07.21.10
03.02.10
Rage Against The Machine
“The most important weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed”
–Stephen Bilko
02.07.10
Firestone River Conversation
“You have silence here, we don’t have that in Europe”, the Dane told me as we gazed over the Firehole Valley, with It’s Buffalo Skulls and Grizzly Kills.
01.20.10
Yellowstone Memories
Bro, the oil is strong, might only want a half teaspoon full! Yellowstone! The name has an excitement to it. The name to me brings emotions of childhood when we there after a major earthquake and walking around bears on the way to the can was normal to me.At five years old we really do not know what is supposed to be scary. They were scary but I was there and I needed to go so hey, walk around the bears. This time was different. Caught up in the Zen of fly fishing, where if all your attention is not focused on all around you as well as the abstract of the elusive trout you will never catch one. We wander up the snake river blessed with a beautiful day. The feeling that something is watching you is a strong one and has to be dealt with. Turning around and seeing the silver back Grizzly looking directly at us was enough to make life worth living. The electronic bullshit of today has nothing on this! The hump on his back and the shear size of this animal makes me feel small and unimportant. This bear could either stroll on down and mess with us or come at us with bursts of 30 MPH and snack on us for lunch. Neither happened as he strolled away. Earlier that morning I had said to my brother,”It would be cool to see a bear and moose today as these are about the only two left around here we have not seen!”. The moment has a way of making time not right. Not long after the bear I was concentrating on changing flies with the grizz in the back of my mind. The voice of my bro was serious and one to pay attention to. Yes, he had an encounter with the moose that was now standing in the river watching us. Another great morning in Yellowstone!
When we did not know feeding bears harmed them
Here is the Author:
A good day in New Zealand
12.29.09
Capitalism is a system that rewards psychopaths–
The taste of espresso bean laced dark chocolate, the apricot aftertaste of raw almonds, and the coolness of the ocean air.
12.02.09
Impermanence
Mt Tam Bench
01/30/05
On “the Bench” on “The Mountain”—–
I am chilled on a still, spacious, alive afternoon-
A alpha-grey squirrel aggressively pounds branches to make me move and see what being was sitting so still, but my meditation continued through the Raven Calls, high rpm engines of racing motorcycles (fear flashing in my mind, remembering the cycle crash over by Stinson, and other crunching feeling of boat docking in Guam rushing through my mind and moving my body)-
Shivers are occasionally rippling through my body. San Francisco is visible through a window in the Douglas Fir.
Everything is ringing, that hum that comes along with the home space.
Beauty and complexity prevail everywhere at this moment.
04.16.09
Mass Extinction
“- is like that of the American Indians at the height of the genocide in the late nineteenth century. At that point, there was no question of winning the battle. What remained to be done was to keep hold of what it meant to be human”
– Stephanie Miles
Consumerism
“I spit upon luxurious pleasures, not for their own sake, but because of the inconveniences that follow them.”
–Epicurus
01.26.09
Religious Humor
From PZ Myers
A lesson in dealing with missionary zeal
Category: Humor
he New Zealand department of conservation maintains a network of huts in the backcountry — these are little shelters with a radio for emergency calls and a mattress so hikers can wait out a spell of bad weather. It’s all very sensible. Until the evangelicals discovered them. Now there’s a missionary campaign to put a bible in every one of them, too, since, as the founder of this plan says, “I realised then this was a captive audience.”
I think I’m going to have to move to New Zealand now. The response by hikers to this effort is classic pragmatism. They think it is a fine idea.
“Given the option of a ropey old Reader’s Digest I would rather use a page from a Bible to start a fire.”
Notice how polite he was to avoid mentioning the other use in which the tissue-thin pages of the bible are superior to the thick glossy sheets of Reader’s Digest.