tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55315284845537448292024-02-19T16:47:41.625-07:00 gaea's notebookgaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-57573199839118474332013-04-08T18:32:00.001-06:002013-04-08T18:32:45.465-06:00high desert hike above abydos<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZZU7Sryw_wgA6q35-uheHuGtkEoB8jSyHhLh7AVe7WdGBdpP4a_gzsfrkYuZxA0rHkj31mUKh3KeG4LLxIfFW-7u9Udyq1wWpNfsYl1ZvIOK5ox3Wlq-06jTbt8tuQDULNRnQHDCa6gk/s1600/high_des.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZZU7Sryw_wgA6q35-uheHuGtkEoB8jSyHhLh7AVe7WdGBdpP4a_gzsfrkYuZxA0rHkj31mUKh3KeG4LLxIfFW-7u9Udyq1wWpNfsYl1ZvIOK5ox3Wlq-06jTbt8tuQDULNRnQHDCa6gk/s640/high_des.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abydos, February 11, 2013 - looking from the edge of the escarpment across the low desert. To the east (photo right), but out of view, the Nile River. </td></tr>
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We spent a full day in the high desert, above the site of Abydos, bending to the demands of research, but mostly to the unyielding wind. The wind scours and scrubs that surface and it is otherworldly. I could characterize it as entirely inhospitable except that I love it. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8OxidNjHtoZZdA1vY9-XkFUWFICXjGHc8IROhEg5xrtLtXAV1wQH6J_m4cYBhDpYow_AtK9TQoeCQMHyPfZSV75ZKvbj2dT_n9HqZApsoJnaGEEk1hBxSC5FWR-DnxFMcoDMVKn6cgsc/s1600/high_des_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8OxidNjHtoZZdA1vY9-XkFUWFICXjGHc8IROhEg5xrtLtXAV1wQH6J_m4cYBhDpYow_AtK9TQoeCQMHyPfZSV75ZKvbj2dT_n9HqZApsoJnaGEEk1hBxSC5FWR-DnxFMcoDMVKn6cgsc/s640/high_des_2.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Looking east toward the Nile - the American researchers' house and German research team's quarters are white structures out in the sands and apart from the villages. </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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You could survive here if you brought along food and water, made shelter to keep from the tormenting sands, and had a purpose (in order to protect your sanity). People did spend time on this exposed escarpment, and a fair amount, as these stone walls and pottery vessels suggest.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs40zqYxKJQU_PYhO07jYbmJbtrKKH9BtWgQKh5EdGhSUBX6O0BKAUjlYwwy6RgZTmENGbGBo7_1ieGLeroeGF31QNgkg_xGYtlqGNZzgsE_hy7aH6pKFNtE_JZ4qpTOhK9Kx2G3vD7D0/s1600/high_des_site.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs40zqYxKJQU_PYhO07jYbmJbtrKKH9BtWgQKh5EdGhSUBX6O0BKAUjlYwwy6RgZTmENGbGBo7_1ieGLeroeGF31QNgkg_xGYtlqGNZzgsE_hy7aH6pKFNtE_JZ4qpTOhK9Kx2G3vD7D0/s640/high_des_site.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Low stone walls - an archaeological site that needs further research.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKS-Ipdl3qrTbDnTqxHwaaQ5x2bMqA4eSQPR_KAs1ZazUyEPt7FjJu8nv_gtYoRPkVa_h-pPTbTApBOam1OKM6Knf6B6ecANrZiSjuKzzvg5RhEIEuU8OxarvorVBkxyVunsx_PiWeVLg/s1600/high_des_pot.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKS-Ipdl3qrTbDnTqxHwaaQ5x2bMqA4eSQPR_KAs1ZazUyEPt7FjJu8nv_gtYoRPkVa_h-pPTbTApBOam1OKM6Knf6B6ecANrZiSjuKzzvg5RhEIEuU8OxarvorVBkxyVunsx_PiWeVLg/s640/high_des_pot.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Large ceramic handle noted as I walked between the low walls.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Perhaps the perspective, the high vantage to look out from, drew people and made them stay - at least for awhile. But the litter of stone artifacts suggests human passage across this place for ages, before ceramic technology, and before the present dryness. Chert nodules likely drew some as this material is the raw stuff of tools.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFqdrKZja71MpwD5NbNxo3ZGMjNVhhbdPO2lFGLLXvw_06s20OBulnTjqmapTHm3FbbkVJyHuQm7uqb1GjFBxSayYrECe3bIwkvWoSXN0d12oXvlV7rmcB5C3qlbsBe9II5k4CDuOaS2w/s1600/chert.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFqdrKZja71MpwD5NbNxo3ZGMjNVhhbdPO2lFGLLXvw_06s20OBulnTjqmapTHm3FbbkVJyHuQm7uqb1GjFBxSayYrECe3bIwkvWoSXN0d12oXvlV7rmcB5C3qlbsBe9II5k4CDuOaS2w/s640/chert.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">a wild chert nodule</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Tools, and the flakes produced in their making, are here in number - isolated fragments and areas of concentration. <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbFmhqn3HN-kcdORsI3wp87_pRiyLk_CZV8rfiNdP7uJkTmMUDq_AOeBHfbPCNlXcgol3lB4rPIecIuPQdAfIkuIk_hvd3vpDgD2WJmXjFM26pu2vLBRJTodeSGQ8j9S5B2DfSiyPiDD0/s1600/tools.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbFmhqn3HN-kcdORsI3wp87_pRiyLk_CZV8rfiNdP7uJkTmMUDq_AOeBHfbPCNlXcgol3lB4rPIecIuPQdAfIkuIk_hvd3vpDgD2WJmXjFM26pu2vLBRJTodeSGQ8j9S5B2DfSiyPiDD0/s640/tools.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">a scraper, scoured by windblown sand, and a thin blade</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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Beth Hart, University of Virgina, is researching raw material sources for her dissertation on the development of specialized production. She studies chert samples to find out where materials in archaeological contexts come from. This sourcing will let her know what raw materials look like before modification (tool production and heat treatment). </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHi-ZJCVs0KjdkNkJYm6CT9dEGmnV2W1eH-Fz6jr8XpX6EfW6KzlKNAlD-yIl055hgYYWbsQfELs4CBZXOl53pYsfCtEmgvped0VZPYau7pl-NZ6ED20Cr2ni3hRRZz74jNunWT2Hyc00/s1600/beth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHi-ZJCVs0KjdkNkJYm6CT9dEGmnV2W1eH-Fz6jr8XpX6EfW6KzlKNAlD-yIl055hgYYWbsQfELs4CBZXOl53pYsfCtEmgvped0VZPYau7pl-NZ6ED20Cr2ni3hRRZz74jNunWT2Hyc00/s640/beth.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beth Hart recording chert blades and cores</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><u><br /></u></td></tr>
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Hiking with Beth, we spent several hours going slowly over surfaces; she points out desert pavement and tells me about the creative (rather than reductive) formation processes. Stooped in our inspection, bent in the wind, we go with a kind of single-minded fervor that reminds me of some others that we know came to this place - Coptic Christian monks. Seeking asceticism they carved out simple cells in canyon walls - able to indulge only in quietude. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU4AkcGA-qeHowcnLNBbKynzNr0hG9uf8mBhPx1LFGDy0dKENDjFufXi_18hYLQgL51s3tsT9dSltQr6q2a1nWn7d2HJKbpJU_ZV8J6hKgcSj7X_a7mrO13cveFI7WvHTVHX7nDarnDoI/s1600/cells.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU4AkcGA-qeHowcnLNBbKynzNr0hG9uf8mBhPx1LFGDy0dKENDjFufXi_18hYLQgL51s3tsT9dSltQr6q2a1nWn7d2HJKbpJU_ZV8J6hKgcSj7X_a7mrO13cveFI7WvHTVHX7nDarnDoI/s640/cells.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Monks' cells in cliff face </td></tr>
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Even today the high desert offers a sense of removal from the mundane world. If I stayed for long I could gather experiences that might alter my sense of reality. Already the challenges of a single day, the temperature extremes, and the strange and beautiful vastness leave me exalted.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnO4WS4JN4PHjwfloiHH6JUaJW6AuxRtgRpWOnLhBhVYSriWQT68bOQ2VoA9YOfxVAV4r9fQznlQuHPRm20X84H1Hyt8Y7Oo8Gp6qNvg735tCK-sx3jyGn3-rGUX5v63uWCNbH74kVP_0/s1600/me.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnO4WS4JN4PHjwfloiHH6JUaJW6AuxRtgRpWOnLhBhVYSriWQT68bOQ2VoA9YOfxVAV4r9fQznlQuHPRm20X84H1Hyt8Y7Oo8Gp6qNvg735tCK-sx3jyGn3-rGUX5v63uWCNbH74kVP_0/s640/me.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Feeling exalted and resting. Photo credit - Beth Hart. All other photographs are my own.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6iNyqfRavWCfzWJE4kvdZoU-3DFZhjBfer0a6-Bm8Y8EmbXK_x0ZUK2GWy7gMxAzO9sYMDzAKa9maaBcKd-Dl2de3cAnd00Ce8Bd7aURVxP6uZUZPhOuBHso1gZBetu8V1N4LmtDeIVw/s1600/tool.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-51785281497797100362013-02-01T08:51:00.000-07:002013-02-06T07:08:56.564-07:00walking in abydos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir1lSzyKSFtwOPLLbQO8uHCJDuYgsXmAcJXBxbO-4Swsc4o1fF5e44ufd-5H10k6agSrPoUfLYwX7SeRnMQoRvcHIWaUNhqX5gJSatoqL05VwQZWphTTd8ZeGsxecIQAQtP1FJBhA47nQ/s1600/DSC01328.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir1lSzyKSFtwOPLLbQO8uHCJDuYgsXmAcJXBxbO-4Swsc4o1fF5e44ufd-5H10k6agSrPoUfLYwX7SeRnMQoRvcHIWaUNhqX5gJSatoqL05VwQZWphTTd8ZeGsxecIQAQtP1FJBhA47nQ/s640/DSC01328.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.abydos.org/blog/2012/encounters-with-ancient-egyptians/1-ancw09_00430/">The Shunet el-Zebib</a></td></tr>
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I walk the desert site of ancient <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/academics/abydos/abydos.htm">Abydos, Egypt</a> - early in the morning till afternoon, over rises and into troughs. Abydos sits west of the Nile and near the escarpment that divides the high and low desert. It's in the low desert and neither the high or the low desert are the kind dotted by cacti, only sand and sand-polished stone. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">climbing the escarpment above Abydos, Dec. 2008</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFhuXQyzl4HbMVXtZ_Q625pf68wY1nbmVF-vngg7E871gYY6Fxg0C3x0TrdCRT94v0l8kmPzoMMAFRKlsNiso63_JVaQvAhc84XoE11_kJm3lEYHmLKzXNXeLSy-9ISWLZmRloGHASnhc/s1600/DSC02005.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFhuXQyzl4HbMVXtZ_Q625pf68wY1nbmVF-vngg7E871gYY6Fxg0C3x0TrdCRT94v0l8kmPzoMMAFRKlsNiso63_JVaQvAhc84XoE11_kJm3lEYHmLKzXNXeLSy-9ISWLZmRloGHASnhc/s400/DSC02005.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">looking south, the escarpment to the right Jan. 2013</td></tr>
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Organic material is scant and limited to places of human activity.
Villages and towns bordering Abydos add the energy of daily living. They add the
sound of rural life - truck and tractor, pumps and animals, and the
call to prayer many times daily. And across some of Abydos they add remnants - organic waste and
plastic, animal carcasses, and Nile mud transported to make agricultural fields
on top of desert. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Exposed to wind and sun everything fades and is rebuilt or
discarded. This has happened for centuries, as the living
towns spill over the ancient town site. Jan. 2013 </td></tr>
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I step over concentrations of limestone, mud brick,
potsherds, and bone fragments - the materials of ritual and burial, homage to
another world. In Abydos the chief concern seems to have been life after this
one. Many of the mounds, rather than dunes, are heaped debris from episodes of
excavation and looting. The structures beneath are tombs, foundations of
funerary buildings, temples, and chapels – places where the dead were buried
and the living came to remember. These features are the focus of archaeological
inquiry and sometimes of illegal looting.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkmpti7nM47RmaPhWQefH0iO4Sw7aDZMQ26I2Jzoe1YnX1RTLK1WOpLla7T3aj_Bj199OTRYjxLSmt_2AUHG2h1sb4BdHyQlRzkkcu8pm7mVCgrjKRBZ8Jw1ZkfW3LM5IPXluecbfTq7c/s1600/DSC01921.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkmpti7nM47RmaPhWQefH0iO4Sw7aDZMQ26I2Jzoe1YnX1RTLK1WOpLla7T3aj_Bj199OTRYjxLSmt_2AUHG2h1sb4BdHyQlRzkkcu8pm7mVCgrjKRBZ8Jw1ZkfW3LM5IPXluecbfTq7c/s400/DSC01921.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">To check the urban growth a wall was begun in 2005 and helps
delineate a boundary to protect the archaeological site of Abydos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jan. 2013 </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">I am glad to walk, and to work here, again - this season with the <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/academics/abydos/abydos-current.htm">PYIFA Abydos Excavation project</a> - and with folks from the west and Egypt, people I've had the opportunity to work with in previous seasons. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbZpzi_zTJn3Wg_dHheQRdVBnJZ4n2KJNe2OXY-SmY6kydRTFmYiphdf6OvKQ9djtdILqBuWpw1nfx557GmF2HFyvc9oRcwHfabTNhP8VwAQaQoJFAYnorVppv-IAg-9sY9WUPVLCuuZA/s1600/Picture+044.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbZpzi_zTJn3Wg_dHheQRdVBnJZ4n2KJNe2OXY-SmY6kydRTFmYiphdf6OvKQ9djtdILqBuWpw1nfx557GmF2HFyvc9oRcwHfabTNhP8VwAQaQoJFAYnorVppv-IAg-9sY9WUPVLCuuZA/s400/Picture+044.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy of Mark Gonzales, Jan. 2013</td></tr>
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gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-12455984788914760982011-04-07T15:24:00.007-06:002012-03-10T08:49:02.164-07:00feet are the salvation for the brain . . .<div style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. . . and that's why philosophers always keep on walking (</span></i><a href="http://www.myspace.com/miandlauspace"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Mi and L'au</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">). So it is true. There is some sane-making effect that moving our feet has on our brains. I like to think that's what helped us to bipedal our way into the position we currently enjoy - the social animal that . . . </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">has a lot going for it? </span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ejnd0Sp9VzY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sometimes we shoulder heavy minds - each of us a tiny Atlas. Philosophers, and poets, and the like have kept tabs on us - <i>Homo sapiens</i> - through our eras and errors. I wonder what this new world will look like once the protests . . . </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">die back</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">? What will we say about ourselves in the future? What will we say about this time? It was remarkable, it should have been predicted? And where are we going? In our globalized reality it is hard to keep track of all the things that bind you to me, and me to those, and them to us. But we are each so much alike. We perceive more distance between ourselves than, well, have we measured? Not in a long while. And were we right the first time we judged the distance? </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There is strength in each of us - and the tools we use today show us that human beings are creative and capable - as ever. Revolutions by Facebook, and when the despot shuts the Internet down, well then - revolution by word of mouth! We can see suffering and cruelties, but the reality that the heart stays so hopeful and strong despite imprisonment, torture, genocide - is stunning. I read the stories of Libyans, Egyptians - individual stories of sacrifice, determination, horrific lives - and I come out the other end <i>optimistic</i>. If they survive, so can I, so can you. We don't need to look far to find the courageous ones. </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I walk and realize that it's the <i>pace</i> I find comforting. It feels like what the body wants to do. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This month is th is <i>National Poetry Month</i> and here's a poem for the day from </span></span><a href="http://poets.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">poets.org</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 21px;"></span><br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td valign="top" width="80%"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="TITLE" style="color: #cc6600; font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
The Broken Sandal</span></span></span></div></td><td colspan="2" nowrap="" style="text-align: right;" valign="top"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">by </span></span><a href="http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/41" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Denise Levertov</span></span></a></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="3"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></div></td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2" style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;" valign="top"><pre style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dreamed the thong of my sandal broke.
Nothing to hold it to my foot.
How shall I walk?
Barefoot?
The sharp stones, the dirt. I would
hobble.
And–
Where was I going?
Where was I going I can't
go to now, unless hurting?
