I didn’t feel so well today. But it was a good day anyhow.

Dalia is like a child in her new surroundings, puttering, cleaning, buying this and that. She’s fun to watch and be with.

One of the reasons we were able to make a better deal on this house was the fact that the landscape had only been partially done, and then had been left untended. We had two wonderful men come by today and make an excellent proposal, for a price we could afford, to do part of the work we want to have done: some patios, and some plantings. They said they could begin tomorrow and be done in three days. And they had the books of photos to show it, and could even point out the houses in the neighborhood where they’d done the work.

They’re wonderful men, with families, and they are working to make a living, not asking for anything from anyone. Won’t even let us pay until they’re done. We’re really looking forward to having more access to outside spaces. It’s beautiful here.

I’ll probably feel better tomorrow. On Wednesday, they’re doing a CT scan of my respiratory system, to see if they can fine-tune the treatments. I appreciate it.

Hope you are all well. Got some nice emails today from some of you. I didn’t “announce” that I’d begun typing this thing again, so if you know anyone who’d care, please let them know. It’s sort of embarrassing to write something, then ask people to read it. Now I know what they mean about “ego blogs,” because I can’t think of much other reason to write a blog, unless there are people out there who really want to know something.

Right now it’s 70 degrees, 9:18 pm PDST, 19% humidity. Going to bed. ‘Nite.

The day was listless, cool, and blue. Dalia went shopping, I Tweeted and toured various windows. She came home, happy, with lots to show me. Then the sun sunk silently, like a stone, without fanfare tonight. Just to show us it could. Now, the darkness is full of coolness, fine silky breezes, tiny far-away sounds.

Beautiful.

Two days ago, when we went out for lunch, I met two Korean war veterans and a Vietnam veteran. Yesterday, I met a veteran of the US Navy. It makes me feel proud, less alone, to know that there are others out there whose lives were shaped by the wars of their early years. It also makes me wonder why more people don’t stop and thank these men and women.

When they took the oath, the said to the government, I give you a blank check that includes my very life itself. This makes veterans a rare breed. But they are made rarer still when one finds that only 11 percent of people in the US have served or are serving in the Armed Forces.

Of course there are other ways to serve one country. Of course there are. Yes, I feel no more at home than when I am with a group of my brothers and sisters at arms.

Take a moment. Say a prayer for them. Tell them thank you. Thank their families, too, because they who wait at home also gallantly serve.

My first cousin, and friend, Lonnie, and I, have been having just an absolute blast emailing and texting each other. He is so cool and I just love him. And the goldmine for me is the vast collection of information he sends along. Pictures, writing, all kinds of stuff. Today, he also sent me some old family photos that I’d lost in the fire of Christmas, 1995. I feel so blessed to have them. I’ll put them up on the blog when I can.

And Lonnie is going to the big event in Washington Aug. 28 and he’s going to keep me informed, up to the minute! Can you imagine? It’ll almost be like being there, not through the lens of the news, but through the eyes of someone I love and trust.

Some F-18s, from the nearby Naval Air Station at Fallon, flew into the Reno International Airport last night. We heard them come in. We can see the airport through the binoculars from the deck and other windows. But I missed the jets. And then the repair guy came to hook up the water thingy on the refrigerator today and he asked if I’d seen the F18s fly out this morning. He was ex-Navy, arircraft carrier personnel, and was really excited about it.

I would have been, too, if I’d been awake when they flew out. Insomnia is the pits. Sleeping late is even pittier. The planes are magnificent pieces of machinery, and their pilots are the best in the world. Put them together and it’s part of a national treasure we call the U.S. military.

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a computer nut and a Linux freak. But I have to say, this new 17″ MacBook Pro Dalia bought me for a 15th Anniversary present is a magnificent machine.

It was very cool that we got to be in the new house and celebrate our 15th anniversary here, Aug 4.

I’m not trying to be an author here. I’m just typing as fast as I can, straight off the top of my rather muddled head. So if this doesn’t come out as perfect prose, it never was intended to. I just hope that, now that I’ve gotten back into making a few entries, you get a little bit of an idea of what we’re up to, not up to, and what we see and think about it.

And I have to add that Dalia is my muse, my best friend, and the person who has gone to great lengths, for some reason, to keep me alive longer than I would otherwise have been.

