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Home on the Vandevert Ranch by Grace Vandevert McNellis

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The little book about the Vandevert ranch is the type of little books to be found in small towns across America. They are found for sale on the counters of small grocery stores, hardware stores, fishing tackle stores and bait shops – local stories written by local folks (usually older people) to capture some of their family history and local “color” in stories of the past. This one is one of those little books about the Vandevert ranch near Bend Oregon. The stories, told as a journal, start at 1892 when “the family” first settled in Oregon, and becomes personal reminiscences of the author starting around 1934 when she was five years old. Much of the book is very specific to family history, detailing birthdays, deaths, jobs and whatnot of the individual family members. This is important and interesting for the intended audience (the family), but of little meaning for those of us that are “accidentally” looking in from the outside. However, there are still many interesting “gems” about ranching, shopping and schooling in that era. There is also an interesting section concerning the army’s activities during WWII. Apparently Bend was the headquarters of the Western branch of the Army Corps of Engineers training activities. This resulted in something like 100,000 men “invading” the local community. These weren’t all there at the same time, but rather came in waves of new recruits learning their new profession as Army engineers.

Another Country – by David Culpilil

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https://tubitv.com/movies/547706/another-country


My friend that I traveled with in Australia told me to find a way to watch Another County by David Gulpilil.  Here is a link to a free version (with some rather annoying ads in the middle of it).

The story, people and scenes are absolutely true from what I experienced when I visited my friend for a month in Kowanyama on Cape York, north eastern Australia.  It could be the same place except that it clearly is not – so I guess this is what you might call “typical”. This documentary is not overplaying the problems, or apparently trying to pull tears and sympathy, it is just telling the story as it is. Actually, if anything it has downplayed the full scope of the problem. We have similar problems in America, with the Native Americans, blacks, browns, poor, disenfranchised, a LOT of groups – all of which are hurting through no fault of their own.

As I watched it I found that I was falling in love with these people all over again!  Such truly authentic and loving people, trapped in a cycle of hell on earth.  If I had a lifetime to run it all over again, I would want to be with these folks – even though they are having an extremely difficult time with the white fella. This is why the “first peoples” on Cape York (and beyond) are connecting with global partners, such as some native Americans from up by Seattle.  They are sharing experiences, problems and approaches for finding some kind of good solution.

I found that watching this movie got me to wondering about the whole role of “culture” with regard to our understanding of the world. I of course think that my view of the world is the “real” one, not only do I think it is the real one, but I don’t even know how to question it. There are no “edges” that I can peak under to see if there is a different one that is just as complete, compelling and “obvious” as my view. I spend a lot of time trying to do that but it seems that I am actually just trying to fit what I observe into my vision of the possible scope of “sane” options that still fits into my world. It is obvious that there a great range within my “universe” but everything I see or think about is within that universe. However, while watching this movie I began to question if perhaps they are in some important way inhabiting a very different universe, not just at the extreme edges of mine, but maybe someplace all together different.

If you have a little time you might find it interesting.

Charlie

The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater

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A true story of two teenagers and the crime that changed their lives.

The 57 Bus is an extremely thought provoking look into a lot of co-emerging issues causing much confusion and angst in these days of LGBTQ (or whatever it is today), BLM, restorative justice, hate crimes and all that seems to keep sweeping over us these days, while we hunker down hiding from the pandemic.

The story takes place in “less affluent” parts of Oakland, California starting at about the year 2000. The book ends in 2016 without an “ending”, but since this is a true story it clearly continues on into the future. The book is about the lives and challenges of many living not just in the community of Oakland, but in the world at large today with our growing recognition that “gender identity” is much broader than man, woman, gay, lesbian – rather there are dozens of categories, perhaps so many that each person (such as you and me) are different enough that we are all part of an extended continuum rather than discrete categories. I found myself wondering what the big deal is, we are whoever we are and that is just fine. However, obviously it is not such an easy transition for “society” to make the jump from the world being made up of “normal” (man/woman) people, and “those others” (usually thinking of gay/lesbian) people. Now the lid is being removed and we are seeing that there are just people trying to be happy, joyful, comfortable, loving, and included. In addition to being somewhere on the LGBTQ spectrum, several of the people in the book are on some part of “the spectrum” (the autism spectrum that goes from very disturbed to mildly eccentric). All of this plays out in high schools in the middle of a black/brown community ravaged by drugs, violence, poverty and broken homes – where three-strikes and you are out is much of the marching orders for law enforcement and the DA’s office.

