It's Moab's Fault ...

Hello Folks,

Well it was one heck of a day today ... warm and sunny ... spring has arrived in Moab.

I must say it is with a heavy heart that I leave tomorrow morning, there is something about the town of Moab and this state of Utah that is truly spiritual and I am not talking about religion here – I am talking about a state of mind, an enhanced consciousness and awareness, a more communal spirit and a kinder, gentler take on one’s fellow man.

The blogs each had a life of their own, I did not set out to be overtly political; what came out, came out – based on what I was reading, hearing and thinking about.

I will return to Moab – even though it has but one fault – but hey nobody, no place, no thing is perfect ... well, there is Bar Rafaeli ..

Full moon tonight – a beautiful moonrise over the La Sal Mountains – a great end and send off after a month in Canyon Country.

Oh yeah ... the showdown with the flying menace ... packing and sorting through things for the departure, I hear some tapping at the patio door ... I pull the blinds and who is there but the raven crow beast with a US Olympic Hockey sweater on ... right, the game is on ... I turn the game on and the next thing I know the ebony rocket is in the condo and dive bombing the tv – I pour it a Raven Oatmeal Stout and it sits at the counter ,drinking it, watching the game.

Here’s a picture of it just 1 second before the US second goal ... flying upside down in some kind of trance state, foaming at the beak ... you can see where he puked on the wall ...

Here’s a picture after it appeared the US was controlling the play in the over time ... he was flying in ever smaller circles ... it was bloody scary ...

Here’s a final picture after the overtime goal ... doing a kamikaze run into the tv... I had to give the thing mouth to beak to get it going .. when it recovered it shit in my beer and the flew upstairs and out of the condo ... what the exit point was I have no idea ...

I saw it later in the evening ... flying into the sunset ... 

looks like it has decided that, for now, this encounter is over ... but we all know what happens next don’t we ... we push on the Pillsbury Doughboy and he expands somewhere else ...he’s not defeated, he’s just getting ready ... for the next time ... and we both know ... there will be a next time ...

Until then ....

Phil

Brother Can You Spare a Time ...

Hello Folks,

I am coming to the conclusion of The Power of Babble ... there will be one more update after this one ... it’s been a wild ride but everything ‘good’ must come to an end – otherwise there would be no ‘good’ in the first place ... because everything would be ‘good’ ... and therefore we wouldn’t recognize anything as  ‘good’....

Just going with that thought, the physicist Stephen Hawking has postulated that if nothing were to change, essentially if there was no Second Law of Thermodynamics, we would have no sense of ‘time’ ... no watch, no calendar ... no f%^&ing alarm clock ....

Einstein taught us that ‘time’ is relative and we actually experience that phenomenon during our life’time’s ... one day to a 4 year old is experienced relative to the ‘time’ lived ... the same for a 60 year old ... the day therefore appears much longer to the 4 year than the 60 year old .. even though the absolute amount of ‘time’ in each case is the same.

Philosophers have two thoughts about ‘time’ ... one side claims that ‘time’ is a function of and part of the physical universe ... in other words you can physically travel within it ... the other side claims ‘time’ is a function of and part of the thinking ‘us’ ... in other words it is a concept and thus cannot be travelled.

In our present culture we regard ‘time’ as linear ... ancient cultures, native Americans, and present day Buddhists and Hindus had/have a different concept ... that of a wheel of ‘time’ that regards ‘time’ as cyclical ... the Mayan calendar isn’t ending in December 2012, it is starting a new cycle ...

The concept of ‘time’ as linear can be directly related to rise of Christianity. In the Bible we have the alpha and the omega ... creation and the second coming ... the philosophers and scientists who were postulating and testing the ‘laws’ of the physical universe were religious and devout men .... all Christian ... it was only natural that their world view would be linear ...

It was the Dutch in the 1600s that sorted out that ‘time is money’ and invented the concept of the company and then further refined the ‘time is money’ concept by establishing a market where the companies could sell ‘interests’ in future earnings to finance current endeavours ... they then took the novel step of allowing the owners of those ‘interests’ to sell them to a third party ... thus inventing the stock market.

