Motley Blog

The educator Piaget talks about the abstract mind forming roughly during puberty. I started an alternative school at about that time in my life, and I have very clear memories of realizing that there was more than one way to do things in society. The school I'd left was the R.M. Nixon Elementary, after finishing 5th grade, in 1974, the year of Nixon's resignation.

But perhaps most important was the realization that one could change oneself - which I did, picking up whitewater kayaking and competing in same in the slalom classes. This is a clipping from the North Eugene High School paper by Rick Peacor.

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In the spring of my Junion High School year I went east to train with a former UofO physics post-grad employed by the Oakridge National Laboratories in Tennessee. Attending school in Oakridge was an experience unto itself. The city has the highest per capita of PHD's in the world. The school was certainly smart as well, but also managed to be regular winners of the State Football Championship (something my Oregon school was able to do the year after I graduated under Quarterback Gary Stott and a black running back, just about the only black in the school.) The school was big into partying as well. It definitely still had racial issues - being only about ten miles away from places where black churches had been bombed.

As a result of some of the extra credit associated with AP classes at this school I was able to graduate a semester early. I do still have some gaps in my math knowledge, advanced Trig, but the guy who spent three years in an alternative school basically doing nothing but socializing still scored a 700 on his Math SAT.

The picture was taken by my father, at a race in North Carolina Smokies hosted by the Nantahala Outdoor Center

Two things made my name right from the start as a 'red-shirt' freshman at the 1200 student liberal arts residential campus of Hampshire College. First was getting Hepatitis, contracted on a Mexico trip, within about a week of starting. I'd had sex the first night at school, and boy, I'll tell you, she wasn't happy - and rightly so. Thanks to an alert college nurse about 75 people got shots and no one contracted it.

Second thing was a bit of artistic writing, a fake suicide note (which I thankfully photocopied) posted on my dorm room door prior to leaving for the weekend. The Dean of Students was pretty steamed, was on probation for the year, though technically I'm not sure he had cause. No big deal, or so I thought.

As I recall it was the Brandeis place on the Cape via a second cousin - though I'd best check on that before dropping Supreme names. John Mitchell might recall better than I.

Two more great stories from that year, one more I'll tell here. See also this one.

Through my involvement with Hampshire College's pioneering S. African divestiture policy (first in the US - the year prior to my freshman year) I was able to attend several of the very early meetings of the trade organization, the SRI Forum.

Below is a letter to a Hampshire College Board Member, John Watts, a Texas born investment banker/lawyer. It concerns the board's selection of an investment adviser, post their divestment decision. This letter introduces my John Watts story, below.

I don't know Mr. Watts 'business' profile, but another Hampshire Board member, Gerald Levin, ended up running Time Warner for a time. Purely speculation, but presumably this guy had a hand in it, though I've no idea of the power career of this 1980's investment banker. He's perhaps best know on campus for giving a graduation speech shortly after the Reagan era fall of the Berlin wall. Quote "The wicked witch of the east, socialism, is now dead". No mention of who the wicked witch of the west was, or is, but I'd suspect he had something, or someone, in mind.

I'd been warned about Mr. Watts, presumably because of actions regarding some of the first generation divestiture activists. I only recall one conversation with him. It was about a mountain area in Northern Mexico that we had both visited. (Creel, Chihuahua - a base of Pancho Villa's and a favorite of mine).

Perhaps my big mistake was later suggesting Republican Dan Evans, former president of Evergreen, to replace the outgoing College President. Mr. Evans was a Senate Colleague of Brock Adams, a parent and also a Board Member. Speculating here, but I'd guess that Evans' quick departure from the Senate was Brock's doing (in hindsight, rightly) and Evans in Adams' career ending scandal (in my opinion likely wrongly).

I've got a theory about some of this, with some additional evidence - more current. Not sure if it all would hold up, but it is something that could be investigated.

Jori Adkins, Jim Merritt, and Apex Engineering have done some great professional work creating a 'post and beam' alternative to the ill-conceived Sounder 'berm' crossing of the Dome District in Tacoma and put it up on a website.

This stands in sharp contrast to the City's current position, as I hear it, that you can't use the area under the Post and Beam for anything. In addition the Sound Transit plan violates the City of Tacoma's Comprehensive Plan on both initial trail planning and the new but promising 'habitat corridor' designation which is designed to work well in denser areas.