Where am I standing, if I'm
to stand still now?</span></span></pre><pre style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">
</span></span></pre><pre style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></pre><pre style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></pre><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyaoKQ85sDYNR4ukALwNChpJ04hiyosZqHIcDN_65H-5AihqtcuH4V23gwA_1-wNfCEsD0XTTL8FDuot7Nt0J0q2D5-It0hbDRAqN02i9yriHX_5prlYLIlfCZdDffTGlage4DhUv3KI/s1600/arch_utah_bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyaoKQ85sDYNR4ukALwNChpJ04hiyosZqHIcDN_65H-5AihqtcuH4V23gwA_1-wNfCEsD0XTTL8FDuot7Nt0J0q2D5-It0hbDRAqN02i9yriHX_5prlYLIlfCZdDffTGlage4DhUv3KI/s320/arch_utah_bw.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cassidy Arch, Capitol Reef, Utah march 2011<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">These lines urge me on, somewhere - but how to figure? How to know where? We are ever in motion, this is certain. And sandals are always breaking. </span></span></span></span> </span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><pre style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'lucida sans', helvetica, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></pre></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-37631102790389912362011-03-29T16:39:00.001-06:002011-03-30T17:57:21.343-06:00abydos, or if an expedition was a goose<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA1K6QhQmR0JqbU9XlQKINgfovjaUFtNTuh02V-N7Bbx4Q9h3WRu6RONg7zcVPol7pKXRAe__hdT7STx8eiZWfPVp_h2kmuhTK2gd2kK-wKqgvmPLj6D76TG9OXwAbfopQwWHHyjyv5D8/s1600/morning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA1K6QhQmR0JqbU9XlQKINgfovjaUFtNTuh02V-N7Bbx4Q9h3WRu6RONg7zcVPol7pKXRAe__hdT7STx8eiZWfPVp_h2kmuhTK2gd2kK-wKqgvmPLj6D76TG9OXwAbfopQwWHHyjyv5D8/s320/morning.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Abydos, Egypt - morning on site, February 2011</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">If not for a revolution in Egypt the <a href="http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/academics/abydos/abydos-current.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">NYU IFA</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> Expedition to Abydos</span> would have wrapped up excavation and survey this past week. We would now be on our way toward Cairo, probably by train, and then off to our homes or on other travels. I had planned for Turkey. Perhaps by next season (2012) this will be possible. There will be a future a season, but after the events of this February and March it’s hard to know what that research plan will look like. It seems that <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=133559551"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">looting Egypt's archaeological</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span>sites <a href="http://egyptopaedia.com/2011/middle-egypt/abydos"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">including Abydos</span></a>, was heavy immediately following the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/tahrir-square"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">ousting of Mubarak</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">.</span> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Before Tahir Square filled with peaceful protesters, we were set to survey great swaths of desert – at least, that’s how I had prepared myself, mentally to think about that time. I expected to be away from home. I’m staying in Abydos to do two jobs, I thought – I’ll spend 4 months. The time period seemed daunting. My jobs were to excavate for Brown University, then work as a surveyor for NYU's IFA expedition. The survey and mapping project is, like the excavation, a longstanding one with many contributors. I was excited to add my own small effort to helping record the <i>vestiges of history!</i> I would think of it that way when I felt especially homesick. I’d remember the larger picture, our efforts in context of what we were all contributing to – a greater understanding, a mission for science and humanity! The drama helped. But then, after only about two weeks into this survey – it all came to an end. We were very depressed. The archaeologist, the Egyptians we worked with – all of us sad to give it up.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxzXmNlbbD5YQpUcoJg7w7ervoH0RR0naVOAPgtnYVjltm6X0DM6jeJWjys1N8HW5OcimXtAcpokIb7P932zrIZrIRa4ohA9lzokoQs5Zx2S_jHPZeE9uVZUCXVTW4CYZoljDod04nqU/s1600/alex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidxzXmNlbbD5YQpUcoJg7w7ervoH0RR0naVOAPgtnYVjltm6X0DM6jeJWjys1N8HW5OcimXtAcpokIb7P932zrIZrIRa4ohA9lzokoQs5Zx2S_jHPZeE9uVZUCXVTW4CYZoljDod04nqU/s320/alex.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Makovics - readying the scarf. </td></tr>
</tbody></table><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhprEv2xCMsD8dhtPypH2PWT4B5fNd6F6Rex2OkEaNzMEADPiDoyS2xAnH_7tHAd7tQEblv_2g_SrclQlLxXKJArnK_Z4Hq1Vd5OvMIWvxfhwiP3csO-hkGjgkfWTYcQPlCLlYuNSxEEI/s1600/chaves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhprEv2xCMsD8dhtPypH2PWT4B5fNd6F6Rex2OkEaNzMEADPiDoyS2xAnH_7tHAd7tQEblv_2g_SrclQlLxXKJArnK_Z4Hq1Vd5OvMIWvxfhwiP3csO-hkGjgkfWTYcQPlCLlYuNSxEEI/s320/chaves.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christina Chavez - morning, on site</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I was working with two surveyors who had experience with the site. There were a few Egyptian guys that helped us regularly – we had our roles, our plans. And then, one morning, we did not. The end. Before that came I was going to tell you the story of surveying Abydos. Along with my survey partner, Christina Chavez, we created a plan to relate the story of our work in Abydos to our <a href="http://dabcc.nmsu.edu/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">DACC</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span>students in New Mexico, who were, in theory, going to follow along virtually. We made a funny movie preview to set the tone.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dz_IlnySFTx5x9GOvqzP270sejTJVi8iq0Nm5vYLJl6h2BYCTSVUws9pW5k6TVqlAqsXTfD7p_ipEGm0n-Hiw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">Then the tone shifted – considerably. Almost too radically. I no longer know what to say. After leaving Egypt by way of <i>extraction,</i> and being informed by our director that the site has undergone heavy looting, I wonder what is left. Of course a lot is left. But the nature of archaeology (though destructive) is part tedium, to equal parts minutia, and precision. It is patient, detailed documentation (when done right) – it’s an intensely concentrated level of energy and effort, which is why you cannot excavate or survey without pause, thus the need for expeditionary<i> </i>seasons. The sad news is this coming season may or may not exist. And the archaeological record of Abydos is surely changed. The nature of looting is simply <u>destructive</u> – fast-paced, dangerous, and possibly driven by desperation, or greed. Inherent to the act is a deep miscalculation of what exactly is being gained and what is being lost. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBFRyG0ON8LXkRGW-34LDiY2OCY6le8Hll3BFBd0zeUFeCtiKaxuEIuR2WGQAzYYGBFsIYFferttbCyX_bLH2QKzOkaU_E96UiVD1eV9ZopMsKg1dpgEQ_OTIWgAguug3fk7c708TPhU/s1600/desert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxBFRyG0ON8LXkRGW-34LDiY2OCY6le8Hll3BFBd0zeUFeCtiKaxuEIuR2WGQAzYYGBFsIYFferttbCyX_bLH2QKzOkaU_E96UiVD1eV9ZopMsKg1dpgEQ_OTIWgAguug3fk7c708TPhU/s320/desert.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">That fable about the goose that laid the golden egg might apply here . . . if you can imagine an archaeological site <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> the associated long-term effort of an expedition - as a goose. Here it is all plump, ancient, surly (typical goose) and stretched across a finite expanse, and stretched too are it’s finite resources (funding, etc.). Sites expand, like a goose, in three dimensions – and maybe, like an ice burg now, a lot more of what's there extends into places you cannot see – the sands underfoot. And what animates this operation – goose or otherwise – is multifaceted. Gathering the eggheads, gaining the permits, finding the funding, then there’s the interaction between institutions in Egypt and universities abroad. And there are the inherent benefits to the locale – jobs, yes, for Egyptians, cultural tourism, and questions of history . . . well, made less murky. It’s the intrinsic nature of all of this that is hard to communicate across cultural and economic divides. If everything is looted - the goose is plundered, plucked. What motive is left for the archaeologist to return?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">To get to those layers you must peel back – but with care! Each deed considered; each find recorded. A goose cannot be understood otherwise. There are hours and days – sometimes wearisome amounts of time - without discovery and then, a golden egg! You can't reach inside a goose and find <i>all </i>its eggs. The value is in the living, <i>continuing</i> nature of the thing, not in the innards.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><o:p> </o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-hBw_sj_gqgU4lfoiOiDEM69GY159EuTgwL_soTs8VPS-FyLGQAxiPQOs8_fJeE9bnRcH_NZ8yyYMjmC4Ng6pyxuRS3k7bfV4E49uNG6JT0z3FMChAWxCjELXGN3iaf6ZyAUGFaLT7gg/s1600/scope+bw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-hBw_sj_gqgU4lfoiOiDEM69GY159EuTgwL_soTs8VPS-FyLGQAxiPQOs8_fJeE9bnRcH_NZ8yyYMjmC4Ng6pyxuRS3k7bfV4E49uNG6JT0z3FMChAWxCjELXGN3iaf6ZyAUGFaLT7gg/s320/scope+bw.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">That last day on site there was a terrible wind. It was strong and made it hard to hold the survey pole steady. I was trying to find the prism, attached to the top of that pole, through the<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_station"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">total station's</span> </a>scope. I glared into it – and squinted out the grains of sand that encroached my singular vision. One eye sacrificed, I worked as well as I could to relieve my stalwart companion out across the desert, holding a pole and waiting from some data to enter, by laser and trigonometry, into our devices. Everyone wears scarves as a matter fashion and practicality and ours surrendered on our behalves, fraying in the wind, relinquishing the desert to looters who would come. Only that day we hoped, we imagined, that they wouldn’t. We had to think this I suppose. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglG2F86sUDQ23CYs1zPznIct-KK-mqpDwtpM3orzwmhUzdkMPIvKb6lBG5c3ET1jrWmBGbLLFWTgKnFZV5_0paoeSt0aPUxNnz4M6BiILETbyvdwgJhDHo3kltgqtXsmVE24Zli838oV4/s1600/one.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglG2F86sUDQ23CYs1zPznIct-KK-mqpDwtpM3orzwmhUzdkMPIvKb6lBG5c3ET1jrWmBGbLLFWTgKnFZV5_0paoeSt0aPUxNnz4M6BiILETbyvdwgJhDHo3kltgqtXsmVE24Zli838oV4/s320/one.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">I don’t know how to endear the goose, or engender a desire to protect it, or ensure that it survives – as site, expedition, and research base. When we left Abydos we could imagine that there was work enough for hundreds of seasons. And there still will be, but will it be mitigating the damage left by looters? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">It is in the goose – stubborn, itinerant, gritty – and its return, that we hope. </div><br />
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</div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-31238185742139270442011-03-05T14:14:00.005-07:002011-03-05T15:01:06.092-07:00rally In santa fe - mulled and photo-ed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsF9LvwDB_JDFshSqczTUobex0AKjarm9-2kKBsm7GQnhCSxk4YkcTuFAxE0jRqMKesCIpg8VOqZVARqdfhlwTlyNE3QTPKtp07f7EprrbNGPT5vVaSRymiL-fgPIGXalDSrEOGq2IQpU/s1600/rally.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsF9LvwDB_JDFshSqczTUobex0AKjarm9-2kKBsm7GQnhCSxk4YkcTuFAxE0jRqMKesCIpg8VOqZVARqdfhlwTlyNE3QTPKtp07f7EprrbNGPT5vVaSRymiL-fgPIGXalDSrEOGq2IQpU/s320/rally.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I road the Railrunner north to Santa Fe last Saturday (February 26th) to see what was shaking (that's a $7 round-trip ticket - Albuquerque to Santa Fe and back). I found folks at the Roundhouse with signs, and chants, and songs, sporting their red and white (Badger colors) garments. During the hour of official rally time speakers, including legislators, teachers, and folks from Wisconsin, addressed the crowd of about 750.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiS9tsxi77llEVrkVEE_6oQfZZxFG5UMBEd9U4FSJ3mP0iQBXrmwf5DTSE7jHEJCsgpVgzW-poooWZa3GAPZcEIi4_b__NO4VUNnbcJmMPJeMlkM3xWZ-NzhGd0SoHRXOs52DmDoSo9sk/s1600/linda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiS9tsxi77llEVrkVEE_6oQfZZxFG5UMBEd9U4FSJ3mP0iQBXrmwf5DTSE7jHEJCsgpVgzW-poooWZa3GAPZcEIi4_b__NO4VUNnbcJmMPJeMlkM3xWZ-NzhGd0SoHRXOs52DmDoSo9sk/s320/linda.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(Rally host -</span><a href="http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=112843&id="><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Linda F.</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, addressing the crowd) </span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The </span><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0226/Around-the-US-rallies-lend-moral-support-to-Wisconsin-public-workers"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christian Science Monitor</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> reports that people were gathered in Santa Fe, and at other capitols across the nation, standing in solidarity with the protestors in Madison, Wisconsin. Local coverage from </span><a href="http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/politics/nm-workers-rally-for-wi"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">krqe.com</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">highlights one worry I heard; New Mexico unions might be next to have their collective bargaining rights challenged. </span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2RbBVCw9rpT7_nu8gJrtRkvdq2wtSw-_ezR4Y9ScEFB3tNSfzKm5uNQb_Q7YCDUvBa9LqApTojmrrK7hhZXO226nYTKQjGA6QLNmxctVb4EqWeDUKXP0RHm3UzsiV1ckL-kdpoPzNkcs/s1600/cheeseheads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2RbBVCw9rpT7_nu8gJrtRkvdq2wtSw-_ezR4Y9ScEFB3tNSfzKm5uNQb_Q7YCDUvBa9LqApTojmrrK7hhZXO226nYTKQjGA6QLNmxctVb4EqWeDUKXP0RHm3UzsiV1ckL-kdpoPzNkcs/s320/cheeseheads.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2RbBVCw9rpT7_nu8gJrtRkvdq2wtSw-_ezR4Y9ScEFB3tNSfzKm5uNQb_Q7YCDUvBa9LqApTojmrrK7hhZXO226nYTKQjGA6QLNmxctVb4EqWeDUKXP0RHm3UzsiV1ckL-kdpoPzNkcs/s1600/cheeseheads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></span></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Calling ourselves after the foods we love helps connect those in sunny Santa Fe to folks in snowy Madison. Food is essential. Freedom is essential. We're dealing with essential, relatable things.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You may watch</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/28/voices_from_the_100_000_strong"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">what went on in Madison last Saturday</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">,</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> including a speech delivered by Jeff Skiles - the "Miracle on the Hudson" co-piolet - from this Democracy Now coverage. What follows is a bit of a photo tour of those gathered at the Roundhouse, all from my perspective, of course.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVv3nQfdODFfjJ66WjcDJGMcsnhlkCD2SAkOXmh47JiEYpTtg-GGKg3UvNThmao4FCkYJw2JbfgxyPgCChyphenhyphenFx9b81lJG622OACSff0EsPqEmlna7QyZqCc92ezTQD7bYtFTmt6etxA2A/s1600/signs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVv3nQfdODFfjJ66WjcDJGMcsnhlkCD2SAkOXmh47JiEYpTtg-GGKg3UvNThmao4FCkYJw2JbfgxyPgCChyphenhyphenFx9b81lJG622OACSff0EsPqEmlna7QyZqCc92ezTQD7bYtFTmt6etxA2A/s320/signs.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">Labor Organizers in Madison are at an epic impasse with their governor, Scott Walker, and the negotiations sit, stalled, over some serious Anti-Union legislation.</span> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2078938855"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frank Emspak, founder and producer of</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2078938855"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/1/frank_ernspak_of_workers_independent_news"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Workers Independent News,</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;">spoke in Madison</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"> and offered some strong suggestions for why he believes deflating the power of Unions, and not the state budget, is what the battle is really about.</span></span></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The message - listen to <i>people</i>, workers, human voices. And, also, corporations are not people, actually.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEilplsBynp1WpsG4uuWYRZ1GN9tFmkdg4WF7_mVC0ScOeVkDgi_f4dzpI9rvBLgIRBy0BtoCcbvE5LaPf64sc4Jfk2FYjS0Vh3Z86GlGtrON4uFChbB6iV49gfV61DP1OOU5LdM1Koqs/s1600/are+not+the+people.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEilplsBynp1WpsG4uuWYRZ1GN9tFmkdg4WF7_mVC0ScOeVkDgi_f4dzpI9rvBLgIRBy0BtoCcbvE5LaPf64sc4Jfk2FYjS0Vh3Z86GlGtrON4uFChbB6iV49gfV61DP1OOU5LdM1Koqs/s320/are+not+the+people.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><table class="contentpaneopen" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; border-collapse: collapse; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; color: #474749; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 2px; text-align: left; width: 567px;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="contentheading" style="line-height: normal; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 1px;" width="100%"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In case you wonder why there's confusion over how the line between</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> human beings </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and corporations ever go so blurred, I recommend some reading - </span><a href="http://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/brian-landers/corporations-are-only-human-at-least-in-law"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Corporations Are Only Human - At Least In Law</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">by</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Brian Landers (</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Open Economy Dec 2 2010). And, we know that c</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474749;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">orporations spend money to influence elections.