It wasn’t too much ‘time’ after that that John Law created the first stock market bubble putting France in the toilet and basically setting up the economic angst that would lead to the French Revolution ... and basically we have been running from bubble to bubble ever since.

R.H. Tawney’s book, ‘Religion and the Rise of Capitalism’, establishes a thesis that capitalism, mercantilism  ... whatever you wish to call our economic system ... was the result of a co-dependence between the development and evolution of religious Christian thought and, the development and evolution of an economic system that clearly favoured some, and by contrast, kept many more in bondage and servitude – and the results of this co-dependence were incorporated into the democratic principles and constitutions of the world’s democracies.

But, to quote Tawney,

‘Democracy is unstable as a political system as long as it remains a political system and nothing more, instead of being, as it should be, not only a form of government but a type of society, and a manner of life which is in harmony with that type. To make it a type of society requires an advance along two lines. It involves, in the first place, the resolute elimination of all forms of special privilege which favour some groups and depress other, whether their source be differences of environment, of education, or of pecuniary income. It involves, in the second place, the conversion of economic power, now often an irresponsible tyrant, into a servant of society, working within clearly defined limits and accountable for its actions to a public authority’.

I love the US ... I love the people here ... I love the geography and topography ... I love the history ... I love their icons and heroes ... after all they were my childhood heroes ... but something has been lost over ‘time’ ... and I sense it is not turning around just yet ... but I believe, given ‘time’, it will.

What has been lost in the US, as I see it, is the connection between government and the people – and nothing exemplifies this more than the healthcare debate which is taking place as I write.

It’s one thing to be principled and to want small government ... it’s one thing to be principled and to avoid, at all costs, government control/ownership of financial institutions, insurance companies and auto manufacturers ... but when principle hurts million of people, when principle stands alone against the opinion of respected scientists, economists and everyday working folk on the front line ... and when the process of government itself allows this to happen ... it is indeed ‘time’ for a change.

And there is no better way for this change to start than the US looking north to their friendly neighbour and examining some of the rules, regulations and policies that they have in place – while not perfect, they have not allowed us to descend to the moral depths of our much loved southern neighbour ... we’ll be here at a ‘time’ when you need us Uncle Sam ... as always ...

To quote from verse 477 of the Krome Koan,

‘I love your country, it’s your government I fear ....’

Oh yeah ... the team building meeting is over ... I see the raven crow beast is wearing a buffalo hide ... looks like the final showdown will happen tomorrow night .... a full moon no less ... I am assuming at the Moab Brewery ... where he and I seem to spend so much ‘time’ (money) ... I sense that the confrontation will be some sort of drinking/eating contest ... I never did like to eat crow ... but maybe it’s ‘time’ ....

More in ‘time’ (I hope),

Phil

Abbey Rode ....

Hello Folks,

Yesterday was the warmest day yet in Moab as spring is rapidly approaching. Walked up the hill behind the condo ... and it is quite a hill ... to the beginning of Steel Bender Trail. The road that goes to the top of the canyon wall, which is all paved until you reach the trail head, goes by an outcrop of sandstone that is cordoned off with fencing. In this area is rock art, which of course, has been embellished with the names and initials and bullet scars of the low IQ set.

As you walk up you see the discarded sacrament containers of these negative IQ’rs  – beer bottles, beer cans, cigarette butts, beef jerky wrappers, McDonald’s cardboard, paper and styrofoam. 

So ... what is the mindset or logic that allows you to determine that your garbage can is wherever you toss something from the cab or box of your four-wheeler ... or shooting at rock art, road signs, telephone pole cable insulators ....

Which leads me to Edward Abbey ....

Abbey had a Master’s Degree in philosophy and worked as a Park Ranger in Arches National Park in the late 1950s ... it was the notes that he was constantly writing at this time that would form the basis of his book, ‘Desert Solitaire’ – which is regarded as one of the finest narratives about the natural environment in American literature.

