By Bishop, Special Excentric Trainee (in retirement)

A pessimist burns his bridges before he gets to them.
–Mayor Jim (RIP)

Fresh from gnashing hangovers brought about by learning of the greatest robbery since the James boys robbed the Kansas City Fair in 1872 many citizens no longer regard Wall Street big shots, or their Federal counterparts, as the financial equivalent of the Red Cross.

Sipping on their cheaper and cheaper drugstore wine one day after another they wonder where the sheriffs were, even the law in some form, even the FBI or Marshall Dillon. Why didn’t someone with a brain, if not a heart, call a halt to the plundering of our hard-earned dough? Did investment bankers really spend our money on golden waste paper baskets and shady ladies of the night? Read More→

In Arizona Republic, 11/6/07
November 11, 2007

Too Much Publicity, Poor Planning and Creepy People threaten Fossil Springs—–How publicity, sleeping politicians and poor planning is destroying a Wilderness

The Law of Unintended Consequences invoked
As Arizona Congressional delegation sleeps
By James Bishop Jr.

If we have no hope there is no hope.
–anon

Pausing by the blue-green waters of Fossil Creek in the Fossil Springs Wilderness to examine a trashed campground Heather Provencio, Sedona District Ranger exclaimed, It hurts my heart to see this wilderness gem being so hammered. It makes me so very sad to see what people do, but there is hope.

Despite this newspapers powerful editorial and reportage coverage of A Jewel Befouled (10/11/07), its become abundantly clear to this observer that more than hope will be required if total anarchy is to be prevented, and that will only transpire when a hard-hitting management and enforcement regime is established; and that will only materialize in the form of a Wild and Scenic designation, the river protection law due to celebrate its 40th birthday in 2008; that will provide funding and enforcement power, resources that are lacking in the US Forest Service budgets. Read More→

The Feds cut me good in ’62 dropping the monstrous guillotine at beloved canyon Glen. My breasts pierced, my arteries flowed brown and red, my soul sent careening into muddy oblivion.

Was this the best way to show man’s love and respect for sacred waters, to please an Arizona woman, she who guards your oasis civilization? No answers came but even n more havoc lay ahead for me — Arizona woman. Read More→

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Meade

Cottonwood: During the annual Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival here near the Verde River here a few years ago, a woman from Seattle became so excited about the unusual bird sightings at Dead Horse Ranch State Park that she asked a park ranger to whom she should write a check? To the Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce, she was advised.

Impossible, the woman with the checkbook fussed. Whats a Chamber of Commerce sponsoring anything to do with birding? Read More→

Is a mirage real? Well, its a real mirage,
– Edward Abbey

Inside the rickety, clanking airport van rivulets of sweat trickled down the drivers face, sometimes pausing to rest on his bulbous red nose which was a dead ringer for a certain Mr. W.C. Fields snozzola. Every once in a while he’d mumble a few words, bright stuff like Arizona is where hell spends the summer. The only other passenger was a paunchy lady not past 40 by much who was wrapped in a heavy woolen purple sweater. She was whiling away the seemingly endless trip to the Verde Valley from Sky Harbor by toying with a fuzzy, red hat and playing the tarty flirt with the driver. I tried to glance away and bury myself in a copy of John Barrymore’s essay, Fifteen Steps to a More Thunderous Orgasm, when she blurted out in a high-pitched preppy voice, Excuse me sir, but can you tell me where to find the Pink Nectar Café? Read More→

We did not fix the levees, though we were warned.
- Author William Greider

Around the time of the first oil shock in 1973, columnist Art Buchwald penned a satirical column about what life without cheap oil would be like in the 1990s. One day, a father and son go out for their first drive in weeks because fuel costs $8.50 a gallon. “I feel like a steak,” says the father to his son. And the boy asks, “Dad, what’s a steak?”

Such a scene is leaping from the pages of satire now that the phrase Peak Oil has entered the lexicon. In oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens’ words, that means that oil supply was for years greater than demand but now, “Demand is equivalent to supply, and you can’t get any higher supply than you’re getting right now. Right now means that the world’s oil producers are pumping 80 million barrels a day and demand has begun to exceed that.” Read More→

By Bishop, Special Excentric Unlettered Sundowner

You can do anything you want as long as you don’t call it what it is.
— John Bernardy R.I.P.

It is safe to say that there have been eras when the news has been better. Hour after hour, the Big Media bombard us innocents with salvos of disheartening developments. Sometimes it seems as if they sound and read all the same, especially those items about rumors that the globe is allegedly warming.

Consider this one because its so typical of frantic left-wing media ranting. You see the lefties expect us to believe that thirty miles from the Arctic Circle, hunter Noah Metuq says the Arctic is changing. Its frozen grip is loosening; the people and animals that depend on its icy reign are experiencing a historic reshaping of their world. Read More→