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474749;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474749;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> "</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The US Supreme Court has ruled that corporations can spend whatever they like on influencing elections . . . as courts insist that corporations have “human” rights (Landers)." </span></i></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #474749;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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</tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; line-height: 23px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Court held that the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as the McCain–Feingold Act, which had tried to limit such funding, </span></i><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">infringed corporations' rights to free speech</span></i></b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">." <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">How loud can they, corporate entities, speak? Louder than one human voice. Do corporations have the right to privacy? It's being debated -</span></span></i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; line-height: 30px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/us/20privacy.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Court Weighs Whether Corporations Have Personal Privacy Rights</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">(New York Times, January 20th, 2011).</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></div></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The idea of corporations as natural entities is now firmly embedded not just in legal theory but in everyday life. News reports can assert that “Google believes” or “ "Exxon's position is" without a second thought. But in reality a legal construct cannot believe anything, only people can believe. To say that a corporation has a position on a political issue merely provides someone's personal opinion with a spurious stamp of authority. For the chief executive of Exxon to say that his corporation has a “view” on energy policy because it processes oil is as meaningless as saying that his car has a “view” for the same reason. </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 23px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That corporations are not humans may be common sense but it is not legal sense . . . (Landers)."</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 30px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 30px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ9FqjgNNR_p0XWxRSTjjOyG2hzDdHWQxixQJbL7ihyphenhyphenl8y8mtTYqJQ51sen28RJn2dulFnXQp4b8kwrEgTlPgj8PCVfcoT_TjhhbqVQdr_UOR4_vtQ5pctxBuBB1sTYpoW1K286-fW5YM/s1600/koch+bros.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ9FqjgNNR_p0XWxRSTjjOyG2hzDdHWQxixQJbL7ihyphenhyphenl8y8mtTYqJQ51sen28RJn2dulFnXQp4b8kwrEgTlPgj8PCVfcoT_TjhhbqVQdr_UOR4_vtQ5pctxBuBB1sTYpoW1K286-fW5YM/s320/koch+bros.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I realize there are many, many incorporated companies and not all corporations are created equal, and they reflect the values of the people that make them up, and the values of their shareholders, but - so often, the most powerful value reflected in the actions of these </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">entities</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is the value of the bottom dollar, the profits realized by companies and investors. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-RaG2Gg-Sfxf1NLA8xSbL217rX98vBgFgYMBAwfrlKyVivlU1mopZ1IxohZvsdC3AC_aNaTW1tOs8fFkBZP14MVUdCv3SC_zS5QU1qAOLOHgJaEBtpUPj4OR5LTpp1othfNvVeTDLRow/s1600/boycott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-RaG2Gg-Sfxf1NLA8xSbL217rX98vBgFgYMBAwfrlKyVivlU1mopZ1IxohZvsdC3AC_aNaTW1tOs8fFkBZP14MVUdCv3SC_zS5QU1qAOLOHgJaEBtpUPj4OR5LTpp1othfNvVeTDLRow/s320/boycott.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm mulling this over when I find a sign advising me that if I don't like them (the corporate entity), don't buy them. </span><a href="http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/default.asp"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Koch Industries</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> - owned by the two Koch brothers supporting Gov. Scott Walker - has </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">its hand</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in a lot of areas (I need to point out that I'm finding it challenging to not refer to a corporation as an entity - as an </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, or a </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">they</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">). </span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/default.asp"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img src="http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/icons/descrption.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; border-width: initial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Koch also produces a lot of toilet paper. I started to think that the protestors could have taken that fact and run with it - all over their clever signs. Somehow, they refrained.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVv3nQfdODFfjJ66WjcDJGMcsnhlkCD2SAkOXmh47JiEYpTtg-GGKg3UvNThmao4FCkYJw2JbfgxyPgCChyphenhyphenFx9b81lJG622OACSff0EsPqEmlna7QyZqCc92ezTQD7bYtFTmt6etxA2A/s1600/signs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaVv3nQfdODFfjJ66WjcDJGMcsnhlkCD2SAkOXmh47JiEYpTtg-GGKg3UvNThmao4FCkYJw2JbfgxyPgCChyphenhyphenFx9b81lJG622OACSff0EsPqEmlna7QyZqCc92ezTQD7bYtFTmt6etxA2A/s320/signs.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But they did manage to connect their struggle, a struggle </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of the people</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, to uprising people elsewhere. Egypt, for example.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_D3r92O_PqRT_Frl_SrrZXRq4OuJfWkZeEldRzbBA7nZuMdpAj2tDlZB87YhoKfThx3Ffz-Si5diwYLCVY3IfxTJ62Ii1cOu8AyDPzZ8oX8WGuzZ8CLUJjOKenhPQ6e898qeLNCbSoOk/s1600/egypt+did+it.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_D3r92O_PqRT_Frl_SrrZXRq4OuJfWkZeEldRzbBA7nZuMdpAj2tDlZB87YhoKfThx3Ffz-Si5diwYLCVY3IfxTJ62Ii1cOu8AyDPzZ8oX8WGuzZ8CLUJjOKenhPQ6e898qeLNCbSoOk/s320/egypt+did+it.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm okay with this idea - the concept of solidarity between struggling groups of humans. We all want a fair life, we all want the same things at the end of the day, peace, clean water, enough food. We want other things too, and that may be where our troubles start, or how, in America, our garages get so full of stuff. But, hopefully, recession is teaching us to want less, or to check our desires against our needs. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTdPtSg1O82BeMWgbCRTSdf1shlAZQq23SU019qrjAnjAlNuesrMCClFH7FwhyphenhyphenoF6Gx5I-PGtEgdq9Ri60uQC84PZh6YOhByKeh2KAsvJORv6FhePxKfW12k3ltqDinuYzszwdTY9pOxA/s1600/egypt+solidarity+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTdPtSg1O82BeMWgbCRTSdf1shlAZQq23SU019qrjAnjAlNuesrMCClFH7FwhyphenhyphenoF6Gx5I-PGtEgdq9Ri60uQC84PZh6YOhByKeh2KAsvJORv6FhePxKfW12k3ltqDinuYzszwdTY9pOxA/s320/egypt+solidarity+.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is the suggestion that the Koch brothers are somehow the same as Hosini Mubarak, the ousted Egyptian leader, that I find unsettling. It actually makes me cringe. Is this connection a stretch? Does it discount the struggles of the Egyptian people, living for 30 years under an unjust regime, their lives and actions restricted and hindered by a police state environment? To me it seems like a (harmless, but) rather inaccurate line to draw. </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2LzwQKcEBoFNFFv5BcWM0jyWQRmWsO_fxZ1twdcjCbYrjl41x-EmqU_ArgSLxEAPJlRKMBxjT0ECW6B2lGXVJIVH-kZQB_4jww490CcyMwpyuKX6Mw4n4Os4dQQkYMQWpG2hktYv8d8M/s1600/mubarak+koch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2LzwQKcEBoFNFFv5BcWM0jyWQRmWsO_fxZ1twdcjCbYrjl41x-EmqU_ArgSLxEAPJlRKMBxjT0ECW6B2lGXVJIVH-kZQB_4jww490CcyMwpyuKX6Mw4n4Os4dQQkYMQWpG2hktYv8d8M/s320/mubarak+koch.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.foodnotbombs.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Food not Bombs</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> an organization that ". . . shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities around the world to protest war, poverty and the destruction of the environment" set up at the rally - and served food.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFNVNJGvZvW16nlLSnEuehUEJjYOO5DyAYVZzRQ_Buh-4ElNRKnmJdQD224x3mRZFEVyh8aFjx_teU0pqqgIYVwP8iiuHeyHJKMfN11WRuTxKJ9vxZRYzsQbnBbJpaxX9P-Nc-XUpS0ro/s1600/food+not+bombs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFNVNJGvZvW16nlLSnEuehUEJjYOO5DyAYVZzRQ_Buh-4ElNRKnmJdQD224x3mRZFEVyh8aFjx_teU0pqqgIYVwP8iiuHeyHJKMfN11WRuTxKJ9vxZRYzsQbnBbJpaxX9P-Nc-XUpS0ro/s320/food+not+bombs.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And, thankfully, some levity was served up too. It makes me think that sometimes people just like making something. We enjoy self-expression. We like being free enough to speak our minds on a hunk of cardboard or . . .</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK98srRcJChmMu2riXYo6yo_71woLLEIPv77I0UEgI2pHqueIQgIKFVb0dIj1i-3BzRp5w3YfJIIO9iIP7JjuslYd1dSSI8w6CHfOb1HUMD8kKPFObIajefXlXpbaFJmElMFjwqPx8i4Y/s1600/seen+my+keys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="155" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK98srRcJChmMu2riXYo6yo_71woLLEIPv77I0UEgI2pHqueIQgIKFVb0dIj1i-3BzRp5w3YfJIIO9iIP7JjuslYd1dSSI8w6CHfOb1HUMD8kKPFObIajefXlXpbaFJmElMFjwqPx8i4Y/s320/seen+my+keys.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. . . bright green poster board. If we live under regimes too long, we get tired, restless. And some of us, when encouraged by our satirists and humorists, even gather (see - </span><i><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Rally to Restore Sanity</span></b></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, Oct 30 2011, the brainchild of </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JzGOiBXeD4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Stewart</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">S</span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vETTB3g7D0&feature=related"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">teven Colbert</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, funny, poignant, guys).</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5TOONIBDDIHk3op1AN5pQaw2uMXPTqq58UnP-JItWhh8Cqra2pfK4-Q_ADYCFJ7Jmw1B4tmJjKSteOPVnMlF_ZGjjoUQTXNybB6HCmzbCwbiKzOH6Pnm_Q02yWbWyIPNSKIPSgYdnuY/s1600/turt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5TOONIBDDIHk3op1AN5pQaw2uMXPTqq58UnP-JItWhh8Cqra2pfK4-Q_ADYCFJ7Jmw1B4tmJjKSteOPVnMlF_ZGjjoUQTXNybB6HCmzbCwbiKzOH6Pnm_Q02yWbWyIPNSKIPSgYdnuY/s320/turt.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD5TOONIBDDIHk3op1AN5pQaw2uMXPTqq58UnP-JItWhh8Cqra2pfK4-Q_ADYCFJ7Jmw1B4tmJjKSteOPVnMlF_ZGjjoUQTXNybB6HCmzbCwbiKzOH6Pnm_Q02yWbWyIPNSKIPSgYdnuY/s1600/turt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>The<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span><a href="http://www.rallytorestoresanity.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Rally to Restore Sanity</span></a></b> might have emboldened this guy to declare that </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">he likes turtles</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and . . I think the subtext is - let's clear away the cacophony and pay attention to each other. </span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: auto;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The divide between American classes is a growing, and sometimes taboo, topic. We're America and we're not supposed to be this divided, right? We don't match the vision of ourselves, a free and a democratic country. That's uncomfortable. You might know this, or feel this. </span><a href="http://www.rolandmerullo.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rolland Merullo,</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> the author of </span><a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2008/0102/p15s02-bogn.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Breakfast with Buddha</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> allows his character, Otto, to explore our fear - about how we find ourselves in a divided nation and excuse it, but are bothered by our continued, silly justification for how things are. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0QP5vC02cv0ObVzfh1EAaiNEPJ-bo5Szj5yslt1YEIsW6o-aLwDvkrhyjMqzttiPQCfrTZA3PFM3Dq7_cowctszwi4LThfdKmQHrZz3qFS07GzNZA7rkmOhFsSOHrL_igD3MfIRFRU4/s1600/weirdo+face+guys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-0QP5vC02cv0ObVzfh1EAaiNEPJ-bo5Szj5yslt1YEIsW6o-aLwDvkrhyjMqzttiPQCfrTZA3PFM3Dq7_cowctszwi4LThfdKmQHrZz3qFS07GzNZA7rkmOhFsSOHrL_igD3MfIRFRU4/s320/weirdo+face+guys.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We all want a good life for ourselves. Do we want that life for others? How far from ourselves does this circle of well wishing extend? Our husbands and wives, children, family, friends? </span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The character Otto seems to carry the same weighty questions on a road trip with a monk; he considers the disparity between his fellow Americans in one scene, saying:</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span> </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I realize I am generalizing and tiptoeing along the edge of the territory into which we never venture very far in the American national conversation: The fact that there are whole neighborhoods into which cabdrivers refuse to take a fare; that there are people among us who live in circumstances we are ashamed to talk about, children who live that way; the fact that there are huge quadrants of our cities where people like me - and not just white people like me - simply do not go, places we do not see, do not want to think about as we are sipping our designer martinis in swanky downtown bistros where dinner for two costs what these other Americans earn each week. We excuse it by citing the laws of capital, or by telling ourselves we work harder, or that it is social inequality that serves as the motivation for our national wealth. All good logic, maybe. Still, I've always been ill at ease with the vast distance between my life and the lives of other Americans." </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A ruling class and one that serves them is also the theme of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Ruling_Class"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lewis Lapham's</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> musical documentary </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.theamericanrulingclass.org/home/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"The American Ruling Class"</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> (</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDgFiW2xtf0"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">here's a 10 minute taste</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Times; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of the film). </span></span>Is this the good life, a life ill at ease when confronted with certain truths? </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">I got back on the train, and felt overwhelmed, and wanted to take shelter, and wanted to make the world right.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUktRuce6oY_Nsc86SubrHoN9cMhaIx3ckCDUQM0GhvqzRmf60V3jmAsO0ghNd_iC6QpgeanRa5JM1HVz6bKBZ_vcM4UcUY_VHZ6NI2mcwexKkfwq1Gofde7sn_B0bQfHjKYA58nFFM0/s1600/train.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUktRuce6oY_Nsc86SubrHoN9cMhaIx3ckCDUQM0GhvqzRmf60V3jmAsO0ghNd_iC6QpgeanRa5JM1HVz6bKBZ_vcM4UcUY_VHZ6NI2mcwexKkfwq1Gofde7sn_B0bQfHjKYA58nFFM0/s320/train.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiUktRuce6oY_Nsc86SubrHoN9cMhaIx3ckCDUQM0GhvqzRmf60V3jmAsO0ghNd_iC6QpgeanRa5JM1HVz6bKBZ_vcM4UcUY_VHZ6NI2mcwexKkfwq1Gofde7sn_B0bQfHjKYA58nFFM0/s1600/train.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You know, I <i>did not </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">want</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to leave Egypt in February. I was enjoying my job. I felt safe and liked the work of walking the desert and surveying with my partners. Then I called my mom and dad, perched by their television, in the vastness of southern Utah. I think it was around the 1st of February. The protests had been going strong in Cairo and in other cities. We'd lost the internet and the phone service was intermittent. My mom said she had seen, on the news that day, images of tear gas canisters used against the protestors in Tahir Square with <b>made in the U. S. A.</b> clearly printed on them. She was worried. That night I thought I'd be okay with leaving, if it came to that, which - eventually, it did.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, Times, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 17px; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, Times, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 17px; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">You can see that news here</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> "</span></span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/31/made_in_the_usa_tear_gas"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Made in the U.S.A.: Tear Gas, Tanks, Helicopters, Rifles and Fighter Planes in Egypt Funded and Built Largely by the Pentagon and American Corporations</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">" </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(January 31, 2011).</span></span></span></span></div></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_K_lgsiUVh2bGqQYeogdpAm2lmaN5nduXdZ6ZL2gfyfO4DwSG8jovw0kJEroSrFOdzBwAatIjtep27nhRbzUisbgV9dmb6KfUd9JqtC-oF9PEDPRjlVg91mZk6EGnreeClNKwrl8bR80/s1600/face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_K_lgsiUVh2bGqQYeogdpAm2lmaN5nduXdZ6ZL2gfyfO4DwSG8jovw0kJEroSrFOdzBwAatIjtep27nhRbzUisbgV9dmb6KfUd9JqtC-oF9PEDPRjlVg91mZk6EGnreeClNKwrl8bR80/s320/face.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_K_lgsiUVh2bGqQYeogdpAm2lmaN5nduXdZ6ZL2gfyfO4DwSG8jovw0kJEroSrFOdzBwAatIjtep27nhRbzUisbgV9dmb6KfUd9JqtC-oF9PEDPRjlVg91mZk6EGnreeClNKwrl8bR80/s1600/face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor." </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Voltaire </span></div></div></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-33817762809059280942011-02-26T10:55:00.007-07:002011-03-03T14:51:16.186-07:00rally in santa feI'm riding the train - the <a href="http://nmrailrunner.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">New Mexico Railrunner</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span>- a lovely creature-thing with a red and yellow roadrunner stretched across it's silver cars. It's an attractive, double-decker train and I'm in the top of the thing, swaying. I feel rocked into a tranquil state of mind and out the window are so many wonders. Stretches of farmland with the winter migrators milling about, mostly stocky Canadian Geese and lanky <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5022724"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Sandhill Cranes</span></a>. There are horses and cattle, llamas and goats, and all sorts of structures - huddled adobes, trailers with tires resting on roofs, and barns, and sheds, and those outdoor ovens for baking pueblo-style breads. There are spans of wide-open sage-covered land and cottonwoods thicker toward the west, toward the Rio Grand.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkVSASwH78phq9HAeAmuawnPl1ySL56iUMheuudA8PkDcGUle0lOFEgmETp-yRiNpTL1y2k47M9pwLnwNqJ_f7gX2DrK8qh85zDTnNXHK-KOql2uCQOTSj8poRighyLTOVAjhT4zQMCKI/s1600/cranes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkVSASwH78phq9HAeAmuawnPl1ySL56iUMheuudA8PkDcGUle0lOFEgmETp-yRiNpTL1y2k47M9pwLnwNqJ_f7gX2DrK8qh85zDTnNXHK-KOql2uCQOTSj8poRighyLTOVAjhT4zQMCKI/s320/cranes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
