Category Archives: Americana

A Hike in Utah with some thoughts on polygamy

Americana, Camping, Utah

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In October 2003, Michele and I went to Utah to do some hiking. We weren’t going to backpack, just hike. When we got there, Utah was packed. Especially Zion where we had hoped to have a couple of day hikes. The Park Rangers suggested that we hike in an area south of Zion that – as I recall – had been annexed or was going to be annexed.

To get there, we had to drive south into Arizona, around part of the Cannan Plateau and then back north at Colorado City Arizona and Hildale Utah – which seem to be the same actual burg on both sides of the state border – into Squirrel Canyon leading into the actual Cannan Plateau, itself. What was shocking, what I hadn’t remembered from reading Under the Banner of Heaven, is that Colorado City/Hildale are the home to an inordinate number of polygamists.

I don’t have pictures of the large number of huge, cheaply built, homes – the backs had lots of windows lined up making them look like cheap hotels – with playgrounds behind them. I also don’t have pictures of the little girls dressed like pioneer girls or mothers dressed in burqas without the head covering  (uh? mumus?). I felt uncomfortable taking photos of these people who were different and clearly wanted to be away from everyone. They weren’t hostile, but they were not indifferent either, and friendly was not in the picture.

As luck would have it, a couple of days later, Michele picked up a paper with a long article on the town and it’s inhabitants which had become somewhat of a local problem. It turns out that polygamy being illegal has worked out very well for these particular polygamists. The husband is married to one legal wife – legal being defined as State sanctioned in this context – his other wives, considered non-wives, by the State, are single mothers.  So this guy, let’s call him Brigham, is living with a bunch of women of whom only one is his lawful wedded wife.  The rest are still living with him and are getting State support. The more illegal wives Brigham has, the more State support money comes in to the household. In effect, the State is paying him to marry – as far as Brigham is concerned – as many woman as possible.

I don’t want to say that it is a scam, but it surely is an unintended consequence of making polygamy illegal.

During the many times I have argued with people over Gay Marriage, people sometimes argue against it because they claim it is a gateway issue. What I mean by that is they sometimes say, Well, I’m not against Gay Marriage, but it would open the gate to, other, non-traditional marriages like polygamy. Leaving aside that polygamy is pretty traditional, if a group of women want to marry the same guy, so what? Why should we – we being our representatives in this case – try to stop it. If the women are girls or they don’t want to marry this guy, then that is a different story. But if it is consensual, then why should the State stop it. And, if the marriage isn’t consensual, having polygamous marriages out in the open would make them easier to police.

Having the polygamists hiding does nothing to improve anybodies’ life and, in this case, it is costing us money.

Back at the Squirrel Canyon, our plan was to camp near the trailhead but the trailhead was also near the town and camping there felt like intruding. I had the feeling that sending us there was a little like the Federal Government pissing all around the area to establish their ownership. Either way, it was a great campsite with a great view and nobody around and we both still felt slightly uncomfortable.

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The hike, however, was great. Up a narrow canyon to a spectacular plateau.

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Zion-0942 Where, while sitting on a outcrop, having lunch, we heard and then saw a Big Horn Mountain Sheep. Hearing the hollow clacking of hoofs on stone was even better than seeing him, that is, until we actually saw him.

Zion-0941We had hoped to do a loop but it was getting late so we backtracked to our camp.

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The next day, we packed up and moved to a campsite closer to Lake Powell.

 

 

 

 

 

The Exploratorium with the Grandkids

Americana, Around home

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Photograph of August and Charlotte by Michele

 Recently, Michele and I went to the new Exploratorium with my daughter, Samantha, and the Grandkids, Auggie and Charlotte. The Exploratorium bills itself as an interactive museum of art, science, and human perception based on the philosophy that science should be fun and accessible and was founded by Frank Oppenheimer, the brother of the famed – atleast to my generation – father of the atomic bomb, Robert Oppenheimer.

Right after WWII, Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most famous and revered scientists in American, second only to Albert Einstein, but he fell out of favor during the McCarthy era even having his security clearance revoked. (As the Dude might say, irony abides.) Robert’s brother, Frank Oppenheimer, was blacklisted during the same time because he had once been a member of the Communist Party during the 30’s.

Several years later, after rehabilitation, Frank moved to the Bay Area and founded the Exploratorium.  I imagine family re-unions in which, over the years, the family star becomes less Robert and more Frank. I would certainly rather have Founder of the Exploratorium on my tombstone rather than Father of the Worst Killing Machine of All Time (so far).

