Part II Comanche, Texas
March 6- March 16


I met Janice outside of the Dallas airport. I had vague description of Ty’s mom and her vehicle from Ty. I was hoping that she would recognize me, a slightly disheveled tall blond with a big backpack, and flag me down, which she did. She proceeded to curse her way through Dallas/Fort Worth rush hour traffic. She was a bundle of piss and vinegar and we chatted amicable the whole 3 hour drive to Ty’s beyond organic ranch/farm outside of Comanche Texas. The drive was a whirlwind of stories, expletives and swerves. She was opinionated, experienced, well-traveled, pragmatic, no-nonsense, hip and funny as hell. She currently resides most of the year in Tanzania with her current husband who works on cell phone towers. She raised her first child, Ivy, as a “flower child” in Taos New Mexico. She had Ty with her second husband, who she claimed was an amazing outdoors man. They roamed the deserts and wild lands of the southwest. She eventually moved to Texas to raise goats and cattle when Ty was in High School. I am not entirely sure of the exact chain of events, but at some point, she married her 3rd husband, moved to the current ranch outside of Comanche. They continued to raise goats and cattle until they moved to East Africa for her husband’s job. Ty, after obtaining his masters degree from the University of Montana in Geography returned to the ranch and took the operation over. He started a second venture, Windy Hill Organics and has been engaging in a variety of methods of distributing freshly grown veggies to local markets and restaurants. His parents come back to Texas periodically. Janice, for example was back for a couple months to help with the labor intensive work that goes into farming and ranching in the spring. However, for all intents and purposes, Ty is the sole orchestrator of both the business, marketing and physical aspects of the ranch/farm.


I was much calmer on my return to Texas than I was during my first encounter. When mom and I drove through Texas a month earlier, the wind had been blowing and the sky was black and ominous. When we tried to find a campground we were spooked by the emptiness of the nearby town. We found out that the electricity was out. We opted to drive 50 more miles to the next town and as we pulled away the rain began to pelt down. Needless to say, the wind had initially made me anxious and the following events just compounded my anxiety. This time, the sun was shining and Janice and Ty was nothing if not welcoming. I felt instantly at home around Janice and she left me to my own devices at the ranch. Ty was bar tending at a wine bar/restaurant in a nearby town. He had to pick up a second job to support his farm. I settled into the rustic leather with wood-frame couch to wait. He got home early and we caught up briefly before going to bed. We had a big work day the next day and wanted to be well rested. I had a bedroom to myself and it was furnished with a wooden framed bed, several small chairs with Native American print upholstery and silver brads and old black and white and sepia photographs. It also had 2 book shelves overflowing with books on all sorts of topics. I chose the Gospel of Judah but got bogged down by the archaic text and settled into Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. As I read about asparagus in the spring, I slipped into the deepest most undisturbed sleep I had experienced for a month and a half.


Ty’s place proved to be something of a vortex. My phone went bonkers and refused to work. My watch’s screen went blank and my ipod, which has had only one working button for years, began to work perfectly. Ty’s mp3 player, on the other hand, quit working altogether. When I left Ty’s my phone started working again, the screen on my watch brightened up again and my ipod regressed back to a state worse then it had been. The buttons stopped working AND the screen went blank. I fell into an uneasy routine at Ty’s. I always slept well, thankfully. And I enjoyed having tea coffee with them in the morning. Then I would hover around Ty or Janice, trying to make myself useful. There was a lot to do but it I got the feeling that it was the sort of stuff that I couldn’t really help with. There was CSA logistics to work out, seed and feed ordering to be done and several random farm jobs such as harvesting greens or turning a raised bed. On the first day, Ty’s sister, Ivy, her husband, Randy and two of his co-workers came over to rototill and augment the garden beds. I tried my best to be useful but mostly hovered in what I suspected was a really annoying way.


I did eventually manage to make myself useful with inoculating the 34 baby goats. Ty, Ivy and I wrangled bleating baby goats and held them while Janice inoculated them.They struggled and bleated at first and we had to watch out that they didn’t buck their heads and catch us with their budding horns. When they quite struggling they were quite adorable and I felt like I was holding a human baby. We would mark them with a blue crayon and then go and catch the next one. The first fifteen or so weren’t that challenging to catch. I found that I could sneak up on the ones that were trying to suckle on their moms or attempting to eat some hay. But the last fifteen were a bit more challenging. We found that we had to team up and corner a baby goat under a tree or against the fence and more then once Ty or I dived for a kid and ended up with a handful of yucca instead. In the evenings, after the heat of the sun had relented a bit, I would go for a run. Janice assured me that it was too early to have to worry about rattlesnakes, a worry that hadn’t even occurred to me. We would eat dinner when I returned. The most memorable was a homemade pizza with Ty’s pesto made from cilantro and garnished with goat cheese and heirloom Texas groan tomatoes. We had Ty’s lettuce mix on the side.


On the evening that Ty had to work, Janice and I drove the 25 miles to have dinner at his place of employment. She regaled me with more stories and sipped on very expensive glasses of wine. She eventually went home and left me to hand out at the bar until closing time. Ty’s co-workers were very friendly and several, who weren’t currently working, were kicking back cold beers at the bar. We all lingered after closing to chat and have some final drinks. Jared, one of the bar tenders brought out his guitar and djembe and three of us jammed for awhile. Ty and I introduced Jared to Josh Ritter and his heart wrenching song, Kathleen. Jared taught me some simple Modest Mouse chords and we all sang Wagon Wheel. We didn’t stay late but I think it was one of the first times that I had hung out with my peer group in ages.


Ty seemed to be completely ensconced in his farm. He had eggs to collect, fertilizers to apply, lettuce to harvest and plant, fences to mend, orders to make, advertising to complete, hay and feed to buy, the list goes on. I couldn’t believe all that he’d accomplished in the 6 or so months since he had taken over the ranch. He had purchased a green house, served as president of the local Farmer’s Market, set up a CSA and organized the selling of greens to several restaurants. Unfortunately, despite all of his efforts, he is encountering a lot of road blocks especially in the form of consumers. The most obvious obstacle is his location and the people there. Comanche Texas and the nearby town of Brownwood are hardly meccas of diversity and folks looking for local and organically grown produce. Nor is the area nesting or propagating grounds for grounds for progressive green living. In fact, it seems to be a fairly empty place in general. Many of the town’s in the vicinity of Comanche have main streets lined with empty store fronts. I think these are some of the reasons that Ty struggles to find CSA members and like minded peers in general. In addition, he is met with hostility on several fronts including that of the local farmer’s market. I really admire him for persevering in his pioneers efforts in a place where the majority’s values are so different from his own. After having said that, I should make it clear that not all of Texas is so. Austin and San Antonio are both cultural meccas with co-ops, breweries and live music. We took a couple days to tour around some breweries. We drove towards Austin and went to five breweries as well as the biggest Whole Foods. While there, we met several people who were interested in being a part of Ty’s ventures or at least in helping him along the way.


The following are my detailed notes on the breweries that we visited. Alas, I managed to loose my notes on Fredericksburg and the Dodging Duck Brewery. But I tried to remember what I could. We also rated the beer. If I really liked it I gave it a * and if Ty really liked it, he gave it a [] or if only sort of liked it he gave it a [.


Fredricksburg Brewing, Fredricksburg: I really can’t remember much about the beers here. They were unremarkable. I remember that, which is disappointing because the brewery was located in a very German influenced town and had German styled beers, which tend to be my favorite.


Dodging Duck, Boerne: Nice little establishment with an awesome logo and breezy outdoor seating overlooking a river overflowing with geese, ganders and other water-fowl.

Quaker Oats Pale Ale: Slightly coconut order, cloudy pale in color. Startling first taste. The name Pale Ale is entirely too misleading. This brew is definitely in some other category. It incorporates oats, citrus and coconut. Not bad, but definitely not a pale.

Luckenbacher Hefeweizen: Aroma is slightly bready with hints of clove. Cloudy and pale gold in color. Very clovey taste, lasting long after initial taste. Watery and poor head retention.

Beyond the Pale Irish Red Ale: Aroma has little to no hops. The color is a nice deep amber red and clear. No head retention that I can recall. Has a mild bland taste with only a faint smattering of hops. The overall taste is lingering barley bitterness.

Fowl Play India Pale Ale: Floral and citrus aroma. Clear and pale in color. Taste is more than a fowl play. It is just like burnt dirt according to Ty and just like soap according to Rachel. This is by far the worst dirty soapy beer yet. (I think….the nitro vanilla may have been the dirty soapy one…)

Duck and Adams Nitro Vanilla: I can’t remember the details of this beer. I think that it may have had an awful bitter barely aftertaste that wouldn’t go away. I also think it was super watery despite the nitro tap.


Freetail, San Antonio: Freetail just opened this Thanksgiving! It is an easy to locate brewery near a military base and in the heart of several strip mall complexes. It had an iconographical windmill near its entrance. The taproom was open and airy with big screen TVs, a great view of the brite tanks from the long bar. The beer taps were swirly colorful glass blown by one of the brewers. The descriptions of the different brews were very poetic and accurate! The chips and salsa were average but the service was excellent and the brewer was willing to chat with us and enlighten us on many of the finer points of his brews. He also gave us free stickers, a huge bonus in our book!

La Rubia, a blond ale: Our ubiquitous blonde mistress - a temptress from the tap to the glass. Straw golden, effervescent and delicious - fine white foam delivering the faint scent of Northwest hops. Perfect for quenching your thirst on a hot Texas day. La Rubia was much more hoppy then the Helles we tried in Fredericksburg.