I'm on my way to our capitol - Santa Fe, to the Roundhouse where, at least according MoveOn.org - there's a noon <a href="http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/index.html?action_id=238&id=&search_distance=200&search_zip=87104&submit=Search"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">rally to "Save the American Dream,</span>"</a> a solidarity rally in support of the protestors in Madison, Wisconsin. I'd like to see this event and already I can read that over 700 people are registered to attend. And I'd venture a guess that like me, many are unregistered - just headed north, even on this very same train. I've asked the folks next to me (wearing red and white - Wisconsin Badger colors) if they are attending the rally. Yes, they say. And I hear 100,000 are expected in Madison. <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/25/teachers_students_among_first_to_protest"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Teachers and students were the first to protest</span></a> - but then so many more have gathered, police officers and firemen, the middle class, the middle of the road, the middle way. Not the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22koch.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Koch brothers</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span>though; they are supporting anti-union legislation with their monetary might. But who has the most might? Who has the most will? The masses, or the moneyed? To see those gathered in Madison (and feel better about the state of our democracy) take <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/25/wisconsins_uprising_a_guided_tour_of"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">this Wi. student-guided guided tour</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">. </span>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-26904767324360921912011-02-18T14:59:00.013-07:002011-02-25T13:53:52.099-07:00out of egypt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWiKjkyEBe9cFXHa6dYCwtmdqjHsscw9n2ogcmVTSQPtiwXHh3P_4XGluScxHzEwHn8PrOq2dEuL1z_RUzHZCbxDJRVrDXsVDKJvJA8Zj-DuiS80D-y6biUFLptekisgvKoxY5yagezjM/s1600/me+on+site.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWiKjkyEBe9cFXHa6dYCwtmdqjHsscw9n2ogcmVTSQPtiwXHh3P_4XGluScxHzEwHn8PrOq2dEuL1z_RUzHZCbxDJRVrDXsVDKJvJA8Zj-DuiS80D-y6biUFLptekisgvKoxY5yagezjM/s320/me+on+site.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I was in Egypt and then there was a revolution. <b>I salute the power of the people.</b> I am giving you a great big shout out - from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I, with the entire archaeological expedition, 33 of us - got </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">extracted</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. The universities (</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/academics/abydos/abydos-current.htm"><span style="color: #102bc6; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">NYU's IFA</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and University of Michigan) backing our work "monitored" the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">situation</span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (read: revolution), and sometime around February 1st decided to evacuate. This came as a huge surprise, huge and heavy. A team of excavators, surveyors, conservators, photographers, registrars, got the news at 6 am February 2nd. We had somehow coalesced on the map of Egypt, drawn to this pinpoint - the ancient magnificent world of Abydos – now we needed to get out!? All that we had begun, and set out to do, would have to wait - wait until . . . when will we ever go back?</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I had arrived in mid-December to wrap up the excavation of a tomb that has been a sort of long-term project. I began in 2004, my first time in Egypt, excavating the structure for the NYU's Institute of Fine Arts </span><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/academics/abydos/abydos-current.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Abydos Excavations</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and </span><a href="http://research.brown.edu/research/profile.php?id=1217874154"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dr. Laurel Bestock</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> (now at Brown University). I returned to the ancient site of Abydos – about 500 km south of Cairo - in 2008 and then again this December. The work and the people I met, Egyptians and Westerners, drew me back. I was engrossed by the execution of the work more than the project objectives, hooked by the shift in my perspective and the challenge to my assumptions.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW58m0SHG9YJ8kLbQijKhOBNGEQuTdpWJVJ_P8UudI9y2vJIGt9dgA5AKr1_oJVcNPohEq3tlT3eqWNRhXXyvJluhlq0358t3KSFqMINma-Lu0MtvekCBcxD6fftAG0sn3dF8yg08RN2U/s1600/me+and+q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW58m0SHG9YJ8kLbQijKhOBNGEQuTdpWJVJ_P8UudI9y2vJIGt9dgA5AKr1_oJVcNPohEq3tlT3eqWNRhXXyvJluhlq0358t3KSFqMINma-Lu0MtvekCBcxD6fftAG0sn3dF8yg08RN2U/s320/me+and+q.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So many relationships cannot be maintained through an Internet. These are the relationships that form organically when working side by side, slowly bridging a language barrier, and experiencing cultural exchanges where much is in the subtext. It is in the way we greet each other, acknowledge the other, work with care toward a goal, remove a burial, or brush a 500 B.C. mud brick wall for a photograph. A morning greeting translates to something like, "Morning of light (good morning)! How are you? Well? Good, thank God! How is everything? Fine? Thanks be to God."</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHggn93rZmtx8oVvdQnrv3jdj2Hwt26R8E5-gC5ctu7C7AYsRv6gDCCx9zuU-cmHa6ByMuONWQGzcp35JaB6VHuEck76NCteFDU_i02wYdgHs1DYUBnedpPof7TyqZy-BK0b-9Vop0n78/s1600/workmen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="136" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHggn93rZmtx8oVvdQnrv3jdj2Hwt26R8E5-gC5ctu7C7AYsRv6gDCCx9zuU-cmHa6ByMuONWQGzcp35JaB6VHuEck76NCteFDU_i02wYdgHs1DYUBnedpPof7TyqZy-BK0b-9Vop0n78/s320/workmen.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Over several decades, excavations in Abydos have supported the development of important professional relationships. Each excavation season people in the surrounding area </span><a href="http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/fineart/academics/abydos/abydos-lifeonsite.htm"><span style="color: #102bc6; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">work with Western research projects</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and are accustomed to the arrival of archaeologists – even looking forward to the economic opportunity. But many relationships run deeper – there are friendships with families, people who have watched each other grow up, gotten married, had children. The business of excavation is layered, and always demanding in unexpected ways. Modesty on the part of each gender is essential to respect. Communication is almost immediately required of us – Westerners must make attempts to grasp as much of the language and as fast as possible in order to function. It’s all very intense and challenging, and so too the rewards are high. But this time everything ended very differently, quickly. Instead of departing after a long work season the archaeological effort was disbanded under extraordinary circumstances. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCUTVwtFgL7HUyD1iuTPhxXFcrkF2yNd4v3VEjViHnvcgUh2QUtRgWnAys9IiNK-JwkZTjac3U5108XKOkdkzlBNkRfEU2Ngq7sYIqMug94QPbjioQWGeEQqeq-_aDqrqXe60BgDUSFOE/s1600/plane_out.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCUTVwtFgL7HUyD1iuTPhxXFcrkF2yNd4v3VEjViHnvcgUh2QUtRgWnAys9IiNK-JwkZTjac3U5108XKOkdkzlBNkRfEU2Ngq7sYIqMug94QPbjioQWGeEQqeq-_aDqrqXe60BgDUSFOE/s320/plane_out.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We all must wait for the birth of a new Egypt. That's what's happening. Egyptians are re-making themselves. The Egyptian people have rallied, and mightily. Witness something amazing about the human spirit and know that social movements are like wildfire, with or without Twitter and Facebook. For a week we lived with a silenced Internet, and still the protest grew (Jan 27-Feb 3). And the peaceful unfolding of events in Cairo felt surprising – I had just left the city with an impression that it was chaos – maybe that was just the traffic. The city seemed threatened by it’s own waste – the voids around buildings were littered, the air an odd yellow. I knew that some Coptic Christians worked as</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span><i><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_749534627"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Zabaleen, </span></span></a></i><a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/features/2008/apr/cairo_slideshow/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">or garbage collectors,</span></span></a><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and were responsible for removing the daily castaways in the city center, bringing this refuse to their slums to sort, <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89956754"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">and even recycle</span></a>. Still the scale of the task seemed impossible. And life in these <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/11/23/131544220/in-cairo-slum-little-hope-for-change"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">slums seemed endless</span></a>, no reforms in sight. In November I had listened to <a href="http://www.npr.org/series/131571809/life-in-egypt-today"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">a special NPR broadcast</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">about Mubarak’s Egypt, the economy, etc., but I never expected February 11</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">th</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGsUOiGVjFxSCSgsTfEfBDKqvbdwT3AHwUbNR9ji8EEJds6H0iwTbSCy3492RefyY9-4W7kinafILP16QQcE0smz1eHI7uCl-C48dhES4n5wAJhaerUryti43C1mC0j5V6XYwbsFCAXkQ/s1600/out+window.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGsUOiGVjFxSCSgsTfEfBDKqvbdwT3AHwUbNR9ji8EEJds6H0iwTbSCy3492RefyY9-4W7kinafILP16QQcE0smz1eHI7uCl-C48dhES4n5wAJhaerUryti43C1mC0j5V6XYwbsFCAXkQ/s320/out+window.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I assumed, wrongly, that the people were defeated after all these years of Mubarak. I thought such spirit would have withered under his three decades - but the resilience of the human heart prevails - what organization en masse! I never imagined </span><span style="color: #262626;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzdOLXLoes&feature=related"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Asmaa Mahfouz, Organizer of Demonstrations</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, was out there. And yet, she was – and emboldened - sending an amazing message out across the Internet </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/8/asmaa_mahfouz_the_youtube_video_that"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">January 18th</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> All the times I had been in Cairo, I thought it most disastrous, purely post-</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">apocalyptic</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">. Air I couldn't see through, shouldn't </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">breathe</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">, corrupted water, corrupted politicians, and devastating poverty. On my last commute out of Cairo (a three hour ordeal) to get on the Western Desert Highway and head south toward Abydos, I thought hard about this part of the earth. How long could it all hold up, I wondered: the land, the water, the people. Radiating out from Cairo across all occupied desert along the Nile River Valley, I saw so much of the same. It always looked to me like a place coming undone, where, soon, life would be untenable.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibjSlzNGb2z7Gay-OjNo13qkZA8TVGH2obJ5k-aHUZeZ3tosdz42SYH5iLKrLjq_I5EffER84YEDTCCvPo3ZBQs0UV4Cn2JBbVdZY9nmdU8L2jWsQjrN4-02ZR9bVMHy0KLusxxpc_MFk/s1600/nile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibjSlzNGb2z7Gay-OjNo13qkZA8TVGH2obJ5k-aHUZeZ3tosdz42SYH5iLKrLjq_I5EffER84YEDTCCvPo3ZBQs0UV4Cn2JBbVdZY9nmdU8L2jWsQjrN4-02ZR9bVMHy0KLusxxpc_MFk/s320/nile.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But there <i>are</i> people, citizens of the desert, who <i>had</i> not withered, and were filled with deep and justified dissatisfaction and the saving grace of awareness. They reared up, combined their strength. The seeds, wherever they fell, grew up over some 30 years, undiminished - and a powerful current spread this germ far and wide, because its root is truth. The Mubarak regime was wrong, had lost sight of human rights, and abandoned those they should have justly governed. The regime neglected many millions of people, and prospered – until now. On February 11th, these millions (finally) overthrew a regime, and, after all their banded-together efforts, had an all night street party!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">People all over the world are watching you Egypt, are watching you Tunisia, are watching you Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Libya, Algeria. (And, even, watching American states, e.g. </span><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/15/wisconsin_governor_launches_attack_on_public"><span style="color: #102bc6; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Madison, Wisconsin</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> where governor Scott Walker talks about deploying the National Guard to put an end to <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/25/protesters_expect_100_000_in_madison"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">labor protests</span></a>.) People around us, around the world - are struggling against tyranny, even to the point of death, to the point of self-immulation. So strong is this conviction! The idea, once fully embraced, that we are wronged and must be free, could lead one’s mind to sacrifice one’s body. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The spirit is tireless and maybe bodiless - we catch it as it moves: a current, a thing electric, invigorating - you know it because you sense it; it reaches even into an insulated mind and into an insular worldview. When you look at a people, or an individual, rage against an abject and hopeless existence, your perspective shifts forever. What can I say in the face of that? The world we’re making is changing – and with tremendous and heavy effort. I see the cruel disparity people are expected to live with. <i>Seriously - how long before the whole population of repressed people everywhere stand up?</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I sat on the roof of our house in the desert the last morning I was in Abydos, and I asked Doha – a woman from Cairo who was happy to return to her home, just as I made my way back to New Mexico – what she wanted to say to anyone looking in on events in Egypt. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR4F0Ks63HA"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">This is her message - Egyptians want what everyone wants - a good, fair life (click on this link to hear her tell it).</span></a></span></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-33337970827736438792011-02-02T04:37:00.000-07:002011-02-02T04:37:36.267-07:00leaving egypt<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI5BTK8R9EGg7PpvksOb2iudZvW6fXJWlRPnfN4j0XNHTyd89VEvfChH3rsR5ahAUp4prT2a1uaKU3W0vpwqQeXp5HVnFllBK1DztrsSI4zZI52jHY5ZXhDGk8-45hT79Ql4Irr6jhB18/s1600/chaves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI5BTK8R9EGg7PpvksOb2iudZvW6fXJWlRPnfN4j0XNHTyd89VEvfChH3rsR5ahAUp4prT2a1uaKU3W0vpwqQeXp5HVnFllBK1DztrsSI4zZI52jHY5ZXhDGk8-45hT79Ql4Irr6jhB18/s320/chaves.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>My survey partner (above) and I are leaving this desert country - trading it for another . . . one we hear is under snow. New Mexico - unpredictable weather and those predictably excellent skies. Please keep your eye on the news and some of your best thoughts on us. We'll all be fine, and so will this ancient stuff. It can wait for another season. But it is so sad to leave some dear friends and especially at a time when their nation is in turmoil.<br />
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Homeward bound!<br />