Abbey was referred to as the ‘desert anarchist’, advocating ecotage (sabotage on behalf of ecology), he was against the development of National Parks, referring to it as ‘industrial tourism’, but he reserved his harshest criticism for energy developers and land developers who he claimed were ruining the landscape of the American West. In some of his essays the narrator throws beer cans out of his car because ‘the highway had already littered the landscape’.

Here’s an Abbey quote ...

"The fat pink slobs who go roaring over the landscape in these over-sized over-priced over-advertised mechanical mastodons are people too lazy to walk, too ignorant to saddle a horse, too cheap and clumsy to paddle a canoe. Like cattle or sheep, they travel in herds, scared to death of going anywhere alone, and they leave their sign and spoor all over the back country: Coors beer cans, Styrofoam cups, plastic spoons, balls of Kleenex, wads of toilet paper, spent cartridge shells, crushed gopher snakes, smashed sagebrush, broken trees, dead chipmunks, wounded deer, eroded trails, bullet-riddled petro glyphs, spray-painted signatures, vandalized Indian ruins, fouled-up waterholes, polluted springs and smoldering campfires piled with incombustible tinfoil, filter tips, broken bottles .... “

So ... the beer can tossers are either eco-terrorists or ‘fat pink slobs’ ... I’ve made up my mind ... I’ll let you make up yours ...

To quote from verses 407 and 513 of the Krome Koan,

‘Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hard-headed realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.’

‘One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.’

The winged menace was unusually silent today ... probably busy at a team building meeting ... buffalo can be extremely hard to work with ... they say you learn best when you are having fun ...extraordinary things happen when everyone is smiling and having fun ... team building is about learning to enjoy your work AND to enjoy it with the people you work with ... yeah, right ... so obviously only one will survive the meeting ... which one will it be ... stay tuned ... or maybe I should say ‘ tooned’ .... as in Looney ....

More later,

Phil

Demockrazy ... Phillip Sophically Speaking ...

Hello Folks, 

Woke up to about 2” of snow yesterday AM – it just won’t quit. The snow was melting by noon though as the temperature climbed and the sun broke through. Drove up the La Sal Mountains to see if any light was happening but was scuppered by the low cloud. 

Drove into Arches and took the short Park Avenue hike and then the anarchist in me took the rode back instead of backtracking as suggested at the trail head. The hike has you strolling through skyscraper like towers of sandstone. What made it even more interesting was the fact that the melted snow has collected in pools in the sandstone floor. I took several photos of the towers reflected in the pools.

So, speaking of anarchy and Park Avenue, that has me segueing to Wall Street bonuses and from there to philosophy. 

Bertrand Russell once said that liberalism is basically a compromise between despotism and anarchy. The fear of both of these extremes, led to the doctrine of division of powers (between federal government and state/provincial government) and of checks and balances (developed by the Greeks, perfected by the Romans; the state is divided into branches– each with independent powers and areas of responsibility).  These principles are the very foundation that the US Constitution is built upon.

Bertrand Russell also once said, ‘The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people are full of doubts’. 

Never in the history of North America have we been blessed with as many ‘fools and fanatics’ as we have in our present time. And these fanatic fools, through their zealous, wide eyed certainty, have co-opted the religious and political agenda such that we are very close to having some of these fanatic fools in charge of various branches of government.

If that were to happen, what checks and balances would we have against their now combined powers?

If you are a student of Roman and Greek history, you will already know that the political governing system known as democracy will stall from time to time. When it does stall, it can re-energize itself or go to one of the extremes – anarchy or despotism. Rome and Greece experienced both extremes.

Toynbee and Kennedy have written about the subject of the rise and fall of great civilizations/powers – but I will take a little from Toynbee’s thesis here.

The stalling of democracy starts with a central government that is focused on what they themselves and special interests want and not the people. It gets kicked up a notch when an underclass cannot attain their aspirations to enter into the middle class (during times of economic downturn and unemployment, while rich get richer), it starts going over the top when the people have had it and we have protests, civil disobedience and small pockets of anarchy (people getting killed).

Right here is when it can go either way – anarchy (revolution), despotism (military dictatorship), or re-energization/rebirth.

