Fire Ass Walking

 Kadizzle, Cliff, and Winky set of on about a five mile hike up the San Francisco River. It actually was a creek with very little water. We left Arizona and drove about two miles into New Mexico.  Kadizzle does not like to walk fast, but Cliff and Winky like to do the Fire Ass style walking. They walk like their butt is on fire. Kadizzle does what he calls mumble walking. You walk like an old man and mumble to yourself. You enjoy the forest more.  However, on the way back, like a horse going back to the barn, Kadizzle walked as fast as he could and left Cissie and Cliff in the dust. They did hike farther than old Kadizzle. The legs performed better than usual, and so did the entire old body. Who knows why.  The quick walking may be payed for with sore legs. Arizona has shut down the forest in Arizona.  New Mexico is still allowing people into their forest.  

On the way back we drove through parts of Alpine.  Alpine is a second home area in the White Mountains of Arizona.  There are a lot of people living back in the woods.  Once you start exploring you realize how many people are camouflaged by the forest. The encampments range from the bums just getting by on social security or what they can steal, and it goes the whole gamut up to the forest estates of the wealthy. The lack of order in the forest communities is a bit distressing. Live and let live in Arizona means nothing is zoned or regulated. 

We are doomed

Kadizzle is in a home decorating business in Payson, AZ.  While Winky burns up the day unable to make up here mind if she wants white, white, or whiter white Kadizzle engaged the owner in conversation. The owner revealed he home schooled his children. The fellow seems fairly intelligent, but of course he also has a dose of religion. The shocking thing the owner said was just about everyone in Payson is home schooling their kids. Deep inside Kadizzle shuddered. We are raising a generation of idiots. Indoctrinated fools.  What a shame. Take a young child rob them of the potential to think. Fill their brain with your own idea of reality.  Scary, scary.  How did we end up with Trump voters? Kadizzle will bet a disproportional number of Republicans were home schooled. Schooled is a misnomer. They were fed a bunch of nonsense at home. They were indoctrinated. It is only getting worse. Our country will be lucky to recover from this self induced stupidity.  

The Elks Club

Gold fell from heaven, but not enough. The ground was wet only a quarter inch down, but Kadizzle sat on the porch in the fresh mountain air.  Out in the fields in the valley the Elk were sharing supper with the seven horses.  A mamma Elk and junior were browsing. As Kadizzle swung the binoculars around he could see another cow calf pair over on the side of the mountain. 

The closed the millions of acres of National Forest.  Every road, every path, has a closed sign. We tried to go out for a hike yesterday, but were stymied by the signs. 

The ebike is giving Kadizzle fits.  The front tire was improperly repaired by a bike outfit in Bismarck and it had a leak.  Now the gear shifting mechanism has gone bonkers.  Slowly the bike is eating our lunch. Kadizzle must admit he has given the poor bike a lot of abuse. 

Not a cloud in the sky, the temperature is even a bit cool. With moisture in the air the day looks perfect, if they would just open up the forest. 

I am a man you don't meet every day

Old Kadizzle had to have a tire repaired yesterday.  Into the ramshackle old gas station he went. This story is dedicated to Honest Omar.  As Kadizzle wasted time waiting for the hole to be repaired he noticed how many people had tattoos. A random thought jumped into his mind.  Here he was in the heart of a Mormon infestation and everyone had tattoos. Were Mormon's allowed to have tattoos? Kadizzle decided to go ahead and pay for the repair before it was done. He asked a huge hulking guy with some bad teeth who to pay. The humphfalump said you can pay me. It appeared as though meth had taken a bit of a toll on some of his front teeth. However, he seemed like a nice enough guy. Since the behemoth's arms were covered with inked sketches Kadizzile decided to ask him if he was a Mormon. " No" he answered, " I am a heathen".   Then a conversation ensued about religion.  Kadizzle mentioned the town was full of churches. Tire man said all these people are only good on Sunday. Kadizzle liked the comment. Tire man said at one point. " Think of religion like a fish in a fishbowl in the ocean, that is religion".  Next tire man said "Think of another fish in the ocean outside that fish bowl, that is spirituality". The big fellow had some philosophy in him. Somewhere in this conversation Kadizzle told the story about Ray.  Ray once said he was an orthodox atheist.  Now the little town here is about as beat up and run down as you can get, yet it is full of churches. There is every flavor of church here. You got the Bible Church, you got a church with a great big sing that says Jeeesus.  Of course there are enough Mormons to make a fortune selling sacred underwear.  All this religion and what did it get them? It got them lots of guns, Donald Trump, a mess of run down beat up mobile homes, and a hard scrabble existence. What went wrong?What if all that money burnt up in the churches went to pay better teachers?  What if the kids were taught to learn a little science, and math?  No, no, lets just put up a Trump flag, and go down to the drugstore that sells more guns than pills. This reminds old Kadizzle of an old song " We need more Jesus and less rock-n-roll".  Really? We need less Jesus, more brains, less guns, more education, less Fox News. 

