Category Archives: 2019 Trip to Southwest United States

Musings on my trip to the Southwestern United States that occurred mainly in 2019 (though it started 2018)

Cactuses in Bloom

 

This has been a strange year in the American Southwest.  In January and February there was a lot rain (by Sonoran Desert Standards) and it was also very cool by those same standards. Of course in the world of wild flowers there is no such thing as “normal.”

The entire time we were there this year I worried that the cactuses would not bloom before we left.

That almost happened. They only started to bloom the last week of March just before we left. If I come back next year I must stay until mid April.

 

From this prickly pear cactus you can see the large number of buds. I would love to see a prickly pear cactus filled with blooms.

 

I think this is a pincushion cactus but am not sure.  As a result of the cool weather we did not see many cactuses in bloom. But what we missed in quantity we gained I think in quality.

 

I think the cactuses we saw were stellar.

 

 

Bernard-Henri Lévy: Nouveaux Philosophes

I spent about 45 minutes listening to a French philosopher courtesy of the CBC radio app.  The philosopher was Bernard-Henri Lévy. I had downloaded an interview with him by Anna Maria Tremonti on The Current. I had also heard him recently on Real Time with Bill Maher.

Lévy is a is a French public intellectual, philosopher, media personality and author. In Europe many just call him BHL because he is so well known. In France philosophers and artists can be rock stars. I love France! Lévy was one of the leaders of the a group started in 1976 known as “Nouveaux Philosophes” no doubt after the famous wines.  According to The Boston Globe he is “perhaps the most prominent intellectual in France today.” Famously he also said, “I am more afraid of Puritans than those who admit the weakness of the flesh.”

Sometimes we just need a French philosopher to set things right. For me, basking in the hot sun, listening to CBC radio all the way from Arizona, was one of those days. He is currently flogging his book The Empire and the 5 Kings. Based on this interview I think it would be worth a read. Being a cheap Mennonite I will wait for the paperback of course.

Apparently the 5 kings of the title of the book are 5 countries that he calls “totalitarian,” namely, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, and Turkey. I think the “empire” he refers to is the United States, since Lévy lamented the fact that the US was pulling out of Europe, leaving the way open, he believes, for the 5 dictators. He admitted that the US as an empire was far from perfect, but it was much better than the 5 kings that will inevitably take its place. He may have a point.

Lévy said that the 5 Kings (I would add Trump here) have declared war on truth. He reminded us what Joseph Goebbels the Nazi Minister of Propaganda said, “I will decide who is a Jew. I will decide what is truth.” This is not unlike Donald Rumsfeld’s famous remark when he talked about the War in Iraq. Rumsfeld was George W. Bush’s Mininster of Defence who said, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” This is the madness of some political  political leaders and Lévy wants to expose it.

Lévy is also critical of the Internet. He once said, “There is no better instrument for incubating idiocy than the Internet. Nowhere is this more clear than in the United States.

In the interview Lévy passionately set out his critique of contemporary political life and his philosophy: “There is a battle between wisdom and idiocy; between the courage of moderation and the cowardice of extremism, between the respect of art, and beauty, and intelligence and the idea that all these values have to be torn to pieces.” Bernard-Henri Lévy also said, “Populism is a new word for fascism. Lévy said that when he was young, in 1968, he and his friends were fighting for all the people to have access to beauty, wisdom, and truth and now the populists, or fascists, want to destroy that. When they want to eradicate the elites, they also want to rid the world of truth and beauty. That is what he is fighting against, and that is why I like him so much.

Priests and Nuns

 

Priests have been not just been assaulting young girls and boys in their parishes. They have found other victims. They have found nuns.

I heard a former nun speaking on NPR and she demonstrated this phenomenon. She said that when she was a nun she was not allowed to think for herself. She was always taught that priests were superior to her, as was her Mother Superior. It was her duty to do as they directed without question. With hindsight, she believes this was spiritual abuse that prepared the way for later physical abuse.

One day a priest came to visit her in her room, and he started to remove her clothes. She told him, “You are not allowed to do this.”  He continued his actions. He continued to remove her clothes and then raped her. She felt compelled not to scream out. After all she was expected to do as the priest desired.

When the nun reported the incident to her Mother Superior, the superior got so upset that we was shaking violently and jumped on the table shouting wildly. And she was shouting at the nun. The Mother Superior was radically upset at the nun. She was mad at the nun for reporting the incident. Of course she did nothing to help the nun. Somehow it must have been the nun’s fault. The priests could do harm in the eyes of the Mother Superior.

Only years later did the nun realize that this was part of a pattern of abuse in the church. When she learned how some priests had abused young girls and young boys, the nun realized that she had to speak up. She had to challenge the abuse. She realized she had to speak out, even though other members of her church would not support her for that. Everyone believed the nun had done something she should not have done to lure the priest into trouble. It was the victim’s fault.