While the mix of terrible problems and injustices would seem to result in a rather depressing and anger producing book, the author does a great job of putting it all into a perspective that while is truthful, brought me in enough so it felt like I could “look around” from the inside out, rather than just from the outside in. Things make a lot more sense that way, and in this case there appear to be some shining lights that might point toward a more just and less violent future. In one of the chapters the author touches upon the concept of “restorative justice” as a means for providing justice and closure for the victims of crime, but help the perpetrator(s) and society improve rather then merely punishing the perpetrator. It is an interesting, and apparently powerful, tool for working toward a more just and functional society.

While this book is just a story of events happening to a few select people, it is written in a way that invites the reader to think more deeply about their roles in all of this, and in perhaps getting a bit more compassion to those that find themselves entwined in a difficult and dangerous society.

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

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A saga of Churchill, family and defiance during the blitz, WW II.

This in an interesting read, a view of what was happening on the ground in England during the bombing by Germany in WWII. I find “war history” to be vaguely interesting because it fills in a lot of the gaps in my mind concerning questions along the lines of, “What happened to cause this war and why did it go the way that it did?” This book takes a bit of a different approach than most that I have read that are focused on the “big picture” while The Splendid and the Vile is a much smaller, more personal view into what was happening within the leader’s close world of home and personal relationships. One of the things that I found entertaining, and somewhat surprising, is just how quirky many of the powerful leaders are. Several of the leaders described in this book are so “quirky” that I would consider them fairly deranged if I knew them personally. Churchill was certainly no exception to that “rule” (if there is actually a rule of some sort). I really makes me wonder if perhaps being pretty far “off the tracks” isn’t a necessary component of wanting to be in place of great power and great risk.

One of the main points of interest to this book that makes it stand out in the crowd of books of just about every aspect of WWII is the descriptions of how people (the general public as well as the leaders) reacted to being bombed on a regular basis, with the cities crashing down around them amide piles of broken bricks and windows, and mountains of dead bodies to be picked up and identified each morning. Because of the difficulty of effectively repelling bombers and fighters in the dark, almost all of raids were nighttime events during clear and moonlit nights (they locals called them bombers moons).

Apparently, when the bombing first started the English realized that it was next to impossible to hit enemy aircraft with their anti-aircraft guns at night, so they did very little shooting in order to conserve ammunition. This approach amounted to just sitting and letting the bombs drop made people feel like helpless sitting ducks (which is what they were), and caused much fear and anxiety. Realizing the stress this was causing, Churchill greatly increased the number of cannons “protecting” the cities (especially London) and told the gunners to fire away with abandon. This didn’t help defend the city, having little or not impact on the enemy, but it made people feel much better. So much better it seems, that they just started going about their normal business as much as they could what with the broken infrastructure and rubble everywhere. The cities were busy and bustling in the day, and at night folks either went to their shelters, or went partying in the black outed restaurants and bars. Many of the diaries from the time talk about how joyous it was, with nobody being scared or terrorized. There were lots of parties, including going onto rooftops during raids to watch the “fireworks” created by all of the bombs, fires, emergency vehicles, search lights, and anti-aircraft guns blasting away and nothing in particular.

It seems that for a lot of folks they came to the realization that if they were still alive, that was good and life it fine. If they weren’t alive, then that was just that. They lost their dread, and at the same time opened up to much of the beauty of life that we so often miss because we just take it for granted. This carefree attitude extended to personal relationships, where it became the norm that if it felt good and was fun, why not? One-night stands became a thing that had to be entered in your personal calendar to make sure you had set aside time for your new friend. People were able to get together and enjoy/appreciate each other in ways that were not possible during times of peace. Churchill’s daughter fretted about what she would be losing when the war was over because she could no longer be free to follow her will during times of peace. During the war time events nobody particularly cared to interfere with other people’s lives and great freedom came with that lack of interference.

The book is interesting because of the behind the scenes nature of the leadership roles and actions, but perhaps more so as an interesting view into how people adjust to great danger and trauma. It reminds me a little bit of what many are saying about the current pandemic being a time of reflection, change of pace, and enjoying many aspects of life more than had been the case.

