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A Five Dollar Blessing

He is a little man, dressed all in black, shivering on a wet and cold street corner. It is 37 degrees and raining hard. Puddles of blackened half-melted snow mark the vestigial remains of winter. His sparse wiry facial hair and vaguely Asiatic features mark him as an American Indian. Native American. Indigenous. First Nations, as the Canadians about sixty miles to the north say. He stands beside a busy intersection, clutching a hand-written cardboard sign with letters scrawled in black Sharpie announcing his plight: “Homeless, God Bless.”  Continue reading “A Five Dollar Blessing”

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It’s a Beautiful World

There’s beauty in this world, if we choose to see it. It surrounds us, sneaks up on us like a stalking mugger, jumps out at us from behind buildings, lurks around corners.

This morning, as I exited Union Station, the sky took my breath away. The Capitol dome loomed a few blocks away, framed by a sky that displayed all the colors of a Crayola box. Not the cheap little 8 crayon box that I had as a kid, either, but the one that the kids from wealthy families had, with 64 colors and a built-in sharpener in the back.

Continue reading “It’s a Beautiful World”

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The redneck awakening

My hero and favorite author, Edward Abbey, sometimes referred to himself as a redneck philosopher. Abbey was born and raised in Appalachia, but lived most of his life in the Southwest. He was a Fulbright Scholar and attained a Master’s in Philosophy, examining the relationship between anarchy and morality. He did a post-graduate writing fellowship at Stanford and published over 30 books in his lifetime. Not bad for a hillbilly kid from rural Pennsyltucky.

Rednecks have a poor reputation in modern American society, and deservedly so. Stereotypically, rednecks are under-educated, insular, bigoted, xenophobic and narrow-minded. But that’s just the stereotype. Of course there are exceptions to every stereotype. It’s interesting to see what happens when the redneck rises above the stereotype.  Continue reading “The redneck awakening”

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Kang’ethe and the Matatu

Jake ran, his feet treading on a soft cushion of dew-covered grass, down a narrow goat path bordered by heavily pruned pencil cedar trees. Ahead, clad as always in his worn gray suit coat and pants, Mzee Kang’ethe outpaced Jake, easily widening the distance between them. Kang’ethe was 72 years old and smoked 2 packs of Sportsman cigarettes every day. Jake was exactly fifty years younger and had never smoked in his life, yet he struggled to keep up with the older man. Continue reading “Kang’ethe and the Matatu”

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The Little Cardinal

His parents were wise, building their nest high under the eaves of the house, where the downspout from the gutter formed a sheltered platform inaccessible to all but the most determined of predators. I noticed them early in the spring, flitting about the back deck, gathering materials for their home construction.  Continue reading “The Little Cardinal”

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Book Review: The Emperor and the Elephants

Upscale Shack readers will recall my 2014 review of Dr. Richard Carroll’s first book 2000 Miles around the Tree of Life, which recorded the author’s experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail from start to finish in the mid 1970’s. In his latest book, The Emperor and the Elephants (ISBN: 1935925709), Carroll recalls his Peace Corps service in the Central African Empire (today known as the Central African Republic, or CAR), in the late 1970’s, and his subsequent years working as a conservationist in Central Africa .

Continue reading “Book Review: The Emperor and the Elephants”

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The Myth of Wild Africa

For nearly 100 years, the land that is today the Bubye Valley Conservancy (BVC) of Zimbabwe was not wilderness. The land was a cattle ranch. Wild animals were intentionally wiped out, for fear of disease transmission, and to eliminate predators that would kill cattle. For nearly a century, the land hosted a cattle monoculture, devoid of wildlife; and elephants, rhinos, leopards and lions were completely wiped out. For a century this land was the furthest thing in the world from wilderness.  Continue reading “The Myth of Wild Africa”

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The Politics of Pessimism

There’s a quote I heard recently that was represented as Taoist, but I can’t confirm its origin. It certainly sounds like something Lao Tzu could have said. It goes: “A man who desires to be miserable will find plenty of reasons to support his cause.”

This quote perfectly represents for me the current state of politics within the Republican Party in America. Donald Trump panders to people who desire misery through his platform of pessimism and gloom.  Continue reading “The Politics of Pessimism”

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Most Useless Inventions

For no particular reason I’ve been thinking about gadgets lately. Those inventions that claim to “make life easier.” If a gadget could truly make the trials and tribulations of life easier, then I’d be all for it. But I’ve never seen a gadget that could mend a broken heart, or deal with the horrible attitude of a surly employee on a Monday morning. If only there was a gadget that would pay my mortgage, that would make my life easier.

Here are five examples of inventions that I could live without: Continue reading “Most Useless Inventions”

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Not Yet Sprung

The raucous music of birds foraging at the feeder beneath my window wakes me just after sunrise. The metallic click of Dark-eyed Juncos, the buzzing trill of the Carolina Chickadee, the clear bell-like chime of the Song Sparrow. Local residents, the migrants having not yet returned from their long winter vacations to Mexico and Brazil, boasting of their travels and flashing their gaudy breeding plumage. Frost still coats the windows, a crust of ice covers the dog’s water dish; Spring is still 3 weeks away by the calendar. But the signs are there.  Continue reading “Not Yet Sprung”