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xo,<br />
Gaea<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQA4qT9DOyOKYqFbtPhrEw0sdvZ0xeoFWBzuJ1BjlXdyezxTmHQyyN4dWQEgk4v-ZFa0AhHzjU-aMB2kJTpYQDmwzephwyeDMKjDwkxkpFvR3LaQMmQuWlz1eAc_ecIK9U9LXP-d1fSzs/s1600/leaving.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQA4qT9DOyOKYqFbtPhrEw0sdvZ0xeoFWBzuJ1BjlXdyezxTmHQyyN4dWQEgk4v-ZFa0AhHzjU-aMB2kJTpYQDmwzephwyeDMKjDwkxkpFvR3LaQMmQuWlz1eAc_ecIK9U9LXP-d1fSzs/s320/leaving.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-15777582591036591422011-01-24T01:06:00.000-07:002011-01-24T01:06:07.317-07:00when digging up bones . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhye3xkrT2E4LAuXrQVTMhhUKwqMo61fYZFoku7Sz5susq7c03iXzobT-amRVEWHgLyuAfNGTtWeLtHZZKvcuKUSZfmtAg8DyzgKGEyUFrQN-5X70EhshoAVY9TkjuYXWzUiTxpYUKJYs0/s1600/all_in_grave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhye3xkrT2E4LAuXrQVTMhhUKwqMo61fYZFoku7Sz5susq7c03iXzobT-amRVEWHgLyuAfNGTtWeLtHZZKvcuKUSZfmtAg8DyzgKGEyUFrQN-5X70EhshoAVY9TkjuYXWzUiTxpYUKJYs0/s320/all_in_grave.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">My mother walks through cemeteries – it’s a habit she has. She likes how peaceful they are and she’s curious about the people at rest. When I was a teenager I walked with her through groomed graveyards, in the fall, in Connecticut. Later, we visited cemeteries made lively and floral for Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead – in San Antonio, Texas. We looked over the tombstones of another era and wondered about the lives lived between the dash, between date of birth and date of death. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And now I’ve gotten comfortable excavating human remains (this feels like a weird sentence to write), but the tedious work of removal is my focus. This season one burial was different and made me think about the people whose skeletons rested, still and brittle. We exposed several skulls within a few minutes of excavation, until we had a total of four. We slowly exposed the rest of the skeletons (often the skulls are easy to clear, but the ribs, and so many other fragile parts, take hours to properly expose). As I looked upon these bodies, laid together - I related to them, whoever they were.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here was the skeleton of an adult, and on those bones were two children, and to the side of the adult, an infant. Something happened to these people and it happened all at once. Maybe it was disease or famine, but not likely anything unseemly, besides death. They were interred with care. I mapped the assemblage of femurs and tibias, ulnas, tiny and large, and mandibles with baby teeth. I drew them how they were interred - and how that had decayed. The right arm of the adult lay under the right arm of one child, as if it was reaching around its skeletal pelvis, holding it. It was all so tender – holding children in the eternal night. Placed this way it seemed a message traveled through time; it was a moment I could understand. Here was love and loss. I wrote practical notes, took measurements and other standard field practices – but I also felt moved by the circumstance of their mass death. And one day soon the biological anthropologist will examine those human remains and will say more about them – about their physical bodies and maybe about their lives. But so much time has passed, and those who knew them have passed. Much will never be known. The life they had, in some ways, remains secret forever.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyOunEju-TqPWu1-cclRdfLoBOdWxtE0pBnAuYRESJ_vKmrOEK9RN1bh75Ue-bOj6KNse8Msb_VunxmtGcMjGbKG4dMcx8fM1c3U2udP1wxd43byB9TFuwvp0RFsJaHk8yznWM3Hf5nbs/s1600/gaea+in+tomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyOunEju-TqPWu1-cclRdfLoBOdWxtE0pBnAuYRESJ_vKmrOEK9RN1bh75Ue-bOj6KNse8Msb_VunxmtGcMjGbKG4dMcx8fM1c3U2udP1wxd43byB9TFuwvp0RFsJaHk8yznWM3Hf5nbs/s320/gaea+in+tomb.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-85167597682343107392011-01-19T04:06:00.002-07:002014-11-08T11:14:47.225-07:00the dead . . . are not far off<div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj20QNwsZWxbQ8Z8yQZaLWVtORn6ykxXmA2R0AUanWsdc8RiTlolIWXDD-_obkKXNYacfBCDuNDSgA7UlqxUcXh7WjAoJOT9jnCwiVfhaxqS1BpoYdnpkwVuKX6gL_QEorEtrdCV73omP0/s1600/skull.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj20QNwsZWxbQ8Z8yQZaLWVtORn6ykxXmA2R0AUanWsdc8RiTlolIWXDD-_obkKXNYacfBCDuNDSgA7UlqxUcXh7WjAoJOT9jnCwiVfhaxqS1BpoYdnpkwVuKX6gL_QEorEtrdCV73omP0/s320/skull.jpg" height="165" width="320" /></a></div>
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For four weeks I’ve been digging in a landscape <i>filled </i>with graves. Human remains are a frequent “find.” They are often disarticulated; skeletons lost from themselves with nothing holding them but shifting sand. As we find them, complete or in part, I map and remove them from an excavation area. I do this work along with a crew of Egyptian men and boys, but mostly with a man, Ahmed, who is about my father’s age. I speak simple, half-sentences in Arabic, so I’m often quiet. There’s a lot to do when digging up bones – not time to imagine the bones with living skin and pumping blood. The occupant is gone, left its frame, and centuries have passed. In the time that disconnects us, all the people who knew them have passed on too. It is interesting to work on the old bones, but never sad; the gulf between us is too great. </div>
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Before sunrise, I walk a path to our excavation. My feet crunch across wind churned objects in the sand. I see pottery and mud brick bits ages old, and a person’s toe bone. In the same sweep - a chip bag, a sleeve with a pearl snap button, date pits, and donkey droppings. In a low spot between dunes is a carcass of a large mammal (probably mummifying naturally), and plastic bits – all sorts. I step over a bright white eye-socket (from a human skull). It’s given me something to think on - there’s more to this walk. The sand is part inorganic; it impresses me as a mundane context. In it, and grain-sized, are the remains of people, and what they built. It’s everything that ever was, but fragmented and less recognizable.<br />
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We really do - quite literally - become dust. I can see it here, beneath my feet, the return to the earth. And the earth will process our parts back into its stratigraphic record - even the plastic and cultural discards of this age. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNLSAVdXjyb2kSgWgdrUlasXyknmul62VUJ7CYEWKrV-6wZSo8s4ItDCOmirUZbDf33sFGij9FhB9riOzKapVMnliqtu3N_nHo04Ekuj958aKI3aTrRGSL0HhsHGTxF-zmcAhX5FVOsv4/s1600/q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNLSAVdXjyb2kSgWgdrUlasXyknmul62VUJ7CYEWKrV-6wZSo8s4ItDCOmirUZbDf33sFGij9FhB9riOzKapVMnliqtu3N_nHo04Ekuj958aKI3aTrRGSL0HhsHGTxF-zmcAhX5FVOsv4/s320/q.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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This is Ahmed at our job.</div>
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gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-40713520517742776752010-12-25T05:41:00.000-07:002010-12-25T05:41:58.048-07:00abydos<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXmKWDnZJ6EeEii6uOpwAHUdg-tiT17Q0b4aBtvU2qNSA3ha4OU327V4l8hRVf75egK5BN3g7KYY8SpOFo8zsamMwAomD6o2PcX5Oe3D06lOGDWoqWkV_ESHKcq0cZPafRSN_682Zuuzs/s1600/sunrise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="144" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXmKWDnZJ6EeEii6uOpwAHUdg-tiT17Q0b4aBtvU2qNSA3ha4OU327V4l8hRVf75egK5BN3g7KYY8SpOFo8zsamMwAomD6o2PcX5Oe3D06lOGDWoqWkV_ESHKcq0cZPafRSN_682Zuuzs/s320/sunrise.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
It seems that if I time-traveled back to an ancient Egypt, if I was part of a society on this very same piece of earth, but thousands of years ago, I would be preparing for the afterlife. Or thinking about it, or making appropriate offerings - hoping that the god, along his procession way, would notice my efforts. There is a procession way out here in the desert sands, sort of. At least, the archaeological evidence speaks to a great deal of activity with another plane in mind. Shrines, graves, subterranean tombs, and funerary structures of all kinds, constructed over centuries, were built as portals connecting the present to the eternal. The living were involved in relationships with those who had crossed into another realm. I cannot, in good conscience, call this other realm the place of the dead because it seems so lively and populated - at least it was viewed as such. No wonder some folks today ponder the likelihood that ancient Egyptians were in cahoots with alien beings. They were in communion, in their hearts and minds, with their ancestors and gods.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zk5Yj6x2bQg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-3823154833993357612010-12-21T10:02:00.002-07:002012-03-08T12:28:04.877-07:00cairo and carcinogens<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOyGOjmqXoKzWNiSuaMLzztahkrz5oiQzw8PnbWGHkYgIyG1iiZ6RMS0M0bb0Txj7GON675xjpHSGGpHPSBXQu7CIPaZ_yI0JOBZ_EM32U3ZiENJ4Df2jp7dotqCaoKV-xblq-JYKu1c/s1600/cairo_face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOyGOjmqXoKzWNiSuaMLzztahkrz5oiQzw8PnbWGHkYgIyG1iiZ6RMS0M0bb0Txj7GON675xjpHSGGpHPSBXQu7CIPaZ_yI0JOBZ_EM32U3ZiENJ4Df2jp7dotqCaoKV-xblq-JYKu1c/s320/cairo_face.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A fine layer of particulate settles on everything, the first strata toward an archaeological record. It rests on leaves and vertical walls, a patina of the tailpipe era. Zamalek, Cairo’s diplomatic quarter and an island in the Nile, is architecturally rooted in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century. Its packed-in structures (both colonial and boxy modern) are graying. I followed my colleague and friend – he remembers the winding path much better than I - to the art supply store, a coffee shop, and a fair trade store. We passed fruit vendors and souvenir shops. I bought a pomegranate stirring those neurons, with any memory of Arabic, to life. We walked until an unfamiliar weariness filled us. Jet lag? Less oxygenated air?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZXzoz_GPB-FuHstEltn_jnxSTtF8dNS4iDgLirNzTFfC39SblhbG3GiTQCtInSzeuN5BXbzvSZLnvpoBgCNkwEx2PS57Bka5paU5xteydiBb7clF09I1ffaHhyphenhyphen3puUMChhwypB6-C_5A/s1600/cairo_nile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZXzoz_GPB-FuHstEltn_jnxSTtF8dNS4iDgLirNzTFfC39SblhbG3GiTQCtInSzeuN5BXbzvSZLnvpoBgCNkwEx2PS57Bka5paU5xteydiBb7clF09I1ffaHhyphenhyphen3puUMChhwypB6-C_5A/s320/cairo_nile.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The night before I pushed 100 lbs of luggage through customs and bargained for a taxi. Rush hour traffic gave us close to two hours (and it can take 30 minutes) for the sensory barrage. Cairo is absolutely packed. Somehow everything ancient and contemporary, coexist. It feels dilapidated, shabby, and sheik, and it’s never still or quiet. Even the call to prayer, five times a day, echoing from hundreds of mosques, seems to slow the city half a beat. It feels voracious – devouring, dividing, – a metastasized city world. Traffic made five and six lanes where four were printed on pavement. Horn honking continues almost unabated into the earliest hours. But how else could you survive this migration? The sidewalks are broken and always ending, leaving people to wade through traffic. The man, navigating this driving tetris, bringing me to the <a href="vvvvhttp://www.flamencohotels.com/Tulip/Tulip.htm">Golden Tulip Hotel Flamenco</a> in Zamalek, does this job night and day - but says he likes Cairo best at night.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7w5mMn7M_K36oX0qqaK7g11TVEVGgN7rV8bCrMQo2sxP4CV8duzLnv4GH3-0iTont15hyphenhyphenWLFxz9qoXIieSgvQ8Ct2RpWlPX3XAY4uFZpwKEUGWUEBm57h9UDuQLMJ4zVPwW7rWjTXVIA/s1600/cairo1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7w5mMn7M_K36oX0qqaK7g11TVEVGgN7rV8bCrMQo2sxP4CV8duzLnv4GH3-0iTont15hyphenhyphenWLFxz9qoXIieSgvQ8Ct2RpWlPX3XAY4uFZpwKEUGWUEBm57h9UDuQLMJ4zVPwW7rWjTXVIA/s320/cairo1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div><div class="MsoNormal">Cairo is one <a href="http://www.allcountries.org/air_pollution.html">of the most polluted cities in the world</a> – surely one of the most polluted I’ve been to. There’s much to explore and enjoy in this outrageous city world. Cairo is often the place that comes to mind when one utters “Egypt.” Maybe Egypt conjures a resting sphinx or rising pyramids. Those places are here too; the city grows under the gaze of these monuments, and a wall stops them from growing right up over top.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-37087076302739968292010-12-17T23:43:00.000-07:002010-12-17T23:43:27.859-07:00american research center in abydos<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYJTl-YGKkXBFaPm2idSQNIe6azttHoS4pI5gq25yZeoxbHjemmCAwIOJo2iBcxfN4KJJMyDKinEOtCu1jgCHe5Yw8s-CUAfcCOLqVz2LjMRjFqvpxRMTGIQYt1YKbAx52Pc6R7Y4L3E0/s1600/DSC07810.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYJTl-YGKkXBFaPm2idSQNIe6azttHoS4pI5gq25yZeoxbHjemmCAwIOJo2iBcxfN4KJJMyDKinEOtCu1jgCHe5Yw8s-CUAfcCOLqVz2LjMRjFqvpxRMTGIQYt1YKbAx52Pc6R7Y4L3E0/s320/DSC07810.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m writing from the blessedly quiet American Research Center in Abydos, set down in a swale between dunes, a low spot formed by a water flow (though no water flows now). It’s 7 am December 17<sup>th</sup> - nine hours ahead of my old New Mexico time zone. Most of the team is sleeping, apart from my British friend Tim – a doctoral student at Brown University. He’s reading here in the sufra (living room) – something about Napoleon’s Egypt. It is incredibly good to be here; getting here was full of those gyrations typical to Egypt travel. We couldn’t take the train – it’s off limits for Western travelers. We rented a van, waited for a police escort (for hours!), and cruised the rough desert highway south arriving at 8pm – nearly 12 hours after our planned departure. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This still, cool morning is refreshing after Cairo – and a calm before the commotion of the dig, which we’ll begin tomorrow. </div><!--EndFragment-->gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-73152591088650835212010-06-04T12:03:00.023-06:002014-01-06T13:39:26.215-07:00utah - we need this wilderness<span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bmJMsfKJ76lzSyVXO4o0dbdDTdnT6WDJZhIkJb9YmEmyV46r428J_NrFQZANkUre3ILut3xgAvW5udMHlXcds3bHeb3AJlz9BlM8RgXIE0Uh5cx8B8j3YpSi3w8Os19kQjvtrGag57s/s1600/blue+flower.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bmJMsfKJ76lzSyVXO4o0dbdDTdnT6WDJZhIkJb9YmEmyV46r428J_NrFQZANkUre3ILut3xgAvW5udMHlXcds3bHeb3AJlz9BlM8RgXIE0Uh5cx8B8j3YpSi3w8Os19kQjvtrGag57s/s400/blue+flower.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480106328294250482" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 300px;" /></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">Utah - for some a land of promise. </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"> For me, this is the landscape of </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"><a href="http://www.abbeyweb.net/introduction.html">Ed Abbey</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Tempest_Williams">Terry Tempest Williams.</a> I'm northeast of the </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 100%;"><a href="http://cpluhna.nau.edu/Places/aquarius_plateau.htm">Aquarius Plateau</a>, </span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">the</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"> territory Wallace Stegner referred to in his 1960 Wilderness Letter as a <span style="font-style: italic;">lively and terrible wilderness</span>.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">I'm here to visit my own park ranger mom and my dad now living in <a href="http://www.nps.gov/care/index.htm">Capitol Reef</a>. </span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">They're living in an <span style="font-style: italic;">eden</span> called Fruita, in orchards established by settlers in the 1880s and watered by the Fremont River and Sulfur Creek. This community has its own history - you may learn more <a href="http://www.nps.gov/care/historyculture/fruita.htm">here</a>.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI387ASSwnqPNiizlphSJasailZjWcH9o8bscLdTYrhLnCu-FfLiWtMt5BohL9OHSk67SjMhyxogMTirIQ-QrflTCWWOd4rqHeV_O1cMjWHjcTUlI0S4MGMFgPhAQCtWLwIRPEoUCdgWQ/s1600/orchard.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI387ASSwnqPNiizlphSJasailZjWcH9o8bscLdTYrhLnCu-FfLiWtMt5BohL9OHSk67SjMhyxogMTirIQ-QrflTCWWOd4rqHeV_O1cMjWHjcTUlI0S4MGMFgPhAQCtWLwIRPEoUCdgWQ/s400/orchard.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480106322793565378" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">Capitol Reef became a national monument in <a href="http://www.nps.gov/care/historyculture/index.htm">1937</a>, but the geography we see as a part of the monument has been desert, then sea, then desert, and sea again - each era a layer, each strata a story of an older earth. The newer and intrusive layers mark volcanic eruptions or coagulated magma - cooled then exposed, like caps atop the red sandstone. The layers have character. The Dakota sandstone is full of mussel shells.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij55XiZQybBgVcvGeueEhZ2OzZJdtheAVE0VPqmFPSiRVBIfdSFwxwP9UnbvW9UMr_wJ8r8tZuZeiOGPnbJZEOaBLVoOkbfvUujH-a34H5Wf36F6YYkVboXjR46TwM35dWOYVh-WkJpfs/s1600/shell.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij55XiZQybBgVcvGeueEhZ2OzZJdtheAVE0VPqmFPSiRVBIfdSFwxwP9UnbvW9UMr_wJ8r8tZuZeiOGPnbJZEOaBLVoOkbfvUujH-a34H5Wf36F6YYkVboXjR46TwM35dWOYVh-WkJpfs/s400/shell.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480104708784872674" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">The Chinle formation is the most colorful. It's green, gray, and burgundy composition, ready for O'Keeffe, was a swampland that decayed into bright and curdled hills. 275 million years of the earth's history is exposed in uplift and canyon drainage. </span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO7jzh8Qx3e8aZI-RL6wQS_T7Pqje1z_lqYgify7s8MYLVUpjag8bRLXrd7iQQmAZqA1bhLd6splY8imgB8eGf7s-X6kCO2ICiMhUE4vQ_QQP3pQSrO9XoKLcEs53i-zljmWoQ4ALZxy8/s1600/gray+layer.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" style="font-family: georgia;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO7jzh8Qx3e8aZI-RL6wQS_T7Pqje1z_lqYgify7s8MYLVUpjag8bRLXrd7iQQmAZqA1bhLd6splY8imgB8eGf7s-X6kCO2ICiMhUE4vQ_QQP3pQSrO9XoKLcEs53i-zljmWoQ4ALZxy8/s400/gray+layer.