Moving to Reno was, for the most part, strategic. The two-hour drive from Quincy, particularly in the winter, was becoming life-threatening. I needed to be closer to the VA hospital, and now it’s about 15 minutes, from door to door.

Reno is right on the Immigrant Trial, the trail that brought early settlers to the west. The silver-mining town of Virginia City, where Mark Twain got into mischief, is nearby, and the azure water of Lake Tahoe is about 45 minutes away. So is Donner Pass, where people were captured in a desperate winter, and so starved, there was a bit of cannibalism. It wasn’t an easy trip back then. If you didn’t hit the seasons in just the right order, you were toast. Or an ice cicle.

We want to explore more of the trail soon. Part of it is the Humboldt Sink. That’s near Winnemucca and is the stretch of bleached miserable desert between the mountains where the wagoneers would find themselves divesting themselves of their most prized and personal possessions, leaving them strung along the cracked landscape, to lighten the load enough to make it across the waterless, seemingly-endless stretch of desert.

Nevada, both north and south, has never been an easy place to live. Hard people lived hard lives. Many still do. Today is, in a way, no different, because, while the rest of the U.S. suffers 9.5 percent unemployment, Nevada, being largely a leisure destination, has has maintained a steady 14 percent.

It’s a different kind of tough, but it’s tough. Nevada had a nice little niche carved out of the economic picture: skiing, hiking, boating (yep, boating) lots of golf courses, UFOs, meteorites, secret government facilities, public military facilities, some mining, sheep and cattle herding, and last but not least, gambling and prostitution. In other words, this was a world where there wasn’t much left to do but to do the things the other parts of the country didn’t want to do.

Having lived in the redwoods for decades, and then moving to a small town called Quincy, California, which was at the base of fir and pine-covered mountains of the Plumas National Forest, we have always been surrounded by trees. That’s a good thing, but it can be more than a little claustrophbic at times. In the redwoods, it’s like being in a 300 foot tall wooden jail.

But in the desert, the skies are vast and magnificent, cloud-filled or pure blue in the daytime, and a star-spangled dome at night. I find that I can sit and watch the cloud forms change all day long. And at night, with the silk breezes blowing across the deck, I sit there, stunned, at the universe in which we spend our relatively short lives.

Today, a small weather system is blowing through, with clouds of every kind wandering around. It’s one of those perfect days when rain could come but probably won’t, because it’s just to darn nice a day!

Almost three weeks ago, we moved to a great house with a magnificent view near Reno, Nevada. Reno’s not the quaint little cowtown is used to be. It’s metro population is almost a half-million, a real cultural bastion, but also with places that will out-Vegas Las Vegas.

It took us all this time to get settled in, what with Dalia doing all the work. She has, and continues to work herself to a state of tiredness in the evening when she is ready to collapse. But with unbelievably good spirits.

Ironically, as much as I like the view of the Sierra-Nevadas, the City, and surrounding mountains in the front, I love the rolling foothills owned by the BLM and the Bureau of Indian Affairs,  out the windows of the back of the house. Here, mustangs come down from their mountain hold-ups, to occasionally graze upon the few nice lawns in the area (most people don’t put in lawns because this is a desert, but some do). It’s funny to see a horse Dalia has named Moe (mow), grazing peacefully out in the front yard, where a few stubbles of grass remain (we’re going desert theme when we landscape).

Do you like to shop? Reno’s got every chain store, times five or six. But there are countless little mom and pop businesses, like the German restaurant where we went for lunch two days ago, or the Fifties-themed burger and malt shop a couple of miles away. And book stores!! The Barnes & Noble warehouse is in Reno! Along with the retail outlet, Borders, and quite a few individually owned book sellers. We love books, and one of the big expenses we’ll have will be to have a couple of rooms remodeled to contain wall-to-wall book shelves.

More later.

The Painting: a view of America

In September 1966, Ezra Taft Benson delivered a speech in which he said, “I spoke face to face with Nikita Khrushev, and he indicated that my grandchildren would live under communism.