Sound Transit does have a plan for a pedestrian connection - at 'A' Street, but this is basically a connection to nowhere, unless there is a major redesign of I-5 in this area.

Berms have construction problems as well - greater utility relocation is a very common place for costs to escalate and building close to the berm has issues with that structures 'load' profile.

Perhaps the biggest problem with the Sound Transit design is aesthetics - they are taking a rural rail design and plopping it down through the 2nd largest urban center in Western Washington. Imagine, if you will, a 20-40 foot high 'mountain' of dirt running down the middle of the street by your office - with a trash collecting fence.

The arrogance of Sound Transit in responding to this professionally prepared alternative isn't too pretty either. Not to mention also fiscally irresponsible.

I am reminded of my first publication, a compilation of research on the subject of Socially Responsible Investment - on the heels of an administration occupying expansion of my alma mater's pioneering South African divestment.

The Hampshire College Report on Socially Responsible Investment

Ed. by Doug Tooley,

April 1983.

Preface
In 1976, Hampshire College bacame the first school in the country to divest from companies in South Africa. This opened the door for us to a much larger idea, that of using investments to reflect our ethics instead of those of the capitalistic ideology.

The shooting of a State Ranger in Grand County, Utah, last Friday night is a tragedy, but having just left Grand County on Wednesday let me add a bit more depth to the story.

Just the Friday night before I was camped in the Kane Creek Springs area near the San Juan County line and was mildly harassed, by a couple of 'rangers' - jurisdiction as yet unknown. It was at almost exactly ten p.m. and the first of two official vehicles made it a point of stopping on a curve at the main road with his lights pointed directly at me, just as I was exiting (somewhat awkardly, half-dressed and half-awake) to pee.

25 years ago today marks the closed circuit tv suicide of Andrew Hermann, protesting the overly aggressive political correctness that was somehow also supposed to bring the school back to the mainstream of the Reagan era - as perhaps best documented in Richard Rushfield's book 'Don't Follow me I'm Lost'.

But is attacking young white males on the pretext of battling 'patriarchy' really politically correct feminism? Or is it really spoiled rotten white women providing scapegoats to the real crimes of old, white male abusers?

I was inspired to read Lisa Napoli's book 'Radio Shangri-La' having visited recently opened Tibetan areas of Nepal in 1981, as well as spending a month in the Thamel district of Kathmandu. My personal favorite book of that trip was James Joyce's 'Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man' - a decidedly different phase of life from that of the author's.

I've had an obsession with Bret Easton Ellis for sometime, once minor, but slowly growing, perhaps now to dangerous levels with the meta-fictional work 'Lunar Park'.

The movie version of 'American Psycho' (2000, based on a 1991 book), a genius critique of Reagan era Wall Street all the more relevant today, was what first garnered my serious attention. But it was his relatively minor 1987 work 'Rules of Attraction' released to the big screen in 2002 that began the obsession - based loosely on his time at the small radical college Bennington the story reminded me closely of my own experience at the very similar Hampshire College. The fact that I had been involved in a personally impactful triangle that included a Bennington student as a third in a fashion not unlike those of the book sunk that particular 'hook'.

The leadership 'strategy' of the Republican corporate elite is much simpler than you might imagine, simply put all they do is send their Democratic abusers on anyone, including independents like moi, who does not toe their political line.

In such a case, you have two choices - either hate the Democrats and start toeing the Republican Party line OR become one of their abused Democratic Pit Bulls. Doing otherwise only guarantees you a spot in America's corporate concentration camp, the streets of our big cities.

The cycle of abuse, racial and sexual, is a dangerous thing and our Corporate masters have pandered to the degenerate in order to divide and conquer. Though they think they are building a military industrial **empire**, they are, in fact, nothing but "Uber-Perverts" and the font of evil in today's modern world. Not just failures, but f***ing failures.

Christian religion is based on Jewish attempts to fulfill an ancient prophesy, that a 'Son of David' would defeat the Roman Empire. It is time for the Christians to stop being hypocritical spinners and get that job done. FWIW, as far as I'm concerned, I'd be okay with crucifying the lot of them, from 'Herrod' on down. And it shouldn't be all that hard - though our military is by far the toughest in the world the domestic arm of the machine is really nothing but pitiful and disgusting.

Aldo Leopold is known as a father of conservation and the then emerging field of ecology. His most famous work is 'Sand County Almanac' where he more fully articulates the principles below.

