All posts by Steve Stern

Fast-Roping 101

Current Affairs, Politics, War

We got back from the Smoke Creek late Tuesday only to see “Israel attacks flotilla”. Having had no news for three days, I don’t have a good picture of what happened except even India is pissed.1 It is as if Israel has been taken over by the Tea Bag Party. Andrew Sullivan, in a blog post entitled The Capitan Speaks,  quotes and comments on an article in Haaretz.Com.

An interesting account:

“I was the second to be lowered in by rope,” said Captain R. “My comrade who had already been dropped in was surrounded by a bunch of people. It started off as a one-on-one fight, but then more and more people started jumping us. I had to fight against quite a few terrorists who
were armed with knives and batons.”

I note two things. It began with a one-on-one fight. This was not a lynch mob primed to kill. It was a reaction that spread as more soldiers arrived. The second thing I note is that the captain describes the passengers as “terrorists.”

This picture, from the Center for a New American Security from where I blatantly ripped it off, is labeled Too Soon? and filed under Israel. 

 

Helos

1. We were in India at the camel festival at Pushkar when Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. The Indian government shut everything down and declared a national couple of days of morning. They were that pro-Israel. 

Running late to the Smoke Creek

Americana, Travel

On our three and one half day trip to the Smoke Creek desert and beyond, we started late and it got worse. We had not been up there in over five years and had completely forgotten how far away it is. I thought it would take us about six hours to get to Michael and Linda's place and Michele agreed. We started late Saturday morning and traffic jammed all the way through San Francisco, the East Bay, Highway 80 into Sacramento, and, finally, Reno. By Reno, we had been going for over six hours and still had a couple to go.

We turned north, out of Reno, on Pyramid Way and drove through the Sun Valley/Spanish Springs area. When we first started going up to the Smoke Creek, years ago, the country just north of Reno looked like this.    

Smoke Creek-1


Now it looks like this. No wonder we are drilling for oil in 5,000 feet of water.



Smoke Creek-3980 

Further north, we passed Pyramid Lake which in the past had always seemed pretty empty. Now, all the beaches were packed with RVs, probably trying to get away from Sun Vally/Spanish Springs  . 

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We got off the pavement at the north end of Pyramid and ran out of people. We also started to climb out of the lake basin and over a low pass. In the fading light, the hills were soft and as sensuous as we remembered.

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Smoke Creek-4007

Finally, when we spotted the Smoke Creek playa, we were thrilled,
knowing we only had 40 miles of dirt road left to get to Mike and Linda's where Mike would be waiting to light the barbecue for us.

 

Smoke Creek-4009

Smoke Creek-4012

To be continued here… 

We are going to the Smoke Creek for the weekend.

Uncategorized

Why it is Death Valley and the Smoke Creek? I don't know, but that is how Michele and I refer to them. The Smoke Creek is a huge playa about two hours north of Reno and we will be visiting friends. From there we will probably wander east to a ghost town named Vernon in a small mountain range called The Seven Troughs. My favorite desert is around Death Valley but Michele considers that area too extreme and much prefers northern Nevada. It does have its allures.

ViewWallSprings-2459

For reference, the picture above (double click to enlarge) is from our friends place, and in the Google Earth capture (also double click to enlarge) below at the green patch in the lower left hand corner. Reno is in the circle at the upper right hand corner of the capture and the the big lake is Pyramid Lake. 

SmokeCreek2

 

What a landing looks like from the front window of the shuttle.

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The space shuttle Atlantis returned from orbit from orbit, a couple of days ago. For the last time. It didn't even make the front page of the New York Times.
I am not a shuttle fan. I think that the shuttle and the space station have a symbiotically wasteful relationship.

The space station – which does almost nothing useful except prove man can stay in space for awhile if we spend enough money – justifies the space shuttle by giving it a place to go. The space shuttle – which does almost nothing except give a very small group of highly motivated, over competent, pilots and technicians the ride of their lives at our expense – justifies the space station by having a place to go.  

But that is just my opinion and it is the end of an era. This video is a little slow but what a great way to come home from a vacation (or three day weekend)! Probably the best thing is to double click to take you through to You Tube because, for some reason way beyond my expertize, the picture is too big here.

 

An unfortunate comparison

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Ta-Nehisi Coates is a blogger I've mentioned before. The last couple of days, in response to Rand Paul's comments, he has been running a series of posts on the sit-in to integrate a lunch counter in the train station in Jackson, Mississippi. Actually, Coates is reacting to both Paul's comment that he doesn't think the government should force a private business to integrate its lunch counter and that he is not a racist and would have marched with Dr. King.

I really recommend linking to the three posts (1,2,3). They are powerful, inspirational, and, in their own way, terrifying. The time was 1961, 49 years ago, and, in this black and white picture, it now seems like a different country.

Woolworth

In another different country, now, a similar scene is being played out.

Palinstinian-woman
From another different country, this photograph of a group of young men taunting a Palestinian woman
evicted from her home to make way for Israeli settlers seems eerily familiar. Both of these pictures sicken me and the bottom one sickens me the most. I grew up in a household that pretty much worshiped Israel for bringing democracy, enlightenment, and liberalism to a dark corner of the world. The Jewish equivalent of the white man's burden, if you will.

If there is any good to come from this, maybe, just maybe, it will bring on the same kind of revulsion the top picture did.