2025 Grand Canyon: Thunder River Introduction

 Friends - I hope you will allow me a pause in our trip to Cambodia and Vietnam.  Partially, we are at a logical stopping point:  the next place we will visit is Siam Reap with perhaps that most famous of Cambodian monuments, Angkor Wat.  Partially, because after the horrors of Tuol Sleng, a palate cleanser is order.

Mostly perhaps, because I would like to go back to the Grand Canyon before the experience is too much behind me.

Longer term readers may remember that this is not the first time that I have been to the Grand Canyon; the last time was in 2021.  That was a very different trip for this one (also, it seems, it was one of the first times I tried to write a trip as other than a series of pictures).

I had fully intended to go and hike the Grand Canyon last year; sadly due to Hammerfall 3.0 I was unable to pay for it (however, they did keep my deposit which just got moved to this year, which is super nice of them).

I enjoy hiking the Grand Canyon. It is incredibly different from my hikes in the Sierra Nevadas.  As I have explained to others, when you live in a rainy environment the world is defined by its different shades of greens.  Here in the Grand Canyon it is is defined by the shades the rocks that one sees, mostly reds and purples.

Also, the opportunity to see the Colorado River again was not to be missed.

This hike promised to be quite different from the one we made in 2021.  It was considered more technically difficult. Also, it was out of the North Rim instead of the South Rim.  And finally - unlike the last hike - we would be descending and ascending and then descending back down to the River.  No Escalante route where we could largely hike near the Colorado.

Transport to our starting point - Flagstaff AZ - was via a flight to Las Vegas, meeting up with The Outdoorsman and The Brit, and then a four hour drive into Arizona (I had never actually been "through" the Las Vegas airport before but only changed flights there.  There are worse airports.).

We overnighted in Flagstaff after our pack check, had a delicious traditional burger meal with a beer, and then got up early the next morning for our pickup and drive to the trailhead.

Adventure awaited.

My Annual Commercialism Adventure And Demographics

 As in recent years past, I ventured on out Black Friday.

This is usually not driven directly by any need that I have but rather by a desire to spend time with my family.  As they like to go "hit the bargains" (as the kids say), so I too have learned to (slightly) embrace the day.

To be fair, if one is looking for something that one has already determined that one needs, it is not a bad time to go:  for example, likely I could have gotten two years worth of shoes at a 30% discount (had I needed them).  And I suspect that deals on commonly needed things like socks and underwear could be found at similarly amazing prices.

For the most part, there were no "crowds".  Occasional lines, but nothing like the mass insanity that one used to see at Big Box stores for things like electronics (or maybe such mass hysteria still exists; I have no idea).  People behaved well.

The most crowded place we went was one of the two malls in the greater New Home 2.0 area, one of what is likely my semi-annual visit to them.  Much more crowded of course, although it seemed to me somewhat less full than last year.  

The thing that surprises me as I go to such places, is how similar the sorts of stores are.  We went shoe and clothes shopping - but there are just as many or more shoe and clothes shops in the mall that seem to market slightly different versions of the same thing.  Non-specific clothing and fashion adjacent shops seem, to my eye, fewer and fewer.

This probably says something about us as a culture.  

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On Saturday, with Na Clann safely returned to New Home, we ventured out into one of the "local neighborhoods" that our nearby urban metropolis has.  This part of the neighborhood had a number of stores in it as well - very high end stores, judging from the cost of the chocolates and leather.  It was a decent mix of clothing, fashion adjacent, non-fashion adjacent, and unusual stores (including a crystal store with a rather amazing collection of taxidermy).  

I say "high end" because most of the places we stopped and looked had no prices on the actual items themselves.  At least one of the chocolate bars The Ravishing Mrs. TB picked up was $45. A Cave Bear Jaw Bone, if you were curious, will run you about $5,000.

It was a very interesting slice of walking and looking, clearly not designed for someone like myself.

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Yesterday morning in church, the preaching pastor mentioned a survey a local church group had undertaken of the greater New Home 2.0 Urban Area.  It was inclusive of a 25 mile radius around the main urban metropolis, and interviewed businesses, individuals, churches, etc. (or so I was told; I do not have the study on hand).

The shocking thing, both to the initiators and to myself:  a full 50% of the people interviewed anticipated moving away in the next five years.  At a local population of that area of almost 3,000,000, that is not an inconsiderable number.