The woman who interviewed the nun could not understand how this happened. The nun explained to the interviewer that this is what happens often. When powerful men have power over powerless, defenceless, or vulnerable women (or even worse children) some men choose to use that power for their own self-satisfaction.

Such abuse reveals an ugly element of abuse. When the abuser is thought to have authority from God the abuse is even more poisonous. If God sanctions it, the victim feels, it must be all right.

Of course this is problem that is not unique to the Roman Catholic Church. It is a problem in every region where men have authority over women

This is actually what happens in many institutions. For example, this year in Phoenix it was discovered that a man who worked in an institution of seniors, had impregnated a woman who was basically in a vegetative state. When the powerful find themselves in control of the vulnerable, power often leads to sin.

The same thing happens in politics. As Martin Luther King said, the United States is the world’s greatest purveyor of violence. The United States is the most powerful country in the world, and it uses that power to get what it wants, as powerful countries have done since time began. The problem is inequality of power, not who is holding it.

Recently I suggested that maybe it is time to give women the chance to have power over men. I was not really serious about that. I don’t want anyone to have power over others because so often it leads to abuse. What I really want to see is equality, not just a changing of the guard.

Male Dominance: a Dying Ideology

 

There have been more discussions of the ongoing mess in the Catholic Church. Recently the highest Catholic yet was found guilty of sexually assaulting young boys. The mess never seems to stop.

It is my belief that this will never stop until the Catholic Church democratizes and adds women as full members including giving them the right to become priests. The bishops just don’t catch on. Pope Francis called a meeting of cardinals and bishops to discuss the issue in Rome. What took so long?

We heard a leading Catholic bishop from Chicago discuss the issue. He acknowledged that women had to play an important role in the church. He said before he makes any important decisions he always asks for advicefrom women in the church.  The bishop did not realize that this is not good enough. The reason is that he“decides.”  Women can give advice but only men decide.  That is a big difference.

The Roman Catholic Church needs transformation and until male dominance is ended it will never learn. The sickness in the church will continue. It is in its DNA. Male dominance must collapse or the church will.

I still remember seeing a portrait of the board of directors of T.E. Eaton’s and Sons just before they went bankrupt. Each and every member of the board was a man. Not one woman. Most of them, if not all, were also white. No one took into consideration that most shoppers are women. So how could women’s views be important? To me it was not surprising that a company that had been dominant in Canadian retail shopping went belly-up after 110 years in business. Could the same happen to the Catholic Church? Why not?

Male dominance is a dying ideology. It can’t die fast enough. It won’t be missed.

E pluribus unum

 

 

Ken Burns has produced some magnificent television documentaries for Public Broadcasting in the US. Burns likes the traditional Latin motto of the United States E pluribus unumwhich means  “Out of many, one.” I like it too.  It appears on the Great Seal of the United Sates. Arthur Schlesinger complained that the United States suffered from too much pluralism and not enough one. It was adopted in 1782 but since then another motto has been more popular: “In God we Trust.”  I don’t like that one quite as much. In 1956 Congress adopted it as the official motto of the country. What ever happened to separation of church and state?

Ken Burns said that too often we think we connected and we are actually disconnected from each other. There are no more town greens. PBS is part of the commons. It is part of the public square. Burns says it is one place where we can have rational discourse in difficult times when the tapestry of the commons is frayed. Times like these. I think that is a pretty good motto.

Free  Solo

 

 

I watched the documentary film Free Solo about the promise of Alex Honnold to climb a massive slab of granite called El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. It is a granite monolith about 3,000 ft. (900 m.) from base to summit. It is a massive hunk of rock. Free solo is a mountain or rock climbing technique that means the climber ventures forth entirely without safety equipment of any sort.

At the outset let me say it: I am a chicken. I would never do anything remotely like what Alex Honnold did. I have not the slightest desire to even try.  I also want to admit at the outset that I am fearfully afraid of heights. I get queasy just thinking about what he did. I got queasy watching rock climbers with ropes and equipment climb a rock mountain in Zion National Park 2 years ago. For me, I would have a hard time standing near the edge of the summit, let alone anywhere on the face without ropes or equipment.

I was scared of watching the film because I had been told that anyone who was scared of heights probably should not watch. I wondered what might happen to me from the comfort of my couch as I watched it. How cowardly is that?

I have only seen rock climbers once. That was 2 years ago in Zion National Park. We were beside what I thought was a massive monolith. We saw the climbers from the ground and looking up they appeared as miniscule people. Frankly, I could hardly watch them from down on the ground. I thought the climbers were nuts. And they all had ropes.  In the movie Free Solo I learned that this free solo climb in Zion was an easy preparation for El Cap. Nothing to it was Honnold’s attitude. To me that seemed incomprehensible.

