Breaking the 50 mpg marker easily on the commute again--spring is here---I watch people hurtle by me in their huge SUV's and Pick-ups making 12mpg. Insane, doomed when gas pushes beyond $4.00 per gallon. I do everything i can to make a gallon of gasoline go as far as possible...I admit i feel completely alone while watching the world pass me by without a thought on this subject---90,000 miles now on the Prius now with only routine servicing and a set of tires. I have been spending the past few weeks walking, reading, sleeping, working. Rinse and repeat as the label says...
The most recent reading is Deer Hunting with Jesus by Joe Bageant. Recommended by my friend David on his excellent Blog---Just thinking it out---
I had this book on my list for a long time but just recently picked it up (used) and cannot understand how this outstanding, well written, sadly funny book escaped me. Brutally honest, Bageant spares no one in his analysis of class warfare in the United States. He has provided an answer to a question that has eluded me forever---Why do the poor--working poor and almost poor provide the greatest support base to the Republican party--the party led by 1%er's who routinely skin and eat them? Bageant also answers my question of why Liberals have not won over this group which should naturally be aligned with us......
Written in 2007, Deer Hunting with Jesus, has one of the most accurate forecasts of the future, economic failure, which we now live in, I have ever read. Amazing. I am currently about halfway into this book an I recommend it highly. Thanks David---
Just tell me what the fuck we are doing? Please?
Why after bankrupting ourselves, and losing who really knows how many lives, and destroying the souls and minds of countless others, can we not call it quits from this country of bearded rat bastards?
The US Secretary of Defense cannot even land in Afghanistan, in a supposed secured area--with all the protection of NATO troops-- without a local setting himself on fire while trying to blow himself and the Secretary up in an attempted attack-- the Defense Department spin doctors claim "it's not known for certain if it was an attack" desperately trying to preserve the lie that we are succeeding with our Afghan allies-- what a laugh, we cannot even get a break from our own bullshit artists on something this obvious?
This non-country, this bottomless pit consuming our money and our lives is WORTHLESS---it's people are WORTHLESS, their government, which we are propping up and by the way, who also hates us, is WORTHLESS---their society is WORTHLESS. They have stolen our money, our lives and minds because our government was stupid enough to think that we could change Koran chanting fundamentalists into Iowans, for Christsakes...if they just got a good enough look at good ole' Aumerican democracy and had enough good ole Aumerican money thrown at them.
It just didn't work.....these people throw acid in the face of their women---they have dancing boys---they despise us-----they have Opium warlords---they cannot read, write and choose not to think--because they love being led by religious fanatics. They are as alien as the Kennedy Clan with guns for fuck's sake....plus we need to come home and fight our own religious right wing that is trying to make us just like them.....
GTFO, do it--we GTFO of Iraq--it was easy----leave all the equipment behind--if we lose all that war making equipment it will just be harder to do something this stupid again for a while. Why is something so simple impossible?
Hats---Combine my new endurance walking program with the summer arriving all too soon here in New Mexico--and a hat is not merely a fashion accessory item--it is a matter of life and death in the desert----I have a head the size of a Mount Rushmore President---a size 8 as a matter of fact---I would attribute this dome to huge brain mass if you wouldn't laugh in my face....so hats for me are difficult to come by---but i ordered two just to be safe---the first photo below is a "size adjustable" cap---size adjustable, in today's globalization world really means fine for your average pin-headed, American redneck, and for me it just might fit if stretched to the absolute limit maybe--or maybe not---as a backup the second photo is of a Boonie cap actually offered in sizes----i ordered the 2X version just in case the sizes were Vietnamese based...
My distance walking training with a 35 lb. pack has indicated the age of certain joints and muscles...right hip joint and right calf muscles to be specific. Age, as a thief in the night, has crept upon me in areas without my knowledge. My gait has become somewhat lopsided as compared to my youth..or perhaps i was always that way and my youth ignored it. There's no ignoring it now tho. I went in search of one of those high tech, modern, hiking stick/staffs with the concept of either balancing my walking or giving the right side of me a bit of help. None of the available hiking sticks appealed to me, even tho they were light weight and collapsible for easy backpack storage. When I found the cold steel Blackthorn walking stick---which I prefer to call my Shillelagh...being the good, full Irishman that I am, I had to have it.
The Cold Steel Shillelagh, is a modern reproduction of the walking stick/weapon which has been in use, well forever.
This model is plastic, as compared to the chimney cured, wooden originals--which may be available out there somewhere, but if so, are totally beyond my means to purchase. This model will do me fine however and I have attached a rubber, cane type tip on the contact point. Finding this item on sale helped with the purchase--the pricing on this item varies widely on the internet--This reproduction looks authentic and works wonderfully....I already have a cold steel sword cane laid away for possible use in the future as I was afraid the purchase of one might be difficult in the years ahead...my new Shillelagh is not only a great help in my hiking training but will be also be useful tool in the future. I attach it to my daily EDC pack as if it was a climbing ax with the pack's molle attachment points, it works great---I love it...
"In modern war...you will die like a dog for no good reason."
Ernest Hemingway
1 comment:
Here is a link of some of his other essays as well as interviews.
http://www.joebageant.com/
The man will be missed.
Also, we originally had one purpose supposedly of getting bien laden when the powerful and mighty decided it was to their benefit to "nation build" a country that has been so wrapped up with tribalism that the only thing they agree on is that they hate us. If I was a conspiracy nut I would think they had alterior motives. Wait a minute I am.
My biggest problem is the way things are sized. I think they have done a more convenient sizing on us. It is for our own good.
I have been forced to depend on a cane for over 10 years. My family joke that i have for my old Shepard crooked cane, made from wood, a thousand and one uses.
I use it to hook things including grandkids to pull to me and to push things in to place. I am lost without it and I suspect you will become dependent on your sheliaeh as I am on my cane.
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