Bush posts troops at Mexican border to appease Right

36,000 troops on the border? Bush says ‘temporary.” Yeah, right.

My take: Bush and Rove don’t want an agreement on immigration rights until at least after the election (if at all.) Why? Because they want the hard Right in a frenzy over the issue and thus mobilized to vote in November.

Given the usual Democratic spinelessness and inability to take a stand, this might actually work. The Dems think all they have to do to win in November is do nothing. They are wrong.

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Sue and I spent the weekend camping in Joshua Tree National Park with friends. JTree is home to massive rock formations, sometimes hundreds of feet tall, unlike any place else. It also contains two desert systems, the Colorado Desert and Mojave Desert. It is a harsh, unforgiving area that is also capable of quite amazing beauty.

Oh, a Joshua Tree (pictured) is actually a member of the tulip family.

More photos on our gardening blog, Downtown Tomatoes in the May 14 entries. Plus many photos on Flickr.

[tags]Joshua Tree[/tags]

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[tags]Joshua Tree[/tags]

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This is a White Evening Primrose, spectacular isn’t it?

[tags]Joshua Tree[/tags]

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This is Datura. Blooms at night. Highly psychoactive, but weird and unpredictable. Native-Americans used it to induce hallucinations. But they knew precisely how to prepare and use it. You probably don’t. Thus, if you take it (and touching the leaves can do it) you might instead end up running screaming through the desert naked. Or you could drop dead - it can also be poisonous.

[tags]Joshua Tree[/tags]

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Because of its spectacular rocks and cliffs, Joshua Tree gets rock climbers from all over the world when it’s cool enough to climb there (summers can easily be 110 degrees.) This is, no doubt, where some particularly difficult rocks can be found.

[tags]Joshua Tree[/tags]

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On Thursday, I was forced to drive in the Westside of L.A. during rush hour, an area where I lived in for 15 years until moving four years ago. The traffic, which was bad then, was appalling. A drive which normally takes fifteen minutes took nearly an hour. All my sneaky shortcuts, the ones that used to be traffic-free, were bumper to bumper.

People I asked said, yeah, that’s what traffic is like now. If, like me, you’d rather be set on fire than drive in such traffic and deliberately organize your day so you don’t, then when forced to do so every six months or so, you can easily see how hideous and dysfunctional Westside traffic has become. And how it continually worsens, never gets better.

Jim Kunstler at Clusterfuck Nation has any number of wondrous rants on this subject, on how U.S. over-dependence on the automobile coupled with decreasing oil supply and rising prices will, sooner rather than later, create massive social dislocation and chaos.

But the problem is not going away. It’s not five or ten years down the road — it’s here, now. We’re in the zone. We’re entering a world of hurt. The pain will ebb and flow, as the pain of a fatal illness ebbs and flows over the days. The price of oil and gasoline will ratchet up and down, but along a discernable upward trendline.

Can we bust out of this narrow tunnel of fantasy? Can we imagine living differently? Can we turn more fruitful imaginings into action before the American scene becomes a much more disorderly place?

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Steve Earle. He’s a redneck who reads Karl Marx. Hard left lyrics, profane, funny, and a hugely gifted songwriter and musician.

Southern Culture on the Skids. Their persona is so deliberately skewed that sometimes you forget what tight, disciplined, creative musicians they are. Is it a heartfelt tribute to hillbilly culture? Is it satire? Yes.

Mike Henderson. He looks like a cowboy and sings like a bluesman. Powerful urban blues/Americana.

Hapa. Well known in their native Hawaii, they bring in Samoan and other island music too. Many of their songs are in Hawaiian, they call it 21st century Polynesian music.

Michael Hill’s Blues Mob. From the South Bronx, blends in reggae and more. Urban, gritty blues with a social conscience.

Steve Roach. Ambient, tribal, new age, electronic, and electonica. He spans all the boundaries and has been at it for twenty five years and dozens of CDs.

Oshen. From Papua New Guinea, mixes up Polynesian music with reggae and hip hop, delivering a positive message.

Hubert Sumlin. Stunning blues guitar work, as befits someone who started a band with James Cotton, then backed Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters. He’s 76 and still touring, now a legend on his own.

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