Swarms of tabs are buzzing ’round my head again. Some contain news that fills me with such loathing I can’t decide whether to blog about it or run for cover. I’ll avoid the most loathsome for now and merely blog the good, the bad, the indifferent, and the funny to clear my browser and my head. The NSA disguised itself as Google to enable even more spying. Part of me says this is bad in the same sense that the CIA’s longstanding practice of disguising its agents as journalists is bad (for the health of actual journalists). Part of me…
Category: Travels
Observations while wandering near and far.
This was a week for getting reminded of unconventional freedoms — and unconventional Outlawry (though some might call it just plain criminality). First, we got fascinated with Christopher Knight (aka the Maine Hermit), whose solitary life some found irresistible. Imagine speaking only one word to another human in 27 years and sleeping outdoors through 27 northern winters. Imagine doing that, yet remaining so un-resourceful that you think stealing from a camp for handicapped kids is a legitimate way to survive. Then yesterday afternoon, NPR interviewed Mike Brodie — not their usual sort of book author. At 27, Brodie is a…
The friend I’ve written about before — the one who advocates going expat — is Sandy Sandfort. Sandy is a writer, businessman and soi disant recovering lawyer. Currently, he’s getting ready to relocate from Panama to Chile to work on the Galt’s Gulch Chile community project. You’ll find contact information for him at the bottom of this post. But first, Sandy offered to answer some questions about going offshore. I asked him a few — Q&A below. Please feel free to ask your own questions in the comments. Sandy says he’ll check in to answer, but won’t get into debates…
There was some cheering on the Intertubz when the TSA announced it was removing those infamous Rape-o-scanners from airports. Okay, muted cheering. Very. Muted. Cheering. Europe banned the Rape-o-Scans earlier this year and this was just the TSA’s belated acknowledgement of what everybody else already knew: that the x-ray scanners are potentially dangerous, ludicrously prone to false alerts, and offensive as all get out. Um, well, not exactly. They say it’s solely because the machines were slowing up their probing, poking, and stealing. So, did they send them back to Rapiscan and demand a refund? Is anybody investigating Michael Chertoff’s…
Just be sure to vote for the loser. Not a loser (that goes without saying). But the loser. (H/T S.S.)
What I’m doing on my summer fall vacation First I fixed a broken gun. It’s an old .22 single-action plinker probably not worth a gunsmith’s fee. That morning I met someone who claimed to be a gunsmith and he was such an ass & irritated me so much I finally tore into the thing myself. It was either fix it or get one of these. Which I really don’t need. Maybe I didn’t really have to tear it down into such itty-bitty pieces; I don’t know. This hoogie-ma-jigger here turned out to be the whole problem. Instead of turning the…
Sorry for “lite” posting yesterday. I’m deadlining all this month while also trying to paint, trim, and partially re-side two walls of the house. I bought shingles and cedar boards in April in a wild-to-the-point-of-insanity fit of optimism. I dreamed spring would shortly yield to summer. Yeah. The supplies sat in the yard getting rained on. Now, we’ve got a brief eyeblink of dry weather. So I’m juggling: work-work in the a.m., improvement-work in the afternoon, dogs and housework … somewhere. I’m also getting to know a video camera sent by Terry Bressi The Checkpoint Beater. The only previous video…
I got a cheery Independence Day hello from Gabi Klaf. Never mind that Gabi, Kobi, and the kids are Israelis; never mind that they’re currently in Cambodia. They’re celebrating an all-American Fourth of July for fabulous reasons. You remember the Klafs. Last we heard from them, in October, the adventurous family was in Panama. Or was it Columbia? Ecuador? Hard to keep track. They’ve been in five or six places since then, spending a long time in each one and immersing themselves deeply in every experience. Since this is a week for celebrating lots of forms of freedom, for celebrating…