The Forest is Closed

 Seems strange to find out the forest is closed. Maybe tomorrow they will close the sky. Apparently Republicans can close the brains of 74 million people.  The fires in Arizona have prompted closing the forest. That in essence has stopped the Kadizzles from going to the playground.  Every little road and path has a closure sign. 

As the planet burns we will divert ourselves with Critical Race Theory. It is the most recent Republican game. Remember when liberals outlawed Merry Christmas and it was a crises?  Republicans love to invent wild things and then get excited about them. ANTIFA is a classic case. It is merely a figment of some Republicans imagination. There is no such group, but they are hiding everywhere.  Creek Pigs, what in the hell are Creek Pigs.  We used to tell the neighborhood kids there were mean Creek Pigs. We made up the story so the kids would stay away from the creek when they were little. It worked. Apparently little kids will stay away from the Democratic party if you make up stories about Critical Race Theory.  No one ever saw a Creek Pig, and no one knows what the hell Critical Race Theory is, but all we do know is it is bad for education.  In fact there are a whole lot of facts that best be ignored.  Children should not know white people took black enslaved people's teeth to make false teeth, that would make us look like we were mean.  White people never did anything mean, except for vote for Joe Biden. White people are damn near perfect and the school system needs to make sure young children understand that. If it seemed white people were mean to black people it was because the good white people were just trying to help the confused black people.  It is sort of like the Indian children in the Indian schools that somehow disappeared. Nice white Catholics were just trying to help the poor Indian children become white. What else could you do with the ones who would not cooperate, but kill them.  Any school system that promotes the idea that Americans make mistakes must be corrected. 

We are not number one

 The New York Times has a great article this morning by Nicolos Kristoff.  Probably misspelled his name, but you get the idea. He makes a very interesting case about how our country has fallen behind. If you have a problem the first thing is to acknowledge it. If you are fat admit it to yourself, if you drink too much admit it to yourself, if you eat too much sugar admit it. Of course Kadizzle can admit his failures, but he never can overcome them. Now look at the country. We are losing, the rich have raped the country and we are behind. However, Republicans are selling the old delusion " Were number one". It just ain't so.  The United States has some serious problems, gun violence, child healthcare, illiteracy, on, and on. Yet we refuse to address these problems while we spend ten times more than any other country on defense.  We are in decline. Recognize it, or elect some more Trumps to lie to you. 

Mental Illness

Yesterday Kadizzle took a very long motorcycle ride through some amazing country. On the trip he lost the cover for the little pack on the cycle. Today Kadizzle set out to find the cover. To his amazement he found it twenty miles into the ride on the road. On the trip home Kadizzle was riding past the skeleton of an old lumber mill. Kadizzle let his curiosity get the best of him and drove into the humongous abandoned building. As Kadizzle approached the inside of the huge building which now is mostly hollowed our he saw a man sitting on a chair in front of a big fifth wheel RV.  Kadizzle drove up to the man and said hello.  Something seemed strange about this fellow sitting on a chair with a mason jar beside him and a pair of overalls with only one strap.  In no time a conversation insued. It did seem like a great place to park an RV. There was almost a football field of concrete covered with a roof that must have been five or six stories above. Bulletin, bulletin, it is raining here.  Anyway his eyes were strange. He was just a wee bit cross eyed.  After a little back and forth the story of the man began to unfold. Because of the forest fires he was forced out of the forest. Apparently he was fasting deep in the wilderness in his RV and became incoherent. Someone must have rescued and relocated him. The fellow seemed a bit overweight. At first his conversation seemed to make sense. He said he had two properties he was developing, and he was working on a helicopter design to spray almond trees. The conversation about his helicopter enterprise was interesting. He was going to develop a helicopter that had a jet stream of air that came from the tip of the blades. His lifestyle made it appear he was broke. He said his friend shuffled him from Springerville to Idaho, and New Mexico in a small aircraft. As Kadizzle and the gentleman got deeper into the conversation his science became more and more strange. He explained to Kadizzle how he could grow plants without any light.  He came up with a device that he said allowed plants to harvest energy from the earth so they did not need light. He claimed trees get energy from the ground, and also had a strange theory that energy could be harvested from the air. According to Mr. Bizarre science for every three feet up you went you got another 100 watts. The conversation got more and more insane. Somewhere during the insanity the wife of they guy who owned the place showed up. Apparently she had something to do with rescuing this guy from the forest. She jumped into the conversation and came up with some crazy stuff herself about wind power.  Kadizzle got more and more amazed about the abundance of crazy people. This is in the heart of Trump country.  Mr Overalls got into a crazy thing about farming.  He said cow farts were being taxed and had a bizarre theory on wheat. He claimed the wheat market was manipulated by banks. He had videos of ships dumping wheat in the ocean. 