Of course, not everyone that intends to move actually moves. But the reasons that people might move are apparent.  Local big employers are closing up shop here, and the backfill is not going to be enough to replace those jobs.  The urban metropolis of New Home 2.0 has all of the problems of almost any major urban center at this point, and even from our brief sojourn here, it is clear that nothing effective is being done.  Add to that the cost of doing business here in terms of taxes both business and personal, and relocation begins to make some level of sense.

Sure, people will likely move in as well.  But people moving in need to have jobs to come to, and those jobs - the so-called "good high paying ones" are moving to other locales. 

---

The trajectory of this is, of course, predictable.  The people that are most likely to relocate are those who can relocate, whose job skills are such that they can find a job elsewhere or (like us) are still relatively unattached in terms of roots here.  These are likely - but not always - the jobs that are the highest paying and thus, the ones that many of the businesses that we visited over the course of the weekend most dependent on.

With those paying consumers gone, the remaining consumers will likely not be shopping at the higher end stores (they never do).  Tax receipts will fall, which then will need to be replenished (because no government body seems capable of cutting spending these days) by increasing taxes and fees.  The urban issues, not solved now in days of relative affluency, will surely not be solved under those circumstances.

It does make me wonder what The Weekend After Thanksgiving Commercialism excursions will look like in the future.

A Year Of Humility (XVIIL): Scriptures And Ourselves

There are two ways to read Scripture.

The first way is to read it and apply it to the world at people "out there".  It is easy enough of course; Sylvia Plath used a phrase in one of her short stories of using "Bible verses like bullets" and that is certainly something that, over the history of the Church, it has shown itself quite willing to do - let alone ourselves as individuals.  There is always someone or something out there, violating God's Word.  

The second way is to apply it to ourselves.

Applying Scripture to ourselves is not the fun way to do things of course:  nothing less encouraging that to open up Scripture in the morning and immediately be confronted with yesterday's sins, or to realize mid-day that that grudge you have been carrying all morning was just as much of a sin as anything Christ called out in the Pharisees.

But here is the odd thing, at least for me:  the more I concentrate on applying Scripture to myself, the less I become concerned with applying it to other people.   Perhaps it simply reflects the fact that - for me - pride is me always looking out to others on how they have missed the mark and humility is me looking inward on where I have missed the mark.

I cannot control or "work on" others.  But I can certainly do both of those things on myself.

November 2025 Grab Bag

 I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful.  Na Clann were all here for the week, so we got a healthy combination of local adventures, food, Thanksgiving Day episodes, and shopping.  As Nighean Gheal was in South Korea last year, this is first time in two years that we have been together.

For reference, last time we were all together, I had not been laid off as part of Hammerfall 3.0, we still lived in New Home, and we had not had a presidential election.

The world was a different place.

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In Administrative notes, I realized that I had not linked all of the 2024 Turkey entries into the single page dedicated to this purpose.  That issue has been rectified.  Additionally, The Collapse page should be up to date to current entries.  And a new page for 2025 Cambodia And Vietnam has been started (although given how long it has take me to get through was was the first 3 days of our trip, we will be reading about this all through next year).

I still need to bring A Year of Humility to a page near you.  At this point, that sounds like an end of year task.

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This week I had a medical appointment.

This was a rather long delayed one dating from February of this year when I should have gone, when due to my training in Japan I seem to have done something to my right knee.  I was hopeful that I could just "exercise my way out of it", but it got worse, not better - worse to the point that I am pretty much unable to do any kneeling waza at this point.  The good news?  Apparently it is tendonitis as no tear or rip could be found and it has full range of motion.  Exercises for now, with the possibility of physical therapy if that does not work.

Other things discovered during the visit:

- My blood pressure is normal.  I was afraid I was pushing up into pre-hypertension mode, but apparently not.  That is a relief.

- Based on descriptions, I may have Obstructive Sleep Apnea.  A sleep study has been ordered.

- A round of general labs has been ordered

God willing and nothing new, I will be back for an exam in a year.

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As a note to the ongoing sale of The Ranch, we have received no offers after our initial lowball.  At the recommendation of our realtor, we are taking it off the market and will re-list it in Spring.

During my last trip earlier this month, I spent no more than 30 minutes at the maximum checking things out and making sure no new issues had arisen.  This has very much become a rear-guard action.

