Missive #387

Originally a volume in a series dealing with American Folkways from various sections of the US (the series was edited by Erskine Caldwell), Edwin Corle relates the tales and legends of the desert country of Nevada, Arizona, western Utah, and southeastern California. The story of the early explorations of Mitchell Caverns under the Providence Mountains in the Mojave Desert, Death Valley tales, reports of the Mormons in Deseret, yarns concerning various Indian tribes of the southwest, and of course mining adventures are all rounded up and revealed to the reader in the most casual, entertaining fashion. Historical fact is at the root of most of what’s in this book, but only as a guidepost.

To extract a quote from online books at archive.org is a chore. However, I wanted to show you this one because what David Manners said in his Old Yucca Tree column in the Victor Press sometime in the late 1930s could have been said yesterday if there were a free press to say it. The Victor Press was a free agent, bound to no political allegiance, and under the aegis of no newspaper chain or syndicate. It could print what it thinks.

HOW many times have I said that if the American dream is to come true and abide in us, it will depend upon the people themselves? I have lost count. But I shall go on saying it because I know as surely as I live that only the realization and understanding of individual responsibility can bring about the achievement of a richer and fuller life for all.
WE hear a great deal of talk about “national income” and “national debt,” but the nation is only a composite of individuals who are in relative degrees responsible for national income and national debt.
WHEN we study the actual figures of total income and compare them with the distribution of incomes of individuals we find a pitiful lack of justice in that distribution. No true lover of democracy can deny that wealth, which is a social product, should be more equally controlled and distributed, but, unless we decide upon what are the true values of life, we are quite likely to strike in the wrong direction and so burn down the house in our impatience to find our share.
IF we are now entering upon a social order where the mass is to count for more than the individual, then in order to achieve a richer and fuller life for all, the living and thinking level of the mass must be raised. If it does not rise, it is obvious that the higher achievements in living and culture will be dragged down to it.
IF the American dream of a rich and full life for all is to come true, those on the top and those on the bottom have got to come towards each other. The financially, intellectually and otherwise above average must devote themselves to those below average. But, it is equally necessary that those who are low in the financial and intellectual scale must also strive to rise, not only materially but also culturally. The American dream can never become a reality if we are to struggle against each other either as individuals or as classes.
IN order to share in a better and fuller life, the lower scale individual must first want to share it. If he does not want to share it, we must not blame the successful for his intellectual and financial poverty. The first ingredient necessary for improving a life is a whole-hearted desire for improvement…
TO make the American dream come true, low and high, rich and poor, raw and cultured must all work together with new fervor and new understanding. We must know each other and learn from each other. We must not allow imaginary barriers of class to destroy our unity and single desire to make life good for all men. The time has come for more quality in the individual character of all Americans. Building of quantity we know can be a menace but building of quality never.
ONE of the chief barriers to the realization of the American dream is as yet the false principles of our economic system. It is a system that tends to widen the gulf between the super-rich and the ordinary man. These faults are not likely to be voluntarily altered by those who benefit most from it. Never in history has a ruling class willingly abdicated. Democracy can never be saved, nor would it be worth saving, unless it can save itself through the combined efforts of ordinary Americans to raise themselves morally, culturally and intellectually to that place of wisdom and respect where they become the ruling class, not only politically, but in the pattern and worth of their individual lives.

Today I will go to the Morning Café in Warren for breakfast then to the laundromat in South Bisbee to do my laundry. On the way back to the Park there will be a stop at Safeway to pickup a few groceries for the week. An exciting day, but that is all there is.

I have been checking the Starlink Mini performance statistics off an on since I get it but kaBLOOnie’s Comment has prodded me to make a better efforts. So what I’m going to do is take three readings from a day, whenever the mood strikes me, and post the results here. Perhaps it is information that kaBLOOnie and others want. The power usage has been around 21W every time I have checked.

Testing on 12 November using https://www.highspeedinternet.com/tools/speed-test/starlink:
@8:20 Download 126.06Mbps, Upload 2.93Mbps, Latency 34ms
@11:10 Download 113.07Mbps, Upload Mbps7.24, Latency 32ms
@14:45 Download 116.12Mbps, Upload 11.11Mbps, Latency 29ms