Kadizzle has met a lot of lunatics, but this guy had his own special mix on science and insanity.  He clearly proved " Education just confuses people" .  He knew enough to get thoroughly confused. He even admitted he mixed pseudo science with regular science. The clincher was he was assured Kadizzle the Earth was only 8 thousand years old. The day turned out to have some very interesting conversations. Rest assured there are plenty of insane, partially insane, or just plain stupid people for the Republicans to recruit.  It is scary.  

After thinking a bit more Kadizzle realized more of the crazy stuff the mad scientist told him. The mad scientist developed a way to pre-digest food. Apparently it involved fermentation, which is a bit questionable. The scientist put his magic device that made trees grow without light under his bed. Since his body no longer had to work to digest food, it must have caused problems. Perhaps that explained why he had to be rescued from the forest. In retrospect Kadizzle wishes he could have videoed or recorded this jaunt into a different reality. 

Stop

Up ahead the lights were flashing. Maybe some poor bastard was pulled over for speeding. Nope, we are being stopped and told to turn around because a forest fire has closed the road from Srpingerville to Payson.  On our way to inspect the home we are having built in Payson the trip was canceled. The only way to get to Payson would be to go through Globe, a mere three hour drive of 213 miles. It would add over one hundred miles to the journey.  Arizona is on fire, and people seem to accept it as part of life.  All the people who just moved here from California must have steam coming from their ears. They jumped from one frying pan to the next.  The Kadizzles feel a bit like dolts with a move to Arizona. You cannot escape rednecks in North Dakota or Arizona, but North Dakota burns differently. Prairie fires are easier to control. You cannot just plow a forest. Humans are amazing in their ability to ignore. Reality and science have gone down the tube.  How many cigars can you smoke in one room before you choke? Don't try to calculate. Instead keep adding cigar smokers until one drops over dead. That is Republican science and climate change. There is no climate change, and if there is it is God's will. God is a strange character, he chose Trump, and now God doesn't want everyone voting.  God sure is strange.  You have to ask God to do the right thing. God will not make it rain, or put out forest fires unless enough people pray.  It is like an election. If enough people pray God will end starvation, forest fires, and war. On the other hand if God does not get enough Christian prayers he will be pissed off and all hell will break lose.  Judging from the town of Springerville there are about twenty flavors of Christian prayers.  Think of all the off brand prayers flooding heaven. It is like bamboo ballots in Arizona. God has to figure out which prayers are real and which are fake news.  What a mess, it is any wonder we have forest fires. 

The Fog that does not lift

Smoke has rolled in and it is thick as fog. Trump flags in Arizona are in danger of burning.  As the people infested with right wing insanity sit in their home and watch their Trump signs and flags burn they still wallow in the idiocy of no climate change.  Arizona is on fire and while the state burns the Republicans are auditing the ballots to see if they can find help for Trump. Trump did everything in his power to reverse the progress made in fighting man made climate change. The gun nuts can be seen at the grocery store here with their armament strapped to their side. Can they shoot the forest fires? A lot of the people around here rely on the lumber industry.  Instead of 2x4s they may be selling charcoal. What does it take to rinse the stupidity out of a Fox News viewer? There may be some hope, after all Arizona did vote for Biden.  