This Exploratorium is new because it has moved to Pier 15 – on what used to be called the waterfront – from its previous digs in the Palace of Fine Arts. The old Exploratorium was one of my favorite places in San Francisco and I think the new one is already as good, has lots of space to enlarge, and is in an area that is rapidly becoming upscale tourist. Inside are lots of interactive science exhibits posing as games.

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And art posing as science.

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Another nice feature of the new Exploratorium is a new restaurant, Seaglass. It is a sort of free-form cafeteria with an – apparently – changing menu. When we went, there were four basic stations, pizza,  tacos and quesadillas, salads, and sushi. The restaurant also offers natural soft drinks, organic and fair trade coffees and teas, and sparkling house-made drinking vinegar beverages and a bar that showcases artisanal distillers, many organic, and a thoughtfully curated wine and beer list. All this makes it sound much more pretentious than it really is in real life. It somehow seems like a perfect San Francisco kid friendly menu with sushi.

Outside, is a sculpture designed for kids where Michele took the portrait on top of the post, and behind that is a fog making machine because, I guess, San Francisco doesn’t have enough fog.

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We spent several hours at the Exploratorium and I don’t think we even really scratched the surface. Thanks, Mr. Oppenheimer.

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Syria

Americana, Politics, Psychological Musings

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I remember a story – during our intervention, along with several NATO allies, in Bosnia and Herzegovina – about United States Army Forward Operating Base Cobra. This was  in 1995 or so, after the majority of the fighting was over. FOB Cobra – if I may be so familiar – was the biggest American base around and it was surrounded by a plethora of concertina wire backed up by as many motion detectors as the supplier could talk the Army into. This was during the time when American soldiers going into town were required to wear helmets and body armor (other NATO troops wandered around in their uniforms with berets or other soft headgear).

Anyway, there was a farm nearby and the farmer had two teenage sons. They spent their teenage summer seeing how close they could get to FOB Cobra proper. When the teenagers were spotted by an motion detector, the lights would come on and sirens would go off. The base would go to Defcon One – or its local equivalent – with the entire base coming up to full attack defense status: all defensive positions were manned, the helicopter gunships were scrambled, and everybody was up and at their battle stations.

The thing is that after the first couple of attacks, everybody knew it was the kids but FOB Cobra couldn’t help itself. Every time the motion detectors were tripped, it reflexively reacted.  Not  in relation to a threat, everybody knew it wasn’t a threat, sort of like a reflexive knee jerk. I feel the same way about the United States and somebody else’s war. Somehow, we have to intervene.  We just can not help ourselves. Obama ran on a platform of staying out of stupid wars like Iraq, and, he knows better, but he can’t help himself. Our body politic won’t let him.

Security and Obama and, well, ahhh, ehh, Obama

Americana, Politics

Enigma Decryption Machine

I have so many conflicting thoughts on  Edward Snowden and the leaks from from the National Security Agency.

I think, Edward Snowden is a hero whistle blower and we need more people like him. I also think Edward Snowden seems sort of nuts and it is scary that people like him are able to get $200,000 per year jobs – supposedly – to protect us when they can’t even get themselves through Highschool.

I worry that this huge domestic spying regime is threatening our democracy. But I know that the government has been tracing our calls – duh! hasn’t anyone seen The Wire – for a long time, so what else is new? Sure, Snowden broke the law and abused the government’s trust in giving him a Security Clearance. But, he released information that everybody already knows, so No harm, no foul (and, lets face it, Google already knows all this information about me, or anybody who uses the internet for that matter).

And on and on.

Circling around behind all these thoughts – thoughts, bouncing around like a ping pong ball in a garbage disposal – is the awareness that the government is becoming stronger and more invasive and the people in power often puts their own interest above that of the People’s interest. And behind that, is the fear that Obama is worse than Bush in this regard or – atleast – has continued Bush’s polices and is more zealous in going after the whistle blowers. I am afraid that his promise of Transparency – that I so resonated with during the campaign – has been co-opted by the, increasingly, powerful Security State.

I also wonder what good this massive security apparatus is doing if they couldn’t even flush out a couple of amateurs like the Tsarnaev brothers who said they were Chechen and got the plans to their bomb from an internet site published by al-Qaeda in Yemen. Why weren’t their emails and searches picked up?

As my thoughts calm down, I realize that I am less concerned with the fact that we – my country – is wiretapping than the Administration’s reaction to the whistle blower. And that really boils down to What does Obama want to do and what does the Security Establishment want him to do?