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For the first time in something like 20 years, I will be doing a public harp performance.

The whole thing came about as a result of the small group I led earlier this Autumn.  One of the icebreakers was "What is an unusual thing that you do?" Mine, as it turns out, was playing the harp.  Word gets around as these things do and now I am performing in the lobby before, between, and after services on 21 December.

Certainly an incentive to practice intensely.

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With the passing of Thanksgiving and Black Friday, we enter the Christmas season - which, based on the way Christmas falls this year, is only 3 Fridays away.  I need to make a sincere effort to be mindful of the season this year as it feels like it will be more compressed than usual.

At least Christmas carols are now fair game.

Thanksgiving Day Turkey Drop, WKRP

 This remains, in my mind, the finest comedy sketch ever.

Thanksgiving 2025

 As is customary for this time of year, I present below the original Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789.  

Every year as I do this, I realize how much I have had to be thankful for. I am extraordinarily thankful for of you, my readers.  And I am thankful again that my family - The Ravishing Mrs. TB, Nighean Gheal, Nighean Bhan, and Nighean Dhonn - will be here to celebrate in New Home 2.0

A Blessed Thanksgiving to you all.

George Washington's 1789

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

- http://www.wilstar.com/holidays/wash_thanks.htm

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Tuol Sleng IV

 A picture of seven of the eight known survivors.  Most of them survived by having skills that that Khmer Rouge needed:

A picture taken after the Vietnamese Army invasion in 1979 showing the four surviving children:

At intake, the Khmer Rouge took pictures of every single individual coming in and recorded their name.  The names and pictures became separated in some cases and so there are thousands of individuals whom are only known by their pictures.  This board represents one of many displays in the prison.

Looking at the boards and the pictures, one is undoubtedly find someone that one will identify with.  

There was no name attached to this young man.  Judging the time period, he was maybe 10 years older or less than that in comparison with me at that time.  His shirt...that is a shirt that any young pre-teen or teenager might have worn in those years.  For all I know, given another reality, that could have been me.

I have been to many places in my years, including places where terrible things had happened.  Never in my life have a been to a place where the very walls of the building seeped evil.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Tuol Sleng III

 Torture at Tuol Slen represented a wide range:  electrocution, water boarding, beatings, searing with hot metal, hanging, suffocation, removal of nails and then the pouring of alcohol in the wounds.  Confessions, once given, could run into the thousands of words, all recorded via tape or writing and used against other individuals named in the confessions.  Likely most of the confessions were the product of torture.  Additionally, prisoners were used for medical experiments and training, undergoing surgery without anesthesia or having their blood drained from their bodies.

After the end of torture after 1976, prisoners taken to the nearby Boueng Choeung Ek ("Crow's Feet Pond) where, in order to conserve valuable bullets, prisoners were battered to death with iron bars or pick axes or cut down with machetes.

The average age of an guard was in their teens, those of the interrogators in their 20's.

One of the larger prison cells, where prisoners were chained to an iron bar.

The prison preserved many of the instruments of torture.  Individuals were either dunked into the basin until they almost drowned or hung by their torso on the frame.

Memorials:

Listing of known deaths:

 

On Sickness And Reflection

 As noted this past Friday, I was under the weather most of this week.  And when I say "Under", I mean to suggest far more under than I have been for at least the last 7 years.

I cannot definitively tell you where it came from, although I can tell you that the two weeks previous were filled with work, not a lot of sleep, travel over the weekends (One for a family wedding, one to visit The Ranch), and almost zero recovery time between the traveling and my work week.  

I can tell you the inflection moment:  it was a week ago on Monday where I felt sufficiently "off" to not attend the first meeting of my men's small group meeting after our seven week hiatus.  

By Tuesday morning, I was cooked.

The issue presented as a sinus infection complete with drainage, a delightful cough I could feel in my chest along with the wheezing in breathing, and some level of elevated temperature, at least on two of the days.

I naturally (and stupidly) attempted to split the middle by working from home Tuesday and going in Wednesday - which solved nothing, as I felt bad enough to take a complete sick day on Thursday for the first time in years.  Friday I rallied to make it back in with a pretty solid day; Saturday (yesterday as I write this) I essentially sat on the couch encased blankets and read.

7 days for an illness.  Again, it has been years since this has happened.