Now for the next right wing insanity.  Business cannot find people to work.  Of course the businesses only want to pay slave wages.  As Kadizzle have a new home constructed it is obvious how critical immigrants are. Mexicans built the footing, Mexicans did the framing, and Mexicans put on the roof.  Why not let the Mexicans do the work that so many businesses need done? Economist say migrants will be a boon to the economy.  Why not let them work and pay taxes? Only if they agree to vote Republican.  If that were a requirement the borders would be open. Already too many working people in Arizona have voted for Biden. 

Pole Knoll

Do you need a pole? Well if you do in the old days they would send you to Poll Knoll. Winky and Kadizzle did not need a pole, but we hiked five miles at Pole Knoll. It was a hot day and frequent stops to sit on a stump were needed. There are a myriad of trails there suitable for bikes, and we should have taken our ebikes. 

Now for a report on the political front. The Fargo Forum has started to feature opinion pieces by Scott Hennen. Hennen is a pathological liar, and a disciple of Trump. Hennen has taken hypocrisy to a new level. Hennen has lied on air about good old Kadizzle on his radio show. Kadizzle has had a Jihad against Hennen for years.  When Kadizzle had to have 45 radiation treatments he had to drive to Bismarck 45 times.  To entertain himself Kadizzle would call in and challenge Hennen's lies. After Kadizzle read Hennen's opinion in the Fargo Forum yesterday he fired off a response to the editor. To Kadizzle's delight his letter to the editor appeared withing hours in the Forum. This morning it will be interesting to see if Hennen responds on his propaganda program KFYR broadcast.

Back to the Earth Module. The morning started with logging trucks chugging down the hill. Those wood pellets burning in so many peoples fireplaces are starting their journey from the woods to the hardware store.  

Another Day Another Indian Site

Yesterday the car took us into Springerville.  Springerville has a school they converted into a nice little museum. From the museum a guide took us to the Casa Malpais pueblo.  Centuries ago the site was occupied by ancient people. The data seems to indicate these people were forced by drought from the southern part of Arizona into the mountains to find water.  A major feature of this site is a sun clock that precisely measures the summer solstice. It is accurate withing four minutes. Ancient people were very good at picking sites. This site was on the edge of a lava flow, and according to the guide there were many tunnels under the area.  Ancient people believed humans emerged from the Earth, so they may have found the underground tunnels to be very much a religious thing.  Wandering around these sites speculating on what is what is a good way to spend a day. 

For part two of the days excitement we went to the Irish Pub.  Musicians from the blues festival in town would show up about eight in the evening to entertain. Now this created a strange aura.  A car of black musicians from California pulled up in front of this rustic building.  The Kadizzles were sitting on the porch enjoying a gin and tonic.  As they unloaded their musical instruments Kadizzle thought how strange in the heart of redneck country to have these black guys playing the blues. They were very good, and very professional.  A strange mix of people filled the bar to hear the music.  One guy caught the attention of Kadizzle.  A tall old guy with a big white cowboy hat stood in the door with his arms crossed.  He looked grumpy, but maybe that was just how his face was painted.  It was hard to tell if he liked the music or was pissed off. Other strange people mingled about. Kadizzle went into the bar to get some popcorn.  The popcorn apparently had been popped sometime during the Civil War, it was terrible.  Out on the porch we had some of the featured cheesecake that had just been made. It was very good.  It is nice having a place down the road to visit for food, drink, and music.  

Today Winky is urging Kadizzle to get going. We are to hike up a trail with some people and try to do some improvements.  No so anxious to get moving on a Sunday morning. 

Hidden Artist

Roberto told us about an artist in steel in the little town of Springerville.  Winky decided to find the guy. His creations were fantastic. From railroad spikes, used gears, and even a transmission he had a field full of creations in the space in front of his house. As he saw us looking over his creations he came out and the next thing you new we were deep in conversation. The artist at one time took on sailing. Kadizzle suggested an art project for him. The project would be a human face that you could see gears inside.  Next thing you knew we were in his studio and he was showing us a full sized Hippo that was a version of what Kadizzle had just mentioned. The Hippo from one side looked like a Hippo, but on the other side it was full of gears, and other interesting things.  One of the great pleasures over the years has been visiting the artist in small towns few know of. 