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480104703755872226" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 220px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">For its grandeur we've made it a national park. Set it aside - a protected space that we keep safe even from ourselves. And it contributes to the health of our psyches. We need to see that we have foresight as evidenced by safely kept wild lands. We need to see that we today, and our predecessors too - carefully conceived of, and continue to understand, the fact that we are nature and we need nature. We need a place like this terrible wilderness especially now, while oil floods out into the Gulf of Mexico - as it has for more than 50 days after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig.</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">Wallace Stegner's <a href="http://wilderness.org/content/wilderness-letter">Wilderness Letter</a> made me understand that even if I come only to its edge - I need wilderness to exist. Not only I, but all of us. He said we are a wild species - and something will go out of us should we lose our wild places. He wrote in that letter a paragraph about the very place I am now exploring. </span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 100%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">". . . let me suggest the Robbers' Roost country in Wayne County, Utah, near the Capitol Reef National Monument. In that desert climate the dozer and jeep tracks will not soon melt back into the earth, but the country has a way of making the scars insignificant. It is a lovely and terrible wilderness, such as wilderness as Christ and the prophets went out into; harshly and beautifully colored, broken and worn until its bones are exposed, its great sky without a smudge of taint from Technocracy, and in hidden corners and pockets under its cliffs the sudden poetry of springs. Save a piece of country like that intact, and it does not matter in the slightest that only a few people every year will go into it. That is precisely its value. Roads would be a desecration, crowds would ruin it. But those who haven't the strength or youth to go into it and live can simply sit and look. They can look two hundred miles, clear into Colorado: and looking down over the cliffs and canyons of the San Rafael Swell and the Robbers' Roost they can also look as deeply into themselves as anywhere I know. And if they can't even get to the places on the Aquarius Plateau where the present roads will carry them, they can simply contemplate the idea, take pleasure in the fact that such a timeless and uncontrolled part of earth is still there. "</span><br /><br />(This excerpt of Stegner's letter was posted by <a href="http://wilderness.org/content/wilderness-letter">The Wilderness Society</a>).</span><span style="font-size: 100%;"><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkBpewBfS1jU47bRvChhCxXQCzdXkmEgHTk3A_fH2sYau1LHdEsUpujm1sPq8P4VwKwwOUwIm69WI3kdJck7GsJo8g-JcSoszViH8Lso56opeyR8Dn74bLsckDGLeWQRKRUibgvXZjDsM/s1600/mom+and+dad+in+slot.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkBpewBfS1jU47bRvChhCxXQCzdXkmEgHTk3A_fH2sYau1LHdEsUpujm1sPq8P4VwKwwOUwIm69WI3kdJck7GsJo8g-JcSoszViH8Lso56opeyR8Dn74bLsckDGLeWQRKRUibgvXZjDsM/s400/mom+and+dad+in+slot.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480115835226599090" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 373px;" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"><br />But on this trip we did more than come to the edge of the wild - we went in. We walked through skinny canyons, soaked our feet, suffered fierce wind and even stubbed our toes in a manner that would make Ed Abbey proud. He was a park ranger too - and was faced with a predicament still a challenge in even the most beautiful places. That is - to make people get out and see them, not only drive through them.</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;">"What can I tell them? Sealed in their m</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;"><span id="enclosures-toggles">e</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">tallic shells like mollusks on wheels, how can I pry the people free? The auto as tin can, the park ranger as opener. Look here, I want to say, for godsake folks get out of them there machines, take off those fucking sunglasses and unpeel both eyeballs, look around; throw away those goddamned idiotic cameras! For chrissake folks what is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare? Take off your shoes for a while, unzip your fly, piss hearty, dig your toes in the hot sand, feel that raw and rugged earth, split a couple of big toenails, draw blood! Why not? Jesus Christ, lady, roll that window down! You can't see the desert if you can't smell it! Dusty! Of course it's dusty - this is Utah! But it's good dust, good red Utahn dust, rich in iron, rich in irony."</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wanderingseeing.net/ReviewsHTML/DesertSolitaire.htm">Desert Solitaire</a>, Ed Abbey<br /><a href="http://www.wanderingseeing.net/ReviewsHTML/DesertSolitaire.htm"> </a></span><br />
<div style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWPQxDVqXhUHMKGeqS7QllnMiUKgFQ-hYsUwIuxWLvZL9FUInN8MAYRGGCaDgui1Bd5AhHhyphenhyphenq9flcEDZRKVfk0gdOcG36JVFAJtQETUOqYfEYSn33MdL_CZUPtWE8WUO1iCTNv6lzNbm4/s1600/road+and+cloud.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWPQxDVqXhUHMKGeqS7QllnMiUKgFQ-hYsUwIuxWLvZL9FUInN8MAYRGGCaDgui1Bd5AhHhyphenhyphenq9flcEDZRKVfk0gdOcG36JVFAJtQETUOqYfEYSn33MdL_CZUPtWE8WUO1iCTNv6lzNbm4/s400/road+and+cloud.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480106334018570146" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;">You must come here - however you visit - just do. Come to its edge, watch a sunset, and maybe leave your metal mollusk shell. I think you will be compelled. The night sky is protected from the haze our cities shoot out toward space. You will see stars, planets, and maybe skipping meteors.<br /><br />I leave you with Stegner's closing words. These are the words that make me sure we can keep sane if only we un-hunch ourselves from our machines, our devices . . lean back on solid rock and gaze <span style="font-style: italic;">out</span>.</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 100%; font-style: italic;">"We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope."</span> <br />
<div style="font-family: georgia; font-style: italic;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;">Very sincerely yours,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;">Wallace Stegner<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWPQxDVqXhUHMKGeqS7QllnMiUKgFQ-hYsUwIuxWLvZL9FUInN8MAYRGGCaDgui1Bd5AhHhyphenhyphenq9flcEDZRKVfk0gdOcG36JVFAJtQETUOqYfEYSn33MdL_CZUPtWE8WUO1iCTNv6lzNbm4/s1600/road+and+cloud.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><br /></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWPQxDVqXhUHMKGeqS7QllnMiUKgFQ-hYsUwIuxWLvZL9FUInN8MAYRGGCaDgui1Bd5AhHhyphenhyphenq9flcEDZRKVfk0gdOcG36JVFAJtQETUOqYfEYSn33MdL_CZUPtWE8WUO1iCTNv6lzNbm4/s1600/road+and+cloud.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}">___________________</a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;">And very sincerely yours,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;">Gaea McGahee</span></div>
<div style="font-family: georgia;">
<span style="font-size: 100%;">Now I must go out - to a summer full of the backcountry - on the <a href="http://www.cottonwoodgulch.org/expeditions/mdt.php">Mountain Desert Trek</a>. So long.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: 100%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 100%;"><br /></span>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-65811390671012040612010-04-22T17:19:00.006-06:002010-04-22T19:02:47.053-06:00water on earth . . . day<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRdeorgzJes9ReD_8cNC4M4fCYVITMC99UnZWP6BCSPHbUH5XOAjefZv1swe_zzMLEjh-HUNzlnTbCcPVCaUK5i604ESoKEAi0Qi0tolSn9wMWsyMHGuHNb8ZxVdqvbl45mooT5EGkIQE/s1600/flam.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 174px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRdeorgzJes9ReD_8cNC4M4fCYVITMC99UnZWP6BCSPHbUH5XOAjefZv1swe_zzMLEjh-HUNzlnTbCcPVCaUK5i604ESoKEAi0Qi0tolSn9wMWsyMHGuHNb8ZxVdqvbl45mooT5EGkIQE/s400/flam.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5463123250500441106" border="0" /></a>Today - Earth Day - let's consider water. Water drying up, dirty water, and water coming in bottles.<br /><br />Bottled water is weird. It's even unnatural! If you live in a nation where water - good for drinking - comes right out of the faucet then bottled water is a waste of money and materials. One thing that will make all our water worse is all the stuff we're putting into it. And making more bottled water (the irony) is polluting and wasting water by turning it into a commodity. Check out <span style="font-style: italic;">The Story of Stuff Project</span> and this clarifying episode on <a href="http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/?utm_source=Free+Range+Fans&utm_campaig">The Story of Bottled Water</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpkjbXATqiHW2vhw3XDzZLdXOZVSkirlQ_jo8WUna8On2qrk7bFipsRIyzNQ9kKuk6fO3CkhnNYTBC7VtIFExshQRDH6buK2Gay_rxtEmBUKPvN5-UWrGo9RlAf6BDNwMYQgRfFuarq0k/s1600/bottles.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 390px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpkjbXATqiHW2vhw3XDzZLdXOZVSkirlQ_jo8WUna8On2qrk7bFipsRIyzNQ9kKuk6fO3CkhnNYTBC7VtIFExshQRDH6buK2Gay_rxtEmBUKPvN5-UWrGo9RlAf6BDNwMYQgRfFuarq0k/s400/bottles.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5463114536048605394" border="0" /></a><br />In my travels through Peru and Bolivia, Egypt or Mexico . . . I've struggled with the bottled-water-issue because, well sometimes it's all there is to drink! By drinking it, I add to the production of plastic <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dead-sea-of-plastic-bottles">in our oceans</a> AND take in whatever plastic-y toxin is leaching out of the bottle and into its contents. Yikes! Yet in these places - where the water coming from the tap isn't safe people need clean water. Not to mention many, <span style="font-style: italic;">many</span> people don't have taps to turn on and drink from. In Bolivia I met some folks working with <a href="http://www.sodis.ch/index_EN">SODIS</a> - an organization helping educate people about a way to get purified water by using the sun's UV rays to kill bacteria. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_terephthalate">PET-plastic</a> bottles (or better yet) glass bottles filled with funky water, can be left in the sun for 6 hours allowing the sun's radiation to kill pathogens and make the water safe for drinking. This solution saves lives.<br /><br /><br />Finally, about water drying up - or being bought up, I recommend the documentary <a href="http://www.flowthefilm.com/trailer">Flow: for the love of water</a>. They offers some hearty sips for thought. The <a href="http://www.flowthefilm.com/aboutwater">facts</a> their website will link you to are shocking - 1.1 billion people on earth have no access to clean drinking water. No access. None. And this lack of water sanitation claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns (<a href="http://www.water.org/" target="_blank">www.water.org</a>).<br /><br />This <span style="font-weight: bold;">Earth Day</span> may those of us who can consider giving up the plastic bottle - or tradeing it for a glass one. And may we also consider a substance we're likely taking for granted - <span style="font-style: italic;">water</span>.gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-65445541419060854632010-04-17T14:44:00.007-06:002010-04-17T15:52:45.194-06:00what's grand in utah<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh54xwyivsOLEr7-GkRR7T8qyQ6lQ5GNRv02WfwwC3SGt5cXLu_MJVPfh2LmdDcSfYu6yerLqUVKK7im88ZfV6czsSdW3WJMwz_TPqx1B7K2KnjAPWaux-JYJ9PikGHW90-rwUc37baKQ4/s1600/banister.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh54xwyivsOLEr7-GkRR7T8qyQ6lQ5GNRv02WfwwC3SGt5cXLu_MJVPfh2LmdDcSfYu6yerLqUVKK7im88ZfV6czsSdW3WJMwz_TPqx1B7K2KnjAPWaux-JYJ9PikGHW90-rwUc37baKQ4/s400/banister.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461210547824719986" border="0" /></a>If ever you hanker for red rock canyon lands and the sense that you are an intrepid explorer head to Cedar Mesa and the <a href="http://www.utah.com/playgrounds/grand_gulch.htm">Grand Gulch</a> country of southern Utah. There you can throw on a backpack and hike into a spot like Collins Canyon where in a few hours you'll trek past Banister Ruin (above). It's well preserved thanks to the sheltered location and includes a roofed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiva">kiva</a>!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7z_K3mKSY2ef12tMdSdssvH1ix4svKas26ZtVqxTmBC9Y6JOzxX0D9dNZHkYME5TtesyltQ4dLZGoOYzUpj4-IsEVngXl-zxWzwOp5_FWOVpLfQCF_XyUcdin276WQWKLDOm7esTl34/s1600/small_ruin.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP7z_K3mKSY2ef12tMdSdssvH1ix4svKas26ZtVqxTmBC9Y6JOzxX0D9dNZHkYME5TtesyltQ4dLZGoOYzUpj4-IsEVngXl-zxWzwOp5_FWOVpLfQCF_XyUcdin276WQWKLDOm7esTl34/s400/small_ruin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461210539127546050" border="0" /></a>These places housed the ancestors of today's People people. They dot the southwest and in Grand Gulch so many are tucked away in nooks and on south-facing sandstone ledges. They have lasted for centuries - time capsules that hold the history of a people.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0pGcmeRzqA4s-1GUzL2yHYgBDJZLAldyh6B78yqOiWsAPq2loV_tPRZdYXqFIA44PHtcAJOkuYhiEpEz4IN5Qg9StSfkR8DiEpDkuwkPvLvooSsBExCLzu0JPafVRtgXEsQTreY0H-uc/s1600/store_house.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0pGcmeRzqA4s-1GUzL2yHYgBDJZLAldyh6B78yqOiWsAPq2loV_tPRZdYXqFIA44PHtcAJOkuYhiEpEz4IN5Qg9StSfkR8DiEpDkuwkPvLvooSsBExCLzu0JPafVRtgXEsQTreY0H-uc/s400/store_house.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461210531989105266" border="0" /></a>They tell us that farmers lived here - managing to create enough surplus that they needed these clever storehouses for their corn crops. The canyons are well watered for an arid land - some have running streams and productive springs. The canyon walls that sheltered families were etched on too - here a collection of petroglyphs stand out, cut through the desert varnish (stained or oxidized rock layer) to reveal the lighter rock beneath.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNX58c26aS5aeXRV91Ah6uCXq5HpdGtNM9UXEOIx7gsq1bKsG6zVT4o97Pj5H5AQDth__Q6q6HR6fh5VsIvlC7zGX3CB3dg0cY4XMNPdx5NkklaakACFyMMOcVWD04oHCqX1vwIIDbDV4/s1600/petros.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNX58c26aS5aeXRV91Ah6uCXq5HpdGtNM9UXEOIx7gsq1bKsG6zVT4o97Pj5H5AQDth__Q6q6HR6fh5VsIvlC7zGX3CB3dg0cY4XMNPdx5NkklaakACFyMMOcVWD04oHCqX1vwIIDbDV4/s400/petros.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461210530400385938" border="0" /></a>On my second morning in a canyon labyrinth I bent to scoop water. The canyon walls were close here - they seemed to be on all sides, except for the blue strip above, and reflected in the running stream.<br /><br />This places drew inhabitants for centuries, then they left and archaeologists and cowboys came. Writers, poets, and backpackers too. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Abbey">Edward Abbey</a> roamed this land long enough to correctly (I believe) observe, <span class="sqq">“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit”</span> . . how <span style="font-style: italic;">right on</span> he was - still is.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtobaIcWss3nbGQ4QcrRgTWLG-jhCr6lG324AOg6RWt3XneSjWW8MhwcgS_UwD9HwwSSL_Qzv13FJSDRDayAsqM2geeO3KCwhWWYynvWM_SAi4ZMJEpG11NislUAKS7IMdwPI5whFo5i0/s1600/reflect.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtobaIcWss3nbGQ4QcrRgTWLG-jhCr6lG324AOg6RWt3XneSjWW8MhwcgS_UwD9HwwSSL_Qzv13FJSDRDayAsqM2geeO3KCwhWWYynvWM_SAi4ZMJEpG11NislUAKS7IMdwPI5whFo5i0/s400/reflect.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461210525857947922" border="0" /></a>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-7358802333906230722010-04-12T18:38:00.013-06:002010-04-18T13:21:13.216-06:00dogs and other nationsDogs have been our companions for ages. They may be <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WTboYQ_C1U4C&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=dogs+domestication&ots=QR4_LWQKwp&sig=vsKGy7oykI2mE56MWGRkkErb20c#v=onepage&q=dogs%20domestication&f=false">descended from wolves </a>or several species from the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Canidea</span> family, but we know we became fond of them long, long ago. In the southwest we can find their bones in the <a href="http://www.cdarc.org/pdf/arch-sw-v22-no3.pdf">archaeological record</a> sometimes buried with a person or with careful attention to their grave. Maybe they were offerings, maybe hunting companions or traveling companions. In the cool of a rock shelter, maybe they were warm sleepers. It's true that there are cut marks on some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">disarticulated</span> bones. Perhaps some were eaten.<br /><br />How we feel about our own dogs today is fairly diverse too. Some have jobs, some have homes, some I saw in Bolivia ran in packs and foraged for their food. The dog I knew was the kind of person I think of when I read <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Henry</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Beston's</span> view of animals.<br /><br />"<em>We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.</em>"<br /><a href="http://www.henrybeston.com/about.html">— </a><a href="http://www.henrybeston.com/about.html" class="authorNameRegular" title="view all quotes by Henry Beston">Henry <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Beston</span></a><br /><br />I'm glad that as human beings we have for centuries founded <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">friendships</span> with these animal nations - to better enjoy the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">splendors</span> and face the travails of life on earth.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhos6e-aUPBgLUkZwAXF9Riu9SNZYw3vj1HF_07B4GApJzgJzNaqXhiC1qLUhRGPMOV-m2ryQYRNmpwD3Zx-z7N5uPY48wVnaUQs9ygJR1BuZ9gManuNeq-euyGleP9SFUUQ400o7iog/s1600/hanna_beach_dog_b_w.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXhos6e-aUPBgLUkZwAXF9Riu9SNZYw3vj1HF_07B4GApJzgJzNaqXhiC1qLUhRGPMOV-m2ryQYRNmpwD3Zx-z7N5uPY48wVnaUQs9ygJR1BuZ9gManuNeq-euyGleP9SFUUQ400o7iog/s400/hanna_beach_dog_b_w.