Hypnotism

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This event took place when I was a single, twenty-one year old college student.   I had been invited to a “theater party” put on by the cast of the latest play produced by the students of the college theater department.  I really liked these parties; they were always the best parties in town as far as I was concerned because there were always lots of interesting people, lots of food and drink, and many beautiful girls. I couldn’t ask for anything more.  These parties were attended by the gregarious theater types who seemed to know how to have lots of fun without just getting too drunk or stoned.  Even though I was never really part of their crowd, I was often invited and always felt welcome.

The theater party following the last performance of the latest play was lively and well attended as usual, but on this particular evening I didn’t feel in a party mood.  The party was being held in a large old Victorian home owned by one of the theater professors.  I just felt like sitting on a sofa in an out of the way room and observing the action from afar.  By early evening there were about thirty people milling around in the large living room, eating little finger snacks, talking and enjoying themselves as rock and roll music played in the background.

While I was sitting and watching the action, a nice looking girl came and sat down next to me.  We didn’t know each other, so I started making the inane small talk asking questions about where she was from, what her major was, and similar easy but not particularly important topics.  As is common for me, the conversation got around to a discussion of “non-ordinary” topics; topics of a spiritual or metaphysical nature.  At the time I was playing around with practicing transcendental meditation as presented by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, taking some beginning psychology classes, and periodically going to presentations at the college put on by traveling mystics and spiritual men. She seemed interested in these topics, which was a relief for me.

The conversation turned to the idea of hypnotism, a subject that has always fascinated me.  I had been attempting to learn how to do self-hypnosis, but had never successfully practiced it or watched anyone being hypnotized other than during small town-stage shows near my hometown of Sonoma.  I suggested that it seemed pretty easy to do from what I had read. She thought it would be a fun thing to try and asked me to hypnotize her so she could experience what it was like.

I was a bit nervous about this, mainly because I didn’t know what I would do if for some odd reason I were successful.  How would I know if she were really hypnotized?  If she was, what should I do then?  Should I have her do something dumb like act like a chicken?  Maybe do a strip tease?  I wanted to think of something that wasn’t too conspicuous at the party but since there was really no goal except to see if it could be done, I was at a loss about how I should proceed. I have since come to realize that practices such as this should only be done for a purpose, with some intention. 

However, she persisted, so I said I would give it a try.  That decided, the next problem was how to do it.  I thought about things that I had seen in movies such as a swinging pocket watches, but didn’t have one.  I considered all sorts of improvised things that could move back and forth, but was afraid that all of these approaches would be kind of conspicuous and might draw attention to us.  I finally settled on the simplest and least conspicuous of them all, just using my voice.  The method chosen didn’t really matter to me at the time because I was very confident that it would fail.  I was just humoring her in order to continue our time together; I had no desire or intent to actually hypnotize her.

I decided to count slowly from 10 down to 1.  I told her to follow my voice and to let herself sink further and further into a calm, deep sleep as I spoke each number.  I told her that she would remain aware of my voice and where she was.  Then I started counting down.  As I did so she sat back comfortably against the sofa we were sitting on, and relaxed.  By the time I got to 1, she was out!  At first I figured she was just relaxing so I waited a bit for her to open her eyes and talk to me.  However, that didn’t happen.  She just sat there in a very peaceful-looking state.  She was obviously not asleep, but not awake either.

I asked her some questions, such as whether she could hear me.  She indicated that she could, but clearly her response was from some place in a very deep trance.  She spoke as if she were a dreamy state, as if she were a million miles away.  At this point I didn’t know what to do.  I tried “testing” her trance by asking her to do some silly things like raise her arm, make funny noises, etc.  I had her hold her arm out in front of her and just hold it there.  No problem!  She was like a robot.  Whatever I suggested she do, she did! She would do what I asked, and then become perfectly still until directed to do something else.  It was all very weird, and a bit scary.

I wondered what the possibilities were.  Maybe this could turn into something pretty exciting, or pretty dumb, or sexy or something.  I thought about all of those options, and as attractive as they seemed, but taking advantage of her in any way clearly wouldn’t be the right thing to do. I finally decided that since we didn’t have a project to work on, and I didn’t have anything more to do, that we were done. However, it wasn’t obvious how to get out of this situation.  I started to panic a little as I realized that she had gone far beyond what I had expected, and far beyond anything that I was prepared for.  I worried that maybe she was psychotic or something and I had initiated a permanent episode or change. 