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The initial response when all of this manifested itself was, or course, a vast sigh of exasperation:  after all, I have (or rather, had) far too much going on to afford to be sick, let alone miss a day of work. Yes, work itself of course, but all of the other carefully crafted allocations of time I had worked in for the completion of all the other things that are (well, were) going on in my life during that time.  There was that initial period (Monday and Tuesday) of working through the "inconvenience" of being ill was my plan.

In retrospect, it was a pretty ill conceived plan.

By the end of Wednesday I had thrown in the towel (holding it together only long enough through drugs to make it through my small group commitment).  Work was not a thought on Thursday and only the barest of things got done on Friday.  And all those "other things" that constitute my life?  Not one of them happened after Tuesday.  Turns out doing the sotto voce version of "Hacking up a lung while upright" is not conducive to training, calisthenics, iaijutsu, language, aerobics, blogging (who knew),  or anything else beyond the basics of eating, sleeping, and showering (a necessity).  Reading was the "But Wait, There Is More" add-on to the deal I did not ask for.

Interestingly, the only person that denoted my lack of progress in any of these areas was myself.

---

The fact that I may have been "overloading the carry capacity of the wheelbarrow" was not necessarily a surprise to me.  The subject had shown up a half dozen times in some form or fashion over the last two weeks in my journal.  The surprise - if I can call it that - is that it actually manifested.

(Yes, I know - not that surprising; pushing any system to its operational limits will eventually result in a failure at the weakest point of the system.  Sadly, I also tend to believe that I am often exempt from the laws of the real world. It is a known failing).

Five years ago an event like this would not have set me back on my heels the way this one seems to have.  I am trying to understand that, just as I am trying to accept the fact that if I do not change, this sort of thing is likely to happen again.

To the first point - Why has this set back on my heels so? - I can only think that I have been on the receiving end of health and relative energy for so long that it is something that I have come to take for granted.  The idea of essentially having no impediment due to health and energy  as I attack my rather wild list of things to do has not really confronted me before.  I am, very aware that such good health and energy  are in a real sense quite temporary in the full term of things.  I perhaps did not expect "temporary" to start now.

To the second point - something needing to change - I point back again to my journaling, where for some weeks now I have been making the observation that fitting an ideal amount of sleep for me (which, tragically for my higher aspirations of accomplishment, really does seem to be between 7 and hours a night) is reasonably impossible when allocates less than that amount for actual sleep.  Repeatedly.  For weeks on end.

"Ah" I keep telling myself as sit down looking at my hour calculations.  "Given the amount of time I have to set aside for work and (begrudgingly) sleep, I only have Y amount of hours to do all things I really want/need to do!"  A flurry of calculations inevitably ensues by me trying to find ways to shave off 30 minutes here or there to set aside (the number of times I have designated my lunch for "useful" thing is embarrassing at this point).

And then, something like this happens and reality suggests in a far from cordial way that I might want to rethink things on a more holistic basis.

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Do I have a plan?  Nope, not at all.  I am giving myself the grace of the holidays:  Na Clann will be here this coming week for Thanksgiving (and I will be off starting Tuesday for the week) and then come the holidays when things are generally winding down anyway, including a week off at the end of December.  I can definitely coast on a lot of things until then (except lifting and Iai and blogging of course).

But next year?   Something has to change next year.  The risk of being guttered like this again is not worth it.

A Year Of Humility (XVIL): Serving When Called: A Retrospective

 As you might recall from early October, I was offered an opportunity to lead a small group for seven weeks.  This was part of a church-wide focus on Spiritual Friendship; the hope that that it would enable folks who struggled with making connections find a channel to help them make a connection in a small group environment.

The initial period is over; we chose to extend a bit through the first week of December as there was interest and childcare available.  As a result we only have one week left which will be as much of a goodbye as a study.

What, then are my observations on serving when called?

I think my biggest worry was simply that things would go awry.  That there would be incredible amounts of dead time which would be awkward.  That people would come for a week or two and then leave (in my mind, for no other reason than they did not like me). 

None of the fears were realized.

Were there periods of silence?  There were.  But never too uncomfortable, and almost inevitable someone brought something up that moved the conversation forward.  

Did some people not keep up?  Also yes, but that is to be expected with anything.  Certainly after the initial 7 weeks, but that was past the original commitment that everyone made.  So by and large we came out as we went in.

Perhaps the most important thing:  Did it make a difference?