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5461201785363086482" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;">Hanna pup<br />2000 - 2010</span><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br />A dog's life must be a big adventure - and yours was . . . archaeological expeditions, escapes from peril, you were content with travel, dreaming rabbit-chase dreams. You kept us all company - you, a most loyal friend. Good dog. Good dog!<br /><br /><br /></div></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-19331445223836171622010-03-20T21:41:00.004-06:002010-03-20T22:27:31.107-06:00dogs rule . . the beach<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsmzitpYuXf8JzvmqxlmJkcI3ZRlq272KHMHri9FAs1dE6NH1ffdv54Ivib9gndAqDU8VKBjRf_PUQ3YQoFOJZeT08NCdfRZW9ZbjUZ74puU3A3KTcX2g2gPdKze1t4k42Ieo4n_RpIfM/s1600-h/beach_dog_scene.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsmzitpYuXf8JzvmqxlmJkcI3ZRlq272KHMHri9FAs1dE6NH1ffdv54Ivib9gndAqDU8VKBjRf_PUQ3YQoFOJZeT08NCdfRZW9ZbjUZ74puU3A3KTcX2g2gPdKze1t4k42Ieo4n_RpIfM/s400/beach_dog_scene.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450934522043926066" border="0" /></a>In San Fransisco we found the <a href="http://www.sfdogparks.com/Fort_Funston.html">Fort Funston Dog Park </a>- a land sculpted by the forces of nature and the footfalls of domestic packs. The dog-walkers of the city bring their charges down to the ocean and unleash them - literally. Very few pups were still tethered to a human counter-part. Leaving the city behind people and pets find freedom together or apart. People hang-glide from the cliffs, or para-sail, hike, rest, paint - all with dogs on the loose, descending dunes and running into waves. What a land-scape of escape! <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP8WYIQVUEu588ZJr0VAGf-fD_AKVuP1dNC5Obetwdh529ca8p6lFTvOh1A726MGjgfjlqgL7Q7Wp3ZTjJv9qi_HVUCtne9GvzhksA11-rvFEBEG1KMDlL-uLiMaNmQgHtDHE4WObvJXI/s1600-h/dog_buda1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 166px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP8WYIQVUEu588ZJr0VAGf-fD_AKVuP1dNC5Obetwdh529ca8p6lFTvOh1A726MGjgfjlqgL7Q7Wp3ZTjJv9qi_HVUCtne9GvzhksA11-rvFEBEG1KMDlL-uLiMaNmQgHtDHE4WObvJXI/s400/dog_buda1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450930433796966210" border="0" /></a>The canine socialization seems highly successful - at least of the beach sample we observed. There was lots of frolicking and no notable fighting. The pup I brought (from the desert) ran into the water after the sticks I tossed and fled incoming waves on a quick set of three legs. All of this happens in-place of the fort's mid-20th century military maneuvers. The gun batteries of this former military outpost are still here, but defunct and broken. Today a dog-walking journey down the coast encounters dog Buddha and here you and the happiest dogs in town can picnic in the clefts of sea-worn rocks.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiJN4u-Sbpuyo-Kw-F26wFyJvJ6RCJFfwMafnHqIil8DI7IzmqGNxHHvf5BOyuU3fcpORfvVOvEE5h6GDTSSFKs37i62K8eV-3H-m9NwVkkK2LuMAL48n9tDI0dhPYI9_oyt9URUHrJw/s1600-h/dog_walkers.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 174px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiiJN4u-Sbpuyo-Kw-F26wFyJvJ6RCJFfwMafnHqIil8DI7IzmqGNxHHvf5BOyuU3fcpORfvVOvEE5h6GDTSSFKs37i62K8eV-3H-m9NwVkkK2LuMAL48n9tDI0dhPYI9_oyt9URUHrJw/s400/dog_walkers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450930427035716578" border="0" /></a>Leaving the sea was sad for the humans on this road trip, but the dog would have liked to run the shore forever.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuBKM0gK00fgxs4Y6_CHX0_6ChIBuBAcAcsD0stVdbR60aiUivxoeYlRhHVeKoi1KODCNyXjDwfX9RDQhM6F4JMcuiwfPGp3CJ2SQiW9_o6alYBYh6FvNfHPDd7qAy4ln8XrWFl0noagM/s1600-h/dog_of_the_sea.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuBKM0gK00fgxs4Y6_CHX0_6ChIBuBAcAcsD0stVdbR60aiUivxoeYlRhHVeKoi1KODCNyXjDwfX9RDQhM6F4JMcuiwfPGp3CJ2SQiW9_o6alYBYh6FvNfHPDd7qAy4ln8XrWFl0noagM/s400/dog_of_the_sea.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5450930423330912082" border="0" /></a>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-18703660093638268192010-03-15T14:52:00.011-06:002010-03-16T11:47:32.412-06:00the dead poet and the sea<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5mYt5Np5EDSX2fh3CbVb9L1ibkabGb9KBYH3MOVuQoYYzuxQWI4-6vdS3h08f-GdKGtUT8-3tKm3uoKpWfcuHNObfNd8SjVIBcqG1atP7jWrF8uV_ZwwDPN8qv1UXT0GvlJHkbXRar_E/s1600-h/big_sur_coast_w_flowers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5mYt5Np5EDSX2fh3CbVb9L1ibkabGb9KBYH3MOVuQoYYzuxQWI4-6vdS3h08f-GdKGtUT8-3tKm3uoKpWfcuHNObfNd8SjVIBcqG1atP7jWrF8uV_ZwwDPN8qv1UXT0GvlJHkbXRar_E/s400/big_sur_coast_w_flowers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449009551742913410" border="0" /></a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur">Big Sur</a> is a protected stretch of land along the western edge of the continent. About three hours south of San Fransisco - it's a place where few humans have built and where I drove the winding highway 1 at a slow, grazing pace. A journey here needs to allow for pulling into each lookout and gazing over precipice - looking to the ocean for signs of migration. If your road trip has little hike time, then the highway drive gives some satisfaction as it is precarious enough. And by making frequent stops, or by staying put on a razors edge, one may consider the greatness of Big Sur and hope, from this high vantage, to see whales.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRkx3sMCveCfMfqcQHu-RaaKJgfY8Ahmdxm1G2Xa8Zhlajm-4sdruYea6ErUgLrHkCrQlzBBjmF_EyfI9r5cle0wkU5SUtUqWXBevPXXeRb0vW07uMLPyr9-Hfd69jr6a24WDQX6DKjo/s1600-h/genna_at_tor_house_2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzRkx3sMCveCfMfqcQHu-RaaKJgfY8Ahmdxm1G2Xa8Zhlajm-4sdruYea6ErUgLrHkCrQlzBBjmF_EyfI9r5cle0wkU5SUtUqWXBevPXXeRb0vW07uMLPyr9-Hfd69jr6a24WDQX6DKjo/s400/genna_at_tor_house_2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449009542691428706" border="0" /></a>I wanted to see this bit of coast because <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Jeffers">Robinson Jeffers </a>- a dead poet - had made me aware of it - because it had exerted some power over his life. Living on the edge of land and sea, where fists of waves and wind-muscle pound and shape rock and tree - here Jeffers had sounded alarm and recorded thoughts that would lead us to identify him as an early environmentalist. I think Jeffers went out to live in this less populated place (at least, less populated in 1913) with his wife and their sons, to find peace in the wild and quite in the roar of the shouting sea. He rolled the stones for his <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_House_and_Hawk_Tower">Tor House</a> up from the coast and watched as more humans came - moved in around this house at Carmel Point.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrFA0eJWlRq7faLT9K4vpWla8T2N81JJi5HGUV_-i82fAdGAE26MdPYpZVJfLfKKo0cfSOcGNrtzaogcyV4Q9sZHX8pUCHszAGLJuIxNgFmFDsy1-5LsJZhJSRXQ9SUfnHlwvlAOfCf6w/s1600-h/bigsurcoast.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrFA0eJWlRq7faLT9K4vpWla8T2N81JJi5HGUV_-i82fAdGAE26MdPYpZVJfLfKKo0cfSOcGNrtzaogcyV4Q9sZHX8pUCHszAGLJuIxNgFmFDsy1-5LsJZhJSRXQ9SUfnHlwvlAOfCf6w/s400/bigsurcoast.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449009534654166834" border="0" /></a>Maybe Jefers thought he could live there - better than the others - because his eye was keen toward the natural beauty and his humble cobbled home was borrowed from the shoreline. His voice spoke for this world, reminding humans to be a part of nature. He scolds, apart from nature we're like a severed hand in his poem <a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-answer-2/">The Answer</a>. Jeffers, I think, recognized that to be a human and live in any place, we alter it - but perhaps the earth would always be more powerful and able to erase our careless traces. I hear this sentiment in Carmel Point.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);font-family:Arial;font-size:14px;" >Carmel Point<br /><br />The extraordinary patience of things!<br />This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses-<br />How beautiful when we first beheld it,<br />Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;<br />No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,<br />Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-<br />Now the spoiler has come: does it care?<br />Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide<br />That swells and in time will ebb, and all<br />Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty<br />Lives in the very grain of the granite,<br />Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:<br />We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;<br />We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident<br />As the rock and ocean that we were made from. </span><br /><br />But Jeffers wrote edgy and haunting works, which feel appropriate to our life now and still I think they are little-heeded - we could have been listening to him since 1910. Maybe we will listen soon. Maybe now.<br /><br />At one lookout, my sister and I saw the unmistakable sign of whales - waterspouts! First their exhalations, then their backs broke through the waves. This is what we had hoped to see. The <a href="http://www.bigsurcalifornia.org/whalesgray.html">gray whale</a> migration is on, and while they are returning from the brink of extinction, their population may number 23,000 individuals only found in the Pacific.<br /><br />Also found in the Pacific is a frightening amount of our rubbish - and I don't mean the bits I saw on the shoreline. The currents that move like enormous rivers stirring the seas have collected our buoyant trash - especially plastic - that we've launched into a perceived oblivion. The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAShtolieg">Great Pacific Garbage Patch</a> is vast - two times the size of Texas and deeper than the Golden Gate bridge is high. It's a flotilla of trash - what we're throwing away daily and on an ever-increasing scale, but there is no <span style="font-style: italic;">away</span>. There's isn't only one garbage patch, but <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch">many</a>. Captain Charles Moore <span>of the <a href="http://www.algalita.org/">Algalita Marine Research Foundation</a></span>, who discovered the <a href="http://www.algalita.org/Maps_Home.html">Great Pacific gyre</a>, <span> says the soup is getting thicker. This trash is in my soup and yours too, in our actual food, because creatures that ingest it make their way up the food chain and into the bellies of the things we might eat. Plastic gets into everything and some things die of starvation with their bellies full. Nature has always been cruel and violent and survival a struggle. And now we give it this - sea bird parents feed their chicks our bottle caps and lighters. Our plastic breaks down to bits, mixing with <a href="http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Phytoplankton/">phytoplankton</a>, becoming the tiny plant's empty doppelganger. </span><span><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4rGe6JPtGT56yZuxvasfEqicXogKWnnsmAEfeSqoMyAmu4GZ3hNvfj3vUR197P0SwCjXUAIV2NIGxADBPunFUrukwj3k6onFgooqLYLiyGG7IxTQMBc52JgxWiAJBjyuey9ooC7Lg4Ok/s1600-h/layers.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4rGe6JPtGT56yZuxvasfEqicXogKWnnsmAEfeSqoMyAmu4GZ3hNvfj3vUR197P0SwCjXUAIV2NIGxADBPunFUrukwj3k6onFgooqLYLiyGG7IxTQMBc52JgxWiAJBjyuey9ooC7Lg4Ok/s400/layers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449009532952722802" border="0" /></a><span>The other side of nature's ferocious gnashing-toothed edge is a soft and soul-shaking beauty. The layered earth is squished, sculpted and lived on by those forms fit for survival. And fitful rest is due those survivors - like this loafing seaman warm in his blubber-wrap, asleep on a stormy shore.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnL_B4sCTCOmjs1i4QkxU2FAIbSe6D9yMA97jqN85M9ckNH4q7NO_HifhoIbqDGysvq6VswTUefynBauArNOXYwydrg6kYqjufE7_QQq8ZkGwnOVAW-oICxfrEZJVCECoH3MIiFFbQ8R0/s1600-h/sleeping_log.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnL_B4sCTCOmjs1i4QkxU2FAIbSe6D9yMA97jqN85M9ckNH4q7NO_HifhoIbqDGysvq6VswTUefynBauArNOXYwydrg6kYqjufE7_QQq8ZkGwnOVAW-oICxfrEZJVCECoH3MIiFFbQ8R0/s400/sleeping_log.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5449009523184975074" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"There is a great and quiet</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">water reaching to Asia and in</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">an hour or so the still stars will</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">show over it, but I am quieter</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">still inside than even the ocean</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">or the stars." </span><br /></div><div style="text-align: right;">Robinson Jeffers<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">PS I've been thinking about what we're taking out of the ocean too. This documentary series about fish - <a href="http://www.babelgum.com/browser.php#play/SEARCH,channelID:180214,order:FEATURED,hint_editorial:%2Fshuffle/5,3021926">The End of the Line</a> - is one that ecosystems beneath the waves need us to view. We may be easily awed by the rise and fall of waves against shores - meditating on the sound of their sizzle and the pounding beat. But we are emptying the seas of creatures and filling them with the bobbing cast-offs we thought we'd never see again.<br /></div></div><span><br /></span>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-59795060689247100572010-03-07T21:36:00.004-07:002010-03-07T22:45:06.581-07:00city ride<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3SCD4sv02t1KMAzpbieOOTj3wyw163Q7pxkflBG9OIKE3Fu4qJkfRCsmZd_zgidVClGD1e9cvb5ylY-mLb5Wjw81ChrcynrpDduNHUM24QptzOr1se8wlZ3GBVn27iIWPikOXCfnfUFc/s1600-h/city.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3SCD4sv02t1KMAzpbieOOTj3wyw163Q7pxkflBG9OIKE3Fu4qJkfRCsmZd_zgidVClGD1e9cvb5ylY-mLb5Wjw81ChrcynrpDduNHUM24QptzOr1se8wlZ3GBVn27iIWPikOXCfnfUFc/s400/city.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446117562358085170" border="0" /></a>San Fransisco. You can ride this city - taking highways to carry you up and over the hilly streets. Or you may get down on those streets for the urban hike. You can bike, take trains, go by street car, or cab, or add another car body to the traffic flow. Whether you mean to or not, every walk in this rolling place becomes a hike. I could have calves like Schwarzenegger if I traipsed around here long enough. Up and down the steep hills-for-roads, I thought - things could really get away from you here! Strollers, groceries, cars - my sister lost a complete carton of fresh blue berries. They spilled and the city took them from her like an offering. No 10 second rule. People on roller skates must have nerves of steel!<br /><br />The place is a microcosm with collections of people and things from across the globe, a harbor to world goods, shipping in that we may buy (or some may buy). There's China Town, and Japan Town and The Castro - and even famous corners like Haight-Ashbury where I stood and wondered about that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love">Summer of Love </a> (while eating a crepe) . . . hmmm counterculture, communal living, freedom to do anything! There is the vast Golden Gate park where you wander through forest. You could live there. And some people do.<br /><br />I was lost often in San Fransisco and I've trekked a lot of cities - La Paz, Lima, Cairo - maybe it's those hills - I had to find places to get perspective and landmarks, but I couldn't always see those. And yes, there is an ocean and a big bridge, but really sometimes, in a maze of house-lined streets ziggy like ric-rac, I could find no sea, no golden gate!<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQr0dmTDKFjAA38YcVKebL4F2cyVfqPZs_XjAWO9pEG-n_hRGXcxmUf3J3Kf9I3MGKaZEgr2IINc-o1ljxT2Qk6ydQbvDnVH30oPdzDI851-rGULGXMEYgL_TSWV7w8SND_vnUM4g6fM/s1600-h/city_party.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 247px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQr0dmTDKFjAA38YcVKebL4F2cyVfqPZs_XjAWO9pEG-n_hRGXcxmUf3J3Kf9I3MGKaZEgr2IINc-o1ljxT2Qk6ydQbvDnVH30oPdzDI851-rGULGXMEYgL_TSWV7w8SND_vnUM4g6fM/s400/city_party.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446117553887059714" border="0" /></a><br />I hung above San Fransisco in the Starlight Room of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. Perched there I could see the city lit up at night, visible miles above us as a rosy glow so that the astronauts and stars may see it too. I was up there to view a fashion debut of handmade dresses - all sewn by one entrepreneurial young woman. They were feathered and silky, short with gauze and crocheted parts (maybe even ric-rac) wrapped around gals who would tell you how they loved them. There was a sudden photo shoot when the dim, crowded space was assaulted by light(ning). When the dark returned so did the crowd's comfort - and they danced.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZEaKFDujYVOkKkuC0r6SGeh0HYb3FMSkxjJJzhvQ_Ppm04OSRzhom48bmwOaE9zJU_Q6oxF8hnBo7MgwdLDyklYvHS0OZl5HFkSVT_iFH7sFyzpJDhF_dN_qexU9YAWBuLz4v7Gk2DH0/s1600-h/golden_gate.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZEaKFDujYVOkKkuC0r6SGeh0HYb3FMSkxjJJzhvQ_Ppm04OSRzhom48bmwOaE9zJU_Q6oxF8hnBo7MgwdLDyklYvHS0OZl5HFkSVT_iFH7sFyzpJDhF_dN_qexU9YAWBuLz4v7Gk2DH0/s400/golden_gate.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5446117545097919970" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I left soon after that night. Maybe I've lived so long in small places and cannot love cities. I can stare at them and ride them too, but soon enough I have to get off. So I left for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Sur">Big Sur</a> hoping to see fewer of the things we've built and more of the nature, and even . . migrating whales.gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-22508386719557105562010-02-23T16:26:00.005-07:002010-02-23T17:40:42.907-07:00three-legged dog blog<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvElKUaGSqFYwa-Spz4vplzcixQZgL1HUE0pq8ZXOTi93pcjWr0g-FGolKllTHCxV6kT80iaw5PI1xKyDxDJZakIqUq1-Y5aRZWywEKabjKprwzfIq68RSiTNRO2K-W4biNv44ttLHfI/s1600-h/hanna_gray.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimvElKUaGSqFYwa-Spz4vplzcixQZgL1HUE0pq8ZXOTi93pcjWr0g-FGolKllTHCxV6kT80iaw5PI1xKyDxDJZakIqUq1-Y5aRZWywEKabjKprwzfIq68RSiTNRO2K-W4biNv44ttLHfI/s400/hanna_gray.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441592083491847586" border="0" /></a>Today I travel with a three-legged dog. For years this old dog had four legs and found plenty of trouble. Hit by a mystery car while I was in Egypt - my folks nursed her til I returned for dog-and-human swim therapy. She had a strong mend on that back femur and a tan. Then she stuck her head in the mouth of rattlesnake and barely recovered her life and senses.