It is interesting to note that Honnold was going to climb with a film crew following every step, often from a safe distance. That must have added to the pressure.

I found one thing very interesting in the film. Alex said, “in free soloing you come as close to perfection as you will ever get, because even the slightest mistake means you will die.” I always think the pursuit of perfection is insane. This type of perfection is even crazier. Perfection, as they say is the enemy of the good. I would add it is the enemy of sanity.

I admit to some unease about the film interviews with Alex. Was the purpose to glorify the attempt? If so I do not want to be a part of it. I think it is a crazy thing to try. No it is an insanething to try. I hope the film does not lead others to try it too to grab some glory. The glory could be short-lived.

The first person to climb El Capitan climbed it together with a partner  in 47 days using “siege” tactics. This means they climbed expedition style using fixed ropes along the length of the route linking established camps along the way and using  aid climbing with ropes, pitons, and expansion bolts to make it to the summit. Even then it took nearly 2 months.

It was ascended again 2 years later by a group of 4 in 7 days. Today it usually takes a group of fit climbers about 4 to 5 days to do it. In 1975 a group of 3 climbers did it in 1 day.

The first solo ascent (not free solo) was accomplished in 10 days in 1968. In time some climbers sought ways to climb El Cap either free or with minimal aid. On June 3, 2017 Alex Honnold completed the first free solo climb of El Capitan without any protective equipment whatsoever. The film is about that climb. He ascended the Freerider route in 3 hours and 56 minutes.

The filming was spectacular with some fabulous 360°shots.  A number of times I was almost ill watching. Remember I’m a chicken.  It was that intense when he made some moves that required stunning body twists and holding himself with a thumb or a couple of fingers and a quick movement of a foot for a slight toe-hold from one tiny ledge to another. Imagine holding yourself up with a thumb? Or a toe? It really seemed like an impossible achievement.

Even though the cameramen at times had to look away as well, one of them said, “Alex is having the best day of his life.” Was he? Why? I really don’t get it.

I personally have no need to seek out thrills.  I don’t want to support it (even though I paid to see the film). I would not want to encourage anyone to take such chances for no real purpose.

Now I know there is nothing gained by me going to photograph wild flowers, or writing this silly blog, but at least I am not putting my life in danger. I get lots of excitement from traveling the world of ideas. I would rather venture forth in the world of ideas than climb a mountain, or walk across Antarctica, or run 29 miles in the Sahara desert. Each to our own. I don’t say my puny achievements are better. They are just better for me.

It was interesting to me that no one in the film encouraged Alex to climb the mountain free solo. Not one person. His girlfriend clearly would have preferred him not to do it, but I also felt perhaps she enjoyed soaking up some of the glory surrounding Alex. She did not stick around to watch him climb. Alex admitted he did not have to do it.  He chose to do it. Even after months of preparation by him and the film crew he said, “I know I could walk away from it, but I just don’t want to.”  He wanted to try it, knowing he might die in the attempt. But he gave no powerful reason for doing it.

What is the morality of a person doing something as crazy as this so we might behold his achievement? I don’t know. I don’t think I want to encourage it, but I guess I did. I don’t know why. Chris did not want to see the film because that would be like encouragement to others to try it too.

Honnold also said he did not want to die in front of his friends who were filming him. None of them wanted to do anything to distract him. They were very careful to avoid that while filming him. It must have added a serious element of extra danger to do what Honnold did with a film crew constantly around him. He even said he was tempted to just do it all alone one day without all the fuss. Just sneak out int he morning and do it. But then no one would know you did it. Why should that matter?

Honnold also claimed he was doing it “for all the right reasons”. What could that possibly mean? He did not explain. Can you conceive of a right reason? I can’t. Even Honnold admitted that it seemed odd to him to say he was doing it for the right reasons when he was climbing with an entourage of a crew.

At the end Alex said, “What a journey.”  That was his summation. That is a pretty prosaic statement for such an amazing achievement. That leads me to think that the entire effort was actually entirely banal. There was no good reason to do. He could not explain one. I don’t think there was one. Hannah Arendt wrote when she covered the Nuremberg Nazi trials after World War II that evil was banal. Sometimes that is true.  But I would add that so is spectacle. Spectacle is banal. Sports achievements are all ultimately banal. It may be briefly fun. But there is no important reason for them. There is no good reason, other than to have some fun and get in shape and experience some competition. Extreme sports achievements are all, in my opinion, banal.