Rye Wit: Untraditional Belgian-inspired beer brewed with raw wheat and 15% malted rye; seasoned with coriander and orange peel. Tongue-in-cheek take on an ancient classic of the beer world. Delicately spicy, but assertive enough to take on the richest of flavors. Need we say more? Ratings: *

XXXtra Pale Ale: AKA Tres Equis and Triple Extra Pale. this extremely pale beer triples nothing but our faith in the power of the hop to solve all of life’s mysteries. Floristic and spicy aromas that preclude a similar taste, with a long-lasting head. It is hopped with Galena and Ahtanum. It is slightly creamy and full-bodied. Bottom line: not dirty soapy or soapy dirt! Ratings: []

The Rube: Unsophisticated, country bumpkin, hick, hayseed, chawbacon, yokel, yahoo—all accurately describe our lovable Belgian-inspired blonde ale. Not to be confused, with its sophisticated, uptown sister La Rubia—the Rube plays havoc with a variety of estery fruit flavors and spiced aromas created in the mysterious fermentations of our wit yeast strain. The aroma is slightly hoppy and bready. The bready aroma and flavor is due to the Belgium yeast and the hoppy flavor is attributed to Warrior hops. In fact, the The Rube is simple a Belgian yeast version o La Rubia. Ratings: *

2 Timer: Conscious of waste but not bashful to be caught "cheating", 2Timer is brewed off the second runnings of Old Bat Rastard. Simple and moderately sweet, yet assertively bitter--like a spurned ex--there is nothing "ordinary" about 2Timer. This is an ESB with hoppy, carmely and not to bitter flavor. It has a thin body but that seems to mesh well with the beer’s average profile. Overall this is an unassuming beer with a well-balanced taste. Freetail Pale Ale: Open source beer, beta version. Deep copper hue with a rich, caramel aroma and subtle hop perfume. Aggressively bitter finish balancing the residual malt-sweetness. We noted that the bitter flavor is a perfect balance to the malty sweetness. Ratings: ½ *

Tadaria IPA: Tadarida—the genus of the Freetail bat—“shines like a shaft of light, when there is darkness all around.” A beacon of hop fortitude in hop crisis, this intense India Pale Ale will remind you that the world has a way of righting itself. Cheers to the power of the hop! (Galena, Pallisade, Ahtanum) Rachel noted that this beer was like a gummy worm with out the flavor. Ty noted it’s citrus and floral flavors. It is certainly what it is supposed to be. Ratings: []

Extra Who: Unfortunately, there is no written description for this beer. However, the Extra Who is essentially the Extra Pale with Belgian yeast. We noted clove, banana, cinnamon and honey flavors. Ratings: *

Mocha Shadow: Again, there is no written description for this beer. It is supposed to be a chocolaty version of Foreshodow described as follows: Black with notes of roasted coffee, warm campfire smokiness, dark fruit and subtle spice - the 4Shadow forebodes an even darker future for the wary denizens of Freetail. We liked this beer but didn’t really note anything remarkable.


Bluestar, San Antonio: This brewery is located near the “heart of San Antonio.” This brewery is making itself quite the destination. It has a cycle shop upstairs, hosts live music twice a week and offers brewing classes. It also has local art and interesting speakers. The brewery is open and has outdoor seating. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the hanging bikes.

GOLDEN LAGER: This Light tasting, flavorful continental style lager with German hop overtones. This beer is excellent choice if you prefer a more tractional smooth mild beer. Rating: [

PEACH LAMBIC: This sour ale had a strong aroma of peaches. The flavor is akin to a jolly rancher or sour patch kid. Ty was startled by it’s less than beer like qualities and in fact, disapproves. Rachel likes this lambic much better than the horrible plum lambic from Glacier Brewery in Anchorage. Ratings: * RASPBERRY WHEAT: This wheat beer fell well within the stylistic guidelines of a wheat beer. It smelled of sun ripened raspberries and bread. The flavor was slightly biscuity and clovey. The raspberry flavor melded well with the wheat flavor. Ratings: *

PALE ALE: A well-balanced, highly hopped American Ale, similar to those known throughout the American Northwest. An excellent example of a big-flavored, hand-crafted beer with the sharp, clean, bitter finish of Cascade hops. We noted earthy and floral aromas as well as the distinct scent of cascade hops (recognized by Ty, but sorely overlooked by Rachel) . The beer had a creamy taste and a full mouth-feel, especially after a vigorous frothing. It had a slightly bitter finish due to the cascade hops. Rating: []

OAK CASK PALE ALE: We completely overlooked the aroma and the flavor of this beer. It was completely flat with no head. This is due to the fact that it is naturally carbonated in an oak cask. Perhaps we should have tasted this beer first.

KING WILLIAM ALE MMVIII: This beer is referred to as a barleywine style ale. The style originated in Britain and is the biggest beer (malt, hops and alcohol content) in the ale family. We noted that it tasted worse than cough syrup, worse than kid’s Robitusin.

STOUT: Creamy, robust, Irish style dry stout, full of flavors from deep-roasted barley malts. The slight hint of chocolate is born of the meticulous marriage of malts and hops. Originating in Ireland, and now brewed here in Texas, this is a beer for those who desire a big taste. We noted that this stout had little to no aroma, was watery, had low alcohol flavor and left a distractingly bitter barley flavor in the end. It had not sweet malt flavor at all. We noted toasty, burnt, biscuit and coffee flavors.


Cedar Grove Steakhouse, Wimberley: This brewery had nice outdoor seating with twinkly lights and good company. The server was helpful and seemed to no what would be the best for us better than we did (i.e. the cheese). They had interesting appetizers, all fried.

Heaven Viessen: Typical German hefe with strong wheat flavor. Low on clove. Lightly citrusy, slightly bitter.

Sweet Transition Ale: Creamy, butter, Randy likes this beer much better then the hefe. We noted its full body.

Fire Rock Pale Ale (Blanco): Nicely aroma hoped, but low on bittering hops. We noted that this ale was very smooth and that it had a nice finish.

Abba Red Ale: Aroma de orange, with strong coffee and burnt dirt flavors. Dos Equis Amber: Rachel notes that she doesn’t like beer anymore ;(

Porter: We have lost focus and are distracted by the appetizers and our ravenous hunger. The porter fell by the wayside. Perhaps we are all done with beer by this point.


Uncle Billy’s Brew and Que, Austin: Conveniently located with valet parking or, if you prefer a shuttle from the distant parking area. The wait staff sported shirts that said “we serve the four food groups: beer, pork, bird and brew.” Our bartender was brutally honest, especially with her rating of the salsa. She did give us the brewer’s breakdown of the different beers, which was really enlightening.

Blonde Ale: This beer is actually a kolsch styled after an American Cream Ale. However, it uses German malts and hops. It is crisp, clean and refreshing. It reminded us of PBR or Budweiser. We should tell Randy about this beer. Ratings: R, [

Agave Wit: This wit beer is Belgian style ale with hints of orange peel and coriander both in the aroma and flavor. It reminded of Bluemoon, to the letter. I was extremely disappointed in the lack of agave flavor. Ratings: *, [

Organic Amber Ale: This ale is creamy. The perle, fuggle and goldings hops are well balanced. We enjoyed the crisp carbonation of this beer.

Axe Handle Pale Ale: Rachel enjoyed the name of this beer. It is described as the “typical west coast pale.” It has citrus and floral aromas. Ty raves that this is his FAVORITE smell in the world; duly noted. The body is smooth with a perfect fullness. There is good head retention and the legs run straight down the glass. The aroma and flavor hops are simcoe and the synergy between aroma and flavor creates a pleasant sensation within the nose and mouth. Ratings: [], *

Woodeye Rye IPA: This beer is made with 16 % rye malts. It has a very floral aroma. Rachel notes a bit of an earthy aroma and flavor, which could be attributed to the rye malt. Ty doesn’t note much of an earthiness at all, especially in comparison with the Ace Handle. This beer is bittered by Columbus hops and scented with cascade hops. This beer is also dry hoped. Ratings: []

Burnout Stout: This stout has a nice freshly roasted coffee and hazelnut aroma. It is smooth, full and creamy as well as perfectly carbonated. The head is tan and the color is deep dark brown. The beer is perfectly balanced between bitterness and malty sweetness. Ratings: *, [] North By


North by Northwest, Austin: This brewery is decorated with Asahel Curtis photos and is a hail back to the Northwest style beers. It also played a Jacob Dylan song.

Duckabish Amber Ale: We noted a strong hoppy aroma. The initial taste is of unmalted grains, most unpleasant. The hop flavor is a bit too light. This amber has a super sweet milk-dud/ caramel flavor that lingers. Northern Light

Golden Ale: Rachel and Ty both agree that this ale has a distinct asparagus aroma and flavor. It is crisp and light on the tongue. It is an unassuming, water-like beer, good for a hot day or when you crave asparagus and it’s not asparagus season.

PY Jingo Pale Ale: Cascade hops give this beer a floral, citrus aroma. It is creamy with good head retention. The taste is floral and citrusy. The aroma and flavor work well together. The ale is bitter but not over the top. Rachel feels like this beer is great for after work but only if the sun has not set yet. Ratings: [], ½ *

Okanogan Black: This beer uses English ale yeast and is similar to Weltenberg Brewery in Germany. It has a tan head that did not retain well. It had no hop aroma or flavor. However it had a malty, ice cream like finish. It has an enticing dark copper color.

Bavarian Hefe: Clove and banana aroma and flavor mingle and linger. It has a very thin head with poor retention. Ratings: 1/3 *

Cherry Lambic: Rachel thought this was a great lambic. It is nothing like a cherry sour patch kid. It made Ty think about the similarities between sour ale yeast and kombucha mother. Irish Stout: We noted a slight bitterness that tipped the gag reflex a tad. However, it was more malty than anything. It was water, had poor head retention and an annoying grain aftertaste.

Tu Helen Bock: This is a German lager. We found it to be interesting.

Ty's lettuce greens

Beer tasters at Billy's in Austin

Bikes and Brew at Blue Star, San Antonio

Bluestar's sampler with a lambic being the third from the right

North by Northwest's grain silo, Austin

Part I, First Installment of Post Mexico Travels
March 1st-March 6th

Traveling in the USA is like no other!


I can communicate with almost everyone and I can definitely read all the signs. If I don’t know where what something is, I can simply ask, simply and plainly in English. And the real kicker is that I can understand the answer. Learning the template questions in a foreign language is small beans compared to understanding the answers! I blend in too! I never thought I would be overly excited about fitting in with the crowd but after sticking out like a pale ghost in Ghana and like a giant in Japan and like an ignorant American in a variety of other countries, I blend right in with the rainbow of individual color schemes in the US. As a result, I feel like less of an intruder, or perhaps a better way to put would be a taker-advantage-ofer. However in ma there as any ways, traveling around the USA is also more difficult, especially without a car or camping gear.