Prison is no big deal

 Yesterday while changing the oil on the motorcycle Kadizzle got another call from his scammer friend in India. One more time Kadizzle was about to get news he won five million dollars and a new car.  Readers Digest is so good to Kadizzle.  In the last year scammer has told Kadizzle he had winnings approaching 100 million. Kadizzle told Sanji about the New York Times article on scammers from India. Somehow there is an American who was able to hack the computers of the scammers. A New York Times reporter actually went to India and forced one of the scammers to have an interview. It seems now possible these scammers might be caught. Kadizzle told Sanji he was in jeopardy and might end up in prison. After Kadizzle told Sanji he should find another line of work Sanji said " I am not afraid of prison, I have been in prison many times" .   Strange how Readers Digest hires such reputable people to disperse the money.  Why he keeps calling me is a mystery .  Once Sanji called with the scam and Kadizzle was playing him along.  In the background Kadizzle heard a rooter crow. Apparently Readers Digest has roosters in their offices.  If you are bored find the NYT article.  The story is interesting about how these scams work and how much money they take in. The average scammer working for a crooked organization gets a percentage of what he steals. According to the article the daily take is usually about five hundred dollars. The guy scamming you gets a small percentage.  Think about Trump and his scam. How many people did he fool?  There are a lot of people just waiting to be scammed. Republicans know this.

Part Two:  Kadizzle took off on the Motorcycle on a mystery ride. After leaving the compound up the gravel road he headed. Randomly he chose to follow the first Forest Service road he found. Forest Service Road 688.  It is fun to just head into the mountains with no clue where you are going. On and on the road went. Kadizzle began to realize if anything went wrong he was withing shouting distance of the middle of nowhere.  Thinking what if there is a flat tire or a mechanical failure, no one would ever find him.  Kadizzle called Winky just to let here know where the search party might look.  After many miles Kadizzle became amazed at the vastness of the wilderness. Going back would not be fun. Kadizzle surmised the road must lead somewhere. Finally Kadizzle's brain had a moment of function. Kadizzle consulted the map on the phone.  It appeared the road would eventually come out near New Mexico.  At last the road did meet up with a paved road.  Again Kadizzle had to consult the map to figure out where he was.  On the way back Kadizzle kept thinking how big the country really is. There is still a massive amount of wilderness in the United States. These old mining roads, and logging roads form a web that will take you deep into nowhere. 

Slow fry

 It cooled down last night, but in no time the heat will return. Kadizzle just finished reading an article in the NYT about the effect of climate change on the West.  Here we sit frying in Arizona. Even at 7,500 ft the heat is a problem. Back near our winter camp the world is on fire. People are amazing. This problem has been building for years, and yet we ignored it. Republicans are still in their fantasy that it is not happening. 

All this makes Kadizzle think about global greed. It works the same way. Gradually people are hammered by the greed of the one percent. The fact that it is gradual makes it hard to notice. Just like the slow creep of climate change. 

Kadizzle is fat, it did not happen in one day.  Those enemies that attack you slowly are the ones that ultimately win. Then you have the Hoopleheads they don't notice much. The Hoopleheads are so easily fooled by the Republicans. Don't worry there is no problem, just keep building, just keep making more cars, flying more planes, and carry on.  It's not my problem. The Hooplehead flys down the road in his goofy truck flying a Trump flag, living in oblivion. 

Pickup The Earth Module

Rain came to the White Mountains, it was wonderful. The elk came down to Cliff's front yard, six of them.  Today we head to Show Low to pick up the Earth Module. They will charge use 142 dollars for telling us there was nothing wrong with the refrigerator. Steam will shoot from Kadizzle's ears if we get the home on Earth back and the thing still does not work. What a wonderful warranty.  The warranty says it will not pay for diagnosis. Never buy anything from Norcold. Call for help and find out you are number 46 in line. If the line always has forty or fifty people waiting, then you know they have a problem. 

How does Trump attract a following? It is a worldwide problem. Kadizzle read a good article addressing this in the NYT.  People feel they are being cheated. Worldwide people like Trump blame it on another tribe. The idea sells, and the Trumpers multiply.  Poor people with the help of the Democrats are stealing everything from the rich who earned it.  The cost of ignorance is high. 

