streak in me and enough of a century behind to know this whole thing was a lousy idea.  Though fun, in an oblique sort of way.

22 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Human Behavior, New Mexico, Outdoors, Senior Citizens

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Tough year here for cats

Posted on June 8, 2013 by | 12 comments

invadercat1

Something snagged the Invadercat here a while back, tore him up badly and took out one eye.  He hung around here a week-or-so for food, didn’t appear to be getting worse.  But then he vanished, as he’s always been prone to do.  I know he was getting food at one of the ranches around here, probably several.

But once he left he hasn’t been back.  Might be one of the other folks who’ve been feeding him took him to a vet and had him doctored, or maybe something got him in the woods.  Life’s dangerous enough in the real world for a cat with two good eyes and no serious injuries.

Meanwhile, Ms Tabby’s having worse than her usual battle with spring and summer leg and skin troubles.  Getting welts from either cactus, or fire ants on her legs, belly and tail.  I see her crouched in the meadow stalking things in places where I know there are fire ant beds, so that might be the problem.  But she’s looking worse now than anytime since she’s been with me.

Ms Niaid and Mr Hydrox are doing generally okay, though Niaid’s looking skinnier than I’d like.  She’s bringing in several mice per day to show off before she eats them, but still wants the catfood and is the eagerest eater of them all.  After I used the sheep shears on her she hasn’t picked up burrs and gotten matted hair so badly, seems a lot more pleased with herself.  Gets around well for a senior citizen.

Mr Hydrox only has half of himself sheep sheared, avoided being caught to have it finished after we had a difference of opinion during the operation regarding how much more to take off.  But last night he wanted to sleep with me, so I’m thinking he’s going to have less hair soon.

All in all central Texas probably just ain’t the exact right place for these felines and this 70 year old man and the Coincidence Coordinators are raising the ante for staying any longer than I have to.

12 Comments

Posted in 2013, Animals, Outdoors, Texas

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