I recalled that I had read somewhere that hypnotized people wake up as easily as they fall into a trance.  So I tried the obvious, and had her follow my voice again.  I told her that I would count from 1 to 5, and that when I reached five she would wake up, feel very refreshed and content.  I then counted to her and when I reached 5, she just opened her eyes and smiled nicely at me.  She thanked me for helping her feel so nice, and got up and said goodbye.  So much for keep her around by entertaining her with this parlor game. She just walked out of the party and my life.  I never saw her either before he evening or since. 

The whole event spooked me to the point that it was many years before I attempted to hypnotize anyone again, and the one other time that I have tried since then I was not successful.  It was just so odd to watch her go so easily and deeply into a trance.  It seemed like there was a great opportunity to do good, or bad, with this tool – but I felt that I didn’t know enough about it to depend upon myself to make the right decisions. 

It was too much like riding a motorcycle to me.  I really love driving motorcycles: it is exhilarating and freeing.  However, I keep wanting to go faster and faster, beyond my skills and into great danger.  I finally stopped riding because I became aware that I was taking far too many risks.  Hypnotizing that girl felt similar.  It was neat and fun to be have the “power” of a hypnotist, it made me feel in control and important – but it also felt like it might be leading into dangerous territories where I didn’t have the necessary skills and experience.  It seemed best to just stay away from that particular game.

The Witness

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I have been practicing meditation for many years, trying out various approaches or techniques over the decades. It turns out that for me, they are just different ways of “practicing” to do something – the question is of course; “Practicing to do what?”

A common myth is that it is trying to learn to shut off “thinking” while staying awake. That seems to be close to it – but not quite right. This weekend I started wondering if it is perhaps something a little different than that. It seems that perhaps it is, in part at least, practicing to find that place between two thoughts (after watching one thought finally winds down and before the next one comes into focus) where there is no internal dialogue – and then practicing to expand the duration of that space. It isn’t exactly an experience of not thinking, but rather it is a place of experiencing, but not talking to yourself.

For many years I have been working on being able to experience observing myself without judgement – just observing what is happening, what I am feeling, my reactions – but not necessarily interfering, evaluating or judging. In the Buddhist jargon I believe this is referred to as “the witness”. The thing that I realized this weekend was that the practice of meditation where I observe and experience without dialogue is the same as the observer that I have been working with all of those years. Once I noticed that, I also noticed that it isn’t actually necessary to stop my internal dialogue to experience life from the point of view of the observer/witness. That point of view is always there, but it gets hidden from view because of all of the chatter, emotions, and activities in “normal” life. I noticed that I have been doing this so long that I am aware of the observer pretty much all of the time, not just during meditation, and not when I do something specifically to get myself to “stop and smell the roses.”

Maybe that is what we are practicing to do during meditation, practicing to become aware of the witness during sitting, and during all other times too. I think that is the path to personal freedom, freedom from all of the negative things we tell ourselves that are actually not true – they are just judgements of ourselves based upon experiences that we had over our lives, but none of the stories are actually true – they are something like our dream of what is really true. In many cases, we use someone else’s truth (or what they think is their truth) to reinforce negative judgments that we make of ourselves.

The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) – Katie Mack

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My daughter gave me this book for Christmas and once again knocked it out of the ballpark. Based upon the books she has gifted me over the past few years I am pretty convinced that she knows my likes and tastes much better than I know myself.

My background includes a degree in physics, and spending some time as an astronomy teacher at Humboldt State University in Northern California. Being on the foggy, rainy coast of Northern California might not have been the best place to teach astronomy, or introduce students to our little observatory on Humboldt Hill, but it was a great place for me to play with such fascinating subjects. I didn’t follow my education to a PhD in physics, so my understanding of the more complex and mind boggling aspects of the field is best described as an informed/interested amateur. This book is written at exactly the correct level for someone such as myself (even if they don’t have a strong mathematics background). This is a great book for anyone interested in physics, generally keeping up with the “popular” accounts of advancements in physics, but not steeped in the extremely difficult mathematics that serves as the language of the field.

For me, Dr. Mack hit just the right blend of casual, lighthearted, and funny, while making extremely complex (and weird) cosmological considerations approachable by shining light on the subject without dumbing it down so much that the juicy parts are missed. I found myself balanced between wanting to race ahead in the book because it was so much fun, and slowing down to avoid missing nuggets of insight. I suppose I will have to go back and read it again because I just had too much fun reading it.