I think it did (not me of course, but the group).  There were connections made.  People opened up to some pretty significant things that they were facing, things that I think in my former years of leading a group would have never happened (again, that was God, not me).  Outside of the group interactions occurred, even if it was just finding someone else to say hello to at church on Sunday.

Would I do something like this again?  I think the answer is a pretty solid "No", at least in a sole leadership position.  This was something outside of my normal comfort zone and while I am glad I had the opportunity, I am just not a leader in the traditional sense of the word and holding at least one role like already (my current job), it can be exhausting.  

But I am glad that I did it.  For all that I did not do, I saw God moving powerfully in the lives of others.  And seldom if ever does one get a front row opportunity to see that happen.

A Video On The Economy by Paul Wheaton And Thoughts

Over the years I have been a passive follower of Paul Wheaton and his Permies forum.  Paul's focus is on humble living, permaculture, and sustainable technology.  It is an interesting place if you have never been (membership is free and to my knowledge it is largely apolitical and deals with all things agricultural, permaculture, sustainable technology, food preparation, etc.; Friend of This Blog (FOTB) Leigh has been known to be there from time to time).

This week a short video he did crossed my inbox entitled "Prepare Now for Upcoming Changes".  This is a subject that has been on my mind of late, so I watched the video.  A transcript is below:  copyright obviously belongs to Paul Wheaton and any errors remain my own:

"I'm sitting at a table with three strangers. Our host shares that she's thinking of going back to college to finish her degree in software engineering. She explains that she wants a job that pays better than her current job.

I say, "Don't do it." The other two people agree with me.

“Then what should I study so I can get a higher paying job?” I suspect that for any field of study, there will be a lot of layoffs. The most productive people will stay on, and you'll find that you'll be looking for work with your freshly minted degree, competing against people with degrees and experience.

Again, the other two agree with me. “What do I do?” I think if you live more humbly, save what you can, and prepare for a long-term unemployment, you'll be in better shape than most other people. And then you can solve work stuff from a perspective of strategy instead of desperation.

I then suggested buying some sun chokes and sticking them in her yard with no further effort. In two years, there'll be enough food to feed several people through the Winter. The other two said nothing. I guess I became too weird.

Most people go to college and take on debt. The idea used to be that you would then get a higher paying job and pay back that debt. With heaps of cash flow, you can have lots of fancy. In time, you can boost your income further to get even bigger fancy.

Three strangers agree that this is about to change. Three strangers agree. Do not take on debt. Cut your expenses. Save your money.

My wacky advice is to retire in two years, maybe sooner. Fill your head with homesteading, gardening, and permaculture strategies. Practice fiscal humility. I think that a humble home and a large garden will solve all sorts of personal problems. It is the road to gratitude. To get land, I want to propose the SKIP program. Joining our permaculture boot camp and my attempts to get hundreds of thousands of homesteads to do what I call gardening gardeners for big garden. Please see my content about an automatic backyard food pump. 30 minutes of gardening will feed you all winter. A humble home and a large garden solves almost everything."

I have to confess I find myself strangely ambivalent about the video. On the one hand, I have been haunted by the last few weeks of a sense that something is changing in the economy, something that I cannot see directly by looking at it but only by looking out of the corner of my eye. It is that nagging feeling that one gets when there is an object about to hit you but you cannot see it.

It is clear, even in my own world, that many college degrees are not worth the paper they are printed on for helping to find a job in the field of study.  There are some of course; it is foolish to completely write college off as having no value.  And the idea of "fiscal humility" is one that resonates with me and that I have never heard expressed in that light.

And yet, I question the large term application of Paul's philosophy.

Cost of living and Land costs are probably the biggest reactions I initially have.  Yes, we can live more fiscally humble than we do, but if you are anywhere in an urban area (that many are because of their jobs), there is a level of fiscal humility beneath which you cannot drop without not eating or having a place to live.  The second, of course, is land on which to have a garden (see above comments on cost of living in urban areas where career field may be concentrated).  Home prices have dropped a bit over the last year but starting out 30 years younger, I cannot imagine trying to buy in any of the areas I have lived in for my jobs.

This whole thing disconcerts me a bit because I really like the message Paul presents.  I am just not sure how it can be practically and largely applied.