“After assuring him that I expected to do all in my power to assure that his and all other grandchildren would live under freedom, he arrogantly declared in substance: You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright; but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you’ll finally wake up and find that you already have communism. We won’t have to fight you. We will so weaken your economy until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”

Ken Springer, Grantville GA

Honoring SSG Sal Giunta, Likely First Living Medal of Honor Recipient Since the Vietnam War

Ten Russian deep cover spies have been arrested in the U.S. An eleventh is still at large.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/us_and_canada/10442223.stm

http://email.foxnews.com/t?ctl=4CAA:975264F238CA4ACFCD2526FC8FFE7B6C&

Numerous times, I’ve pointed out that there are currently more Russian spies working in the U.S. than there were at the height of the Cold War. These 10 constitute only the tip of the vice-berg.

The Russians have always been there, stirring up trouble, and they always will be. I’m talking about their KGB-run government, not most of the good people like us, whose only difference is that they live there.

Thomas  Sowell  -  “While it is true that you learn with age, the down side is that what you learn is often what a damn fool you were before.”

Some people are about to sum up things in a way we can understand them. This quote came from the Czech Republic.

“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the ‘Prince of the Fools’ should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”

Waziristan is the beautiful lawless land of Pakistan, where tribal chiefs are the rulers, and where national government has little say. This is a know Taliban-al Qaeda sanctuary.

Southern Arizona is a magnificent part of the U.S., so much so that there are several major national parks and two national monuments there. This is land, a part of the U.S., is now a no-go area, governed by Mexican drug lords and human traffickers. It is also believed to be a major crossing for jihadists into the our country.

Right now, the U.S. is using unmanned drones to pummel with smart bombs targets in Waziristan suspected of being al Queda and Taliban. Yet in our own country, the president has stated flatly that he intends to do nothing about the stolen American lands in Arizona. This begs two question.

The first question is how can we complain to Pakistan about their not governing their own country, when we are not governing ours?

The second is how can a country adjacent to the U.S. unlawfully claim a part of the U.S., overrun it, and keep U.S. citizens out, without this being an act of war, and why are we not treating it as an act of war?

It seems reasonable for Arizona to want to reclaim a part of their state that has been stolen from them. It also seems reasonable for them to take their own action, in the absence of any federal response. The parks that are now under Mexican control are exempted as tourist attractions and as natural heritage sites, and as such, are removed from the revenue of the state.

Latino gangs have corrupted the hearts of every major city in the U.S., and of many smaller ones as well. In essence, they have done there exactly what they have done in Arizona: they have stolen parts of America and made them inaccessible to U.S. citizens.

For our own government not to make the resolution of these situations an extreme priority is a crime against America. To allow the enemy within to remain is to be complicit in the crime.

The Star Spangled Banner Lyrics
By Francis Scott Key 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

–

History: In 1814, about a week after the city of Washington had been badly burned, British troops moved up to the primary port at Baltimore Harbor in Maryland. Francis Scott Key visited the British fleet in the Harbor on September 13th to secure the release of Dr. William Beanes who had been captured during the Washington raid. The two were detained on the ship so as not to warn the Americans while the Royal Navy attempted to bombard Fort McHenry. At dawn on the 14th, Key noted that the huge American flag, which now hangs in the Smithsonian’s American History Museum, was still waving and had not been removed in defeat. The sight inspired him to write a poem titled Defense of Fort McHenry. The poem was eventually set to music that had originally been written by English composer John Stafford Smith for a song titled “The Anacreontic Song”. The end result was the inspiring song now considered the national anthem of the United States of America. It was accepted as such by public demand for the next century or so, but became even more accepted as the national anthem during the World Series of Baseball in 1917 when it was sung in honor of the brave armed forces fighting in the Great War. The World Series performance moved everyone in attendance, and after that it was repeated for every game. Finally, on March 3, 1931, the American Congress proclaimed it as the national anthem, 116 years after it was first written.

So the government as much as admitted today that it can’t control — CAN’T — AN 80-mile stretch of the U.S./Mexican border, that it has become a no-man’s land (reminiscent of the lawless areas of Pakistan) where drug wars and illegal aliens do as the please. And they so much as admitted they’re powerless in the oil-spill category, too.

So what can they do? What are the good at? All they’re supposed to be good at is defending the country and protecting the freedoms of the citizens who live inside it.

That’s what a republic does. If it does more than that it will fail. And it is failing because it’s trying to do a lot more than that.