I have a desire to thank Dr. Mack for finally clearing up a confusion that I have been chewing on for almost 60 years – how can we just be seeing light after is has traveled for about 13 billion years from a point (singularity) where everything started out at the same place? It turns out to be easy; space expands faster than the speed of light! Things within space don’t go faster than the speed of light, but space itself expands faster than light once you get far enough away from the observer (and this applies to every point in space, not just us). This means that light that is far enough away can get here because space through which it travels is expanding faster than light can travel. However, since the expansion of space has slowed over the last few billion years to a leisurely pace that is less than the speed of light, that old light that was unable to come into our field of view has finally “caught up” and is now visible. It is coming through the edge of visibility (the event horizon) from the back side. (I told you things get kind of weird.) The thing that makes space grow like this is “Dark Energy” – and it accounts to something like 80% of the total energy/mass of the universe. It is also totally mysterious – a “pressure” causing space to expand. Sometimes it is called The Cosmological Constant (perhaps the same one that Einstein included in his equations and then spent the rest of his life trying to get rid of).

I have now replaced my question of how could light just be getting here from the beginning of the universe with another question, “What makes the universe expand?” So far nobody knows the answer to that question – but oddly enough I have been working on a project that is intended to get answers to that very question, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and its amazing LSST telescope. It turns out that this project may well be one of the most important physics “tools” ever! I am blessed to have accidentally fallen into such an interesting project, after I had thought I was retired. So much for retirement!

Written by a friend – January 14, 2021

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I’m angry at myself for being angry.   My parasite; my ego; are fighting hard to eat me alive.   I took a bike ride to clear my head.   It’s the middle of January and the weather is clear and 65 degrees.   It’s beautiful.  I’m actually writing outside at the patio table with a cigar.    The bike ride gave me a bit of space to observe my anger.   Anger at what exactly?  Myself?  The constant strain of human injustice?  The trump supporters who stormed the capital?   Why do I hate trump supporters?   Something came to me during my ride.  The thought was this …“There but for the grace of God” that I’m not a Trump supporter.  Really?  Really.

My earlier life was tribal with a patriarch as the head of the tribe.   Tribal elders held the same beliefs as the patriarch.   The tribe was quite conservative in its beliefs.  That included its politics and its view of the world.   Liberal ideas were not looked upon in a favorable light.   I grew up hearing that Franklin Roosevelt “screwed this country”.   His name was never pronounced Roosevelt but instead he was always “Roosenfelt”.   The Kennedy’s were the Fucking Kennedy’s.   The word liberal was most often accompanied by a retching sound.   When conservative media came out, Rush was on our radio and the Fox channel was on the TV.  

At weekly tribal gatherings politics was often discussed by the elders.  The patriarch held court at the head of the table.  He (they), expounded on how liberals were the root cause of all their troubles.   As a young tribal member, I was expected to listen but not engage while the elders conversed.   I was a good member of the tribe.  I was a quiet follower.

I came of age voting for conservatives.   My first vote was during the 1976 presidential election.  Jimmy Carter vs Gerald Ford.   I did not vote for Carter.  I voted for the Republican, Gerald Ford.   In the tribe you were expected to vote Republican.    Democrats had held a strong hold on congress and it was important to get those “liberal mother fuckers out of office”.   The patriarch was a member of the NRA.   I was a member of the NRA.   Nixon did nothing wrong.   Rush was speaking for us, the quiet majority.   Within the tribe, it was common to hear about the “others” that were “ruining their world”.   Blacks.  Jews.  Mexicans.   The words I often heard to describe the “others” were niggers, kik’s and spics.  In our tribal world, these groups were the cause for our low economic status.   Opportunities to live the good middle-class life were out of reach due to these “others”.   They were to blame for all their missed opportunities.

When several tribal members were in their late teens, they started to question the tribal elders.   They asked why believe what they believed?    When the answers were unsatisfactory, they pressed harder.   At first, the tribal elders treated these inquiries as the un-informed thoughts of youth.   But there came a time when the questioning turned to challenges.   Family gatherings became tense.   I was a good member.  I stayed quiet while the few tried to battle the elders concerning the beliefs of the tribe.   Soon after, large tribal gatherings faded away.   The patriarch still held court for smaller gatherings but the dialogue was more of the same.   There was nothing more to learn. 