Video: (Run time 3:10)

Out Of Action Report

Apologies friends - I seem to have come down with a sinus infection and for the first time in something like 7 to 9 years, took an actual sick day yesterday. With any luck, I will be back on my game tomorrow.

 

The Collapse CCXIII: A Boxing Day Of Hope

 26 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Even if we have a day of celebration, time and tide wait for no-one.

One of the things that I suspect most people who thought about apocalyptic living but never even dabbled in it is the amount of effort involved in day to day survival.

We (Pompia Paulina and I) are fortunate: we had a stock to start from (although diminishing of course; everyone’s is), had lived in a location where periodic interruptions and inaccessibility was a regular thing, and lived general frugal lives. So the “dip” in that sense is certainly not a severe as others.

None the less, even just getting by is a lot of work.

There is not an “ordinary” day, especially it seems in Winter. As I have written before, life is largely dominated by the source of light that you have – and ours in Winter is short indeed. There are some tasks which are regular – checking on the greenhouse and quail in some fashion, looking to make sure a beehive has not fallen over, shoveling out the path to the outhouse – and some which seem regular but are just as likely periodic: gathering deadfall, pulling water from the pump, trying a hand at fishing (others hunt of course; I have no skill in that matter), being creative about food sources.

And now, more than ever, planning for what to do as soon as the weather starts to turn.

In Winter – at least for me – this total amount of work seems to split into periods of activity and inactivity. I go until I cannot go anymore, oscillate between being too cold and too warm. I cannot say I am starving – far from that – but I suspect if I put myself on the scale, I would find that some amount of weight has melted off.

Another part of my day – not really compensated in the normal sense, of course – is just stopping in on people. Hopefully – and I say this with sincerity – I will have an opportunity to begin to visit with our Erstwhile Neighbors as well; it is my sincerest belief we cannot have such a small community divided and not speaking to each other. The last few weeks have given me hope.

Hope. That is twice I have used that word in a paragraph. It is a rather funny thing, hope. If you were to ask me if I could point to something I am “hopeful” about I would struggle to come up with something long term. We occasionally hear from our friends to the North, East, and West of us, but distance lies between all of them and ourselves. We have yet to hear a peep out of any sort of governmental body to show that such a thing is working or will be back. And given that, except for the occasional invader, we have seen precisely no-one a year or heard from them, there seems to be little enough to generate that hope.

But as Pompeia Paulina reminds me – continually now, it seems – hope exists sometimes in spite of our outer circumstances, not because of them.

And that, my dear Lucilius, gives me hope as well.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Tuol Sleng II

 There were various kinds of cells at Tuol Sleng, but ultimately the treatment was the same.  

After an intake with an extensive interview, prisoners were assigned to different cells:  individual, smaller cells, or larger group cells.  Those in smaller cells were shackled to walls or the floor, those in large cells were shackled to an iron bar.  They slept without mat, mosquito netting, or blankets.  Rising time was 0430.  Meals were four small spoons of rice gruel and leafy soup twice a day.  Drinking water without permission resulted in a beating.  Talking resulted in a beating.

Fourteen cells were individual classrooms which had in them a single iron bed stand used for interrogation and torture. When the Vietnamese Army invaded in 1979, they found 14 bodies in the 14 interrogation rooms that were had been slain only hours before by the retreating Khmer Rouge.

Outside of each cell is a listing of known prisoners who were kept - and killed - there.

These are the graves of the 14 individuals discovered by the Vietnamese Army.  Their names are unknown.

One of the "smaller" cells.

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Tuol Sleng I

 During the Khmer Rouge's rule of Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, it is estimated that anywhere between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians died (of a population at the time of 7.8 million). It is also estimated that 33.5% of Cambodian men and 15.7% Cambodian women of the total population did not see the end of the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror.

After achieving power, the Khmer Rouge transferred city populations to the country and camps, where they were required to write an autobiography of their lives and their fate was determined.  Many were destined for "Re-education Camps", which generally meant death camps. The Santebal (Secret Police) operated up to 196 of the camps during that four year period; one of the worst (and their headquarters) was Tuol Sleng, located in Phnom Penh.

Tuol Sleng (known in the day as "S-21", or "The Hill of Poisonous Trees") was a converted high school.  There are a total of five buildings; these buildings were surrounded by electrified barbed wire and the classrooms converted into prison cells and torture chambers.