As you may recall, the first 1/3 of my trip was driving from Missoula to Miami with my mom and her trusty Subaru outback which was loaded heavy with camping gear. It was, I realize now, quite a luxury to be able to drive to remote State and National parks, trail heads, stores, and breweries. It was also a luxury because it was provided a very reliable and comforting safety net. It’s steel frame, sturdy windows, locking doors and reliable engine could always serve as Plan B in plan A didn’t work out. Not only could we go where we wanted but we could go when we wanted and proved to be one of the greatest luxuries of all. I found that I was at the mercy of Greyhound bus schedules more than once. I would arrive at seedy stations at 4 am (thank you Reno) with no one to pick me up or else I would have to hang out at a bus station until 11:30pm for a bus to depart because the last city bus from the hostel to the station arrives at 6:30 (thank you Salt Lake City). Moreover, as silly as it may sound, even with inflated gas prices, driving with two people is much cheaper. Having a car also means the ability to have as much stuff as you want with you, and I’ve never wanted more than a car load.


This final point, not being able to carry a variety of items for a variety of situations, forced me to decide exactly what I would need for the next 3 months and nothing extra. I had to choose things that would be carry-on airplane friendly and that would meet my varied weather and activity criteria. I was planning to be in very hot and cold climates as well as backpacking. My knife, stove, lighter, iodine and thermo rest, all crucial backpacking items, had to be left behind as well as a variety of books, my pillow, skirts, day pack, computer, winter coat, towel and pajama pants. I took running/hiking shoes, shorts, sleeping bag, first aid kit, one water bottle, coffee cup, camera, cell phone, mp3 player and respective chargers, notebook, 2 books (Fire on the Mountain by Edward Abbey and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson), hiking boots, Tevas, jeans, fleece pants, long underwear set, hat, gloves, undies and socks, 2 short sleeve shirts, fleece jacket and raingear. I managed to get all of this in one backpack but only if I wore my boots. In hindsight, I packed very well and the backpacking gear that I left behind was augmented by friends.


The Florida Keys, where I stayed for a couple days after returning from Mexico, was very windy and touristy. Those seem to be the notable things. A brief trip to Key West proved to be disappointing due to the tourist horde fresh off the cruise ships, toting cameras and licking gooey ice cream cones. I did get a glimpse of the southern most point in the United States where there was a brief clearing of the horde. I find myself basing my days around running. I ran nearly every day on the flat trails around Cudjoe Key. I read quite a bit and Mom, Jo and I cooked some tasty salads. I also studied the dynamic between young and old and young at heart. There are a lot of snow-bird retirees that flock to the Keys and they do it in several unique and creative ways. Dan and Jo, for example, live in a gated community called Venture Out and they have a swimming pool, tennis courts and organized Saturday dances, pinochle tournaments and pancake breakfasts. They had fancy rules about what the houses could look like and where cars could be parked.


Jo’s brother and sister in law, however, were camping in a camper and tent in a camp ground just down the road. The campground was filled with various tent/RV/Motor- home setup with varying levels of permanency. When we walked through for a visit there was a lively group of folks sitting in plastic camp chairs with beer cozies in their hands and smiles on their faces. They hollered at us, asking us who we were looking for (we must have looked lost). We told them and they responded, oh yeah, he’s right over there you go straight past that red RV and then you turn right and walk to the end of the lane and his place is on the right, on the water. Do you need a map? And then they asked us where we were from and if we wanted any grilled plantains. YES!!! We visited and it was low key and low stress, a little opposite from the other setting. Then as we were leaving we encountered another group of revelers in plastic chairs with beer cozies and a BBQ warming up. There were several people that we recognized from the previous gathering. They invited us over and we chatted some more. They were a very open group and we found out that there are several weekly get togethers throughout the campground. Sounds fun and I could see myself retiring to a snowbird setting like that, but certainly not the Venture Out one! I guess not all Floridian nomads are created equal.


I was relieved and sad to leave the Florida Keys and the car keys. I was relieved because the area seemed to suck my energy and motivation. The wind was upsetting. There seemed to be nothing to do. Actually there was a lot to do. Key West is full of tourist activities such as Hemingway’s House and the furthest southern point in the USA. More accurately, I didn’t have the motivation to do it. I also slept poorly and often was wide awake on the couch before Dan came into start the coffee at 6 am. I was relieved to get out “on my own.” My mom and I got along surprisingly well, but even if you love someone dearly 4 weeks in their constant company can be too much.


But leaving my mother and the comfort, and insight that she gave me was as much of a sad affair as it was happy. We really did do well together and I was only mildly mean and childish on a few occasions. My mom left the comfort of the Keys on the same day as I did. She had bought tickets to Italy and I was strangely and unfoundedly worried about her on her own. As I flew to Dallas to meet a good friend, she flew to Rome without any knowledge of Italian. However, we all know my mother is very intelligent and resourceful and we also know that any idiot can travel through Europe. So she would be and was, it turned out, fine.

"Travel is intensified living-maximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. It's recess and we need it."

Both international and local travel are very important to me. I like to travel "close to the ground." I try to meet and communicate with people in their native language and not just rely on a taxi or purchased smiles. I like to seek the authentic side of a culture and not the pristine, manicured, sanitized side made palatable for western tourists. It is important to give culture the benefit of an open mind and to see things as different but not better or worse. I think that any culture has much to share.

Of course, travel, like the world, is a series of hills and valleys. I try to positive and optimistic. Even an adverse situation can turn into a good story or learning experience in the end. If something is not to my liking, I change my liking. Travel can make one a better citizen of the world. Our earth is home to six and half billion equally important people. I think that encountering other cultures and a smattering of these other six and half billion people is humbling as well as empowering.

I think the most important part of travel is that it has the ability to destroy ethnocentricity and damaging stereotypes. It helps one to understand and appreciate different cultures. By engaging in thoughtful travel and then subsequently engaging in provocative and critical discussions, one can work to breakdown harmful cultural barriers. One can use multi-cultural experiences and perspectives as tools to change narrow-minded conversations into a learning experience. Travel engages one with the world and I think it is more important then ever to understand different perspectives and points of views.

Travel has certainly changed me and drastically altered my world view. I would love to live and work in every place that I travel, become fluent in the language and make long lasting friendships. I have yet to find the perfect way to do this...have a meaningful experience without taking away a job from a local or otherwise adversely affecting the local culture. Travel can often times be as harmful as it is helpful. However, the positives, at this point, outweigh the negatives for me. Travel broadens perspectives and teaches new ways to measure quality of life. Rather than fear the diversity on this planet, travelers and knowledge seekers can celebrate it. It is necessary to look beyond one's hometown norms. The experiences and ideas that one can bring home and share are knit into their own character and those people that they interact with. To look outside is to look inside and find a whole new plane of existence where tolerance and understanding work to disciminate hurtful stereotypes and dehumanizations that lead to violence and ubstruct peace. (some of these ideas are paraphrased from Rick Steves' Travel Guide to Italy)


In February, I went on a short trip to Mexico, as my previous posts may have revealed. I went to my mom and a close friend. Both my mom and her friend have studied Spanish and pre-Hispanic Mexican history. Their interest in history really dictated the course of the trip and we visited a ton of museums and historical sites. The short time that we were there really made us need to capitalize on our time and every day was packed. I would have liked to pause for a while longer in one place to get a deeper understanding, but as it was, I was able to blast many of my stereotypes out the ceiling as well as learn a lot history that was never touched in school.

Travel in Mexico was a fascinating encounter with a unique mix of ancient civilization, gorgeous colonial architecture and deep-rooted pre-hispanic and post-hispanic traditions. Mexico has an ever present past! Which is in sharp contrast with the United States. Where Mexico is a mix of traditional pre-Hispanic and Spanish cultures, the USA has shoved almost all of it's native culture and tradition onto reservations.

I was able to visit the center fo Teotehuacan Civilization which flourished from 0 to 150 AD. People originally migrated to this area in 60000 to 8000 BC and agriculture began in 1200 BC. The site at Teotehuacan is especially intriguing because so little is known about the culture that built the center with two giant pyramids, a grid neighborhood system and water systems. The pyramid of the Sol is the third largest pyramid in the world and I was fortunate enough to be able to climb up the narrow steep steps and enjoy the amazing view of valley. Anthropologists believe that the the civilization collapsed in the 8thalmost as quickly as it built up. The Aztecs discovered the site and adopted it as a sacred place of ceremonies where their revered ancestors had once lived. The Aztec gods closely mirror those of the Teotehuacan Civilization. Quetzacoatle and Tlaloc are two gods whose image I saw im many museums and carved into the stones of many ruins. Quetzacoatle is a feathered serpent and Tlaloc is the god of rain.

Another ruin that I visited was called Xochicalco. It flourished briefly and is known as the cult of the feathered serpent. The ruins were astounding. Unlike Teotehuacan, the place was devoid of tourists and remarkable devoid of locals pandering trinkets and souvenirs. The persistent pressure of sellers at Teotehuacan made me feel uncomfortable and completely destroyed any spiritual or otherwise sentimental feelings that I might have felt in the awesome presence of such ancient and monumental structures. At Xochicalco, the structures were less grandeur but held much more mystery and intrigue. The grounds were so quiet it was easy to imagine the way things might have been like when the civilization was at its peak. Their were several in tact ball courts and an astronomer's cave that they used to track the constellations and the sun. They also had a great museum with an English audio guide, which was a huge bonus for me.

In 1325, the Aztecs, also known as the Mexicas, settled in a place called Tenochtitlan and current day Mexico City. The Aztec civilization had been wandering tribes awaiting the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy: They would find the destined site for a great city whose location would be signaled by an eagle eating a snake while perched atop a cactus. The wandering Aztecs saw this vision on what was then a small swampy island in Lake Texcoco. This vision is now on the Mexican flag. The Aztecs, were able to overcome the swampy nature of the land they were to build their city on by incorporating a system of chinampas for agriculture.

