Staring into the Campfire

At the end of the summer this year I spent almost eight days camping in a patch of desert called Salt Flat, TX.  Every morning Mrs. Slap and I got up just after sunrise and cooked breakfast; when it started to get hot we went up into the Guadalupe Mountains to hike; towards sunset we found some shade, made dinner, then watched the nightly dance.  Sunset in the mountains to the west, Milky Way spiraling overhead, full blood red moon rising over the mountains in the east.  On a busy day we might see five other people.

What passes for reality set in with work, crowds, politics, inflation, family, war, plague all crushing in as we got back to civilization.  I wasn’t right for days.  Weeks.  Months.  I miss it.

I think often about a pair of conversations in the film Jeremiah Johnson:

Bear Claw Chris Lapp: [Seeing the striped military trousers Jeremiah's wearing] Missed another war down there, hmm?

…and later…

Jeremiah Johnson: How does the war go?

Lt. Mulvey: Which war?

Jeremiah Johnson: The war against the President of Mexico.

Lt. Mulvey: Why, it's over.

Jeremiah Johnson: Who won?

No one wins.  The war in Ukraine is going to drag on into another attritional trench war for years, or someone is going to have to decide to cede the East to Russia.  The war in Gaza is… I have no idea where that was going.  Anyone with sense can tell that Iran pushed Hamas into attacking with a bunch a crazy “hail mary”s hoping to provoke an over-response from Israel that would pause or cancel the impending Saudi-Israel formal alliance that was in the works.  I doubt anyone thought Hamas would get as far or do as much damage as it did, or that Israel would have to save face with an endless shock & campaign followed by a ground invasion.  This is the Iran-Saudi cold war turned very hot, and it’s bringing in resources from all over.  Including every American’s tax dollars which are going to munitions fired into Gaza.  All because someone in Tehran got a smart idea.  And people are going to forget about the 1,200 deaths and innumerable attrocities in Israel as the body count goes well into the tens of thousands in Gaza.  No one wins.

And then there’s Trump, who might still be President again despite it all.  The average life expectancy for a male in the US is 77.28 years.  Maybe nature will play the odds and clear the slate.  I’m still holding out for a Romney-Manchin 3^rd party run. 

Via con dios, pards.