It is estimated that 20,000 people passed through the gates of Tuol Sleng during its operational history.  Prisoners were taken here, tortured and made to confess to crimes and name the names of their "associates" (who were of course then taken into custody), and then eventually died or were killed.  The prison ran out of space in 1976 to bury bodies and so executions and burials were transferred to another facility outside of Phnom Penh.

At the start, the prisoners were largely government officials and military members from the preceding regime.  However, as time went on, members of Khmer Rouge began to turn on each other and they, in turn, became the majority of the captives.

Approximately 1,000 to 1,500 prisoners were onsite at any on time. The average "stay" was 2 to 3 months.

(A sign above an entrance indicating "silence".  Prisoners were forbidden to talk to each other)

Of the estimated 20,000 prisoners that passed through Tuol Sleng, there are only 12 known survivors, seven adults and five children.  It has been more recent assessed that up to 179 individuals were released during the prison's operation, but it is believed many or most of them were rearrested or did not survive the fall of Phnom Penh in 1979.

The Rains Of November

 "Welcome to New Home 2.0.  It has been (0) days since we last had rain. Have a nice day."

Of the changes that happened when we relocated to New Home 2.0, one of the greatest that we were advised to prepare for was the weather.

New Home had a simple but standard weather pattern:  two seasons (Hot and Cold) punctuated by two to three weeks of pleasant weather known as Spring and Autumn.  New Home 2.0, we were told, had an actual seasonal spread.  

And it has - which has overall been a pleasant thing.  After years of no Spring and no Autumn, it is nice to be in a location where all four seasons is a reality. The leaves of Autumn and the flowers of Spring are wonderful.  Even Summer, which can be a bit hot from July - through mid-September, is manageable.

We were warned, however, about Winter.

Like almost any other clime, one effectively makes a deal with one's conscience that sacrifices will have to be made -in this case. that sacrifice is Winter.  Partially for the clouds, which seem to start in the middle of October and extend through the end of March, and partially for the rain, which can appear almost every day running if given the opportunity (of the coming 10 day forecast for example, only one day has no chance of rain).

Add in the darkness known as Daylight Savings Time, and, as one coworker told me last year, "It is just awful from November to February.  That is just how it is."

Everything comes with a price; greenery and beauty pay the cost of weather and temperature shifts.

One simply buys the gear and carries on.

 

A Year Of Humility (XVL): Do Not Be Zealous For Evil

I confess that I struggle with meekness.  I am not nearly as much so as I should be:  I push to the front too often, turn the focus upon myself more than I should, and demand the world be the way I desire it such that I would be offended if it were someone else.

That, I can deal with.  But have I ever thought about such behaviours as being zealous for evil?

I do not like to think myself evil of course; I suspect no sane person does.  And yet, I have to ask myself: If I am not truly being zealous for good, what am I being zealous for?  Surely there is not some kind of mediocre middle ground, a sort of middling thing that neither wins people nor offends them, a banal blandness that does nothing at all.

But that is not what the Bible offers us.  We are only, ever on a journey to one of two locations.  

Maybe I can argue myself down to being somehow passively good.  But that will not fill the bill either:  Christ was never passively good, nor were the apostles.  They were actively, zealously, good.

If I am not zealous for good, likely I am zealous for something else.

The Modern Luddite

 

I have to confess that the older I get, the more this is true for me. I am not quite at the point of completely abandoning new technology, but I am much slower about taken it on.

Honestly, older technology is far more interesting.

Relationships Of Proximity

 A couple of weeks ago, my pastor (in a sermon on friendship) introduced the idea of relationships of proximity.

The concept is that many of our relationships come into being not because of a shared interest or activity but simply because of the fact that we are in the presence of other people so often that, almost by accident, we enter friendships.  Often because we simply see each other so often.

To be fair I suppose, almost all friendships start with proximity - or at least, once upon a time.  I became friends with the people I was around the most:  first my sibling and cousins, then the children of my parents' friends, then people that I went to school with - then, in its final form, the people that happened to be wherever I was.

As I look at those relationships over the years, what I realize is that there was a time that I made friends not just because of proximity but because of interest and time:  Uisdean Ruadh and I started with shared interests in history and drama, The Director and I started with band and drama and role playing games.  

It can happen, of course, that proximity becomes true friendship:  La Marquessa and I met (literally) on the day before we graduated high school and found out we were going to the same college, Rainbow and I were coworkers that talked first about industry and then about shared interests, the Dog Whisperer and I started with work trauma and found out we have a shared love of animals.  But too often, proximity friendships expire when the proximity is removed.