         I know you have to be brave to do what Alex Honnold did. I don’t have that kind of courage. None of it to be precise. But you also have to be brave to dissent from the almost unanimous opinions of your friends or community. You have to be brave to strike out on your own on new lines of thought. You have to be brave to speak up when someone else is espousing racist views. You have to be brave to attack your own convictions because you never know where that will lead you.  That is the kind of bravery I wish I had.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum: A Place for Flowers

 

We went to Boyce Thompson Arboretum in search of cactuses in bloom. In that respect we were disappointed. Only 1 cactus in bloom. But it was a great day. When you don’t get what you want you look for something else. We found lovely wild flowers.

 

Desert Hyancinth

These are also called Bluedicks but they really aren’t blue or Dicks.

Desert Globemallow

This is one of the most common wild flowers in the Sonoran Desert and comes in many colours: orange like this one, or lavender, or white, or reddish-maroon, pink, or red. All are lovely

Desert Marigold  are often found along road sides. I like that when flowers make it easy to find them.

Lupines are also very common. I particularly like to see them mingling with yellow flowers.

Apricot Blossoms

I thought these were absolutely lovely. I hope you agree.

 

There are a number of different types of Verbena in Arizona and I am not sure what type this was. Does it matter? It was a pretty good day for flower photography as the skies were lightly overcast and wind was modest. Non-existent wind would have been better of course.

These are a mysterious (to me at least) flower that I am still trying to identify. I am not sure if it was a native wild flower or an escapee.  Tell me if you know what it is. I was smitten by its beauty.

Picacho Peak State Park: a little gem

We drove to Picacho Peak State Park where we enjoyed the wild flowers. This is small gem of a state park. It is right off highway 10 on the way to Tucson. The prominent peak, which is visible from miles away, has been a landmark for centuries. The peak was also the site of the most western conflict of the Civil War. The park includes a fine small visitor center, store, campground, picnic areas, ramadas, playgrounds, grills, and hiking trails.

I had been told that Picacho Peak State Park was likely the best place for wild flowers in our region. It might be a little past prime but should still be good. We were not disappointed. Even though one woman I met said she had been here once when the entire mountain-side was filled with flowers, we thought this was pretty good. Of course, I would love to see that.

 

First the hillside was remarkably green as a result of recent rains. Then to see flowers sprinkled in the midst of the green was wonderful. We made many stops for photos.

This little park is beautiful. The flowers were like gems on a lovely garment. Many people think the desert is dull; many people are wrong.

This mountain is across highway 10 from park. I loved it with lovely Brittlebush flowers in the foreground. The desert with wild flowers can’t be beat.

To be in you have to be out

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One lovely day we visited San Tan Flat Restaurant and Bar for the first time this year. This was voted “Best Country Bar in Phoenix.” This should have concerned me.  The problem with Americans is that they love what is popular. In Tucson they love the Festival of Books. It was great, but in typical American fashion they loved it to death. Huge crowds destroyed the fun for me. The long line-ups eviscerate all pleasure. It seems to me that if Americans don’t experience long line-ups they think a place must be inferior.  On the other hand, long line-ups seem to guarantee a great time.

I have never been to Disney World or Disneyland. I never took my kids. I guess I was a bad parent. But I was not interested for many reasons–one of them was the long line-ups I had heard about. Recently someone told me about someone else who had been to Disney World and only got onto 4 rides because the lines were so long.

The restaurant today was like that. Most people wanted to sit outside. It was a pretty decent day. Sitting outside meant that people stand in a long line-up just to orderfood. But inside, where those who were not part of the in crowd, sat, as weird as that sounds, there was no wait at all. To be in you had to be out. To be out you had to be in. Go figure. I am always happy to be part of the out crowd, so I sat inside. My reward was no line-up. Same food but no line. I think I made the right choice.

The Court of Public Opinion

 

The court of public opinion does not require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The court of public opinion makes its own evidentiary rules. In the court of public opinion we can consider hearsay, we can hear opinion evidence given by non-experts, we can accept leading questions, and can violate all kinds of other valuable rules of evidence. But all of us sitting in judgement in the court of public opinion should learn from the courts of law. They have some good ideas.

In the court of public opinion we should remember to listen to both sides. We should exclude dubious evidence. We should reject specious arguments. We should make our decisions based on the best evidence we can muster. We should not rely on second hand stories. We should be on guard against bias. We should keep an open mind. We should not base opinions on junk science. We should cross-examine those who testify to us (if we can). We should employ reason in weighing the evidence, rather than faith, emotion, feelings, or instincts. We should not guess or leap to conclusions. We should be diligent. We should do all these things (and more) if we are actually trying to discern the truth. We should try our best to be ideal observers.

Of course if we just want to mouth off none of this is necessary.