Friends come and camp with us ---hike with us and go on their way. We enjoy the convenient location of Paradise casino---within walking distance of the movies and restaurants and parks.
A street fair in Old town---great band--enough to stir me to dance---I've learned a move or two from the street dancer in Silver City, NM.
A nearby patch of weeds is home to a real Kodger---an old guy content to sit in his chair and enjoy the day---sleep in that small tent at night. I wonder if I'll end up that way. One could do worse: (nursing home)
More dental work in Algodones: You remember my goal is to get all my teeth back in working order.
This little old lady lives inside that hole---collects what she considers useful stuff. Her hideaway is just inside Mexico. You can see the border fence at upper right.
Dr Dominguez my root canal guy--(a Rubio associate ph-928-255-0897) He's just finished giving me one and in one hour will install a post---then two hours after that, I will get impressions made for a new crown---then a functional temporary crown installed---all this in one day. The completed crown will be installed in one week.
I walk around town between treatments---noticed this car plastered with post it notes. Each one said in Spanish: I love you.
There is the boundary wall and international marker.
But look here! A sizable chunk of it just fell away as Mexicans digging at it's base for free gravel---undermined it. Guards are posted as repairs are being made.
Meet Joseph, an old friend from Tampa Fla stopping by for a visit. He told me about the Toltec philosophy of 5 agreements. (presumably with yourself)(presumably for the good life)
1. Impecable speech---especially inside your head--to yourself.
2, Don't take anything personally
3. Don't make assumptions.
4. Do your best.
5. Listen with skepticism.
We had a great time catching up on 25 years of separation.
Almost every day one or more of these drifts over our rigs.
This one landed right there.
Saw this mysterious figure shambling out of the bushes about a quarter mile away.
Was intrigued--backtracked his steps and found his camp.
Look carefully at this bicycle wheel. It is a hobo relic from yesteryear---has no tire or tube----thats rubber strips wrapped round and round to function as a tire. We found it in an old hobo camp two miles away.
Along with this---I think it's a hobo cooking aparatus. Note the cutaway section at the bottom ---for firewood.
Here is a real live bush dweller that you've met before---Glen--The one who built the unique house of sticks. I met him this day as he was dragging another stick home---not unlike a beaver--forever improving his lodge.
That's his house of sticks. Laurie and I walked all round it one day.
Want you to see this engineering marvel---the Yuma Siphon.
Yuma's share of water from the Colorado River is routed here from several miles upstream and apparantly dead ends right here---ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE RIVER. (for a really good reason but that's another story)
Ah---but it doesn't dead end here---see that whirlpool. It flows down a concrete lined hole----85 feet ---into a large tunnel---THAT GOES UNDER THE COLORADO RIVER and then flows up on the other side. A U shaped engineering feat that dazzled the nation when it was first built early in the century.
Here's the water rising on the Yuma side of the river about a thousand feet away.
Here's what the tunnel looked like during construction. It's 17 feet in diameter.
A pair of roadrunners outside my rig---they come almost daily---and they won't eat bread. They want meat. I give them bologna.
Here's a teaser for my next entry: I was invited by the Unitarians to preach a humanistic sermon---and I did----My most outrageous speech entitled BELIEVE AND BE DAMNED. Laurie filmed it and I propose to show you about a minute of it. She says that if I show it I will lose all my readers---We shall see!
Email me the whole speech. I'll keep following!
ReplyDeleteI want the whole speech on film.....pretty please?
ReplyDeleteIf you post the Whole Speech, Obama might make your the RV Czar!
ReplyDeleteAdd my voice to those that would love to hear your sermon.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to hear or read the whole speech too. "Believe and be damned." Sounds like a great title.
ReplyDeleteRandy, Im sure your ideas will be radical, but always intriguing and worthy of hearing!! Love the man with the stick house...
ReplyDeleteI want to watch the whole thing ...I think.
ReplyDeleteWhole speech! I'll do a transcription!
ReplyDeleteHere's one of two people I'd like to share that you'll probably like:
RT's Marcelo Sanchez interviews Author and Inventor Jacque Fresco
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10200802045117109&set=vb.55238316899&type=2&theater
01.08
JF
We have to remove the money system which is basically corrupt.
A resource based economy to declare all the resources to a common heritage of all the worlds people.
No nation has have ever had a democracy. If you don't have equal purchasing power you don't have a democracy.
Communism uses money. It has social stratification, it has banks, armies, navy's prison and police. We don't have any of those.
It's not that people are good or bad. They're raised in an aberrated twisted environment.
04.32
Democracy is a con game. It's a word invented to placate people. To make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing "We are free". The minute you hear freedom and democracy watch out. Because in a truly free nation no one has to tell you your free.
MS
I heard that you said that as powerful systems start to collapse they tend to defend themselves with Fascism in order to defend the status quo. Is that the situation we live right now?
JF
This system right now is moving toward fascism, cutting back on the freedoms. What little freedoms we had. We never had complete freedom. Because the word freedom has no meaning.
5.40
It takes a recession, loss of job and loss of respect for your elected leaders. When that happens you get social change. Social change cannot come about due to intellect. It comes about by peoples suffering. The more people are laid off. The more they lose respect for an existing government they will seek another direction. If too many people seek a new direction then the existing government calls upon the military and police to manage society. That's called fascism.