Back on a different Planet

After another ten hour drive from Denver to Springerville, Az we are on another planet which has no water, very few people, scattered mountains, and abundant peace and quiet. No traffic, no fribble stores, no insane prices, no aggressive drivers, none of the hustle bustle insanity of Denver. Now what? Tomorrow we have to go get the Earth Module.  For a mere $142 they told us there is nothing wrong with our refrigerator. Guess how this will turn out. We will haul the thing back to Springerville over a hundred miles and the refrigerator will not work again. The mysteries of the universe. We tried everything to get it to work before we took it to Showlow.  The RV place plugged it in over night and told us it works fine.  We are worn out from driving.  

Kadizzle understands road rage.  The people who pull in front of you while you are pulling a large trailer should be shot. This is gun violence Kadizzle approves of. Hard to imagine the poor guy with a tractor trailer and these idiots weaving in and out of traffic like it is a game. The get people killed. They are actually committing murder with their actions and are no different from drunk drivers. OK, maybe not kill them, just a severe beating. 

 

Grandpa syndrome

What happens when your little, not so little, 12 year old grand daughter takes you to the local mini mall?  Your wallet bleeds.  Grandpa lets get some ice cream. Gramps lets get this and that. Of course everything is priced five hundred percent higher than it should be.  We were supposed to be on a bike ride, but the ride ends up at the fribble shops. It could have been worse. Sylvie suggested we buy jewelry for grandma and her mom. Grandpa was ready to give in, but fate stepped in. The ladies credit card machine would not work and Gramps had no cash. 

Another trip was to the pool. Grandpa bet Sylvie he could do a back flip.  The fat old Grandpa managed it an won the five bucks.  Now, another fat guy decided to do a back flip. This guy made Kadizzle look tiny.  The guy weighed an easy 450lbs.  The diving board seemed like it would break as he walked to the end.  Surely the board would break if he bounced.  Now with a little jump the planet spun and to the crowds amazement he did it.  Grandpa bet Sylvie ten bucks she could not do a 1 1/2  .  She almost made it so the prize was hers. 

Another day with the Denver gang and tomorrow a long, long drive back to Arizona. Hopefully some progress will be found on the new home. 

Two Worlds

When two worlds collide. Kadizzle sits about a block from the control tower for the original Denver airport.  Erin's house is about where the parking lot would have been.  Imagine the size of the old Stapleton airport. It would have been miles wide and long. When the new airport was built miles out of town the old airport was turned into prosperity village. Not exactly, but now there exist for miles in every direction housing that was very carefully planned and laid out. In many ways it is a great place to live.  Every home is immaculately landscaped. If you live here you have a decent job. The kids are all spit shinned and have no clue of the word suffer.  

Many blocks away is the old fashioned area where reality still exist. There is a distinct line between the new and the old. A lot of the old is being bought up and transformed into better housing. 

Kadizzle buzzes about on his bike and it is a world of no problems. A few times a year visiting our children we go into these oasis of nirvana.  Of course when we leave we drive through the real world with the mess it involves.  Why can't everyone have a decent house? There is enough wood, steel, grass, and all that is needed for everyone to live the good life, but it seems impossible to solve the distribution problem.  It is very simple math. When Willy takes six, and Mary takes four, maybe Rastus will not get any.  That is how the world works and the Trumpsters love it. 

800 miles one day

 Old Kadizzle awoke early and installed a light fixture on Dina's kitchen ceiling. Nothing went right so a one hour job turned into a two hour job. With a late start Kadizzle headed fro Denver a mere 800 miles away.  The radio played tunes from the phone all day and it was nice to drive through green country that we usually see as brown.  Now at Snoocher Bears house having coffee in the morning. The sleep refreshed the old man, and a bike ride around Denver will be on the list shortly. May put the bike on the train and go down town, or may just ride the bike to town and take the train back. Kadizzle may just leave his road bike in Denver with Erin so he has a decent bike when he visits.  Urban sprawl is something that never ceases to amaze.  Bismarck has splattered like spilled coffee in every direction.  What if you could know how many people were in cars at any moment. There are 40 million cars in this country and if even a third of them were on the road that would be a lot of people. The add the people up in the air. At any given moment there are six thousand planes in the air.  Do the math. 150 times six thousand.  The reality is a very small portion of the population actually does anything.  Most people under 18 do nothing, most old farts over 65 do nothing, and a whole bunch of people between 18 and 65 do nothing. That means a very small portion of the population has to do the real work.  Isn't it wonderful? 