Chinampas were stationary artificial islands that usually measured roughly 30 by 2½ meters, although they were sometimes longer. They were created by staking out the shallow lake bed and then fencing in the rectangle with wattle, a woven lattice of wooden strips daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay and sand, animal dung and straw. The fenced-off area was then layered with mud, lake sediment, and decaying vegetation, eventually bringing it above the level of the lake. Often trees such as willows were planted at the corners to secure the chinampa. The primary chinampas crops were maize, beans, squash, amaranth, tomatoes and chilies.It is estimated that food provided by chinampas made up one-half to two-thirds of the food consumed by the city of Tenochitlan. Chinampas were separated by channels wide enough for a canoe to pass. This system dried and expanded the land. There is a place in Mexico City, called Xochimilco, where one can ride canoes through still existing chinampas but the place is largely overrun with tourists and has a disturbing carnival feel to it.

As the Aztec continued to thrive and develope, it dominated other tribes all around Mexico. They perpetually enlarged Tenochtitlan which grew to become the largest and most powerful city in Mesoamerica with around 215,000 inhabitants. Templo Mayor was excavated in Mexico City and I was able to visit it. The temple was rebuilt every sixty years because it continued to sink into the ground. The Aztecs didn't tear down the previous temple, they simply added another layer to the outside like frosting. In its current state, one can walk through the temple and see the different layers. The Temple is in the very center of Mexico City and surrounded by the giant square, state buildings and the biggest catholic church in the world. The surrounding buildings, especially the church are sinking into the silty soft ground and I had a silly sense of vertigo as I walked about because all the buildings leaned at kaddywompus angles to each other.

While the Aztec Empire expanded in meso-america, Spain was rapidly expanding and looking for new trade routs and conquests. In 1942, Spanish Christian armies finally completed a 700 year long reconquest to recovery territory from the islamic rule. Spain was rapidly expanding and looking for new trade routs and conquests. Christopher Columbus arrived in America followed by the conquistadors. The nearly 3000 year old ancient Mexican civilization was shattered in two short years by them.

Hernan Cortes led an expidition to initiate trade relations with the natives in 1519. Cortes was invariably driven by personal gain and became obsessed with the search for gold. After conquering several coastal areas, Cortes arrived at Tenochitlan and was, according to some accounts, accepted by Moctezuma as the reincarnation of their diety Quetzacoatle. While Cortes was initially well-received, the Aztecs eventually drove him out.

Cortes returned a year later in 1521 with the help of 100,000 natives from other areas and after three months captured Tenochitlan. The conquest continued and by 1605 the indigenous population declined from 25 million to a little over 1 million due to small pox among other new diseases.

The indigenous people were enslaved, exploited and indoctrinated with catholicism. During the colonial period, Spain exploited Mexico to finance the wars taking place in Europe. As the decades passed, many Spaniards put down roots in Mexico and those born and bred in the colony began to develop their own identity and a growing alienation from the mother country. It was criollos (people born of Spanish parents in the new colony) who engineered the separation of New Spain from Spain. The cri0llo discontent with Spanish rule really began to stir following the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire in 1767. When the Spanish crown confiscated church assets in 1804, the church had to call in many debts. This hit the criollos hard. The catalyst for rebellion was in 1808 when Napoleon occupied Spain and direct control evaporated.

In 1810, Hidalgo launched a war for independence and mobs massacred the peninsulares. After 11 years of fighting Mexico gained independence and equal rights for peninsulares, criollos with a constitutional monarchy dominated by the catholic religion.

A person's place in colonial Mexican society was determined by skin color, parentage, and birthplace. At the top were peninsulares, Spanish born colonists. Next were criollos, then mestizos, those of mixed decendency and finaly the indigenous and african slaves.Social stratification follows similar patterns in Mexico today with, broadly speaking, the 'pure-blooded' descendents of Spaniards at the top, with mestizos in the middle and the indigenous people at the bottom. I tried to engage a Mexican man who spoke French in a meaningful conversation about his heritage the the current social issues in Mexico. Unfortunately, our language barrier created issues and I learned little from him. He did give me good advice about the local neighborhood and made me an awesome sandwich, so all was not lost.

I didn't really learn a lot about the period following the war for independence. But the period from 1821 to 1860 was marked by the loss of territory to the USA, corruption, the Mexican American war and the Alamo as well as the War or Reform and the election of the first indigenous president, Benito Juarez. The 1900s were marked by revolutions led by Poncho Villa and other liberal reformers and radicals such as Zapata. In the 1920s, Mexico underwent a land ownership distribution which put land into local communal landholdings called ejidos. The ejidos were successful until the 1960s, when much of the land was sold to corporations. More recently, however, ejidos and other forms of communal agriculture are being resurrected. I learned about ejidos in a community agiculture class. I will try to dig up some more info on them when I get home.

Catholicism plays a huge role in current day Mexico. Catholic churches were everywhere as was the image of the Lady of Guadalupe. She is the patron saint of Mexico. She is also a manifestation of the virgin Marry. She is the archetypal mother and the pre-eminent focus of Mexican spirituality. I think that current spirituality is a complex mix of catholicism and that of pre-Hispanic civilizations. Elements of ancient religions survive alongside and are integrated into Catholicism. This is evident in the fact that many Mexicans still give great importance to omens, portents, coincidences and other curious happenings. It is also evident in the way that the ancients' obsession with death is accentuated in the catholic church. The day of the dead is a prime example of an ancient tradition revamped into a catholic celebration. I was in Mexico during the two weeks preceding Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. In the United States, many towns have parades and parties in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras and most places have some kind of party for Mardi Gras, an opportunity to binge and get it all out of our system before the restrictions and abstinence of Lent set in. In Mexico, the two weeks before Lent is characterized by indigenous song and dance and crazy traditions that began as indigenous but evolved into a rite all its own.

In Tepotzlan, the tradition of the Chinelos is strongly upheld. All the history that I have found on Chinelos is poorly translated. But I think that essentially, it began with a group of young people who felt excluded from carnival festivities because of the restrictions of Lent. They disguesed themeselves old clothes and covered their faces with a handkerchiefs and began to shout and jump up and down the streets of the town. They were apparently making fun of the Spaniards. Their actions were a great success and they organized such a display the next year. Year after year, the dancing and jumping became more and more popular and the celebration grew into a two week ordeal where troupes of dancing Chinelos gather with brass bands to celebrate and revel. The costume became more and more elaborate. Currently, they look like lace-lined velvet judge robes. They wear a tunic with elaborately embroidered scenes of indigenous people fighting the conquistadors. They wear a wire mask with a pointed and up-curled beard, white gloves and tall hat with beaded Aztec gods. The Chinelos dance from early morning to late night. Different troups rotate in and out and the entire dance is punctuated by brilliant fireworks, carnival rides and a spicey beer and chili drink called a michalada. I tried chapulines while I was in Tepotztlan. Chapulines are crispy grasshoppers. I had them in a blue tortilla with cheese. After I overcame my initial revulsion, they were kind of tasty and the crunchy texture was not unpleasant. I did manage to get a leg or a thorax stuck in the soft tissue of my pallet and spent most of the night hacking. I also had some psychologically induced stomach flutters and aches where I felt like grasshoppers were jumping up and down in there.

While much of this crazy revelry was going on, I took time to visit the 2nd and 3rd highest mountains in Mexico. We tried to climb Mount Itza but we were thwarted by inadequate shoes and very foggy cloudy weather. The very high altitude proved to be a problem as well. Mount Popo was not open to hikers because it has been active recently and constantly spews smoke. I also did a very steep climb up a cliff to get to a little temple nestled in its crags. The temple afforded a great view of the city below and was quite peaceful despite the hordes of high school students that flooded it.

There are a lot of other little details about the trip that made it unforgetable, like how much I loved buying tamales and freshly squeezed carrot juice from street vendors or how much Jo loved to get a coffee and a muffin in the mornings. Or how I inadvertantly stole and then subsequently bought a bag of tortilla chips in a local market and Mom bought yucca cactus salsa for my stolen tortilla chips. Our bus and metro rides were also notable as well as one nearly fatal taxi ride. The smog and pollution was also very notable and Jo suffered from daily nosebleeds and mom and I had horrible eye issues. I enjoyed the cute little Europeanish town of Taxco with the Christ statue looming over it nestled into a hill. The cathedral there was truely stunning with pink stones. I think the most tantalizing food for thought that I cam away with was the contrast between current Mexican society and the incorporation or dis-incorporation of indigenous cultures versus that of the United States and Canada. I hope to do more research into this topic and report on it later.

El Milano Amarillo
(The Yellow Kite)

Three purple kites fly over Taxco
and the Capilla de Guadalupe.
My yellow kite hangs limp at my
side. It is as yellow as a lemon
chiffon cake. Grandpa helps me
launch the kite, his brown hands
gently play out the rainbow
colored line. I grip the spool,
crying, “yo, yo!” and he lets go
of the line as my kite soars above
the Capilla, above the zocalo
and the matching white houses
with red roofs. It catches the light
and becomes a second sun.
As the wind kisses my cheeks with one
hand, it grabs my kite with the other
and sends it swooping into
a tree covered in delicate purple
blossoms. Grandpa and I work together
to carefully untwist the string from the
branches and blossoms…
yellow and blue, big and small.

Three purple kites fly high over
the grade-schoolers with dark
ash crosses on their foreheads.
Grandpa launches my kite and we
hold hands, hold on to the line,
the little yellow kite and Mexico.

Amecameca

High above the city, I sit,
5027 meters and 12 stations
of the cross high. Below me,
the city sprawls, nicely compact.

It is a pallet of bright colors,
cement grays. In my ears rings
a carnival’s calliope, horn music,
church bells, laughing children
and scattering coins. The church
on the hill is as alive and full of people
as the carnival in the zocalo below
and a baby is being baptized.
The graveyard outside is old, old, old.
Graves are grass-covered and inscriptions
are worn away.

The clouds gather in the sky, gather
around the looming volcanoes
on the horizon. Gather around snow-studded
peaks. They collect rain above me and smell
like chiles, tamales and pineapple.
They small like tamarind, plantains
and beans, spicy and sweet, spring
and summer, dry and hot.
The town sprawls beneath me,
nicely compact.

