All posts by Steve Stern

Pork and beans

Food and Drink

Pork and beans must be one of the most natural food combinations around. And one of the most iconic. For me, it brings back memories of movie cowboys sitting around movie campfires, or memories of actual long empty pork and bean cans around actual long deserted mines in the Mojave.

And for me, also, it has an connotation of poverty and low class. Certainly, my family was aware of that: we did not eat pork and beans; we ate hamhocks and Lima beans. It was one of my favorite dishes when I was growing up. Only within the last year did I figure out that hamhocks and Lima beans was, basically, the same thing as pork and beans.

Or that Chinese long beans with pork was the same thing. And Thai stir-fried pork with long beans. Or, with the addition of duck legs, Cassoulet. Or, for that matter, barbecue with beans. 

This was all brought up by our dinner last night of hamhocks and Italian butter beans. Real comfort food.

Spike the pet cat

Around home, Politics

Our cat, Spike, is a neverending source of amusement. He is an old cat with FIV* and was given a short time to live when Michele found him – almost blind – on our back deck over eight years ago. After an operation that cost way more than we should have spent on a stray animal, he seems to see pretty well and is healthier than we could have ever expected. Now he sleeps most of the time, often – during the day – with a front paw over his eyes to block out the light (we imagine).

Spike-1

* kitty AIDS

” The people of Afghanistan represent many things in this conflict – an audience, an actor, and a source of leverage – but above all, they are the objective.” Ctd.

War

I am increasingly wondering  why we are in Afghanistan. I want us to be in Afghanistan winning the good war: part of it is wanting us to kick somebody’s ass over 9-11, but then I wonder, why Afghanistan?

Last week, on the Bill Maher show, there was an amazing round of conversation about what makes a terrorist.Bill Maher started off by saying that a young man who was just arrested as a terrorist was living an American life. “He doesn’t hate America, he loves America and feels guilty.” By day the terrorists love all the taboo parts of America, getting a beer, going to a titty bar, and then out of guilt, they plot to blow something up.

Janeane Garofalo said that it was more than just about sex and guilt, it was about our foreign policy decisions.

Richard Dawkins said it is about religion. That Islam promotes going after non-believers. Then Thomas Friedman said that it was about the disparity between what they thought Islam was and the reality of their life. The terrorists thought of Islam as religion 3.0 – Christianity was religion 2.0, Judaism 1.0 and Hinduism 0.0 – but life under Islam didn’t measure up. Their religion was better but their life was worse and they hate their own governments for it.

Finally Ohio Representative Marcy Kaptur, who represents a huge Muslim population, after saying that her constituents were good citizens and many were in the military protecting America, said that it was disenfranchised individuals who were alienated from society.

It seems to me that each of them is right and all of them are right. Terrorists are increasingly home grown and we are not going to solve the problem by being in Afghanistan.

 

 

 

 

” The people of Afghanistan represent many things in this conflit – an audience, an actor, and a source of leverage – but above all, they are the objective.”

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics, Psychological Musings

What a great sentence. It is from the Commander's Initial Assessment  by Lieut. General Stan McChrystal, and it says almost everything about the war in Afghanistan – except why we are there and how long, whatever we are doing, will take. Obama ran on Afghanistan being the good war, the just war, the war we have to win to make the world safe. I think that the sub-text was that we abandoned Afghanistan once with disastrous results, and we can't – shouldn't – do it again.

And now Obama is president, and the war seems much harder and more complicated than it did a year ago from the campaign trail. The new commander, seems to actually understand the situation; unfortunately, he wants more troops. In his report, he writes about the five different players in the war, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force, the insurgency, the external players, and the people of Afghanistan. And each of the players, it seems to me (and I think, McChrystal) is a problem.

The Government of the Islamic Republic Of Afghanistan (or GIRoA as it is referred to in the report) has legitimacy problems and has problems with the people supporting it. Without a legitimate government, who are we fighting for. 

The  report sez that the International Security  Assistance Force (that's us – good ol'  ISAF) has completely mishandled their role.  Until now, the ISAF has had almost no idea of Afghan culture, have tried fighting the war with drones rather than people on the ground, and we have alienated more people than we have converted. 

The insurgency, on the other hand, does seem to know what it is doing. 

The major two external players, Pakistan and Iran, are completely out of our control. And they each have an agenda which is different than ours.  

 

Six miles: the hard way

Sierras

The good thing about the last hike, in Tuolumne Meadows, was that it was almost level. The usual Sierra hike involves a lot of elevation. To quote Ecological Subregions of California by the US Forest Service, "In west-east cross section, the Sierra is shaped like a trapdoor: the elevation gradually increases on the west slope, while the east slope forms a steep escarpment."  In other words, to get into the High Country fast, you have to start on the east side and walk up the "steep escarpment".

Once again, Richard remembered a trip from his distant past. Gibbs Lake.  In Lila, Robert Pirsig writes about how we see what we already believe. Which is why the birthers can look at Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate and see proof that he was born in Kenya, or some Republicans can read the new Healthcare Bill, see " NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States." and think it says "illegal aliens sign up for free healthcare here".

Anyway,as Richard remembered it, Gibbs Lake was a short hike and looking at the trailhead map seemed to confirm that. We began to entertain thoughts of going past Gibbs to Kidney Lake, a small lake, above Gibbs, in a cirque between Mount Gibbs and Mount Dana. The guide (for snowshoeing trails!) said that it was a hard hike….but that seemed to be from Hyway 395 – which was as high as anybody could be expected to get in the winter – and we were driving to the summer trailhead which cut out most of the hike. You know where this is going: It turns out that Gibbs Lake is three hard miles and 1600 feet from the trailhead.

To make matters worse, most of the trail is right up the "steep escarpment". Even the parking lot at the trailhead is steep, and then it just starts uphill with no switchbacks. I think this is the steepest trail I have ever been on with out even one switchback. After about a mile, and somewhere in the neighborhood of a 800 vertical feet, the trail became more normal, paralleling a bubbling stream.

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We continued up, up, and more up. Gradually, now, but still up and up. By now, Richard was way ahead, it was getting cloudy and colder,  and I was starting to think of a good reason to quit. My mantra became "I may be slow, but I alway get there."  Finally, everything started to level out. Most of the lakes like Gibbs are in cirques caused by glaciers so, below them, is an end or terminal moraine.  The leveling out should mean that we are getting into the cirque and the lake is getting close. After a short, sort of flat,  walk through the woods,

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there was the lake. With Richard waiting. And a light rain starting.

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After a typical trail lunch of hunks of cheese and salami, we started back down. It still seemed long, but much easier.

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The Junipers were in full fruit and "smelled of unadulterated Gin".

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Actually, they didn't smell at all, but I have always been taken by that line after reading it it Basin and Range by John McPhee.  As we got to the steep part, steep down now, the clouds got thicker and blocked out the view of Mono Lake. 

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It was getting colder and windier as we ended the hike, glad we were down and not camped 1600 feet higher at the lake.

But, back at home, Gibbs is the lake I would like to go back to – hummm, if we went for two nights, the three mile hike in would be fairly easy and we could hike up to Kidney Lake during the middle day. Piece of cake!