By my late teens I still had no voice but I felt something wasn’t right about all this.  I lived in a very small world.   Wasn’t there more to it?   When I got into college, I started to have strong feelings centered on one reoccurring thought.   Get away!   Get far away from this tribe!

In college I had courses and met people who had ideas and opinions much different than the members of the tribe.   When I finished college and took jobs close to the tribe, the idea of “get away” never left me.   It kept getting stronger.   It was so strong that I promised myself to get away at any cost.   It was to be my first mantra.

When a job opportunity came up that took me a few hours from home I ran to it.  But it was still not far enough away.   I was still close enough where the expectation was to come home.  When I did, the tribe had not changed.  It was actually getting worse especially from other young tribal members who were now making a home and family in the tribal zone.

Then it happened.   A chance to “get far enough away”.   2,000 miles away from the tribe and its hold on me.   I got away.  With distance and time I started to develop as an individual and not as just another tribal member.   It felt great.  It was liberating.   It was truly heaven.   I broke free of the collected consciousness of the tribe.  It was an awakening.   The ideas of the tribe were petty and shortsighted.  Based on the dribble of conservative news.   I finally saw that the government that the tribe railed against was actually taking care of them.   All of the older tribal members came to depend on Medicare and Social Security.   Liberal policies put in place by “Roosenfelt”.   I saw that they payed homage to the Gods who they called “Real Men”; John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Ernst Hemingway.  They lived in world of illusion.      

I opened up to befriending people who had traveled the world (not just read about it), who had life experiences (other than the one year they spent abroad in WWII).  They included blacks, and Jews, and Mexicans as well as people from the middle-east.   I truly saw the horror of the myopic world of the tribe.   And this was especially true of the patriarch. 

In a ten year period, the patriarch died.   Most tribal elders died.   They died from cancers and ulcers.   I believe they died from their narrow minded conservative beliefs.   And as for their progeny, the ones who remained in the tribal territory, they still carry on the beliefs of the elders “in honor of the elders”.  Most are trump supporters. 

Distance.   Time.   Being open to new experiences.   Developing relationships with people from all walks of life.   Reading a multitude of books on various topics.  A bit of travel.     And listening to media that make me think.  All helped me to become the non-tribal person I am in this moment. 

If I had never left the tribe, I would probably be a Trumper.   Just like the people who stayed “home”.     I get you.   You who are angry at the government.   Upset that the liberals are taking over, taking away your guns.   Treading on your liberties.   Listening to Rush and Fox news and adsorbed in right wing social media.   I get it.   But for “The Grace of God”, I would be one of you.

America Alone – Mark Steyn

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The subtitle of this book is “The End of the World as We Know It,” meaning the societal and governmental aspects of “the world.” There is a “bragging” banner on the cover informing us that the book is soon to be banned in Canada. As far as I am concerned, it should be banned globally – but perhaps mostly in the USA. It is a terrible, insulting, “white supremacist”, highly prejudiced, despicable piece of trite. This is the type of book that is intended to inflame the “Alt-Right”, energizing them for acts of violence such as the recent insurrection at the Capitol in Washington D.C.

Basically the author’s rant is all about that our “most dangerous enemies” (“the Muslims”) are taking over the world, destroying our freedoms and forms of government by way of out-breeding all of the rest of us. According to the author, the only way that we can possible win this war is by ramping up our sex life until we are having enough babies to overcome them. If we are to win, we must increase the world population three or four fold – quickly. In his opinion, we are losing everything because we just don’t try hard enough to have as many children as possible. The main tools that the author uses to make his points are half-baked propositions supported by a continuous volley of insults and slurs. I slogged though to the end because a neighbor, and friend, thought is was something that I needed to read in order to help get my thinking straight.

However, in the midst of a totally vile spewing of inanities the author does bring up a few important points that deserve consideration. One of the points that he makes is undoubtedly correct – in a world where there is a very large difference in population growth between groups of people it doesn’t take long before the balance of populations, and with it the balance of power, shifts in dramatic ways. If, in fact, the “Western World” continues to be as unbalanced as it current seems to be, then dramatic changes are inevitable. The author points out that the fertility rate of around 2.1 is required to maintain a constant population size. The EU average is 1.38, America’s rate is about 2.11 and Pakistan’s is about 5.08 children per couple. If this continues for very long, these very large differences will change the face of the world. The author’s position is that it isn’t just that some country’s have excessive fertility rates, but those rates are directly related to religious beliefs and systems of laws – with the implication that majority rule will quickly result in legal and societal systems aligning with the Muslim beliefs – possibly including Sharia Law.