<br /><br />This fall a fat round bulb sprang from the top of her hind foot - a tumor. I spent quiet hours and inner-looking hours during winter days in Albuquerque and Taos waiting for biopsy results. I called people and I dreaded and wondered about what to do. Would it be possible for the pup to pull through another hard time?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInXTeny0r49gz0D9l6eANWdBPH0lDO2u5p_OsJaxOpJbQYF4rT_121UoH96cPcCR-juB3qhnlJMxNXYfob3fO7Whi9OQF28o_oImMAKssvh92UHqiP0YpjKN1Im3eUMAknsMfbq0VlN8/s1600-h/hanna_and_pecans_gray.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhInXTeny0r49gz0D9l6eANWdBPH0lDO2u5p_OsJaxOpJbQYF4rT_121UoH96cPcCR-juB3qhnlJMxNXYfob3fO7Whi9OQF28o_oImMAKssvh92UHqiP0YpjKN1Im3eUMAknsMfbq0VlN8/s400/hanna_and_pecans_gray.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441592076553012258" border="0" /></a><br />Her <a href="http://www.calistaanimalhospital.com/">vet</a> thought so. But she would have to lose the leg. She did and recovered in southern New Mexico on a special pecan farm (more in a later post). She was road-ready the week before Valentines Day. Since then we've traveled to Phoenix, Tucson, and are in Oakland, California. There's a big bridge out here - we'll cross it in a day or two. Our last spectacular bridge visit was the structure spanning the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande_Gorge_Bridge">Rio Grande Gorge</a> in Taos, NM - you can see a dog serious about getting a good view below . . . this was her last four-legged hike day.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4mEsiT-U1avWBs_L1r8Cu3BuzYkdXW4ghZ1xBADSlFdDRheOa8Q5LzP8CPhty9khLK1OqQBSsYHay0mgH5stoli1kCgcZvUNs3nDu3y-itWoA4D_dKb5wVqQ5RM9WdkX7vw2cUqAYaY/s1600-h/hanna_taos.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4mEsiT-U1avWBs_L1r8Cu3BuzYkdXW4ghZ1xBADSlFdDRheOa8Q5LzP8CPhty9khLK1OqQBSsYHay0mgH5stoli1kCgcZvUNs3nDu3y-itWoA4D_dKb5wVqQ5RM9WdkX7vw2cUqAYaY/s400/hanna_taos.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441592069547088738" border="0" /></a><br />Today we walked down <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?q=International%20street%20oakland&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl">International Blvd</a> in Oakland, CA - once called East 14th Street it became a rough neighborhood when people moved to other suburbs and left houses vacant - then boarded up. This morning it seemed like a lively place (maybe the name change helps focus us on what we may be proud to find here). It felt like somewhere South or Central America with pinata shops and cake shops and quinceanera dresses in windows. And on International Blvd I could have stopped for the international cuisine - Chinese, Mexican, Italian and more. But I had coffee and "organic banana bread" (that's how I knew I was in Cali) to share with a pooch who gets more attention than she wants these days. Everyone wanted to know how she learned to walk on three legs. But that's the thing. She just keeps going - not knowing to be sad over the loss of a limb, or to look back on a life with some major recoveries - and big adventures. This dog's brain isn't wired to worry and lament. Nope. She's forward looking (for eatable things).gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-40269702938474381472010-01-19T16:37:00.014-07:002010-02-08T19:07:53.949-07:00other-ness<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjo0IAbI5plaF_N8ydXbNSUxGoybQsVU6dgNkLgxh49KHtGa1CJfSbPsjxNPnO0N5lTh2CPbEK2_vgwoOKSTrY0t2chs8oPa7yABpEkC0dQPt_NIaQN7bN97vFaRJ8kBQU-eUInAO91U/s1600-h/Peru_me.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxjo0IAbI5plaF_N8ydXbNSUxGoybQsVU6dgNkLgxh49KHtGa1CJfSbPsjxNPnO0N5lTh2CPbEK2_vgwoOKSTrY0t2chs8oPa7yABpEkC0dQPt_NIaQN7bN97vFaRJ8kBQU-eUInAO91U/s400/Peru_me.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435325468309923634" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">"And its one life, and its this life, and its beautiful . . ."</span> First Aid Kit -<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDG8xqz7BIk&feature=related"> Hard Believer</a><br /><br />Last fall I traveled in Peru and Bolivia. Those places sound exotic, but is it by virtue of their distance from home? The truth is they are similar in most big ways and the <span style="font-style: italic;">other-ness</span> one feels - it's the trick of culture shock. People show up vibrantly against the backdrop of a new landscape, a different city. The things they do seems surprising. Oh, it's easy to romanticize when you travel. Sure, the Bolivian women - in long black braids and aprons all day squeezing fresh juice from every fruit available - was unique, was new. But it's juice. Why not try to see all the earth as special? Catch the details - find all precious things. Think about the juice - and the people here, there. Looking out a bus window I would try to absorb the passing world. Why not absorb always?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgewLxPB683B6Gs-ATck4ouw-LBZvKGQKdeLU-AVQH3pIq3I_at-OemrAnKChh44U8HU36NMo-HwFRmo4Xwt0cT5haimLREm2SX4hw-M-lh8RENC73yraoLNgGpLug8l5NSNKC5do75HI/s1600-h/juice.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgewLxPB683B6Gs-ATck4ouw-LBZvKGQKdeLU-AVQH3pIq3I_at-OemrAnKChh44U8HU36NMo-HwFRmo4Xwt0cT5haimLREm2SX4hw-M-lh8RENC73yraoLNgGpLug8l5NSNKC5do75HI/s400/juice.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435325185831081778" border="0" /></a>I returned in November to take a family road trip to the Grand Canyon. I knew the sense of "the extraordinary" could stay around me - a lens giving sharp focus to every day and every place of one's life. I wanted the lens to stay in place as I roamed in Arizona and now in New Mexico - my home.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtLbHzadM8a8wPh6nn5wV4zk9Jy9DOEOo99ZQXuRjMUp73sKhUx9d1qY4xliGnVl5luBLqa3p1qkBqcrkSYn22AwxCTYix71CESIjDpGRBMLLxSZ4_uOBrcvjkbVQYjFi-aVot_eVKlU/s1600-h/shadow+at+canyon.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijtLbHzadM8a8wPh6nn5wV4zk9Jy9DOEOo99ZQXuRjMUp73sKhUx9d1qY4xliGnVl5luBLqa3p1qkBqcrkSYn22AwxCTYix71CESIjDpGRBMLLxSZ4_uOBrcvjkbVQYjFi-aVot_eVKlU/s400/shadow+at+canyon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5428604824186413058" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I tell myself - and you can imagine it's true - the southwestern US is always ripe for adventure. Its wide-open spaces lure. Its nestled communities collect dust and invite the curious. Southwestern cities with fabulous culture, traffic, art, music, pollution, and people are as other as Peru, as Bolivia, as Egypt.gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-75780140153976529812009-11-21T21:53:00.006-07:002009-12-19T14:39:33.112-07:00the naked earth - concluding thoughts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJN_mFcBG5bmUsU8JCLwj1bYkLqgKtegsCsCDOz2k_zmal9VpcqThq_R9fL7OGgRE7DgaVBX43nWHTFPi9WypPP2m4BPFINZVe6km81ZrW8Gj_0hm0AS7Ac0nnsKIUGj7FaWKlF2hmYU/s1600-h/weird+land.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjJN_mFcBG5bmUsU8JCLwj1bYkLqgKtegsCsCDOz2k_zmal9VpcqThq_R9fL7OGgRE7DgaVBX43nWHTFPi9WypPP2m4BPFINZVe6km81ZrW8Gj_0hm0AS7Ac0nnsKIUGj7FaWKlF2hmYU/s400/weird+land.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417064143388745714" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWNDQPkFfW036o9r68b7X82IYE2EB5TPVpNOzergvl0aZxsMwBvJAzFKwLmlzhM_M-yY9WZMMpagxWC19yVJ3CVsjVfLQ1MDJZShaDdyoN40OFalHY59R5CWEZYLFZjOJPP2ak7GiVUAg/s1600-h/me+flat.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWNDQPkFfW036o9r68b7X82IYE2EB5TPVpNOzergvl0aZxsMwBvJAzFKwLmlzhM_M-yY9WZMMpagxWC19yVJ3CVsjVfLQ1MDJZShaDdyoN40OFalHY59R5CWEZYLFZjOJPP2ak7GiVUAg/s400/me+flat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417064141495178482" border="0" /></a><br />To conclude - the earth is hiding nothing - the earth is nude and making new earth, and also by the apparent layers and wrinkles and folds, the earth is old - <span style="font-style: italic;">old</span>, old. The history of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_de_Uyuni">lakes that once</a> were and coral reefs that were, and magma that bubbled and cooled was revealed in surprising places during the four-day desert crossing. Thanks <a href="http://www.tupizatours.com/">Tupiza Tours</a> and to all my traveling companions - it was real!gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-80574396232753220752009-11-21T21:02:00.010-07:002011-05-23T16:00:51.625-06:00the earth gets naked - part three<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCakiYT7VpXiqcrHajRA0nQ-eb8LyxcCKBadNdTLugHuOhCr8U-RQDb74KXyuHePLrVf-QdCBNqJrV3_RDi-XPC4qdifDlCC_8UsHCZD810u8Amf90J4KwVcC9IPq1uxtnENp2qCp0ya0/s1600/many.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406782800598962770" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCakiYT7VpXiqcrHajRA0nQ-eb8LyxcCKBadNdTLugHuOhCr8U-RQDb74KXyuHePLrVf-QdCBNqJrV3_RDi-XPC4qdifDlCC_8UsHCZD810u8Amf90J4KwVcC9IPq1uxtnENp2qCp0ya0/s400/many.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">When you go to the naked earth you go from </span><span style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">many</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> things on your horizon to few things - grand things. Leaving Cochabamaba Bolivia - I left a scene of humans caught up in much activity - surrounded by their structures, sounds, and smells. Busy, busy place.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Three days later passing through a desert where a particular rock formation stood out distinctly - the stone tree - I thought, "how restful."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl4ZXYn6otyY3kfYyJsQEz2lof-QBs86_DLN9KbOe_YqdRu3ryeP63mS5oUhnfEttDQav8PuNGSgqZ9IKUA2_LXUeezOxthFo2QSz_5BVVtv2Bga2SlvqL0eIee3yApWG79jKNHltTIKo/s1600/few_1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406782794621424066" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl4ZXYn6otyY3kfYyJsQEz2lof-QBs86_DLN9KbOe_YqdRu3ryeP63mS5oUhnfEttDQav8PuNGSgqZ9IKUA2_LXUeezOxthFo2QSz_5BVVtv2Bga2SlvqL0eIee3yApWG79jKNHltTIKo/s400/few_1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 269px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">A nude mountain and blue-green lake, two things to look at. Next, a red lake full of flamingos. The thoughts I had were simple and quiet, "they match the lake . . or the lake and the birds, like, match."</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Pay attention and remember.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAniM1TRniz2KNch_d28TxJ2B0cYhjCpSuM-yxEJ-8TIOIZ2WYmiswKn8PFShToC1jycEZhngGxRbNisIlQtuVGiO1IIxvASG-tgqtWtZ2j38EAtXygVDRMXNi3pzFKOpekzPTv2zGyG4/s1600/wow_green.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406782140390655650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAniM1TRniz2KNch_d28TxJ2B0cYhjCpSuM-yxEJ-8TIOIZ2WYmiswKn8PFShToC1jycEZhngGxRbNisIlQtuVGiO1IIxvASG-tgqtWtZ2j38EAtXygVDRMXNi3pzFKOpekzPTv2zGyG4/s400/wow_green.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDkxvvPtqQ3m1jXt4THbSYppuKoMIEYP6XES0RVu3FRR72f-2cgyOOg3ykRqcXjd4J1DEndbJJq4q_fLPEeR0ZVMEySq_BeSije5NYE9xHAMvGiiNeD-sQWdCXc5rcEm2jiRbimCX_rQ/s1600/red.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406782134030785858" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDkxvvPtqQ3m1jXt4THbSYppuKoMIEYP6XES0RVu3FRR72f-2cgyOOg3ykRqcXjd4J1DEndbJJq4q_fLPEeR0ZVMEySq_BeSije5NYE9xHAMvGiiNeD-sQWdCXc5rcEm2jiRbimCX_rQ/s400/red.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">At lunch, a fancy affair that came from the back of a jeep, which I ate off a plate in a desert over 12,000 miles above sea level, I was visited by a curly-tailed rabbit looking creature - the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscacha"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">vizcacha</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">.</span><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo8ljpvj3j30r10cCjmr5Mx7v56wApF_OUvOOqHEiUjdBL647HkeU8DebXj0MXCgR20_qzxTHAXZqAE3OPB5-Tr92vs9lfBFI-3P1qyYJONn1q7ltY0R6LCuGBvnvDJ2LfkVBW8a_Q7-E/s1600/lunch.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406782128406379458" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo8ljpvj3j30r10cCjmr5Mx7v56wApF_OUvOOqHEiUjdBL647HkeU8DebXj0MXCgR20_qzxTHAXZqAE3OPB5-Tr92vs9lfBFI-3P1qyYJONn1q7ltY0R6LCuGBvnvDJ2LfkVBW8a_Q7-E/s400/lunch.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 300px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOvYsYBHVdNK3cUvsGz2Y1-l3Md_SRsn0dYZ7euUp5sAgIhsqJ__RjyoxA1RE0M3EFRRyrmqi710QQcLmBg5xseJRMW5iszWLOXONYHSny4L1i3VfdF4Eo42MN5cB6bAUNG57jCwyyAlI/s1600/creature_1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406782121023094946" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOvYsYBHVdNK3cUvsGz2Y1-l3Md_SRsn0dYZ7euUp5sAgIhsqJ__RjyoxA1RE0M3EFRRyrmqi710QQcLmBg5xseJRMW5iszWLOXONYHSny4L1i3VfdF4Eo42MN5cB6bAUNG57jCwyyAlI/s400/creature_1.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 286px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It is true - all of it. There is a red lake, and a green one, and a rabbit with a long tail and I ate a vegetable medley off a porcelain plate the day I saw a stone tree and a nearly full moon in the day-time sky.</span></div>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5531528484553744829.post-2456452340176441662009-11-19T10:03:00.009-07:002009-11-19T18:52:41.780-07:00the earth gets naked - part two<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFxdOGfRzntzD6poR7o8ZgxqCJDmm2jXwtxgYloxUzbA_QEQVm1O_FlCgomTBLoElfj2JAxiknyZHJORm6Cj7oFnuLRRrmE35dv-S6db_jW1J8Kw4XNnaqTKk6MAerRQr2T0R5RCEoU1s/s1600/big+sky.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFxdOGfRzntzD6poR7o8ZgxqCJDmm2jXwtxgYloxUzbA_QEQVm1O_FlCgomTBLoElfj2JAxiknyZHJORm6Cj7oFnuLRRrmE35dv-S6db_jW1J8Kw4XNnaqTKk6MAerRQr2T0R5RCEoU1s/s400/big+sky.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405994005204485058" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Our <a href="http://www.tupizatours.com/eng/bolivia_morena.php">Tupiza Tours</a> expedition rolled out at the crack of 9:30am, took dirt roads and dry riverbeds, and climbed up to over 4000 meters into an open, uncovered eroding land. Trees and plants and organic matter, I think, dress the earth, and where those things are missing – the earth gets naked. </span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztvOKG0xjZF0oadHHvX6Ur9SwteV7Z31IZx3VLTQCMD4E-XTgBhFnzRdT_anK0aFqFEmxiUWNSNkQLGo72tbXqGrcbdF-qWGC09LYZhfxbEzzJiJuCiQAIHEfg4VBOQu32POUxVQXH9k/s1600/gyser.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiztvOKG0xjZF0oadHHvX6Ur9SwteV7Z31IZx3VLTQCMD4E-XTgBhFnzRdT_anK0aFqFEmxiUWNSNkQLGo72tbXqGrcbdF-qWGC09LYZhfxbEzzJiJuCiQAIHEfg4VBOQu32POUxVQXH9k/s400/gyser.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405993997961253762" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I thought this while I traveled across the exposed stretch of southern Bolivia. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">It was exposed, but not unadorned. The earth let it all hang out - stratigraphy and folds of time; it’s gray geyser juices, and its sulfur breath. The mountain peaks had not gone bald – no trees had ever lived there.<br /><br />Peaks melted like piled Neapolitan with rose and cream, chocolate and mocha chip layers. We crossed by land rover – for four days. Here you could be mostly alone if you forgot to bring some company. You could freeze at night, sunburn, and windburn and dry out by daytime. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Few people live here and those that do tend llamas and wear so many layers they look big and thick, but small again against the landscape. It’s too high to grow anything – even potatoes.</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAmKQLDH-WEmpGjJx2Oz1MUWWbPvhrG32mQ4eNhHoIZbkORRK592LvIUbegOzp3E806TOkundUiuvKwFmzPbxWUmKgVO2CO6GltfUMbhizJoSZlPwnMYs1aqnnE2a_Adl8tYIysUWKFE/s1600/llama.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAmKQLDH-WEmpGjJx2Oz1MUWWbPvhrG32mQ4eNhHoIZbkORRK592LvIUbegOzp3E806TOkundUiuvKwFmzPbxWUmKgVO2CO6GltfUMbhizJoSZlPwnMYs1aqnnE2a_Adl8tYIysUWKFE/s400/llama.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405993994811659218" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">This land is good to go into – wide open for thinking, but not humane enough to stay. This is not the tender place that makes you imagine a gentile mother earth that provides for her creatures. The earth would let the wind rip you away from her surface. </span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDub-TS-4yNfqsAa9nmYEC7SecHnJ-nttIHClOl0uUYucvx1fiD9jcPMc4Fbuu4M0nI-drmwuCBbVF6lLzDdVJbopdGmiUNBFHfNCr3aqImRZndZYFC4DHRKzMizPwVvK1FmYxIAr_t0/s1600/flam_lake.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyDub-TS-4yNfqsAa9nmYEC7SecHnJ-nttIHClOl0uUYucvx1fiD9jcPMc4Fbuu4M0nI-drmwuCBbVF6lLzDdVJbopdGmiUNBFHfNCr3aqImRZndZYFC4DHRKzMizPwVvK1FmYxIAr_t0/s400/flam_lake.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405992959268668850" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">If you were this naked earth you wouldn’t be alone - or ashamed. You would have the company of skinny legs needling into your pitted skin: flamingos and the rare vicuña. </span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQe_e0VYhY8Rf33gQskpffLnwmo-4j63ysWpTBntnLaxxTSWD2-81msuwsIMrBFh0ZOD78I5EDQTqibCv7xyjfVgRAgV8LmB0hl47b5SkxMp0kzX7X2xYbbXNmCNDhmZQr-FRqvTMC8fc/s1600/vic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQe_e0VYhY8Rf33gQskpffLnwmo-4j63ysWpTBntnLaxxTSWD2-81msuwsIMrBFh0ZOD78I5EDQTqibCv7xyjfVgRAgV8LmB0hl47b5SkxMp0kzX7X2xYbbXNmCNDhmZQr-FRqvTMC8fc/s400/vic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405992953936318658" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Grass clumps, that occasioned your surface, would grow as resolute as the oak, blades with the integrity of cactus spines. Proudly you’d display your ores and minerals from within – rust and lavender, green and yellow, and sometimes pure white. The heat that builds in you could vent and spew.<br /><br />The earth doesn’t have resentment; it has volcanoes.</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPVj6NqmiWDgKR3Nboe715hjr73mwrkZr6HYoZxKPFuNNKxtgVnHfUyTr-mDN3gcJpw6a2ptVE5XlF2PI_smf75fJmk1oFCMXKRENgLZAFOkqnJJ90nYM5RlVs78gwJ8CwqDIDrjnMt9A/s1600/me.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPVj6NqmiWDgKR3Nboe715hjr73mwrkZr6HYoZxKPFuNNKxtgVnHfUyTr-mDN3gcJpw6a2ptVE5XlF2PI_smf75fJmk1oFCMXKRENgLZAFOkqnJJ90nYM5RlVs78gwJ8CwqDIDrjnMt9A/s400/me.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405991825882462370" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;"></span>gaeahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02295020988307654281noreply@blogger.com0