We finish up the holiday’s posting of photos tomorrow, with 2 reposts of scenes from our western saga.

The Year In Road Photos: January – June (Part 1 of 2)

Happy New Year

Repost (January 28, 2017)

A Fleeting Moment of Beauty and Truth

[Update below]

During the Women’s March on DC last Saturday, as the protesters converged into an ocean at the corner of 14th and Constitution, I managed to make eye contact with this beautiful woman – her loving gaze penetrated my soul:

Road Trip Photos – Year 1

Moran Point, Grand Canyon

I posted this in August of 2017, after 5 months on the road of what became an awesome 7 year nomadic adventure! Truly “Glory Days”!

I was on the road and off the grid in the forest and deserts of the west, and thus able to avoid the entire Trump first term nightmare, as well as the COVID pandemic.

We won’t be so lucky in 2025, as we’re locked down in Philly and the Fascist consolidation of Trump 2 starts in just 3 weeks.

And I guarantee that the First Day will begin with a tidal wave of Trump Executive Orders and dictates. People are not remotely prepared for the shitstorm Trump will unleash.

Trump will flood the zone with so much sewage that it will overwhelm the capacity of the media and the institutions and people to even understand, never mind effectively oppose: A simultaneous Category 5 Hurricane, tsunami, 1,000 year flood, wildfire, and 9.o Richter scale earthquake. Gory Days! Mark my words.

There’s blood in the streets, it’s up to my ankles
Blood in the streets, it’s up to my knee
Blood in the streets, the town of Chicago
Blood on the rise, it’s following me. ~~~ Peace Frog, The Doors (1970)

“Destruction” – The Course Of Empire, Thomas Cole, 1836)

Now, the original post:

Here’s the verse that many USA! USA! USA! Springstein fans forget:

My old man worked twenty years on the line
And they let him go
Now everywhere he goes out looking for work
They just tell him that he’s too old
I was nine years old and he was working at the
Metuchen Ford plant assembly line
Now he just sits on a stool down at the Legion hall
But I can tell what’s on his mind:

Glory days yeah goin’ back
Glory days aw he ain’t never had
Glory days, glory days  ~~~~ Glory Days (Bruce Springsteen, 1984)

He does the same thing in songs like “Born in the USA” and “My Home Town” – crafting the song in such a way as to allow some listeners to draw the exact opposite meaning of the song. That’s why he’ll never live up to the bold legacy of a Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger.

[Update: 10/13/17 – Expanding upon exactly the point I was driving at above, the NY Times review of “Springsteen on Broadway” describes various “masks” and “contradictions”, and calls him out for “revisionism”. Springsteen even calls himself a “fraud”. Read the whole thing. ~~~ end update]

There’s mosquitoes on the river
Fish are rising up like birds
It’s been hot for seven weeks now
Too hot to even speak now
Did you hear what I just heard? ~~~ The Music Never Stopped (Grateful Dead, 1975)

Colorado River, at Moab Utah

Left school with a first class pass

Started work but as second class

School taught one and one is two

But right now, that answer just ain’t true. ~~~ Ride My Seasaw (Moody Blues, “In Search of the Lost Chord”, 1968)

Im reluctant to write this, because there were so few tourists and summer homes of the rich and famous (we wouldn’t like it to become like Sun Valley), but the finest clear streams with turquoise pools, prolific wildflowers, and scenic hikes I’ve enjoyed on my trip so far were in Bridger-Teton National Forest in the Star Valley Front. Of those, the most spectacular was Strawberry Creek Trail! (of course, I forgot to bring the camera – but below is a view from my dispersed campsite at the bottom):

The hike up to Trout Lake in the Northern Cascades was a close second –

And here’s a different spectacular Trout Lake, just below Lizard Head Pass & Wilderness, Colorado:

Here’s a highlight from Rocky Mountain National Park:

Lovely spot on the Salmon River in Idaho:

How about the Snake River:

The hike above Cutthroat Lake in the Northern Cascades was brutal – I didn’t make it out and back and turned back as the brutal sun hit the trail at 11 am:

But Blue Lake, in Northern Cascades was very easy walk in:

We camped and had our own beach in this spot on the Skagit River – as all sorts of RV’s sped by at 60 mph, rushing to pay to jam into an RV ghetto in Cascade National Park:

O’ man river,
Dat ol’ man river,
He mus’know sumpin’
But don’t say nuthin’
He jes’ keeps rollin’
He keeps on rollin’ along.  ~~~~ Paul Robeson version, 1936

Glory Days.

Revisionist Takedowns Must Stop

Old white man here.

I first learned that former President Jimmy Carter died last night. I was on my way to bed, so didn’t invest much mental energy in that demise. A good night’s sleep is more important than that.

This morning, sitting in the sunshine on a bench in Washington Square Park in Philadelphia (my new home), I noted the flag at half staff. This prompted reflection.

I never liked Jimmy Carter. I was 19 when I voted for him in 1976, my first election.

I was young, idealistic, poorly educated and naive at the time.

I did not share his values, vision, or politics (far too southern, Christian, rural, technocratic, and commercial for me). But I always felt that Carter was a good man, was properly motivated, and worked hard. But he was a lousy President.

I always got the sense that Carter’s foreign policy was not his own, but rather dictated to him by the National Security State, whom he lacked a spine to stand up to.

Domestically, I think he is more accountable for his Neoliberal deregulatory policies.

Yes, don’t deify the man, but don’t dance on his grave either.

I don’t apologize for any of that or make any excuses for it or for any of that. All that is irrelevant now.

I am disgusted by revisionists who condemn all that in light of today’s perspective, largely as a cheap shot and opportunistic attack on today’s journalists and politics.

I grow sick and tired of revisionist takedowns –

Yesterday, I actually read a piece at Jacobin attacking Jane Jacobs as an advocate of (or liberal dupe for) racist gentrification and defending Robert Moses as a progressive champion of good government.

This is a lie.

This opportunistic shit has got to stop.