I need to put this here so that I can remember it always.

"Come September."
Transcription of Arundhati Roy reading andMs. Roy and Howard Zinn in conversationLensic Performing Arts CenterSanta Fe, New Mexico18 September 2002

Writers imagine that they cull stories from the world. I'm beginning to believe that vanity makes them think so. That it's actually the other way around. Stories cull writers from the world. Stories reveal themselves to us. The public narrative, the private narrative - they colonize us. They commission us. They insist on being told. Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons that I don't fully understand, fiction dances out of me, and nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.
The theme of much of what I write, fiction as well as nonfiction, is the relationship between power and powerlessness and the endless, circular conflict they're engaged in. John Berger, that most wonderful writer, once wrote: "Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one." There can never be a single story. There are only ways of seeing. So when I tell a story, I tell it not as an ideologue who wants to pit one absolutist ideology against another, but as a story-teller who wants to share her way of seeing. Though it might appear otherwise, my writing is not really about nations and histories; it's about power. About the paranoia and ruthlessness of power. About the physics of power. I believe that the accumulation of vast unfettered power by a State or a country, a corporation or an institution - or even an individual, a spouse, a friend, a sibling -regardless of ideology, results in excesses such as the ones I will recount here.
Living as I do, as millions of us do, in the shadow of the nuclear holocaust that the governments of India and Pakistan keep promising their brain-washed citizenry, and in the global neighborhood of the War Against Terror (what President Bush rather biblically calls "The Task That Never Ends"), I find myself thinking a great deal about the relationship between Citizens and the State.
In India, those of us who have expressed views on Nuclear Bombs, Big Dams, Corporate Globalization and the rising threat of communal Hindu fascism - views that are at variance with the Indian Government's - are branded 'anti- national.' While this accusation doesn't fill me with indignation, it's not an accurate description of what I do or how I think. Because an 'anti-national' is a person who is against his or her own nation and, by inference, is pro some other one. But it isn't necessary to be 'anti-national' to be deeply suspicious of all nationalism, to be anti-nationalism. Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. [Applause] When independent- thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the "Nation," it's time for all of us to sit up and worry. In India we saw it happen soon after the Nuclear tests in 1998 and during the Cargill War against Pakistan in 1999. In the U.S. we saw it during the Gulf War and we see it now during the "War Against Terror." That blizzard of Made-in-China American flags. [Laughter]
Recently, those who have criticized the actions of the U.S. government (myself included) have been called "anti-American." Anti-Americanism is in the process of being consecrated into an ideology.
The term "anti-American" is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and, not falsely - but shall we say inaccurately - define its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they are heard, and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride.
But what does the term "anti-American" mean? Does it mean you are anti-jazz? Or that you're opposed to freedom of speech? That you don't delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean that you don't admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands of war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?
This sly conflation of America's culture, music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the U.S. government's foreign policy (about which, thanks to America's "free press", sadly most Americans know very little) is a deliberate and extremely effective strategy. It's like a retreating army taking cover in a heavily populated city, hoping that the prospect of hitting civilian targets will deter enemy fire.
But there are many Americans who would be mortified to be associated with their government's policies. The most scholarly, scathing, incisive, hilarious critiques of the hypocrisy and the contradictions in U.S. government policy come from American citizens. When the rest of the world wants to know what the U.S. government is up to, we turn to Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, Howard Zinn, Ed Herman, Amy Goodman, Michael Albert, Chalmers Johnson, William Blum and Anthony Amove to tell us what's really going on.
[Applause]
Similarly, in India, not hundreds, but millions of us would be ashamed and offended if we were in any way implicated with the present Indian government's fascist policies which, apart from the perpetration of State terrorism in the valley of Kashmir (in the name of fighting terrorism), have also turned a blind eye to the recent state-supervised progrom against Muslims in Gujarat. It would be absurd to think that those who criticize the Indian government are "anti-Indian" - although the government itself never hesitates to take that line. It is dangerous to cede to the Indian government or the American government or anyone for that matter, the right to define what "India" or "America" are or ought to be.
To call someone "anti-American", indeed to be anti-American, (or for that matter, anti-Indian or anti-Timbuktuan) is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those the establishment has set out for you. If you're not a Bushie you're a Taliban. If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not Good, you're Evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.
Last year, like many others, I too made the mistake of scoffing at this post- September 11th rhetoric, dismissing it as foolish and arrogant. But I've realized it's not foolish at all. It's actually a canny recruitment drive for a misconceived, dangerous war. Everyday I'm taken aback at how many people believe that opposing the war in Afghanistan amounts to supporting terrorism, of voting for the Taliban. Now that the initial aim of the war - capturing Osama bin Laden (dead or alive) - seems to have run into bad weather, the goalposts have been moved. It's being made out that the whole point of the war was to topple the Taliban regime and liberate Afghan women from their burqas, we are being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist mission [laughter, applause]. (If so, will their next stop be America's military ally Saudi Arabia?) [Laughter] Think of it this way: in India there are some pretty reprehensible social practices against "untouchables", against Christians and Muslims, against women. Pakistan and Bangladesh have even worse ways of dealing with minority communities and women. Should they be bombed? Should Delhi, Islamabad and Dhaka be destroyed? Is it possible to bomb bigotry out of India? Can we bomb our way to a feminist paradise? [Laughter] Is that how women won the vote in the U.S? Or how slavery was abolished? Can we win redress for the genocide of the millions of Native Americans upon whose corpses the United States was founded by bombing Santa Fe? [Applause]
None of us need anniversaries to remind us of what we cannot forget. So it's no more than co-incidence that I happen to be here, on American soil, in September - this month of dreadful anniversaries. Uppermost on everybody's mind of course, particularly here in America, is the horror of what has come to be known as 9/11. Nearly three thousand civilians lost their lives in that lethal terrorist strike. The grief is still deep. The rage still sharp. The tears have not dried. And a strange, deadly war is raging around the world. Yet, each person who has lost a loved one surely knows secretly, deeply, that no war, no act of revenge, no daisy-cutters dropped on someone else's loved ones or someone else's children, will blunt the edges of their pain or bring their own loved ones back. War cannot avenge those who have died. War is only a brutal desecration of their memory.
To fuel yet another war - this time against Iraq - by cynically manipulating people's grief, by packaging it for TV specials sponsored by corporations selling detergent and running shoes, is to cheapen and devalue grief, to drain it of meaning. What we are seeing now is a vulgar display of the business of grief, the commerce of grief, the pillaging of even the most private human feelings for political purpose. It is a terrible, violent thing for a State to do to its people. [Applause]
It's not a clever-enough subject to speak of from a public platform, but what I would really love to talk to you about is Loss. Loss and losing. Grief, failure, brokenness, numbness, uncertainty, fear, the death of feeling, the death of dreaming. The absolute relentless, endless, habitual, unfairness of the world. What does loss mean to individuals? What does it mean to whole cultures, whole people who have learned to live with it as a constant companion?
Since it is September 11th we're talking about, perhaps it's in the fitness of things that we remember what that date means, not only to those who lost their loved ones in America last year, but to those in other parts of the world to whom that date has long held significance. This historical dredging is not offered as an accusation or a provocation. But just to share the grief of history. To thin the mists a little. To say to the citizens of America, in the gentlest, most human way: "Welcome to the World." [Applause]
Twenty-nine years ago, in Chile, on the 11th of September 1973, General Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in a CIA-backed coup. "Chile should not be allowed to go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible," said Henry Kissinger, Nobel Peace Laureate, then the U.S. Secretary of State.
After the coup President Allende was found dead inside the presidential palace. Whether he was killed or whether he killed himself, we'll never know. In the regime of terror that ensured, thousands of people were killed. Many more simply "disappeared". Firing squads conducted public executions. Concentration camps and torture chambers were opened across the country. The dead were buried in mine shafts and unmarked graves. For seventeen years the people of Chile lived in dread of the midnight knock, of routine "disappearances", of sudden arrest and torture. Chileans tell the story of how the musician Victor Jara had his hands cut off in front of a crowd in the Santiago stadium. Before they shot him, Pinochet's soldiers threw his guitar at him and mockingly asked him to play.
In 1999, following the arrest of General Pinochet in Britain, thousands of secret documents were declassified by the U.S. government. They contain unequivocal evidence of the CIA's involvement in the coup as well as the fact that the U.S. government had detailed information about the situation in Chile during General Pinochet's reign. Yet, Kissinger assured the general of his support: "In the United States as you know, we are sympathetic to what you're trying to do," he said. "We wish your government well."
Those of us who have only ever known life in a democracy, however flawed, would find it hard to imagine what living in a dictatorship and enduring the absolute loss of freedom means. It isn't just those who Pinochet murdered, but the lives he stole from the living that must be accounted for too.
Sadly, Chile was not the only country in South America to be singled out for the U.S. government's attentions. Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, Peru, Mexico and Colombia - they've all been the playground for covert - and overt - operations by the CIA. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed, tortured or have simply disappeared under the despotic regimes that were propped up in their countries. If this were not humiliation enough, the people of South America have had to bear the cross of being branded as people who are incapable of democracy - as if coups and massacres are somehow encrypted in their genes.
This list does not, of course, include countries in Africa or Asia that suffered U.S. military interventions - Vietnam, Korea, Indonesia, Laos, and Cambodia. For how many Septembers for decades together have millions of Asian people been bombed, and burned, and slaughtered? How many Septembers have gone by since August 1945, when hundreds of thousands of ordinary Japanese people were obliterated by the nuclear strikes in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? For how many Septembers have the thousands who had the misfortune of surviving those strikes endured that living hell that was visited on them, their unborn children, their children's children, on the earth, the sky, the water, the wind, and all the creatures that swim and walk and crawl and fly? Not far from here, in Albuquerque, is the National Atomic Museum where Fat Man and Little Boy (the affectionate nicknames for the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) were available as souvenir earrings. Funky young people wore them. A massacre dangling in each ear. But I'm straying from my theme. It's September that we're talking about, not August.
September 11th has a tragic resonance in the Middle East, too. On the 11th of September 1922, ignoring Arab outrage, the British government proclaimed a mandate in Palestine, a follow-up to the 1917 Balfour Declaration which imperial Britain issued, with its army massed outside the gates of Gaza. The Balfour Declaration promised European Zionists a national home for Jewish people. (At the time, the Empire on which the Sun Never Set was free to snatch and bequeath national homes like a school bully distributes marbles.)
How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilizations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain's festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modem world. Both are fault lines in the raging international conflicts of today.
In 1937, Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians, I quote, "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." That set the trend for the Israeli State's attitude towards the Palestinians. In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, "Palestinians do not exist." Her successor, Prime Minister Levi Eschol said, "What are Palestinians? When I came here (to Palestine), there were 250,000 non-Jews, mainly Arabs and Bedouins. It was a desert, more than underdeveloped. Nothing." Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians "two-legged beasts." Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them "grasshoppers" who could be crushed. This is the language of Heads of State, not the words of ordinary people.
In 1947, the U.N. formally partitioned Palestine and allotted 55 per cent of Palestine's land to the Zionists. Within a year, they had captured 76 per cent. On the 14th of May 1948 the State of Israel was declared. Minutes after the declaration, the United States recognized Israel. The West Bank was annexed by Jordan. The Gaza strip came under Egyptian military control, and formally Palestine ceased to exist except in the minds and hearts of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people who became refugees. In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
Over the decades there have been uprisings, wars, intifadas. Tens of thousands have lost their lives. Accords and treaties have been signed. Cease-fires declared and violated. But the bloodshed doesn't end. Palestine still remains illegally occupied. Its people live in inhuman conditions, in virtual Bantustans, where they are subjected to collective punishments, twenty-four hour curfews, where they are humiliated and brutalized on a daily basis. They never know when their homes will be demolished, when their children will be shot, when their precious trees will be cut, when their roads will be closed, when they will be allowed to walk down to the market to buy food and medicine. And when they will not. They live with no semblance of dignity. With not much hope in sight. They have no control over their lands, their security, their movement, their communication, their water supply. So when accords are signed, and words like "autonomy" and even "statehood" bandied about, it's always worth asking: What sort of autonomy? What sort of State? What sort of rights will its citizens have?
