Yearly Archives: 2009

dreams

Old Friends (a dream)

In the dream, I was sitting at the end of a long table in a setting like a library, although it may have been a restaurant. I was talking with a man from Indian. One of us spoke of another person we might both know. Another man from India joined us. (Not the person we had just discussed.)

My Droog, John Merck, appeared nearby, letting his presence be known without interrupting the discussion.

I got up from the table to hug John, who was much younger than he is in real life. When we ended our hug, John said, "You’re wearing potato pants!" I didn’t notice anything odd about my pants and John did not explain his remark.

John began to speak in an odd mock-accent he intended to be funny. I couldn’t understand much of what he said, even when he repeated it, but I knew there was a joke in the message as well as the medium. I was irritated.

Another old friend appeared in young form: Charlene came up with a 10 year-old dark-haired boy. I awoke.

dreams

Struggle (a dream)

In the dream, I heard a woman describe a nearby body of water as too polluted to swim in. At that moment, I found myself standing on a rectangular concrete block a bit more than two square feet. This block was barely covered by water, although, somehow, my feet (socks, no shoes) were not wet. I was standing in the aforementioned polluted body of water, which appeared to be a reservoir. The block was part of a wall or walkway that formed a semicircle curving off to a point to my right about a quarter mile away. I realized I had to walk along the top of this wall to that distant point without falling into the polluted water. I walked, mostly confidently, nervous a few times.

Suddenly, there was an upheaval like a wave and the wall/walkway surged to the right. "It moves?!," I cried out loud with some exasperation. Somehow, I did not spill from my footing even as the wall swept to the right, toward the edge of the reservoir. This edge had a chain link fence atop another wall. I considered that I might be better off crawling along that wall, clinging to the fence, than taking my chances with the movements of the wave-wall.

The wall I was standing on began to move back, as if with a retreating wave and I decided to jump to the fence-wall. I fell into the water but scrambled out. I realized I might be worse off, because this wall had a very narrow ledge I had to stand on while clinging to the fence, but I had no other choice at this point.

I slid along the ledge, clinging to the fence. In places, the wall had pillars I had to squirm around.

In a few places, spiders had nests. These spiders were large, dull-black, and squarish, like badly drawn black widow spiders. I had to watch my movements even more closely as I maneuvered around the spiders.

Eventually, I arrived at a wall that was 90 degrees to the fence. I worked my way around the wall and the last spider. Around one corner I encountered three other people, stuck in similar circumstances. The farthest of the three could not go on, frozen with despair or fear. How was I going to get around this new roadblock?

I took the hand of the person closest to me and leaned away from the wall, my feet still on the narrow ledge. Like a pendulum, I swung out and around the other people and came back to the wall beyond the immobile one. This so delighted them all that hope was restored and I woke up.

other voices

This Week’s WTF?!

Read on for three examples of the meaning of ignoranus:

       THOSE WHO fear Rush Limbaugh wants President Obama to fail, need not worry. Obama is succeeding, succeeding at what he always sought to do — destroy this country. Here is your hope and change, Obama voters. I am sure you will be happy to see America in ruins. — A.V.P.

[mjh: Don’t know how AVP failed to work socialist into this nonsense. As much as I hate the views of people like AVP, I don’t think they are out to "destroy this country." That is in spite of all the damage they have actually done.]

       IS IT TIME yet to claim that the Obama administration is being run by a sinister cabal of “neolibs” whose philosophy is “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste; prolong it”? — B.E.

[mjh: Wait 8 years. In the meantime, STFU.]

       I DO NOT listen to Rush Limbaugh. He’s too liberal for me. — T.K.

[mjh: I do not listen to TK — he’s too scary for me.]

EdgeWiseBlog, Mine

If You’ve Wondered Where I’ve Been…

1 Comment

My blogging frequency has fallen off. I don’t know if that’s a relief to my 3 readers, but I’ve been thinking about this change.

There is no question that the end of the Reign of Terror by Duhbya and BushCo has greatly reduced the bile I choked back for 8 years. Thank god. I hope Duhbya lives a long life and is forced to listen repeatedly to how badly he fucked up everything he attempted. I hope I live at least one day longer so that, following his peaceful and natural death, I can join the long line to piss, spit, or dance on his grave. See you in Hell, Duhbya.

As for Obama: Every day there is some bit of news that reminds me that, just as the wrong guy can do bad things constantly, the right guy can do good things at a similar pace. Obama is undoing and fixing what he can, all the while bending the reed more to the left.

And the Republicans: It is great to watch them shoot themselves and each other in the foot. I’m happy to see them drag their feet (and knuckles) as the rest of us try to move forward. Better — far, far better — is the infighting and bickering. I hope Meghan McCain kicks Ann Coulter’s ass. And I hope Lush Limbaugh remains king of the island of the damned.

Politics hasn’t been the only topic I’ve blogged about, so the end of our national nightmare can’t be the only explanation for my shift in focus.

Indeed, finishing my second book in 6 months might have given me more time for blogging, but I loved the return to no obligatory writing and to lazing about. Curiously, the habit of writing daily did not carry forward once the final deadline passed late in January. (I turned down Windows 7 for Seniors, which I dearly wanted to write but which started with a brutal deadline. By the way, I mostly like Windows 7, which is an improvement on Vista — which I also like — but a less dramatic change than from XP to Vista.)

Last but certainly not least: I let my friends infect me with the Facebook virus. There is much that I do not like about Facebook. There are many interface problems, not the least of which is denying one the ability to edit much of the text one enters. And all the different ways of looking at FB that make it seem fragmented and disorganized. And updates that appear and disappear in different places and at different times.