Bottom line: The government grows, which it is, and it’s power decreases, which it is.

When I first saw the video of North Carolina Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington) , I thought to myself, If this man was unable to hide behind the office of congress, he would be nothing more than a thug, picking on the smaller, the weaker, the vulnerable. A predator. Then it occurred to me that this was probably a reflection of how he acted in congress: a self-serving thug who, if he couldn’t defeat a smaller person would, he would farm out the job to some other thug.

I have a dear friend, Andy, who’s suffering in the hospital. I ask you to pray for him, and for his loving wife who will not leave his side, nor falter in her support and love for him. Health for Andy. Strength for Dee. Please. Thanks.

I was lucky enough to go to a cool high school with a lot of really excellent classmates. Since the Internet allowed reconnection, several friends I went to school with have contacted me. Today there was a bumper crop of emails from some of them, and I enjoyed every one, including one from the son of a former classmate friend of mine. That was very cool. I started out thinking that all the reconnection stuff would be a pain in the butt, but it’s turned out to be one on the nicest things in life. I’d lost track of how much we cared about each other in school, how much energy we put into our friendships and to the projects in which we were mutually involved.

My life experiences have left me horribly cynical, moderately agoraphobic, completely paranoid, hyper-vigilant, depressed, subject to panic attacks OR, worse yet,struggling with bouts of unreasonable anger. But the notes from old friends remind me that I wasn’t always this way, that life wasn’t all bad, that friends ARE important, and, at times, they can change your day for the better.

Everybody else probably knows this stuff already, but I’m a slow learner. When I think things through, I have a big blind spot: me.

So I’m grateful for every jot and tittle that comes my way, even if I am a lousy pen pal.

Feeling fragmented tonight. Actually, all day. It’s the kind of feel I get just before I find out something has gone horribly wrong in the world, get word of it, but not quite digest it or know immediately where it fits.

Something’s up. I know it. I can feel it. A day or two away. Maybe. Hope it’s a false alert.

A dear friend from Florida, Pat, also wrote an e-mail saying she missed the posts when I didn’t put them up. I really, really didn’t think anyone ever read them, let alone, cared. I’m so flatter I’m blushing. Thanks, Pat, and anyone else who might be reading that I don’t know about.

(I have the comments shut off just because there are people out there who seem to want to make careers out of saying nasty thing and arguing. I’m too old to argue. I know what I believe and I’ll change my own mind, thank you very much. Sorry.)

Real violence is chaos. There’s no pretty dancing, posing, offering the other guy to take the first shot. I got my first lesson in that reality when I was about 12. We were playing basketball in a public gym, where people of all ages came to throw together teams and play for fun.

An argument broke out at the other end of the gym between two older, larger men. One of them kept saying, “Okay, come on, hit me, hit me.” Bottom line, the other guy did, a fierce right cross that caught the one who was making the offer right on the left side of the jaw. The first thing  I heard was a crack, like someone has fired a .22, then we could hear a whole lot of his teeth skittering across the gym floor like someone had just released a bunch of land crab. It was pitiful, even if it was the height of naivete. He sunk to his knees, blood gushing from his mouth, and his jaw hanging, completely broken off. His moans were enough to make you want to become a hermit and never see another human again.

One hit.

Later, in the military, I saw a lot more guys who’d lost short fights. Real violence is chaos. And it isn’t pretty.

There are several post-apocalyptic movies currently running, among them, ‘The Book of Eli,’ and ‘The Road.’ They’re not the shiny heroes-take-all movies we’re used to seeing. They paint a rather grim picture, which is more likely to be the case.

So tonight, the hair stood up on the back of my neck when I was reading some financial reports, and a well-know financial advisor suggested quite seriously that the best investments to make right now might be  land, guns, and barbed wire.

When people of stature begin to say out loud what some of us have long feared, it’s not as though I feel like saying, “Told you so.” I feel quite like saying, “Oh, s***,” because I, like some of you, have been where it has been really bad, where survival is a day-to-day, hour-by hour issue, and it’s nothing any of us ever want to experience here, nor do we want our kids and grandkids to live in such a world.

But now I can no longer just say, I hope I’m wrong. I have to say, I hope the experts are wrong, too.