I GENERATED A MISSION FOR MYSELF: Go to Dodge City Kansas--grip the town firmly--and not let go till it tells me something I don't know.
Special places---if you let them have their way with you---enrich--in unpredictable ways. (Custer battlefield, Trinity site, Sedona AZ, Mt Shasta Ca, Chichenitza Mexico)
Dodge City, Kansas---formost sin city of its day. I'll go there and stay till it "speaks to me". Does the flavor of it's wicked past still linger? (I once went to the most famous brothel in America--Mustang Ranch, Nv and let a beautiful prostitute have her way with me----and Oh yes!--that flavor lingers mentally) So off I go to Dodge City---learning from the internet some of the basics of the drama: Texas cattle driven north by cowboys to the Kansas railhead to supply protein for hungry easterners. What I didn't know was that the Kansas Legislature inadvertantly created this sin city by drawing a quarentine line (feared Texas tick fever) West of Witchita----which funneled the trail drives to Dodge City---CONCENTRATING in one spot--thousands of raucus, entertainment hungry cowboys, with money to spend AND --- dark-side entrepeneurs ready to provide it.
I love to drive across the prairie===was told that the horizon is 14 miles away. Hundreds of these dot the prairie---made a promise to myself to go get the windmill story soon.
A stunner! A real stunner! Someone out in the middle of nowhere posts this sign--boldly declaring to the world-- and all their neighbors-- their conviction on this hot subject. I feel chicken by comparison---hesitating to put the EVOLVE fish-with-feet symbol on my trailer---fearful that some crazy creationist will smash my window or something. I'll know I'm really brave when I stop hedging and tell the world I am an atheist.
Fire of a different sort sweeping across the grasslands. Watched a guy in a truck drive across the field leaving this blazing trail behind.
Got here late Sunday evening--will settle somewhere convenient and start my inquiry in the morning.
Settled into this out of the way lot for the night. Do you wonder why I would camp in such a place? TO SAVE $20--or more. Every month I do this I'm $600 dollars ahead---and really, I enjoy the privacy boondocking affords. ( As I settle into a place such as this, I prepare a plausible "story" to explain my presence here--- should anyone ask. They rarely do-- but it flexes my imagination to concoct one. If I think the asker can handle the truth--I go with that. If my readers have not surmised yet--I tell you now that mine is the ethics of CONSEQUENCIALISM.
I love to drive across the prairie===was told that the horizon is 14 miles away. Hundreds of these dot the prairie---made a promise to myself to go get the windmill story soon.
A stunner! A real stunner! Someone out in the middle of nowhere posts this sign--boldly declaring to the world-- and all their neighbors-- their conviction on this hot subject. I feel chicken by comparison---hesitating to put the EVOLVE fish-with-feet symbol on my trailer---fearful that some crazy creationist will smash my window or something. I'll know I'm really brave when I stop hedging and tell the world I am an atheist.
Fire of a different sort sweeping across the grasslands. Watched a guy in a truck drive across the field leaving this blazing trail behind.
Got here late Sunday evening--will settle somewhere convenient and start my inquiry in the morning.
Settled into this out of the way lot for the night. Do you wonder why I would camp in such a place? TO SAVE $20--or more. Every month I do this I'm $600 dollars ahead---and really, I enjoy the privacy boondocking affords. ( As I settle into a place such as this, I prepare a plausible "story" to explain my presence here--- should anyone ask. They rarely do-- but it flexes my imagination to concoct one. If I think the asker can handle the truth--I go with that. If my readers have not surmised yet--I tell you now that mine is the ethics of CONSEQUENCIALISM.(Perhaps I'll elaborate sometimes)
Monday morning and I'm ready for Wyatt Earp and his famous buntline special pistol. Seems to be whirling into action.
His history in a nutshell . Placques like this are scattered around town.
The Kodger King and Matt Dillon---the City's Marshall of fiction. I asked about the actor James
Monday morning and I'm ready for Wyatt Earp and his famous buntline special pistol. Seems to be whirling into action.
His history in a nutshell . Placques like this are scattered around town.
The Kodger King and Matt Dillon---the City's Marshall of fiction. I asked about the actor James Arness and was told that he still lives==is in his nineties.
Boot Hill --tourist trap--I parked here--while I walked the town asking it to tell me something I didn't know.
RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES: We WANT the excitements of sin-cities ---- they occupy and amuse us. (some of us)
Boot Hill --tourist trap--I parked here--while I walked the town asking it to tell me something I didn't know.RANDY PHILOSOPHIZES: We WANT the excitements of sin-cities ---- they occupy and amuse us. (some of us)
We NEED sin cities as ETHICAL PATHFINDERS --testing the boundaries of what is acceptable---trailblazing new frontiers----often normalizing what was previously scandalous. They help society feel its way forward, ethically----bare bosom dancers in Vegas for example---and legalized prostitution also. Now and again they lead into dangerous and destructive directions---opium dens and gay sex bath houses in San Francisco. So we (our politicans) outlaw them. Slowly society feels its way forward---ever weaving a FABRIC OF AGREEMENT.
RANDY RANTS: Only religious people pretend to know absolutely, what is right and wrong. They EXTRAPOLATE their ethics from "HOLY BOOKS" and try their damnest to impose them on all of us. Their efforts are a cruel and bloodstained story.
RELIGION INHIBITS ETHICAL EVOLUTION----time and again we must DRAG the religious into society's advancing ethics---our new fabric of agreement-(e.g. evolution--Slavery--women's rights--civil rights--gay rights--children's rights, abortion rights)
CONCLUSION: At the psychological level we are children till we have tasted forbidden fruit. A lifetime in Eden would be intolerably boring.
Even Christians sometimes say that Adams fall was ultimately a "fall forward."
Even Christians sometimes say that Adams fall was ultimately a "fall forward."
No comments:
Post a Comment