In spite of the fanatic fools dreaming with their eyes wide open – I believe we are on a path that will result in a re-energization of our democratic principles. That said, the longer it takes to get there, the rougher and rockier the road will be.

We can kick start this process by holding to account our current elected representatives; we can accelerate the process by making sure we, in the future, have the candidates running for office that can actually do something and aren’t part of the current cadre; we can complete the process by becoming more informed, active and vocal in the political process.

As always the choice is ours – it’s time to get off the fence and it’s time to take a larger role in the democratic process – the fanatic fools are currently doing it with no opposition ... they need a dose of common sense, improved hearing and eyesight ... we can help them acquire these virtues by challenging 'them' with intelligent dialog and debate ... it just might do them, and us, some good ....

To quote from verses 483 and 503 of the Krome Koan,

‘Politicians and diapers need to be changed for the same reason’.

‘Stop repeat offenders – don’t re-elect them’.

Speaking of intelligent dialog ... take a look at this picture ...

... looks like a meeting has been convened – probably on health care – possibly mine .... the geese have left town ... but check out the next picture ... 

... looks like the heavy weights have been brought in ... who knows what the winged piece of coal has up his wing ...

More later,

Phil

Rocky Photo Pictograph Show ...

Hello Folks,

It was a grey day yesterday – planned to do a bit of biking but the day suggested something else. Drove north of Moab to Thompson Springs and then from there to Sego Canyon.

The walls of Sego Canyon were the canvas for four distinct and unique Native American cultures dating from 7000 BC (3000 years older than the earth itself J) to about 1300 CE. There was a significant amount of snow in the canyon but the road was clear and the ‘art; sites easily accessible.

Some of the ‘art’ has been augmented, ‘improved’ and 'value added to' by immigrant Americans – however their approach was slightly different than the approach used by various Native American cultures over the previous 9000 years – instead of adding new art in a different area of the canyon, they chose to deface and otherwise destroy the existing art – ‘chipping over’ and ‘bullet augmentation’ seemed to be the preferred method of defacement.

After spending some time in the canyon, drove back to town and took some photos of the ‘ghost town’ that once was Thompson springs. There are a number of buildings, mostly wood construction – some cement block/brick – that are vacant, dilapidated and eventually will collapse or be burned down. Most folks still in the town live in RVs or trailer style housing.

The town itself is defined by a 4 way stop that isolates a set of 5 or 6 rail tracks that bisect and define the town center.  Around that center is located the trucks, trailers and equipment of a ailway company – and what they are doing there I have no idea because the town and surroundings are barren.

There were a few rail cars on the tracks, full of graffiti. As I walked along the road, running the gauntlet of abandoned buildings, and the operations of some rail company, it dawned on me that in this desolate landscape I was beginning to see a repeated motif, it was the shape of a cross – old telephone poles, the leftover remains of some wooden structure, etc. – there just seemed to be these ‘suggested’ or ‘implied’ crosses everywhere ....

There may be a metaphor here ... in the canyon north of town, where at least four migratory cultures lived and thrived for part of each season, there is an expression of their ‘art’ captured on the canyon walls. Within the town itself there is an expression of my cultures’ art that is decaying, falling down and in a few generations will disappear altogether.

Let’s admit that the rock art north of town may be simply ancient graffiti – even if it is – it is a symbolic representation and an artistic expression of a need to communicate to ‘others’ that someone was here before us and that ‘they’ (the culture) and ‘their art’ (their significance) were worthy of note.

What are ‘we’ doing in the 21^st century to show future generations that ‘we’ and ‘our art’ are worthy of note? Do the ‘suggested’ crosses in Thompson Springs imply that ‘my’culture is dying ... that, indeed, it is already dead ....

No ... it’s not dead, but it is on life support ... to get back to where we need to be we have to emulate those native cultures whose members created those beautiful images on the walls of Sego Canyon ... they were small ‘c’ conservative by necessity (I didn’t say communist), they were environmental by nature, they were communal by choice and they were entrepreneurial by necessity.... just like the folks here in Moab.  And when we have successfully emulated the spirit of those past cultures we will then understand that ‘creating’ and ‘building’ has a more lasting and permanent legacy than ‘short term thinking’ and ‘long term hindsight’.