It was written in 1942, upon the end of the great depression and the cusp of World War II, not to mention the dustbowl land destroying years at the peak of Mr. Leopold's development.

The Supreme Dicks were an infamous grunge era band originating at Hampshire College in the early 1980's. I was the band's first, self-appointed, 'business manager' which didn't mean a whole lot, save for one very epic event. If I recall correctly I was also the responsible individual starting a habit of calling the private campus security force and complaining about our own events, as a form of 'guerrilla' theater.

Below the jump is an excerpt from the Richard Rushfield book, 'Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost' concerning related events. The story, legend, is true, though the name, 'Billy Moser', is not. This excerpt starts right after Rushfield describes the security habit.

Like war in the Middle East, southern border violence has permeated the otherwise satiated and obese American mind. We have been presented a consistent set of perspectives, but is it really the truth?

Among the educated and still thinking citizenry criticism of American actions in the Middle East is well known, such as the moral hypocrisy of the state of Israel. Once the victims of a genocidal holocaust Israel has become the perpetrators of an identical atrocity against the Palestinian people.

In a recently released video the BBC's Arabic Desk, in conjunction with the Guardian website, details the counter-insurgency tactics of the US in Iraq. BBC and the Guardian allege a divide and conquer effort utilizing Shia militias to battle Sunni resistors, utilizing specialized strategies and personnel developed in El Salvador and Vietnam, including the infamous 'Death Squads'

My question for you: Is the American Military, and whomever actually controls it, is engaging in an ongoing relationship with the Drug Cartels of Mexico creating a holocaust zone of genocidal death on both sides of the US border?

This is a work in progress in the Aztec Arches area of northern New Mexico, just south of Durango, Colorado. My Indian Caves trail is the first of these. Both of these trails are of more regional interest as opposed to the internationally known spans of Natural Bridges or Arches national monuments.

These trails do make an important point about BLM land use which appears ignorant of the variety of quality on their public properties - all too often the property is managed exclusively for resource extraction or over-protective wilderness, when much of their property would be managed with a mix of these goals, like the National Wild, Scenic, and Recreational river program.

Follow the jump for a description and a few more pictures.

Breaking from a week plus of frequent rain, a glorious sunset over the slick-rock, transitioning to a waxing crescent moon peeking silver through sublime cumulus over glimmering pale Navajo sandstone.

Local conditions at the Behind the Rocks area just south of Moab: predominately motorized use, though mountain bikers and hikers are still present. Thanks to the addition of designated campsites on Utah State land chalk this area as a victory for the off-road crowd, but one also still suitable for non-motorized use, especially mid-week or off-peak. Some divisive 'redneck' attitudes were present among these users, but no worse than I've witnessed from mountain bikers, as of late. Sub-surface passive aggressiveness present, but was either challenge-able through conversation and/or other members of the party.

In the growing, popular Moab this is an area to focus more intensive use upon - improving some of the main access roads which would make hiking in the adjoining areas easier, likely also is additional space for more motorcycle/ATV/Jeep Trails. All in all has the potential to be a first class example of multiple use management.

Also, the near term forecast for wildflowers is excellent.

I’ve just returned from a sunny Christmas Day hike, out my backdoor, in the foothills of the south slope of the San Juan Mountains.. These days a hike of mine is not a very long event, but, thankfully there is plenty of magic within that range, not to mention plenty more backcountry to inspire meditations upon possible, tempting, future routes.

Today I found an awesome view/meditation spot, in the cliffs exactly above the abode where I have been living for six months. At the top, there are several ledges about seat height stepping back from the main cliff, with several ‘bonsai’ type pines extending out over the edge. The only difference between these trees and an ‘authentic’ Bonsai is that these are full size, fully ‘real’, if you will. In any case, a spot I will return to – at least until someone rolls down one of those ledge rocks unto my bedroom!

Selections from the book:

In Season Out of Season
an introduction to the thought of Jacques Ellul

Madeleine Garrigou-LaGrange

1982

I became conscious, as I worked and thought, that I needed to interpret all things in a dialectical manner.

Marx is one of those that led me to this realization, but I was much more attracted at first by his economic interpretation than by the philosophical aspect of his thought. Much later I was to realize that Christianity and biblical thought are dialectical.

I want to clarify that the dialectic presupposes history. It is not enough to pose a positive factor and a negative factor (good and evil as dialectical forces). There has to be a passage of time for the two contradictory factors to come into relationship.