Young Palestinians who cannot control their anger turn themselves into human bombs and haunt Israel's streets and public places, blowing themselves up, killing ordinary people, injecting terror into daily life, and eventually hardening both societies' suspicion and mutual hatred of each other. Each bombing invites merciless reprisal and even more hardship on Palestinian people. But then suicide bombing is an act of individual despair, not a revolutionary tactic. Although Palestinian attacks strike terror into Israeli citizens, they provide the perfect cover for the Israeli government's daily incursions into Palestinian territory, the perfect excuse for old-fashioned, nineteenth-century colonialism, dressed up as a new fashioned, twenty-first century "war".
Israel's staunchest political and military ally is and always has been the U.S. The U.S. government has blocked, along with Israel, almost every U.N. resolution that sought a peaceful, equitable solution to the conflict. It has supported almost every war that Israel has fought. When Israel attacks Palestine, it is American missiles that smash through Palestinian homes. And every year Israel receives several billion dollars from the United States - taxpayers money.
What lessons should we draw from this tragic conflict? Is it really impossible for Jewish people who suffered so cruelly themselves - more cruelly perhaps than any other people in history - to understand the vulnerability and the yearning of those whom they have displaced? Does extreme suffering always kindle cruelty? What hope does this leave the human race with? What will happen to the Palestinian people in the event of a victory? When a nation without a state eventually proclaims a state, what kind of state will it be? What horrors will be perpetrated under its flag? Is it a separate state that we should be fighting for or, the rights to a life of liberty and dignity for everyone regardless of their ethnicity or religion?
Palestine was once a secular bulwark in the Middle East. But now the weak, undemocratic, by all accounts corrupt but avowedly nonsectarian P.L.O., is losing ground to Hamas, which espouses an overtly sectarian ideology and fights in the name of Islam. To quote from their manifesto: "we will be its soldiers and the firewood of its fire, which will burn the enemies."
The world is called upon to condemn suicide bombers. But can we ignore the long road they have journeyed on before they have arrived at this destination? September 11, 1922 to September 11, 2002 - eighty years is a long time to have been waging war. Is there some advice the world can give the people of Palestine? Should they just take Golda Meir's suggestion and make a real effort not to exist?
In another part of the Middle East, September 11th strikes a more recent cord. It was on the 11th of September 1990 that George W. Bush, Sr., then President of the U.S., made a speech to a joint session of Congress announcing his government's decision to go to war against Iraq.
The U.S. government says that Saddam Hussein is a war criminal, a cruel military despot who has committed genocide against his own people. That's a fairly accurate description of the man. In 1988, Saddam Hussein razed hundreds of villages in northern Iraq, used chemical weapons and machine guns to kill thousands of Kurdish people. Today we know that that same year the U.S. government provided him with $500 million in subsidies to buy American farm products. The next year, after he had successfully completed his genocidal campaign, the U.S. government doubled its subsidy to $1 billion. It also provided him with high quality germ seed for anthrax, and helicopters and dual-use material that could be used to manufacture chemical and biological weapons. So it turns out that while Saddam Hussein was carrying out his worst atrocities, the U.S. and the U.K. governments were his close allies.
So what changed? In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. His sin was not so much that he had committed an act of war, but that he had acted independently, without orders from his master. This display of independence was enough to upset the power equation in the Gulf. So it was decided that Saddam Hussein be exterminated, like a pet that has outlived its owner's affection.
The first Allied attack on Iraq took place on January '91. The world watched the prime-time war as it was played out on T.V. (In India in those days you had to go to a five-star hotel lobby to watch CNN.) Tens of thousands of people were killed in a month of devastating bombing. What many do not know is that the war never ended then. The initial fury simmered down into the longest sustained air attack on a country since the Vietman War. Over the last decade American and British forces have fired thousands of missiles and bombs on Iraq. In the decade of economic sanctions that followed the war, Iraqi civilians have been denied food, medicine, hospital equipment, ambulances, clean water - the basic essentials.
About half a million Iraqi children have died as a result of the sanctions. Of them, Madeleine Albright, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, famously said, "It's a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it." "Moral equivalence" was the term that was used to denounce those of us who criticized the war on Afghanistan. Madeleine Albright cannot be accused of moral equivalence. What she said was just straightforward algebra.
A decade of bombing has not managed to dislodge Saddam Hussein, "the Beast of Baghdad". Now, almost 12 years on, President George Bush, Jr. has ratcheted up the rhetoric once again. He's proposing an all-out war whose goal is nothing short of a regime change. The New York Times says that the Bush administration is following, quote, "a meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress, and the Allies of the need to confront the threat of Saddam Hussein." Andrew. H. Card, Jr., the White House Chief of Staff, described how the administration was stepping up its war plans for the fall, and I quote, "From a marketing point of view", he said, "you don't introduce new products in August." This time the catch-phrase for Washington's "new product" is not the plight of Kuwaiti people but the assertion that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. "Forget the feckless moralizing of peace lobbies", wrote Richard Perle, a former advisor to President Bush, "We need to get him before he gets us."
Weapons inspectors have conflicting reports of the status of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and many have said clearly that its arsenal has been dismantled and that it does not have the capacity to build one. However, there is no confusion over the extent and range of America's arsenal of nuclear and chemical weapons. Would the U.S. government welcome weapons inspectors? Would the U.K.? Or Israel?
What if Iraq does have a nuclear weapon, does that justify a pre-emptive U.S. strike? The U.S. has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world and it's the only country in the world to have actually used them on civilian populations. If the U.S. is justified in launching a pre-emptive strike on Iraq, why, then any nuclear power is justified in carrying out a pre- emptive strike on any other. India could attack Pakistan, or the other way around. If the U.S. government develops a distaste for, say, the Indian Prime Minister, can it just "take him out" with a pre-emptive strike?
Recently the United States played an important part in forcing India and Pakistan back from the brink of war. Is it so hard for it to take its own advice? Who is guilty of feckless moralizing? Of preaching peace while it wages war? The U.S., which George Bush has called "the most peaceful nation on earth", has been at war with one country or another every year for the last fifty.
Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. They're usually fought for hegemony, for business. And then of course there's the business of war.
Protecting its control of the world's oil is fundamental to U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. government's recent military interventions in the Balkans and Central Asia have to do with oil. Hamid Karzai, the puppet President of Afghanistan installed by the U.S., is said to be a former employee of Unocal, the American-based oil company. The U.S. government's paranoid patrolling of the Middle East is because it has two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. Oil keeps America's engines purring sweetly. Oil keeps the Free Market rolling. Whoever controls the world's oil, controls the world's market. And how do you control the oil?
Nobody puts it more elegantly than The New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman. In an article called, "Craziness Pays", he said, "The U.S. has to make it clear to Iraq and U.S. allies that...American will use force without negotiation, hesitation or U.N. approval." His advice was well taken. In the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in the almost daily humiliation the U.S. government heaps on the U.N. In his book on globalization, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman says, and I quote, "The hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist. McDonalds cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas...and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps." Perhaps this was written in a moment of vulnerability, but it's certainly the most succinct, accurate description of the project of corporate globalization that I have read.
After the 11th of September 2001 and the War Against Terror, the hidden hand and fist have had their cover blown - and we have a clear view now of America's other weapon - the Free Market - bearing down on the Developing World, with a clenched, unsmiling smile. The Task That Never Ends is America's perfect war, the perfect vehicle for the endless expansion of American imperialism. In Urdu, the word for Profit, as in "p-r-o-f-i-t", is fayda. Al Qaida means The Word, The Word of God, The Law. So, in India, some of us call the War Against Terror, Al Qaida versus Al Fayda - The Word versus The Profit (no pun intended.)
For the moment it looks as though Al Fayda will carry the day. But then you never know...
In the last ten years of unbridled Corporate Globalization, the world's total income has increased by an average of 2.5 percent a year. And yet the numbers of poor in the world has increased by 100 million. Of the top hundred biggest economies, 51 are corporations, not countries. The top 1 percent of the world has the same combined income as the bottom 57 percent and that disparity is growing. And now, under the spreading canopy of the War Against Terror, this process is being hustled along. The men in suits are in an unseemly hurry. While bombs rain down on us, and cruise missiles skid across the skies, while nuclear weapons are stockpiled to make the world a safer place, contracts are being signed, patents are being registered, oil pipe lines are being laid, natural resources are being plundered, water is being privatized, and democracies are being undermined.
In a country like India, the "structural adjustment" end of the Corporate Globalization project is ripping through people's lives. "Development" projects, massive privatization, and labor "reforms" are pushing people off their lands and out of their jobs, resulting in a kind of barbaric dispossession that has few parallels in history. Across the world, as the "Free Market" brazenly protects Western markets and forces developing countries to lift their trade barriers, the poor are getting poorer and the rich richer. Civil unrest has begun to erupt in the global village. In countries like Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia and India, the resistance movements against Corporate Globalization are growing. To contain them, governments are tightening their control. Protesters are being labeled "terrorists" and then being dealt with as such. But civil unrest does not only mean marches and demonstrations and protests against globalization. Unfortunately, it also means a desperate downward spiral into crime and chaos and all kinds of despair and disillusionment which as we know from history (and from what we see unspooling before our eyes), gradually becomes a fertile breeding ground for terrible things - cultural nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and of course, terrorism.
All these march arm-in-arm with corporate globalization.
There is a notion gaining credence that the Free Market breaks down national barriers, and that Corporate Globalization's ultimate destination is a hippie paradise where the heart is the only passport and we all live happily together inside a John Lennon song. ("Imagine there's no country...") But this is a canard.
What the Free Market undermines is not national sovereignty, but democracy. As the disparity between the rich and poor grows, the hidden fist has its work cut out for it. Multinational corporations on the prowl for "sweetheart deals" that yield enormous profits cannot push through those deals and administer those projects in developing countries without the active connivance of State machinery - the police, the courts, sometimes even the army. Today Corporate Globalization needs an international confederation of loyal, corrupt, preferably authoritarian governments in poorer countries to push through unpopular reforms and quell the mutinies. It needs a press that pretends to be free. It needs courts that pretend to dispense justice. It needs nuclear bombs, standing armies, sterner immigration laws, and watchful coastal patrols to make sure that it's only money, goods, patents, and services that are being globalized - not the free movement of people, not a respect for human rights, not international treaties on racial discrimination or chemical and nuclear weapons, or greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, or god forbid, justice. It's as though even a gesture towards international accountability would wreck the whole enterprise.
Close to one year after the War against Terror was officially flagged off in the ruins of Afghanistan, in country after country freedoms are being curtailed in the name of protecting freedom, civil liberties are being suspended in the name of protecting democracy. All kinds of dissent are being defined as "terrorism". All kinds of laws are being passed to deal with it. Osama bin Laden seems to have vanished into thin air. Mullah Omar is supposed to have made his escape on a motorbike. (They could have sent TinTin after him.) [Laughter] The Taliban may have disappeared but their spirit, and their system of summary justice is surfacing in the unlikeliest of places. In India, in Pakistan, in Nigeria, in America, in all the Central Asian republics run by all manner of despots, and of course in Afghanistan under the U.S.-backed, Northern Alliance.
Meanwhile down at the mall there's a mid-season sale. Everything's discounted - oceans, rivers, oil, gene pools, fig wasps, flowers, childhoods, aluminum factories, phone companies, wisdom, wilderness, civil rights, eco-systems, air - all 4,600 million years of evolution. It's packed, sealed, tagged, valued and available off the rack. (No returns). As for justice - I'm told it's on offer too. You can get the best that money can buy.
Donald Rumsfeld said that his mission in the War Against Terror was to persuade the world that Americans must be allowed to continue their way of life. When the maddened king stamps his foot, slaves tremble in their quarters. So, standing here today, it's hard for me to say this, but "The American Way of Life" is simply not sustainable. Because it doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America.
[Applause]
But fortunately, power has a shelf life. When the time comes, maybe this mighty empire will, like others before it, overreach itself and implode from within. It looks as though structural cracks have already appeared. As the War Against Terror casts its net wider and wider, America's corporate heart is hemorrhaging. For all the endless, empty chatter about democracy, today the world is run by three of the most secretive institutions in the world: The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, all three of which, in turn, are dominated by the U.S. Their decisions are made in secret. The people who head them are appointed behind closed doors. Nobody really knows anything about them, their politics, their beliefs, their intentions. Nobody elected them. Nobody said they could make decisions on our behalf. A world run by a handful of greedy bankers and C.E.O.'s whom nobody elected can't possibly last.
Soviet-style communism failed, not because it was intrinsically evil but because it was flawed. It allowed too few people to usurp too much power. Twenty-first century market-capitalism, American style, will fail for the same reasons. Both are edifices constructed by the human intelligence, undone by human nature.
The time has come, the Walrus said. Perhaps things will become worse and then better. Perhaps there's a small god up in heaven readying herself for us. Another world is not only possible, she's on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.