The author proposes that the introduction of Sharia Law into the western legal system would include things such as beheadings for what we consider minor offenses and all of the rest of things that we keep hearing about. I have idea what all of this would (will?) turn out to look like, but it seems pretty obvious that things will be changing because our legal system is built based upon the concept of equal voice, meaning that the group with the largest population has a chance of “winning” or at least changing things to agree with their point of view.

The author then goes on to talk about all of the terrible things that will transpire as what is used to determine “truth” changes, and as groups become more polarized. I think he did a pretty good job of describing the process and the dangers of truths being based on opinions (or belief) rather than facts. I think he is describing what is happening in America today based upon the polarization of opinions, the lack of a clear direction concerning how we want our country to function, and the dangers inherent in defining “truth” in whatever way supports a political opinion – disregarding evidence, science, and facts that might paint a contrary narrative. In the end, I think he does a pretty good job of describing the dangers and those that are most dangerous, and his is squarely in the middle of the most dangerous. The dangers he is describing aren’t so much about too many Muslims, but instead the positions and approaches taken by the “alt-right” or far-right groups already in America.

Mike in Death Valley

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Here are a couple of short accounts of my brother Michael’s adventures in Death Valley. I suppose they could be called coincidences, although sometimes I wonder just how far you can stretch a coincidence.  I was on the sidelines of these experiences, observing my brother but not experiencing anything out of the ordinary myself – other than noticing that something rather un-ordinary was happening.

It was in the late 1960’s when a group of us from the Eureka area of northern California decided to take a road trip to Death Valley.  I don’t recall all of the people who were on that trip, but there were probably ten or twelve of us, approximately the same number of men as women.   One of the couples in our group had purchased an old school bus, and we made a group effort to fix it up to function as a house car complete with a picnic table bolted to the floor, beds and various types of comfortable chairs for the trip.  There was a large wooden platform mounted on the top where we could ride for a more scenic, albeit rather dangerous, view.  Of course, it might not have been very safe to change from the “upper level” to the main level while traveling because we had to do it by crawling out of one of the windows and pulling ourselves up and over the side of the platform to the top.  As unsafe as that seems now, that is how we did it while going down the highway.  I considered us to be just a group of friends off on a desert vacation, but I suppose all who saw us considered us to be a bunch of crazy hippies.  I suppose both descriptions were correct.  When crossing the Golden Gate Bridge on the way south, the toll taker didn’t believe that we were a “house car” so he boarded our vehicle to check it out.  Since the table was bolted to the floor, we passed as a house car and saved some bridge fare.

On our way through San Francisco with our old school bus, we traveled from early dawn starting at my parent’s home in Sonoma, ending at dusk in the desert on the eastern edge of Death Valley.  We entered Death Valley from the east side, down a winding narrow canyon to stay away from the tourists.   Before descending into the valley we decided to stop for the night and camp in an open area that was surrounded on three sides by high, many colored cliffs.  We slept under the stars, which is how I always like to sleep in the desert so I can watch the beauty of the stars slowly circling overhead.

I woke up at my normal time, when you can feel the air change in advance of the glow of dawn.  When it got light enough to move around I found my older brother, Michael, sitting cross-legged facing the soon to be rising sun in the eastern sky.  As the light got brighter, the colors of the place intensified until we were sitting in the middle of an amazing palette of blazing colors on the walls of the cliffs surrounding us.  My brother complemented that blaze of color because he had been up early working with a box of pastels.  He had painted himself from head to foot with a wild, bright, sunburst design reflecting the reds, yellows, browns and whites of our surrounding – he was quite regal in his naked splendor.

I watched him for a while and then asked him what he was doing.  He said that he was calling the lizard to come to him.  I hadn’t noticed that there was a fairly large lizard doing its morning “pushups” on a rock about thirty feet in front of him.  Wondering how this lizard calling was going to work out, I just sat still and watched.  To my amazement, the lizard slowly made its way across the ground until it came to Mike’s foot.  Then it climbed up on him, making its way up to Mike’s shoulder, turned facing the same direction as my brother, and seemed to settle down to watch the sun come up! There was my brother Mike and the lizard, waiting for the sun to come up over the cliffs and heat up the day.