North Dakota's Pulitzer Prize Winner

 Today Kadizzle will travel to Bismarck to meet Dina.  Dina is one of the Bad Ass Grandmas who took on the corrupt Republicans in North Dakota and won. Dina has been a friend from way back and Kadizzle had many happy moments of joy with Dina and Bill in the sailing past. Now for the icing on the cake. Dina arrange for Tony Bender to be at here home to meet Kadizzle.  Kadizzle has admired Bender for his wonderful writing and political satire in the Fargo Forum.  Bender is an amazing writer and should get the Pulitzer prize.  The Trumpsters don't like Tony, which is the best endorsement anyone could have. Bender is a supreme humorist. Humor is one thing you will never find in a Republican with a stick up their backside.  So today will shape up to be a great day. 

The Truth is nothing more than a state of mind

Your world is not my world. Each of us lives in our own world. We each look out a different window. We are not seeing the same thing. Our minds invent our reality. It is impossible to see things for what they are.  We are artist. We paint the world to resemble what our mind wants to see. We don't see ourselves, we imagine ourselves. The reality we live in is one we manufacture. We live in the illusion that we are all in the same world.  We are not. If two people are in a room, there are two worlds. Time does not pass the same for any two people. The rain doesn't smell the same, the flowers don't provide the same thrill. Understanding that that person next to you is in a different world or maybe a different planet is crucial. What seems irrelevant and insignificant to you is the sun in their universe. We invent the world we want.  We will see evil where someone else sees virtue. We will see difficulty where someone else sees a challenge. Life is an illusion. You cannot escape your  imagination, nor can you separate it from the world. 

Our lives are ruled by probability.  How likely is it you will get cancer, hit by a car, live to be one hundred.  No one knows, but each of us perceives the probabilities differently.  Our perception of probability shapes our existence. Every move we make we base on the likelihood of the outcome. Most of the time we are wrong, but that never changes our view of the world. 

Who are your friends?

Your friends accept you for what you are, who you are, how you are, where you are, when you are whatever you are. Friends can and will be honest with you. Friends return the favor. Friends understand how to disagree with you. Friends forgive you. Friends stick with you. As the old saying goes the proof is in the pudding.

Hillbillies make good friends. With some strong hillbilly genes, and jeans, Kadizzle feels he can speak for the mountain people. When you meet a person from the hills they size you up.  Don't show up in a shiny suit. The people in the hills may seem backward, but one thing they learned is to beware of strangers. Now for the good news.  If you treat a mountain man right, and he sees your soul, and finds it good, you are in. If they give you something, it is a token of friendship. It might be some potatoes, some plants, a sack of apples or a knife, but it means you have been accepted. You have made a friend for life. There is one rule, don't ever cross him. Don't steal his pig, always invite him in to the table, and help him when you can. 

Kadizzle once was a professional safety trainer.  He did his work in West Virginia, north and south, Ohio, and North Dakota. In the course of his career he taught first aid, and many other things to coal miners. Over the years it was thousands of classes. Kadizzle can tell you one thing for sure the most grateful people were the coal miners deep in the mountains of West Virginia.  The memory is still there of ending a class of safety for coal miners deep in Appalachia. A miner was designated to give Kadizzle a nice new pocket knife. It was a token of their appreciation for the fact that someone cared about them.  At another rundown remote mine Kadizzle showed up an had no lunch. The old coal miners noticed and offered to share their lunch.  That was way back when Kadizzle was about 23.  Since then after hundreds and hundreds of coal miners Kadizzle has never met any kinder than the ones in the toughest coal fields in the country.  If you crossed these people they would shoot you, but if you respected them they would die for you. 

 

The Rain Came

Sound asleep the thunder shattered the pleasant dreamy state Kadizzle was in. The magic from the sky fell to the ground and provided some relief from the heat and the dust. It seems hard to believe that so many are still in denial about our changing climate. Many years ago we moved to North Dakota.  Our first years we experienced some extremely cold weather, and an entirely different climate than what is now found in the Dakotas. The temperatures have been warmer every year. The question is why? Kadizzle spent his career in the coal industry. The Earth took millions of years to sequester the carbon tied up in coal and oil. Does any rational human think you can release all that carbon in a couple hundred years, and not have a problem. Some of the coal seams in Wyoming are 160ft thick. Kadizzle visited one of those mines where a 100 car train is loaded every 15 minutes. The coal is burnt as fast as it is mined.  Imagine in your home if you threw the garbage on the floor every day.  How long would it be before your house filled with garbage?  Who cares the TV works, the lights come on and we can air condition our way out of this mess.  Just ignore reality and it will go away. 