Tlaloc

Today is cloudy. It stormed last night
and I watched through the window screen
as lightening braided across the sky, illuminating
the apartment buildings of el Cuidade de Mexico.

I imagined the rain catching on pieces of smog
as it pelts to the cement ground. Where does
a raindrop, a tear of Tlaloc, go in this city…
in these cracked cement mazes?
The trees, the grass, push up where
they can and call silently for the rain.

The people search out the pouring rain too,
opening roof-top cisterns and shedding jackets
to soak it up, to be reminded of the time when
this cement jungle was a shallow blue gem
of a lake in a green tangle of trees, a time
when the air was sweet and clear and the water
was even sweeterr.

Maybe it will storm again tonight and wash
away the cement. Maybe the lightening
will catch the buildings afire, the thunder
will shake the automobiles off the roads
and the building off their foundations.
Tlaloc will rise from the storm drains
and the temples with reassemble from
the rubble while maize, calabaza and frijoles
flourish in fertile fields and the lakes will refill
as the rivers flow and the population will shrink
as the sky clears, the sun sets and the moon glows
in the iridescent twinkle of a billion stars
in the shapes of as many ancient and new gods.

I have survived my brief but harrowing journey through the deep south. Mom and I entered Texas amidst a massive thunder, lightening and wind storm. The wind whipped the six flags of Texas threadbare and when we arrived at the little state park that we were planning to camp the nearby town was eerily dark and quiet. We finally surmised that the power was out. After a brief attempt to summon the courage to camp in the rain and the strong winds, we opted to try for a hotel a little farther down the road with some warmth and electricity.

We ended up in Austin the next day and spent a good part of the afternoon exploring the capitol building. It is the tallest capital building in the US, even taller then the nation's capital building. We spent the better part of the evening looking for happy hour deals on drinks, nachos (which is ironic because of the proximity to Mexico and all the Mexican restaurants in the area) and good music. We eventually found all three. We found great beer at a place called the Gingerman. It had over 80 beers on tap and twice that many in bottles. It had a great little outdoor patio and we made lovey dovy eyes at all the dogs that folks had with them. I had a great German hefe from Live Oak Brewery out of Austin and mom had pecan porter from 512 Brewing Company, also out of Austin. We tried to get nachos at Maria Maria, Carlos Santana's restaurant, but they were dinky little things with a total of 12 chips and so we ended up searching a bit more and finding a place with a giant pile of nachos. Then we proceeded to search out live music, which there was a ton of. All the bars have glass windows to the sidewalk and leave there doors open. They also have recruiters standing outside the door, trying to entice you in. We settled on JT Coldfire Hot Rockin' Blues at Friends Bar. They were playing rockin' blues and the lead guitarist even played with his teeth on some guitar solos. Then we moved to another bar where a group of six guys called Statsborough Review were playing some great alt-country rock. The Austin scene on a Monday night was quite manageable but a little bit reminiscent of Bourbon street, a little.

We pushed on to San Antonio the next day. We had all the good intentions of being good little tourists and visiting the Alamo, which is near and dear to every Texan's heart, as well as the famous River Walk. However, we only got as far as the ATT Center where the very first PRCA professional rodeo of the year was going on. We got off the bus for a brief look around but ended up buying tickets to see that night's rodeo along with a performance by the famous country rock star Taylor Swift (I hadn't heard of her until the moment we bought the tickets...but then again, I don't really listen to country). We wandered around the fair-like exhibits and things for sale and then piled into the giant stadium where the San Antonio Spurs normally play basketball. The rodeo was a skeptical of loud music, clowns, men in tight jeans and big belt buckles, girls in sequined shirts, bucking broncos, angry bulls, barrel racing, calf tying and big hats. It was great...well the calf roping and wrestling was actually quite disconcerting. Then the Taylor Swift concert began and it was a flurry of golden sequins on her dress and silver sequins on her guitar and music videos above her head and overall it was a really good performance. It also turns out that I have heard one of her songs! She seems to be really popular with the 8-18 year old crowd as she tends to sing about boys and crushes etc. She was all about hope and the ability to change and/or reach your goals.

We went to the Gulf Coast next and camped on the beach. We were treated to spectacular sunrises and sunsets and I even went for a refreshing coastal run.

We drove to Louisiana. We drove all day. Texas is a big state! When we got to the State Park in Louisiana that we were going to camp at, our attention was immediately grabbed by the "alligator active in this area" sign. I had been a bit concerned about the reptiles since we started this trip and it has become a bit of a running joke that the alligators are out to get us, but now...here it was, a reality. Well...that's not quite true. We grilled the lady at the desk about how dangerous it actually was and she assured us that an alligator would not get us in our tent and that there were not alligators in the ponds surrounding the camping area. We were in the thick of a swamp though. The air was crowded with mosquitoes and we were surrounded by cypress trees and boggy marshy type ecology. There were a bunch of tent campers though and that helped. We survived the night and, as it turns out, the real thing to worry about was the rain that poured down at 4 in the morning. We had left the rain fly off to look at the stars.

