Turning 70 Years Old

..Reaching 70 years old this January, the changes from aging have been noticeable both mentally and physically although in my case not nearly so impactful as changes I have seen in others my age. That is, I know of people suffering from colon diseases and joint ailments and all manner of problems, yet for reasons I cannot fully explain, I feel healthy. A few childhood friends have died of self-inflicted diseases related to alcohol or tobacco, and my diet has always included sugar and processed foods, so I can only assume regular exercise and genetics and maintaining a proportional body weight as reasons for my relative longevity. Sheer luck also seems to be a factor in human lifespan, considering that random accidents on the highway or being struck by lightning or having a tree fall on one’s house kills some people. Near death experiencers sometimes claim that a voice tells them it is ‘not their time’, so lifespan may be partially beyond our control despite our faith in free will… Generally, the longer one lives the more one becomes conscious of limited future years, although because I have thoroughly examined my own mortality, death does not alarm me. I have known states of mind that indicate a kind of immortality-if not literally-then in a universal sense of being connected to a transcendent reality from which we can never detach ourselves. At root my inner experiences have exposed the paradox between belief is seeing and seeing is believing, where reality becomes as unintuitive as quantum particles being waves and particles at the same time. Human consciousness seems to be able to perceive this duality inherent in its own fabrication….Regarding the perception of time, occasionally I see a child walking or playing and think to myself that ‘I was that age once’ and, marvel that, despite changing perceptions, time still passes the same for both of us. In behavior I notice myself being a little more obsessed with sweeping the sidewalk clean of snow or doing dishes as if I am needlessly trying to keep ahead of the accumulation. My short term memory has declined to the point that a ‘ten second’ rule now applies to thoughts rather than dropped food. Out of sight out of mind sometimes means that something I had been engaged in only a minute before is forgotten as I become distracted by something else. In one case I searched for ‘lost’ glasses for a full minute before Beth noticed that they were on my face all the while. Physically, I see and hear and read and write and walk and bike and golf and play guitar and do all the other things I have always done with as much satisfaction as ever -just a little more slowly. I have not noticed any hearing loss, although I seem to be startled a little more easily-as if I am absorbed within an inner bubble more than when I was when younger… Lately I have become concerned with politics- perhaps because the people in power are my peers, and I find many of them lacking in the wisdom and compassion and morality that they should have learned by now. To that end I write to my representatives frequently… Economically, Beth and I have accumulated a modest portfolio through disciplined contributions to retirement funds and lifelong, budgeted lifestyles. That money, combined with social security and working together ten or fifteen hours a week at Beth's cleaning business, provides us with everything we need and want-including winter travel…The Toccata and Fugue in D minor by J.S. Bach continues to impress me as the best piece of music ever written, and The Beatles and other bands from the 1960’s/70’s are my primary listening. My journal writing has declined substantially after decades of writing that was first inspired after reading Thoreau; the blog and emails are my primary outlet these days. Writing is the sole inborn talent that has been my lifelong obligation to pursue regardless of its commercial fruition. In truth, I have only earned some two to three thousand dollars directly and indirectly from writing, mostly in relation to my association with Walkfit…For my entire adult life,I have found that walking in nature in solitude cures many ills-both mentally and physically- a remedy particularly vital in this modern age of social media and other distractions that are crippling young people.

Spring

...Coltsfoot and a few crocus and daffodils and the first spring peepers have announced the arrival of spring, and the temperatures are finally beginning to moderate. The east coast has endured a cold winter while the west has set records of warmth..."Certain areas, like Allentown,PA and Atlantic City,NJ recorded their coldest first 9 days of February since 1934... it was actually the 2nd warmest winter nationwide, with massive heat records broken in the western U.S..." So, contrary to climate change deniers, the atmosphere and oceans Are absorbing more carbon dioxide and other human related gases and these extremes of weather have been predicted by scientists for decades. The argument is not about the reality of climate change but the consequences and whether humanity will do anything to change their present course. It does not appear that we will. So, as has happened in the planets history, the ice will eventually melt and Florida and Manhatten and other low lying coasts around the world will be inundated, and planetary species-including us- will either be able to adapt or we won't, and new extinctions will occur. There is nowhere to hide and moving to Mars is a delusion favored by those who want to live in caves again,and then only if all the problems of radiation and resources can be solved. The next 100 years are critical-not for natures survival, for Creation will find a way- but for human civilization as we know it...I am now 70 years old and I have passed many years observing nature, where I have witnessed large depletions of fish and insects and habitats in my hometown. That trend is being replicated worldwide. Perhaps I am being overly pessimistic, but do we really want to be the cause of the next extinction?