'A Harvest of Reluctant Souls'

By Fray Alonso de Benavides

1630

Translated by Baker H. Morrow

1996

The history of the New Mexico area is the longest in the US - the first European to come through the area was Cabeza De Vaca sometime after 1527 in his eight year journey from a Florida Coast shipwreck to Sinaloa. The Puebloan cities were the source for the legend of the 'Seven Cities of Gold' which inspired Coronado to invade the area with Montezumaesque visions. Juan de Onate woud lead the first settlers to the area in 1598 and the long standing capital Santa Fe was founded in 1610.

This book was published in 1630 (15 Years after the 2nd Volume of Cervante's 'Don Quixote') by the Franciscan de Benavides from a fundraising report to the Pope. Its historical accuracy is certainly questionable, but it is also a very accessible authentic document of the period.

The Profiteers
Bechtel and the Men Who Built the World

By Sally Denton

2016

The Reagan era history is just now being compiled and 'The Profiteers' by Sally Dentonis a solid contribution into the emerging canon of the period. The 'Shock Doctrine' by Naomi Klein and 'Subersives' by Seth Rosenfeld among others outline the international and domestic control strategies of these modern masters. The privately held Bechtel corporate 'person' is first among these oligarchs and their corporate socialist no bid construction business did, in fact, build the world from their American West roots.

I have been attending the documentary film festival, Mountainfilm, in Telluride, Colorado and have watched the premieres of two films that portray different products of the Iraq war - 'The Age of Consequences' on global warming and 'Almost Sunrise' on the damage done to our veterans in a war that is perceived by many to be unjust. Both films are resonating strongly with me, each upon its own merits; all the more so in their synergy.

Almost Sunrise

Directed by Michael Collins

Starring Tom Voss and Anthony Anderson

2016

Almost Sunrise tells the deeply personal story of Tom and Anthony, two Iraq veterans damaged by the unjust Iraq War and their journey to healing via a cross country trek. The film advances the diagnosis of 'Moral Injury' and alternative treatments as opposed to the current VA based medication paradigm. Almost Sunrise is both a challenging critique of the Iraq war and an effective salve for its injuries - not the least of which is the community which it is inspiring.

The Age of Consequences

Directed by Jared P. Scott

2016

The Age of Consequences is not your typical global warming documentary, presenting the under publicized analyses of the military on the subject in an easily accessible and thorough risk analysis framework. The summary conclusion comparing the dangers of global warming to full blown nuclear war is one of the big take away's and the positive economic benefits of restructuring our energy system into alternative methods another. The hiring of vets to do this work is also crucial

I personally would extend this climate change analysis to a critique of our Middle East policy since George H.W. Bush - we have spent trillions of dollars defending strategic oil interests whose continued consumption is the biggest threat to the entire world's public safety - not to mention destroying thousands upon thousands of human lives.

The Parties versus the People

How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans

By Mickey Edwards

2012

Mickey Edwards spent 16 years in congress starting with the Reagan years and in leadership during the Gingrich takeover led by many Reagan era College Republicans. In this book he analyzes the crisis level problems of partisan politics and proposes detailed solutions in a compact and easily readable tome. My only critique would be his omission of the legal profession in the partisan context, including the large numbers of that profession occupying our national legislature.

Political parties are not inherently bad - citizens of common disposition will naturally seek each other out and combine to seek out agreed-upon ends. But when the pursuit of party power becomes the end goal and not merely a tool for achieving a better society, it is democracy itself which is laid beneath the guillotine's blade.

Jonathan Thompson, arguably the most prominent Journalist in SW Colorado, recently visited my current home town, Telluride. At 8750', Telluride is most definitely a hypoxia suffering 'crazy town'.

This particular short piece, originally published in the High Country News in February of 2015, is my favorite of his. At the time of this classic Thompson was based in Silverton, Colorado, his 'crazy town'.

This is not just fun and games, in this related longer feature piece Thompson analyzes the link between altitude and suicide.

https://www.hcn.org/articles/is-altitude-causing-suicide-in-the-west

Crazy Town

Jonathan Thompson

February 16, 2015

Recent research suggests that living at high altitude can affect brain chemistry in such a way as to induce either euphoria or depression. Lack of oxygen to the brain, or hypoxia, might explain both your “Rocky Mountain High” and the Interior West’s high rate of suicide.