We passed up visiting New Orleans in the heat of Mardi Gras celebrations and rushed through Mississippi, pausing only long enough to get a picture and 16 ounces of Cajun boiled peanuts from a gas station. I should note that the welcome center was handing out free cokes, here in the deep south, all soda is called a coke.

We made it to Mobile, Alabama where we learned that the city is the "mother of Mardi Gras" so we didn't miss out on the celebrations after all. We quickly made our way downtown and to the local brewery. It is quaintly named Hurricane Brewing Company and has such beers as Tropical Wheat Warning and Floating Car Blonde Ale, Flying Debris Mardi Gras Ale, Projected Path Amber, Storm Surge Stout etc. I loved the place and especially their dunkleweizen! We joined the revelers on the street for a parade at around 6:30. The sky had opened up and unleashed a torrent of rain but the floats and the bands rolled on for nearly an hour. The floats are filled with folks hurling Mardi Gras paraphernalia at the crowds lining the streets. They hurl beads, moon-pies, stuffed animals, hoola hoops, candy, hurricane cups, chips, peanuts and all sorts of other trinkets and sparkelies. I was pelted several times by a flying wad of beads. There were puddles everywhere and many an unfortunate stuffed animal met its doom in a muddy wake of rainwater. Mom and I had a great time and we ran from street to street so we could keep up with the bands. Then, soaking and laden with beads and moon-pies, we retired to the brewery where a wonderful band was playing the night away.

We drove all the next day to get to Jacksonville FL. The entire drive, all 400 miles of it was in a corridor of slash pine trees and that is all that I know of Florida. It is a corridor of slash pines. We spent two nights with a friend on the outskirts of town and reconnoitered a bit. We fly to Mexico City in two days for about 12 days with Jo Tuxbury, a friend of my mom's. It should be an interesting and challenging adventure.

Saguaro Cactus in Phoenix South Mountain Park

Little Bear Canyon in Gila Wilderness of New Mexico

Saguaro National Park in Tucson

Grand Canyon Trail

Grand Canyon sunset

My friends!

I have embarked on yet another adventure, an extended roadtrip from Missoula to Miami.

Currently, I am in New Mexico, heading to Austin, Texas today. Highlights have included hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and spelunking Karshner Caves in New Mexico as well as 4 different breweries, one of which we caught the Bruce Springsteen half-time show of the Superbowl. We have also had fun exploring the Senoran Desert Museum in Tucson and the 10 miles of trail in the South Mountain Park in Phoenix as well as cave dwellings and petroglyphs in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico. I will be in Mexico especially Mexico City February 17-28 with my mom and Whitney's mom.

Bumblebees
Kimiko Hahn

The foraging bee that doesn’t make it
back to the hive

and companion warmth
fastens to a leaf.

Bumbling-bees?

Or does the nectar so distract

it forgets the cells
called home?

The lapse is a cause for concern
the entomologist reports—

because its tiny body slows to the stillness of dew.
Is that quiescence

or acquiescence?

Or simply stupidity
one always forgets a day later?

"My job is to save the fucking wilderness. I don't know anything else worth saving. That's simple, right?"-George Hayduke from "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by Edward Abbey, page 228.

I have not completely had my fill of the discussion of the desert of Utah and Nevada. I just finished reading the Monkey Wrench Gang, a novel by Edward Abbey. Basically, the novel describes four like-minded misfits who are dedicated to the destruction of things that pollute and destroy the environment of the southwest. The group haphazardly burns billboards, sabotages bulldozers and coal trains while all the while plotting to destroy the biggest transgressor of all, the Glen Canyon dam on the Colorado River. Lovers of wild lands, this group may be, but they they bare little resemblance to the bleeding-heart environmentalists of today. The group has little scruples about littering, driving big trucks and eating a lot of red meat and has little regard for the Sierra Club. However, the book has been credited as the inspiration for several environmental organizations that advocate minor vandalism as a means of "saving the environment" from the despoiling of land, befouling of the air and destroying nature and its sacred purity. I have read from several sources that Abbey was not actually trying to start a movement with his book nor was he trying to reform the land management agenda. Nonetheless, this book stirs up a deep wonder of the beauty and complexity of the desert as well as a new found disgust for the run-of-the-mill development that so many of us have become complacent about. Abbey has a great sense of humor as well and the book is compassionate as well as thrilling and funny. I love the character of Hayduke, an ex-Green Beret, with a horrible temper and an even worse mouth. I have read that the character is modeled off of Abbey's close friend Doug Peacock. I recently finished reading the Last Grizzly by Rick Bass, where Peacock is the main instigator of a search for the last grizzlies in the Colorado San Juans.



One my favorite parts of the Monkey Wrench Gang is in the first chapters where two of the main characters, Hayduke and Seldom Seen Smith, a jack Mormon with 3 wives, encounter each other for the first time. Smith is camped on the Colorado river with one of his girls looking at the bridge and Glen Canyon dam:

Lake Powell, Jewel of the Colorado, 180 miles of reservoir walled in by bare rock. The blue death, Smith called it... Smith remembered something different. He remembered the golden river flowing to the sea. He remembered canyons called Hidden Passage and Salvation at Last Chance and Forbidden and Twilight and many many more, some that never had a name. He remembered the strange great amphitheaters called Music Temple and Cathedral in the Desert. All these things now lay beneath the dead water of the reservoir, slowly disappearing under layers of descending silt How could he forget? He had seen too much...Seven hundred feet below streamed what was left of the original river, the greenish waters that emerged, through intake, penstock, turbine and tunnel, from the powerhouse at the base of the dam. Thickets of power cables, each strand as big around as a man's arm, climbed the canyon walls on steel towers, merged in a maze of transformer stations, then splayed out toward the south and west-toward Albuquerque, Babylon, Phoenix, Gomorrah, Los Angeles, Sodom, Los Vegas, Nineveh, Tucson, the cities of the plain. Upriver from the bridge stood the dam, a glissade of featureless concrete sweeping seven hundred feet down in a concave facade from the dam's rim to the green-grass lawn on the roof of the power plant below. They stared at it. The dam demanded attention. It was a magnificent mass of cement. Vital statistics: 792,000 tons of concrete aggregate; cost 750 million and the lives of 16 workmen. Four years in the making, prime contractor Morrison-Knudsen, Inc., sponsored by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers.
"it's too big," she said.
"That's right, honey," he said. "and that's why."
"you can't."
"There's a way."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. But there's got to be a way."
...
"Like how?" she said.
"Who you working for?" he said.
"You."
"Okay, think of something."
"We could pray."
"Pray?" said Smith. "Now there's onething I ain't tried. Let's pray for a little pre-cision earthquake right here." And Smith went down on his knees...bowed his head, closed his eyes, clapped his hands together palm to palm, prayerwise, and prayed..."Dear old God," he prayed, "you know and I know what it was like here, before them bastards from Washington moved in and ruined it all. You remember the river, how fat and golden it was in June, when the big runoff came down from the Rockies? Remember the deer on the sandbars ad the blue herons in the willows and the catfish so big and tasty and how they'd bite on spoiled salami? Remember that crick that come down through Bridge Canyon and Forbidden Canyon, how green and cool and clear it was? God, it's enough to make a man sick. Say you recall old Woody Edgell up at Hite and the old ferry he used to run across the river? That crazy contraption of his hangin' on cables; remember that damn thing? Remember the cataracts in Forty-mile Canyon? Well, they flooded out about half of them too. And part of the Escalante's gone now-Davis Gulch, Willow Canyon, Gregory Natural Bridge, Ten-Mile. Listen, are you listen' to me? There's somethin' you can do for me, God. How about a little old pre-cision-type earthquake right under this dam? Okay? Anytime. Right now for instance would suit me fine."Smith concluded his prayer. "Okay God, I see you don't want to do it just now. Well, all right, suit yourself, you're the boss, but we ain't got a hell of a lot of time. Make it pretty soon, goddammit. A-men."
...
"Suppose your prayer is answered," the girl was saying in the silence. "Suppose you have your earthquake at the dam. What happens to all the people here [below the dam]?"
"That there dam," Smith replied, "is 12 miles upriver through the crookedest twelve miles of canyon you ever seen. It'd take the water an hour to get here."
"They'd still drown."
"I'd warn 'em by telephone."
"Suppose God answers your prayer in the middle of the night. Suppose everybody at the dam is killed and there isn't anybody left alive up there to give warning. Then what?"
"I ain't responsible for an act of God, honey."
"It's your prayer."
Smith grinned. "It's His earthquake." And he held up a harkening finger. "What's that?"
"I don't hear anything but the river," she said.
"No listen..."
Far off, echoing from the cliffs, rising then descending supernatural wail, full of mourning-or was it exultation?
"A coyote?" She offered.
"No..."
"Wolf?"
"Yeah...."
"I never heard wolves around here before."
He smiled. "That's right," he said. "That's absolutely right. There ain't supposed to be no wolves in these parts anymore. They ain't supposed to be here."
"Are you sure it's a wolf?"
"Yup." He paused, listening again. Only the river sounded now, down below. "But it's kind of an unusual wolf."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it's one of them two-legged type wolves."
She stared at him. "You mean human?"
"More or less," Smith said.
...
Smith fiddled with his field glasses, looking for something he thought he had seen moving on a distant promontory above the gorge. He found his target. Adjusting the focus, he made out, a mile away through the haze of twilight, the shape of a blue jeep half concealed beneath a pedestal rock. He saw the flicker of a small campfire. A thing moved at the edge of the field. He turned the glasses slightly and saw the figure of a man, short and hairy and broad and naked. The naked man held a can of beer in one hand; with the other hand he held field glasses to his eyes , just like Smith. He was looking directly at Smith.

The two men studied each other for a while through 7X35 binocular lenses, which do not blink. Smith raised his hand in a cautious wave. The other mad raised his can of beer as an answering salute.

Abbey, Edward. "The Monkey Wrench Gang." 1975. J.B. Lippincott Company. Philadelphia. p. 31-37.

There are many other memorable moments from this book. I definately recommend that it be read!

Sweet Potato Pizza
Diabolical Dunkleweizen
(brewed Nov 11, bottled Dec. 10)

Baylee the Beagle's homemade dog treats