Broken Down Cars 2026

Whenever Beth and I take a road trip, we record the makes of the cars we see broken down beside the highway. We update after every trip and will continue to do so as we travel...As of the date in the title the totals were : Chevrolet/GMC -174 Ford- 105 Dodge/Jeep- 90 Honda/Acura-46 Toyota/Lexus-36 Nissan/Infiniti-33 Kia/Hyundai-25 VW-12 Subaru-10 Mazda- 10 BMW-6 Mitsubishi-5 Suzuki-3 Volvo-1 Also 10 unidentified vehicles of which we could not determine the manufacturer. This is by no means a scientifically accurate indication of the reliability of these brands, because we do not know the age and maintenance records of the broken cars and other important information. But generally speaking, foreign cars have a much better reliability record than domestic vehicles, and that pattern shows up in our informal observations.

A long time ago I heard people ask, "should the U.S.A. be the policeman of the world?", and along the way that question has defined wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and many others. Claims that we needed to save the world from communism, authoritarianism, socialism, hunger, or to preserve the flow of oil or some other commodity have been used to keep Americas 'military industrial complex' financed for decades. In this modern age the justification is fighting 'terrorism', and so the United States, or a few men anyway, declared war on Iran, and so it continues...Anyone who has read about Iran knows that it is run by brutal men who, in their lust for power, have suppressed women, free speech, and other human 'rights' that most Americans take for granted. Their ideology has been the spread of Islamic influenced ideas in opposition to notions of democracy-to the point that, according to ideology expert Hannah Arendt, "'orthodoxy' becomes a kind of logical certainty—a fixation on a pseudo-scientific conception of reality as an ultimate, unquestionable truth. It is at this point that ideology “ruins all relationship with reality.” So, like a fundamental Christian who is unable or unwilling to consider any possible description of reality other than the bible inspired depiction of God, Jesus or Creation, there is little argumentative reasoning with such a one minded person, religion,or government...Unfortunately, there is no changing human nature either, and no international fight against "terrorism" will succeed any longer than temporarily, in any more than a few places; all of the policemen in all of our American cities and all the laws of civilization have not stopped crime. The people in power here and in Iran-or anyone who wants to challenge 'authority'- simply make up their own rules if what they want to do is not sanctioned by normal rules of behavior....So I have no solutions for human nature, and simply killing everyone eventually becomes 'whack-a-mole' unless some fundamental evolution of the human psyche is attained. I do not imagine anyone alive today will witness that. But I am not hopeless, and to behave well in your own life and resist those who would oppress you is honorable. It is too early to tell what the "excursion" in Iran will solve, or not solve, except perhaps to make the violence and destruction so complete that everyone grows tired of it, or is unable to wage it for awhile, and peace is achieved until next time.

Tucson, Sedona and Beyond

...When Beth and I left Pennsylvania on February 27th, we were suffering from colds/coughs and driving through snow and below freezing temperatures-conditions in Warren that had persisted almost continuously since Thanksgiving. We proceeded south to the Florida panhandle and through Texas and New Mexico to an Air B@B near Tucson for two weeks, then north to Sedona and another Air B@B where we are now. As our illness subsided we hiked various trails along the way, including in Bowie Fort monument, Chiricahua Monument, Saguaro National Park,Tonto National Monument and a half dozen or more obscure places we discovered on the map. The western deserts are filled with so many inspiring views and rock formations that one begins to expect them as normal entitlements that accompany every hike. The crowded trails here in Sedona are because of Redrock unique to the area (...such as the 'Bell Rock" in the picture) and supposed spiritual energy emanating from "vortexes" of energy near here. We cannot attest to the latter, although I do recall feeling something positive when I walked through here in 2007, and had even commented on it to a resident despite having known nothing about its history. The weather has been mostly sunny and 60 to 80 degrees since we crossed the Mississippi, so after exploring this area we will be travelling north to explore Utah depending on how the weather unfolds in March.

