Wendell: It’s a mess, ain’t it, sheriff?
Ed Tom Bell: If it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here.
No Country for Old Men

That line from that great movie came to my head as I got up this morning and walked through our house. We are eye-high in boxes everywhere, and are eating off paper plates with sporks.

Tuesday morning the movers come, and on Saturday, we will wake up for the first time as Boulderites, Coloradans. I’ll still be a Montana blogger, but will slowly fade from the scene, and the 200 or so people who come here (who are you?!?) will fade out too. Hopefully there is as lively a community of Colorado bloggers as in Montana. But as a newbie, I’ll have to be withdrawn and observant and mind my manners.

Yeah. Right.

Some Montana observations:

People come here to slow down, and many of those who come from the bigger cities looking for for the quiet life often find that they don’t like the quiet life. It ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. But our group of friends here in Bozeman like it here, and none want to leave. It’s got everything – mountains and trails and coffee shops and restaurants, skiing, high-tech businesses and a college. And, it has a prominent and vocal far-right subset encircling a smaller liberal group comprised of college professors and adjuncts and granolas. The latter don’t like being represented in Helena by the likes of Roger Koopman and Scott Sales. Drives ’em batty.

If Missoula were excised from Montana, what remained would be Utah without those batty Mormons. It’s mostly a right-wing state, with remnants of union Democrats in Butte. For some reason, the Farmer-Labor movement never really took hold in Montana. The state voted Democrat one time in my memory – 1992 for Bill Clinton, but then only with 37.6% of the vote. A former blogger once observed how Montanans like Bill Clinton. No, they don’t, really.

I have often wondered about the future here, whether with climate change the non-pine-beetled forests are going to burn, leaving us with a Nevada-scape. But then, long before my time, western Montana was decimated by conflagration-like forest fires. Look back to 1910, 1914, 1917, 1919, 1925, 1926, 1929 … there’s a roadless area up by Missoula called the “Great Burn”, where forest fires decimated the area, and it reseeded, and forests fires decimated the saplings, and nothing was left. There’s been regrowth since -it’s a beautiful area.

The point is that we tend to think of good times as normal times. Drought is as common in this state as moist years, perhaps even more the norm. We were hiking last Sunday and came across a tree that was cut down to clear the trail. It happened to be about as old as me, and so I looked over the tree rings for good years and bad. Parts of the fifties and sixties were good, the seventies, too. But mostly those rings were sliver-thin.

It’s a drought-prone state. Eastern Montana is a poverty belt. It’s a resource colony, and the Republican majority seems to like it that way. They even once gave us a governor who begged to be a “lapdog” to industry. Until that attitude changes, until unions return, until Democrats put forward a new Thomas Towe, there will not be much change here.

But it’s a good place to be. It’s out-of-the-way, and the major problems of the cities are absent. Montana is far away from 9-11, smog and smug and traffic. Why we want to move away from the good and towards s&s&t – has to do with grandkids. Nothing more. Were it not for that, we would have stayed and had our ashes scattered somewhere in the Beartooths.

Still might.

They were with us even in 1962 …

Vodpod videos no longer available.

There was a gathering tonight of some of Bob Garner’s close friends – Hassie and I had just gotten to know him, but sat in as they talked about him and his life and loves and peccadilloes. I will repeat but one story:

Bob used to work at Vargo’s, a card and gift shop here in Bozeman. Around that time, the Bozeman police were harassing dog owners about leaving their pets unattended while shopping.

A customer tied his dog up outside and came into the store to browse. Soon a cop came in and started pestering him about his untended dog.

Bob dialed 911, and gave the operator precise and correct information: there was an armed man in the store pestering one of his customers. Police cars came with sirens blaring.

I wish I had been there. And no, I do not know the rest of the story.

Here’s the difference between Democrats and Republicans:

Republicans are constantly pushing the country rightward, starting wars, privatizing government services, gutting the commons, cutting back on social spending, expanding the military and cutting taxes for the wealthy.

Democrats have their back.

In a stunning development, it turns out that not only was Barack Obama born in the United States, but that he was in fact born in Mena, Arkansas. His real mother, who was white, also gave birth to Obama’s half-brother, Vince Foster. She was, according to former girlfriend Juanita Broadrickk, a well-known drug runner for the CIA. She was memorialized in the 1987 film Air America, Arkansas. She died from complications of injuries resulting from a small plane crash in 1976, for which her insurance company refused coverage.

Most people are aware of our racist tendencies – all of us – and awareness creates its own antidote. As Mark Twain is said to have said (who knows – it’s off the Internet)

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

Racism exists in a minority, but social pressure has suppressed its open expression. It still comes out, but in non-obvious ways. For one, some people, as at the Bozeman Tea Party on July 4th, referred to President Obama as a “Nigerian”. Get it?”Nigerian?

I am beginning to agree with those, including Bill Maher, who say that the “birther” movement is an expression of racism. It’s subtle, never been used before against a sitting president, and has an element of ‘foreigner’ in it that can easily be applied to his race.

I suspect that’s where the low-brow, low intellect, stupid, scared and paranoid racists went to hide.

I bought an I-Touch today, and could not wait to use it. But we are staying at a Motel 6 in Casper, and they require that you agree to a two-page agreement of terms before they allow you to use the Internet. I paid for the agreement, and can use it on my laptop, but I wanted to play with my I-Touch. No-can-do. On the I-Touch, I cannot check the box at the bottom that says “I agree”, and therefore cannot access the Internet. It’s making Starbucks in the morning, which requires that I sign in to AT&T Wireless, a hopeless prospect.

Two questions for anyone who knows the answers:

1: Is there any way we can get the motels to fire their attorneys so we don’t have to “agree” to these four page agreements that no one reads to protect their asses before we use their routers? Coffee shops (except Starbucks) seem to survive without this stupid bureaucratic nonsense.