Peter Joseph, Zeitgeist Movement Founder on TYT
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_793108&feature=iv&src_vid=Aq0LKq3_CRY&v=mhZSxeiziMg
03:00
The Wall Street system produces nothing. Creatively there's no one sitting behind a desk at a hedge fund putting stuff together to better the world. You could remove the entire system of finance and still generate the economy that allows us to live through factory, industrial production and creativity. The core sickness is a value system problem. We are seeking money and advantage only with the side effect being social betterment whenever it happens, and that's a problem.
03:35
TYT
The bankers would counter the core of the system is essential because it allocates money and resources. If it's more important for society to create widget X vs widget Y we move the money in that direction so that we have more efficiency.
04:00
I agree to certain degree. But what is efficiency really on this natural law, ecological level? Efficiency means you want to preserve and do the best thing you can to create the best outcome. Efficiency is preservation, conservation to meet needs in the most strategic way.
04:15
We have an electric car industry thats slowly inching it's way into America. What happened 100 years ago when the first electric car actuallyy emerged. Why hasn't this technology proliferated itself around the world?
Because industry also is greedy stubborn gets established and doesn't want to change it's mechanisms to profit.
04:40
I'm not saying the market system wasn't great along time ago. In the handy craft industry we had a simple type of post feudalism, mercantilism where everyone was a producer and trading. That's beautiful in and of itself. The technology and everything that's happened around us has completely stifled this.
4:55
We are evolving out it. There's no better word to use but evolution. I don't want to put down capitalism and market economy because it was always bad. I say it's no longer relevant. Especially in a world where we can create an abundance.
TYT
I want to get into the core of the problem. You mentioned the electric car. There's a great movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?".
05:45
Here's the thing that most economists hate that I say. The market is as free as ever.
Just like Feudalism was based on the land. A completely agrarian society.
We went into mercantilism more state concentration. The ultimate complete state coercion of mercantilism.
Capitalism comes in the exact same way. Which means the government and the legislation thats produced by government is a product of the economic theory not the other way around. So capitalism is the government. You can't deviate between the two.
So when you see this corruption that people call – it's not corruption. It's the freedom of the market. I have the freedom in the market to shut you down if you have a competing product or you have something that's going to interfere with my market share. That is the free market, not this illusion that everyones going to compete freely and not have any inhibitions in this sort of utopian, Laissez faire thing that goes on the rhetoric you hear.
TYT
What would replace the system we have?
Let's look at this from an evolutionary standpoint again. Every system to date has been based on scarcity.
07:45
This is no longer true.
Sustainability is the long term inhibitor.
The market is no longer needed with the state of science and technology.
I don't disagree with you on your Believe and Be Damned sermon, but I suspect you've gotten too comfortable with it. Why not take on something in which applause is not so assured?
ReplyDeleteWhere is the risk-taking here?4
I still have a copy of your original "Believe and Be Damned" talk back in the mid-1970's, and the article from the New Orleans newspaper that was written about you ! Good Luck.
ReplyDeleteRandy,
ReplyDeleteSweet post - gives people a good idea on what your life is like and the things you experience on a daily basis. However, where is the mental and spiritual growth? It brings up the question of whether doing no harm is good enough or do we have an obligation to add value to our environment and/or community?
Michael, Democracy is indeed a con game but it appears, to date, to be the only game in town that actually seems to work with a diverse population base. Yes, Norway, Sweden, etc., have a quasi-socialistic system that works. But, they do not have a diverse population base with large amounts of immigration and poverty. Once you start seeing that, I believe things will change. You rail against what exists today, with reason, but you do not propose a replacement. It would seem that you say that change from the people is not possible as the government will repress change with fascism. (something I do not disagree with). So what is the answer? I do not see it in your post. A barter system thus eliminating the need for money? As appealing as that may be philosophically, it is a bit impractical in a global economy. People could break off into small, communal groups and have equality, but nationwide I don't see it. If you look at history, it is not a pleasant sight. Groups, tribes, nation continuously use conquering others as a way to grow - eliminating money or capitalism does not stop this. Can we alleviate some of the disparities? yes, but, until we have all the people of a society committed to promoting the good of their society and contributing to its welfare we will unfortunately need a government that intervenes and interferes.
On the electric car... somewhat of a diversion, but, yes, the auto industry probably killed the electric car until the Japanese started making it profitable - but - the Japanese are capitalistic as well so what is the relevance? The oil interests have killed many things such as the trolley car system in many cities. The wealthy want to be more wealthy, but, then look at Carnegie, Rockefeller, the Bill Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett - these are totally capitalistic pigs who have made billions, the 1%, yet,they are giving back to society. If everybody is equal and having to produce their own food and clothing, who has the time to invent and produce things? Has not much of the technological progress of our society come about because of the support of the government, the capitalistic, entrepreneurial drive and the 1%? It is easy to criticize something as flawed as capitalism, however, implementing another system as successful is another matter - many people's lives have been destroyed in just that mission.
Boonie, Randy did take a risk, he rewrote much of the speech making for a less colorful delivery but more relevant and timely material. People did indeed applaud more for the older material.
It's good to see you back Randy! A good talk this time...
ReplyDeleteI find myself with a couple of minor questions.
The way your photos are displayed has changed. Used to be you'd click on one and get the whole group, now you get just one then you have to back out to blog each time.
Was that change a choice?
Doesn't the Paradise Casino have a 3 day limit?
Thank you, many LOL photos!
ReplyDelete