Marjorie Taylor Greene's finally awake look from the inside:

>> from her interview with Kim Iverson>> ..."Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said President Trump’s Make American Great Again slogan was a “lie,” saying his first year back in office was focused on obliging wealthy supporters. “I think people are realizing it was all a lie. It was a big lie for the people. What MAGA is really serving in this administration, who they’re serving, is their big donors,” Greene said in a Wednesday interview with radio personality Kim Iversen. “The big, big donors that donated all the money and continue to donate to the president’s PACs and donate to the 250th anniversary and are donating to the big ballroom,” she add "The former Georgia representative recently resigned from Congress, after airing concerns over the future of health care premiums and the war in Gaza, citing fractures within the GOP and falling out with Trump and MAGA, despite years of loyal support for the president. On Wednesday, she said the people who truly benefit from backing Trump are financial benefactors, telling Iversen: “Those are the people that get the special favors. They get the government contracts, they get the pardons, or somebody they love or one of their friends gets a pardon.” Since the start of the second Trump administration, the president has encouraged wealthy sponsors to provide private contributions for his political endeavors, including the construction of a White House ballroom and the celebration of the 250th anniversary of America’s founding. Greene criticized the favoritism for Trump’s wealthy allies and also slammed the president for focusing on foreign policy rather than problems at home in her interview. “It’s the foreign countries. They are running the show here. It’s the major big corporations and what is best for the world. That’s really what MAGA is. We are seeing war on behalf of Israel, we are seeing the people in Gaza, innocent people in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of them completely murdered so that they can build some new real estate development. Money can pour in and everybody can get rich there in the new Gaza,” she told Iversen. “And we’re seeing a whole plan play out, which is really a new world order. It’s a new way of doing business. And that’s the — it’s kind of like the ‘Scooby-Doo’ meme where … they pull the mask off the bad guy,” Greene continued. The former lawmaker alleged that the MAGA movement “isn’t really about America or the American people.”

Miscellaneous Observations

>...I have been reading a new book called ‘Stalin’s War” by author Sean McMeekin, which relies on unclassified Russian documents released after 1990 that challenge long accepted popular histories of World War 2. Conventional histories of that war focus on Hitler’s atrocities; this book details the absolute butchery and corruption of Mr. Stalin. It details the atrocities of the Russians-the executions and expulsions to labor camps-of conquered Polish, Lithuanian and anyone else deemed “enemies” of Communism in Stalin's mind. It details the groveling…yes, that seems to be an accurate description…of then President Roosevelt's efforts to please Mr. Stalin with what was called a “Lend-Lease” policy by which millions of dollars ( billions in today's equivalent) of military and civilian materials, from tanks to butter to uranium to secret patents, were given to the Russians at no formal cost and with no formal agreements of being repaid. There were numerous Russian spies in the US government influencing policy to the point that Roosevelt sometimes favored Stalin over Churchill and America when deciding what and where war materials were sent and what battle plans would be implemented. All the while Mr. Stalin proffered lies and refused to accommodate American requests to the point of imprisoning American pilots who were forced down in Russian territory-despite American pilots risking and sometimes losing their lives to help deliver all the aforementioned materials to Russia. The reasons for Mr. Roosevelt’s years-long catering to Russian demands are not fully clear to me…He seems to have been naive to Stalin's true nature-despite people advising him-people who were replaced as not being loyal enough to his desires. His primary enabler was a Soviet friendly adviser named Harry Hopkins. The end result was the spread of Communism over much of eastern Europe and into China. It must be noted that Mr.McMeekin is a 'contrarian' historian to some other historians, and a man who argues from a succinctly anti-communist perpective. The main conclusion I learned was the utter depravity and disregard for human life that Mr. Stalin possessed, and which has been an unfortunate aspect of the Russian culture to this day. The parallels to Mr. Putin and the complicity of Mr. Trump to Russia seem obvious to me; the Russian disregard for human life in Ukraine(Putins soldiers are forced forward to be slaughtered or risk being shot by their own ‘officers’ if they refuse) and Trump's total lack of moral clarity in resisting him are similar. What really is disturbing is the depths of the infiltration of Russian influence in the 1940s and the modern day campaign of misinformation by Russia made even easier by the internet. Fortunately, the Europeans remember the destruction of the last century and are resisting the attempt by Mr. Putin to expand his empire. > ...I also just learned about algorithmic pricing that has enabled corporations to maximize profits through online Apps. by charging the most that a specific consumer will bear based on the gigabytes of data they have amassed on them over the past 20 years. They simply charge different customers-unknown to those customers- different prices for the same item when using Instacart or another app, which maximizes profit individually on each person... Capitalism at its most legally insidious…Probably explains why Walmart does not have to charge ‘pick up’ customers for the service; by charging one customer more than another they assure themselves that their service will be profitable. No doubt a profitable 'average' is applied to in-store pricing. This helps explain some of the "inflation" blamed on Co-Vid, Biden, tariffs and other excuses people use to describe simple greed. It also helps define the continuing transfer of wealth from the average Joe to the rich. Meanwhile many workers at these companies need government welfare like SNAP to survive...