2) Is there any way, on an IPod Touch, to enter a check mark in a box about the size of the end of a toothpick?

Anyway, it’s Motel 6, the A/C doesn’t work, I’m an American and used to all of the comforts of life, and so am distressed.

Do you know any lawyers who are members of the American Civil Liberties Union? I am a member of that organization, and I would like to have somebody who is a member of that organization represent me.

One of the interesting aspects of American political life is how our professional criminals so seldom have to face accusers or suffer indignity. In the case of John Yoo, it took a couple of Aussies to do it. Even Jon Stewart won’t go here.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

I wrote a piece one time on a backpacking trip I was on, and closed by saying that if I could have good coffee in the morning and [Southern] Comfort at night, I could endure anything in between. A fellow named Bob chimed in that I must be a Janis Joplin fan. I didn’t get it at all. Bob told me that Janis lived each of her adult days with Southern Comfort at hand.

Later I wrote a post about a gal named Anna who was a Hillary Clinton supporter over the Left in the West. Anna was very hard to deal with. I called the post “Anna Montana“, and in it I quoted a long passage written by this same Bob. It was impassioned, thoughtful, historical and moving. Anna’s response was pathetic. I ended Bob’s words with my own … “Nuff said”. It turned out to be one of the most widely read posts here at this blog. It’s fitting that most of the words belong to Bob Garner.

I got to know Bob after that – after some hemming and hawing, we got together for coffee, and at my urging, he opened his own blog, which he called Waves and Particles. It was not about politics. It was poetry, some prose, and his photography. He didn’t do it for long, He found it too stressful to have to put something fresh up all the time.

We invited Bob out to our house for dinner, and had a fun evening. He was surprised that a curmudgeon like me had a lovely and charming wife. (He was charmed by her – that happens frequently.) We talked on into the evening. Bob often mentioned his friend Christina,who I imagined to be someone his age. Bob was in his seventies.

Later, after we told him we were moving to Colorado, Bob took us out to dinner, and we finally met Christina. Bob first met her when she was a barista at the Leaf and Bean, and took a fatherly interest in this bright and lovely girl. She’s an acupuncturist now here in Bozeman, and she and Bob shared a deep friendship. He was old and gnarly, she young and beautiful. No doubt Bob wanted to be 30 years younger.

Bob and I and another friend were to have lunch tomorrow, but Christina called this morning. Bob fell and hit his head, had some internal bleeding, and passed away.

I was at Bob’s house but one time, and now wish I had stayed longer, but we were on our way to places. His house was exactly what I expected – a small kitchen, a computer on a small desk, and books books books everywhere. I’m not clear on his life or background, and I hope others will fill me in later. I know that he lived in California, where he knew Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan. Here in Bozeman he ran a motorcycle shop, and I think he was a former biker. (I can picture that.) He was once a press secretary for our Secretary of State. He did not like my frequent criticisms of journalism. He has a son who is flying in from Africa, and a brother who is undergoing brain surgery in Pennsylvania.

Christina said that Bob did not want a memorial service. I wish they would do it anyway. I want to hear people who knew him better talk about him and his life. If anyone who reads this knows him and has a few kind words to say about Bob, please do so. There’s a far deeper and lovelier man there than I ever had time to get to know.

So long, Bob.

Certain terms get tossed about in discussion, among them liberal, conservative, progressive, right winger, fascist, democratic and the s-word, stupid – no – socialist. I call myself at times a liberal, a progressive, a socialist, and a conservative. Others use another term listed above.

“Conservatism” is appealing to me in this sense: Progress is slow, and achievements, though often stunning in science and engineering, are plodding and slow in politics and social structure. It is not wise to make dramatic or haphazard changes in our institutions due to unintended consequences. We should observe the example of others and respect the wisdom of those who came before us. What appears to be wise in the present may not stand the test of time.

But we have to embrace change. Piecemeal and slow is the way to go.

Conservatives tend to support “free” markets and trade. I am therefore not a conservative, as I don’t support either concept. It is here that people use the ‘s’ word against me. (“Socialist”, dammit, “socialist!”)

I reduce “free” markets to a simple analogy: markets are campfires that keep us warm. Unregulated markets are more like forest fires, destructive of everything in their path.

I am also opposed to “free”, or unregulated trade when the traders are in unequal bargaining positions. Free trade has decimated resource colonies, left Latin and Central America in extreme poverty. They cannot protect their markets or build domestic industry. They find themselves importing food and exporting cash crops from productive land owned by foreigners. It’s absurd. That’s what free trade does to poor countries – it keeps them poor.

But when bargainers each have power, free trade makes sense. Canada and Western Europe and the United States, all strong and wealthy, should trade freely among themselves.

Progressives tend to want to regulate markets, tax wealth at high rates, provide public benefits like welfare, retirement, disability and survivor benefits, education and health care. I like those ideas except that sending support checks to young and healthy individuals each month tends to corrupt them, make them lazy. I support giving them commodity-style food, health care, and education – a fighting chance, without destroying initiative.

So I am somewhat conservative and quite progressive. If you call me a socialist, it would be technically wrong, as I don’t think that government should own or manage basic industries. But in current parlance – supportive of the welfare state – the term is accurate.

So go ahead and use the s-word on me if you wish. (“Socialist”, dammit. “Socialist!”)

One term needs proper defining, as many of them masquerade as conservatives. These are our right wingers. They are not conservative in any sense – they don’t believe in gradual change, they don’t respect the wisdom of others or the past. Given the reins of power, they would throw us all into chaos. In fact, they have.

Most so-called “conservatives” these days are really thoughtless, mindless reactionary right wingers. These people are the ones most deserving of “s” word.