As my stay in Moab winds down, I already plan and look forward to my next visit ... there are a lot of politicians at all levels of government that could take some lessons from the fine folks here in Moab ...

Yes, the flying undertaker was out there in Sego Canyon today ... but I sense something different – maybe, just maybe, it has been trying to show me something ... something I just haven’t been open to ... could the flying crow beast be a connection to something past ... something lost, that needs desperately to be rediscovered ... the next few days will tell ...

To quote from verse 287 of the Krome Koan,

'Don't let schooling get in the way of your education'.

More later,

Phil

A Towering Photo ... Tower Photos ...

Hello Folks,

Drove out to and hiked into Fischer Towers yesterday. The adventurous set rock climb these towers with para-glide chutes and then jump off and sail on the winds for a while. The towers themselves are monolithic and always seem to me to be on the verge of doing or saying something – and whatever that would be, it would be ominous. The trail was serpentine and if it wasn’t snow covered it was muddy and slippery – a good work out.

On the drive back the local radio station was playing a classic album from 1974 – Okinawa by the group OHO. Imagine Frank Zappa meeting Captain Beefheart and then being influenced by King Crimson and Yes and then they visit Syd Barrett in an insane asylum, and record the album there – and you are getting close.

Okinawa had me of me of course thinking about WWII and soon I start thinking about the war in the Pacific and that leads to Iwo Jima.

As I write this, on the 23 February, one of the better iconic photographs of all time was taken on Iwo Jima in 1945. Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with the Associated Press, took the photo – actually he took three photos- the first would become the most reproduced photograph in history and win the Pulitzer Prize.

Mount Suribachi is the highest peak on Iwo Jima – whoever controls the peak, controls the island. On the 19 February 1945, the US marines started their assault and after 4 days of arguably the most bloody fighting of the war, they gained control of the peak.

A flag was initially raised by the first marines at the peak but a few hours later, more marines raced up with a larger flag. Rosenthal literally ran into them on the way up the slope and accompanied them to the peak.  As they raised the second flag, Rosenthal captured the act in a series of two photos plus one group photo. The first photo showed five Marine and one Navy corpsman in the act of placing the flag, already mounted on a standard, in a cairn of rocks. None of these men would not survive the remaining struggle to take complete control of the island, which when controlled, was to become the turning point in the Pacific war, allowing a stage for air and naval operations against the Japanese homeland - here's the photo ....

So what is point of this? Well, it’s really very simple ....

A great photograph can’t be staged or Photoshop’d – a great photograph is, and of, the moment. I am sure Rosenthal knew his equipment – but I am willing to bet he didn’t even know how the camera was set up at the moment he took the photos. He was carried along by the emotion of these men and he captured a perfect moment when the emotional release and the shutter release coincided.

You can’t help but be moved by this photo – every time I see it, my hair stands up on the nape of my neck. It proves once again, that in photography, it’s great to have the best equipment and all the Photoshop knowledge in the world – but the most important factor, is to be ‘out there’ with your camera in hand – if you do it often enough, your pictures will start to tell a story – and if you are lucky – one or two pictures just might change the world.

My pictures are words right now – I need to get to sentences, then to paragraphs and then to stories. I don’t know if I have enough time left to get to stories – but like the men who gave it all at Iwo Jima, I have the belief that I will survive long enough to get there.

Which now have me thinking of kamikaze pilots and of course that leads to the upside down, dive bombing, winged menace. He followed me out of Moab but did not dare enter Fisher Towers for some reason. Could this be his Achilles claw ...  when I returned to town he and his friends were dive bombing the local landfill .... a feeding frenzy I guess ... when a large number of crows are congregating it is referred to as a ‘murder of crows ... when group of crows and I get together, it will be called a ‘slaughter of crows’ ....

To quote from verse 391 of the Krome Koan,

‘Abandon the search for truth; settle for a good fantasy’

More later,

Phil