It’s been a while since I posted. Been a strange couple of weeks. I’ll explain, but first I want to get this off my chest: If you want, you can skip the rant section:
<rant>
You can decry the actions of Hamas and the killing and kidnapping of innocent Israelis without being anti-Palestinian or Islamophobic
Especially since Palestinian doesn’t necessarily mean Islamic. I’ve met a Christian Palestinian. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were Jewish Palestinians.
You can decry the slaughter of innocent Palestinians without being pro-Hamas and/or anti-Semitic.
You can criticise the Isreali Defense Force’s actions without being anti-Semitic.
You can criticize the Government of Israel without being anti-Semitic
Just because you criticize one side or the other doesn’t necessarily mean you support the other side.
And, finally, Palestinian and Jews of Middle Eastern heritage are all Semitic, so anti-Semitic doesn’t necessarily mean Anti-Jewish. But I digress.
I was a Vietnam war protester in the late ‘60s and early 70s. I considered myself to be a patriot trying to get my country to correct a major mistake, and i think history has borne me out.
I absolutely did not agree with folks like Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, et.al. who supported Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Cong. I considered the fighting in southeast Asia a civil war that we had no right to get involved in.
I objected to being kidnapped and shipped overseas to shoot at people I had no beef with, especially since they tended to shoot back.
Again, I think history has proved me right on that.
I see on the News that there appear to be a lot of folks who feel that if they disagree with one side of a conflict they must fully support the actions of the other, no matter how barbaric.
For the record, I think the Palestinian People should have their own state, alongside the state of Israel, Currently they are second-class citizens in territory onder Israel’s control. This is untenable.
I get the impression that a lot of folks in Israel want Palestinians to just go away. They don’t specify where. This seems impractical.
If they’re not careful Israel may be the author of a new Holocaust, which would be an unbearable tragedy.
Me, I’m in favor of not killing and/or starving any people at all but it keeps on happening, all over the world.
</rant>
So, where the hell have I been for the last two weeks?
First off, I took a trip to Las Vegas to meet up with about 150 of my favorite people at the TMS Vegas event at the Plaza Hotel. I love these folks, mostly fans of Scott Johnson and Brian Ibbott and their podcast, The Morning Stream.
As a whole, this fan group is known as The TadPool. These are My People.
I originally intended to post from Las Vegas, but there’s a LOT going on during this event so I didn’t have a chance to do that.
When I got back from Vegas I wasn’t feeling really great. I’d taken a tumble during a hike organized by Dr. Nikki. All told there were eleven Tadpooligans on the hike.
The hike was rated “easy” so I foolishly decided not to bring my hiking poles. I immediately realized my mistake when the trail started off by dropping about 100 feet of elevation over the first quarter mile. I should have turned around and grabbed my sticks from my car, but I was already falling behind the main group.
In my entire life I’ve always been at the head of a group of hikers. Apparently age is a factor.
So, I decided to forge ahead, being very careful coming down the steep beginning of the trail.
Eventually I and the “tail-end-Charlie” group got to a very smooth, very flat section of trail. It was a good thing there were no rocks in the trail at that point, because apparently I tripped over an air molecule and found myself on the ground,
Ripped my pants and skinned my right forearm. I came down hard on my right knee, but I didn’t realize I’d skinned it until we finished the hike and I pulled up my pant leg to look at it. It’s still healing as I type.
I also managed to fall on a chunk of “Jumping Cholla” cactus. The myth is that this cactus shoots spines at you. Apparently the truth is that little knobs full of spines develop at the end of the branches, and they can pop off and land several feet away. It was one of these knobs I landed on with my right hip. The spines are barbed and not fun to get out.
One of the hikers, who I only know as Kadusey on Discord, helped me get as many spines out as possible then loaned me one of her hiking sticks, which saved my butt multiple times during the rest of the hike.
The lesson is, always take your hiking sticks.
I was going to write all about this when I got home last Thursday, but I couldn’t log into my Substack account. It took several days to get that snafu resolved, and as it turned out the whole thing was due to my own bonehead mistake.
Finally, to top things off I needed to prep for a colonoscopy. Three days of a tasteless low residue diet, followed by a day of starvation, nothing but clear liquids. After that the actual procedure on Tuesday was a snap. I slept through the whole thing.
The good news is that they only found two benign polyps that were easily removed so I’m in the clear for the next three years.
Kind of an eclectic column today, but you get what you pay for, and most of you don’t. Hint hint.
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