Our next camping spot on the trip was to be at the Race Track toward the northwest side of Death Valley.  This place consists of a large, dry lake that has many small to medium sized boulders sitting on its surface.  The boulders apparently move about on the surface of the lake bed, as evidenced by trails that they leave in the hardened mud, attesting to their movement.  The interesting thing about this is that the trails go in all directions, even crossing one another at various locations.  It appears that the rocks do not move in a coordinated manner, sometimes some go one way, and sometimes others go another.  I have heard lots of theories about what causes the movement, and how the paths manage to cross each other, but none of the theories seem entirely satisfactory. 

The road to the Race Track is a very long, desolate, dirt road through the desert.  We had been driving for quite some time along this road, seeing no other vehicles, when we were stopped because a car was broken down smack in the middle of the road and we couldn’t get by.  In the car was a man, his wife and his teenage daughter.  Of course we got out of our bus to see what we could do to help, which apparently scared the man half to death.  (This was about the time of Charles Manson, which had people a bit nervous about hippies in the desert.) The man made his women sit in the car, roll up the windows, and lock the doors while he got out to talk to us.  He told us that his car had stopped running and wouldn’t start again. 

We flew into action, bringing out the large supply of mechanics tools that we had packed under the assumption that our old bus would break down, and started to work on his car.  He looked very apprehensive about all of us getting out of the bus, and even more so when we had him open the hood and we started taking things apart.  At one point we had removed the carburetor and had taken it completely apart in our search for the problem.  I understand  being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a couple of women, and a bus load of wild haired, oddly clothed hippies would make any sane person nervous.  We managed to get his car going (it was a carburetor problem), and he finally drove out of there – very relieved I would guess.  He was so anxious to get going that he neglected to thank us for our assistance.  We found his failure to thank us to be kind of funny, he surely would have if he had been in his “normal” mind – but this encounter was just too much for that.  I don’t think he was aware of it, but it was obvious that his daughter wanted to get out of the car and join our fun.  She clearly wasn’t afraid of the spectacle that we must have presented.

I found this entire event to be quite funny because of the range of points of view expressed by the various participants, and how that those points of view were shaping their perceptions and experiences.  Our little group of “crazy hippies” wasn’t really so crazy at all.  We consisted of a group of college educated and highly skilled friends and family, out for a fun adventure in the desert. When we came upon the stranded family in the middle of nowhere our goal was to help them out and make sure that they were safe – which we did.  The husband’s view appeared to be that was in great danger, first by being unprepared and stranded in the middle of the desert and secondly by encountering a bunch of strange people and being forced to accept their help.  The daughter’s view appeared to be that she was trapped stuck in the back seat of the car, rather than being able to get out and play with the hippies.  All of these views shaped our interactions and our emotions.  I found myself in a mental space where I stepped back and observed the event from the perspective of each participant, noticing the very different emotions that their individual assumptions were creating.

That night we camped next to the Race Track. In the morning we decided to go hiking for an adventure.  We left camp just after sun rise, heading across the flat, dry lake bed and over the hills.  We had no maps or other means of navigating; we were just planning on exploring the surrounding desert and return after making a large circle in the desert during the day.  As we were leaving camp, my brother told me that he was going to get a bird that day.  I found this to be a rather odd statement since there were very few birds in the desert that time of year, and we had nothing to “get” them with.  I just nodded and wondered what that was all about.

We hiked up hills, down into valleys and across the desert going no place in particular, just wandering around, exploring the desert.  At about lunch time we came upon an abandoned mine site. There were lots of old metal things, rusted vehicles, abandoned mine shafts and other evidence of mining activity.  There was also an old, abandoned house trailer.  The windows were broken out, and the door swung on its hinges, so it was obviously not really trespassing to enter it.  My brother entered first, and I followed him.  He entered through the back door and walked right to the front where the kitchen was located.  He stopped in front of a kitchen cabinet, opened the cabinet door, reached in and picked up a perfectly preserved beautiful little dead bird!  Its feathers were clean and shiny, with shades of blue and red glistening in the sun.  So this is what he meant; he indeed did get a bird that day.