And yet, Facebook has become like email, in that I look at it repeatedly throughout the day, happy to see any update, saddened when there is nothing. I like knowing about the day-to-day lives of my friends. Social Networking is a Skinner box. I press the bar repeatedly and gobble up the random bits I receive. Believe me: Facebook does not deserve the time and attention it gets. Still, two out of three people who used to read this blog now are FB addicts, too, so, it is you, dear reader, the one who has remained free, who I wanted to speak to. I’ll be back when I can and I hope you’ll visit now and then. Thanks.

peace,
mjh

PS: I still spread myself around:
www.mjhinton.com/help/ is my computer blog
www.mjhinton.com/wild/ is my wilderness blog
www.flickr.com/photos/mjhinton/ is my photo blog

loco

Hot Pockets

2 Comments

Merri and I rode the NM Railrunner train from Albuquerque to Santa Fe for a daytrip today. As I prepared to leave the house, I put a handful of coins in one of my pockets plus two spare rechargeable batteries for my camera.

Over about 6 hours, we rode to Santa Fe and walked about town. Shortly after 4pm, we boarded the return train and took seats on the upper level. We sat for 10 to 15 minutes, waiting for the departure. At some point, Merri put her hand on my leg and yanked it back, as if from a hot stove. Indeed, my pocket full of change and two batteries was extremely hot. As I gingerly extracted coins, I burned the tips of three fingers to blisters. One of the two batteries looked a little damaged. Once everything was extracted and laid out, it all cooled off quickly. My fingers still sting.

Weird science. I had an exposed circuit in my pocket, finger in the socket. peace, mjh

PS: The trip to Santa Fe was fun. The actual ride was the main event and was worth the trip. We had lunch at Tia Sophia and strolled around town. We toured the Georgia O’Keeffe museum. All along the way, we met people Merri knows. Especially in the State Capitol, where she knew many folks. On the ride back, we had a nice conversation with a woman who works for the Department of Transportation.

PPS: Ironically, my concerns about cameras and photography on the train had been for naught. The subject never came up. There was no official announcement and there wasn’t much I felt deprived from photographing.

media

We’re All Newcomers

Two things are certain about living in New Mexico. First, no matter how newly you arrived, someone newer will arrive shortly. People have been moving to New Mexico for at least 13,000 years and that migration isn’t stopping soon. Second, no matter how long you’ve been here, someone has been here a lot longer. That’s really the other side of the same coin. Whether you arrived here 100, 500, 1,000 or 10,000 years ago, someone has been here longer. (Except for those first arrivers.) In geologic time, everyone got here yesterday or this morning — we’re all newcomers. Of course, people don’t think that way. Instead, we divide ourselves any way we can, including by longevity of residence. My 25 years loving New Mexico are meaningless to someone whose family has lived here for generations. We all would consider it absurd for someone who arrived on Monday to judge someone who arrives on Friday. When does absurdity become propriety? Does 100 years count if your family has been here 1000? How does 1000 stack up against 10,000?

I’m thinking about "rights" and "claims" because of an interesting issue that has recently arisen in New Mexico. We have a commuter train that runs from Belen, south of Albuquerque, to Santa Fe, to the north. Over a course of 100+ miles, the train passes through several Indian pueblos. (There are 19 pueblos and tribes in New Mexico.) Pueblos are semi-independent nations with their own laws and regulations. Most pueblos forbid people from taking photos on pueblo land with some exceptions. Now that the train passes through these lands, the pueblos have asked people to refrain from taking photos from the train along part of the route. A reasonable and polite request. The rub comes from the railroad asking people to refrain from taking photos. These are public right-of-ways run by the state. Does the state have the right to impose pueblo law on non-pueblo citizens on public right-of-ways? I’ll let the courts decide that, as I am sure they will be asked to.

When I finally ride the train to Santa Fe, I will respect pueblo requests to avoid photographing people and buildings on pueblo land. But what of the vista? Who can claim to own a vista that stretches 100 miles? If the conductor asks me to put away my camera and I don’t, will he or she consider me a jerk? Even if I am genuinely respectful of the pueblos up to the point of wanting, as a fellow citizen of New Mexico and the world, the privilege to photograph the long view or a roadrunner eating a snake?

I’m particularly surprised that the press doesn’t react more to the way this came to pass. Someone knows someone and gets a favor. An unelected official imposes his will on people without any discussion. There’s something outrageous there. Or would only a jerk think so?

Isn’t the press curious whether Isleta pueblo, which straddles the southern route that opened in 2008, made a similar request six months or more ago and, if not, why not?

In her front page story, Leslie Linthicum has two powerful paragraphs (no sarcasm):

But what separates good people from jerks is the ability to temper "I wanna" and "I can" with "do I really hafta?" and "I won’t." …

So, will you? That probably depends on whether you’re a New Mexican or whether you just live here.

But Leslie may be unfair in her harsh judgment. (Westerners often tolerate what they don’t really approve of.) She draws a line in the sand and calls anyone who even questions the line a jerk. I’ve lived here 24 years. I *love* New Mexico and want to live here until I die.

I’ll bet Leslie a Golden Pride breakfast burrito that one of the following things will happen in the next five years. First, someone willing to be considered a jerk will sue over this matter. A legally-savvy jerk will note that this appears to violate the anti-Establishment clause of the US constitution. Moreover, it probably violates the anti-donation clause of the NM constitution. Second, perhaps as a result of this lawsuit, the train will install automatic shades, which will drop at various points along the ride. Third, the pueblos will erect fences or other visual blocks where they feel they are necessary. (That’s the solution I endorse, short of miles of fencing.)

peace,
mjh

Photos From the Train? Not on Pueblo Lands
By Leslie Linthicum
Journal Staff Writer