Planet Prairie

Awakening on the prairie is entirely different from the other planet we were on.  The green is the best aspect of the morning. The desert was having such a hard time turning green. Even though there is a severe drought in the Dakotas the grass has managed to produce some color. 

We are ensconced at our old friend Ray's house.  Ray was unique and so is his home.  One part of the home was a manufactured home. At the time he needed a home in a hurry and did not have time to customize it, but when there was time he added a marvelous addition. Ray was an artist so he let light pour in everywhere, which is a blessing. 

So we are tasked with loading all our possessions into a utility trailer and heading south to Arizona. The economy here in the Hazen area is in flux. Hopes are up that the gas plant can be converted to produce hydrogen. On the other hand the Luddites are still trying to turn straw into gold. The local Luddites think they can make coal burn clean by stopping the construction of wind power. Yesterday had a conversation with our old neighbor who is an engineer for a power company. He realizes the silliness of trying to burn clean coal. The process if it could work would be so inefficient that most of the energy would go to the cleanup process and not into the power lines.  One must keep in mind this is the heart of Trump country where you can believe anything. 

Scaring the simple Minded

Yup, they are coming for our guns. Just my notification from the NRA, Biden will be confiscating guns. Once you take the pledge of allegiance to the Trump Cult you enter a world of make believe that welcomes you every goofy theory on Earth. In Arizona you have bamboo ballots shipped here from China.  Of course you get to divorce yourself from logic, science and any of those other nuisances that involve facts. 

The real beauty of the simple minded is how they can be tapped for cash. The NRA is in big trouble since they have been charged with fraud. The NRA needs money.  Well, simply send out a gun letter to the simple minded and ask for money and new members. TV preachers have always known how easy it is to rape the simple minded with Jesus at their side. Know one knows better than the Republicans what a gold mine the stupid can open up.  Just scare the simple minded and harvest their money. You need nothing new, just use the good old guns, gays, god, and a few conspiracy theories.  How many dingers are there? Just look for the bumper stickers and the flags. Now if you extrapolate you figure for every Trump flag flying there are a few more in the bushes. However, it is simpler than that, just look how many idiots voted for Trump twice.  74 certified idiots is a lot of idiots, and the country is infested with them. 

A Long Drive

Praise Jesus for out friends that are providing us with a home back in North Dakota. With a nice guest house on their farmstead near Stanton they graciously let us move in. Ten hours of driving from Denver to Stanton is a long haul. The greeness of North Dakota compared to the dryness of Arizona is very nice.  So much of the time when we drive north and south everything is brown.  Good to see it with some color. The task of moving our junk to AZ are before us. 

There is no poverty

Its morning in America. Kadizzle is in an upscale neighborhood where his daughter lives. There is a landscaping war going on. The yards are wonderful, and beautiful. First world countries do live well. Wandering around it occurred to Kadizzle that the rich spend more on dogs and landscaping than most of the world spends on just trying to get by.  Once upon a time Kadizzle learned that the average person in India used 2 gallons of gasoline a year. On this little street where my daughter lives there are 13 dogs.  Have you noticed the dog food selection in the grocery store, or anywhere you go? We spend enough on pets to save millions of children all over the world from hunger, starving, and so many diseases, but who cares we are special, and after all we brought the world cell phones and TVs.  It never ceases to amaze Kadizzle that poverty is a human invention. You simply give some people way to much, and make sure the people you enslaved don't have enough.  OK, it is now time for someone to say " Why don't you sell everything and give you money to the poor".  Well how about this, the old Ben and Jerry's idea, the boss can only make 40 times what the janitor gets.  How about no one gets a three million dollar home until everyone gets a 200,000 dollar home.  How many billions does Jeff Bezos need before he is happy?  How much do you have to pay someone to invent diet Coke?  Trump showed us one thing, there is no shortage of stupid greedy people packing guns.  Why not wake up?  Poverty is man made.  When apples fall from the tree and no one picks them up, it is not the trees fault.