Missive #75

Read Will Rogers column 88 years ago: May 19, 1935

I went to the VA Audiology Clinic on Wednesday to get my replacement hearing aids. I had my doubts that there would be much improvement but have been proved wrong. They are much better; I have been hearing things that were making a noise before that I didn’t hear. With only limited conversation I think hearing and understanding human speech is also improved although still not great.

To get to the appointment I drove the Ghost Town road through Pearce and Courtland to the Gleeson Rd then through Tombstone. Google Maps shows this to be the shortest route an 53 miles taking 1 hr 9 min. It took me 1 hr 30 min due to the road condition from Pearce to Gleeson Rd. It is dirt and parts of it are very washboard which shakes Desperado something terrible.

To return I drove the Gleeson Rd all the way to US191 and then back to the RV Park. This was 67 miles which Google Maps said would take me 1 hr 16 min. The distance was right but it took me 1 hr 22 min with far less shaking of Desperado. The other alternative is to go through Dragoon, I-10 and AZ 90 which is also 67 miles and 1 hr 9 min per Google maps.

This quote is from a good, although not an easy read, posting by John Michael Greer. It is worth the time it takes to read it since it is quite long. I read a bit of it each time over a period of a few days.

It’s important, though, not to fall into the trap of thinking that we human beings get to decide all by ourselves whether the phenomena around us are things or persons. We get to decide how we approach them, but the phenomena have elements of both in them. We cannot assume that they will always respond to us as persons just because we approach them that way. Nor can we assume that they will always behave like passive, mindless things just because we choose to assign them that role. The same thing is true of human beings, for that matter—and it’s worth reflecting on just how many of our current crises are caused or worsened by the way that our current managerial elite can’t stand the thought of treating people outside their own social class as persons rather than things, and get so consistently blindsided when other people refuse to be passive and do what they’re told. — When Nature Gazes Back

I have made some significant progress in the Text Fragments project. This allows me to link directly from the book title in Books I’ve Read to the page location where I have posted the book cover and reviews without adding an anchor at that location. I have ‘only’ three more years to edit; if I can withstand the boredom I’ll finish those years this weekend. It is not difficult but is very repetitive and boring.