If I look over the course of my life, I have easily gone to school and worked with hundreds of people over the years that I knew more than just a casual nodding. Of those relationships, 99% of them have disappeared to nothing more than faint glimpses on social or business media or a comment by a friend about them.  In a way that strikes me as odd, of course:  in the heat of the moment of school or work, experiences were shared that in some cases were unique or (at least in my case) were formative.  And yet for all of the emotion and passion that was poured into those moments, they slipped into the stream of time without a trace.

---

Another point of the sermon - beyond the nature of relationships of proximity - was the idea of consciously making and building relationships

This sets the idea of proximity on its head to some extent in the sense that we do not just rely on people "being around" to deepen the relationship.  We actively engage in building the relationship - and it can be with those near or far away - by partaking in common activities or, that most risky of activities, sharing about ourselves.

But it is a choice:  it is active, it is pursued.  It is not something that we just "wait" to happen.  It is something that we actively seek out to make happen.

Does it always work?  No, of course not.  Many are the times that a potentially deeper relationship fell apart because a fork in the road was reached where one party (or both) simply stopped the process.  Sometimes just stopping to actively engage is enough, given a world where our inputs are constant and if something is front and center, other things will flow in to take its place.

That said, that is still not a reason to try.

---

The final question, of course, is "What am I doing about it"?

This hard for me to answer.  Yes, I am in a new location (and in a weird sort of way, already had contacts when I moved here through Iaijutsu), and the possibilities, while not endless, are present:  beyond coworkers, I have interests I have had in the past and church.

And yet I find myself strangely reluctant.

Part of that, I suppose, I could blame on the fact that even 1.5 years, I have no idea if this is a "permanent" place - not that this should impact my ability to build relationships, but it somehow does in my mind.  Another part is the risk - perhaps as prevalent as it has been in the last 10 years - that opening up to relationship in a contentious environment runs the risk of making environments uncomfortable.

But I must be mindful to press on - after all, much like with any growing thing, if there is not renewal at some point things pass into senescence, and then failure.

The Collapse CCXII: The Day Of Christmas

 25 December 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

“’Sire, the night grows darker now, and the wind grows stronger.

Fails my heart, I know not how. I can go no longer.’

‘Mark my footsteps my good page, tread Thou in them boldly,

Thou wilt find the Winter’s rage freeze Thy blood less coldly.’”

Christmas Day came this morning with nary a whisper of clouds or snow, only the clear cold sky with fading stars and the hint of sun from the East as we bundled up and trundled out towards The Post Office. As we got closer, occasional bobbing lights betrayed the progress of others, Christmas Will-O-The-Wisps’ making their way across the snow.

I had not been into the The Post Office for some time following its initial remodel by Young Xerxes and the team he had cobbled together – not really since Young Xerxes’ plea some months ago. The room itself was much changed, widened by the removal of interior items and warmed by a wood stove which had been relocated from somewhere else – the efforts of my wood collection now being apparent.

Most impressive, however, were the Christmas decorations.

Somehow, Lucilius, a Christmas tree with decorations and of all things, lights, blazed away in one corner of the room. The room was hung with green and red tinsel, relics of an industrialized age that produced such things in abundance. Pictures had been applied to the walls, pictures from Christmas decorations of long ago, even before my time.

Along the back wall sat a table.

Having come in, we were of course put to work, pulling out folding chairs that had been transferred from the court room as hot tea in cups was thrust into our hand. Another of those irresistible was pressed into my hands.

As we worked away setting up chairs, more people kept coming in. And coming. And coming.

As they came, the back table began to fill up with, of all things, food. Oh, not the sort of feast that one would associate with Christmas once upon a time. There were quite a lot of jars of preserved food there, along with bread and what appeared to be cookies. But that was a spread that I had not seen in some days.

By the time it was a reasonable hour of the morning, I think almost every member of the community was there – yes, even some members of our Erstwhile neighbors though sadly not all. Still too soon, I suppose.

Still, with almost 60 people there, we had more than enough.

After a brief (very brief) prayer, breakfast started – topped by, of all things, venison and half a boiled egg for each of us. Yes, it was the oddest of Christmas breakfasts – my bowl filled with sauerkraut, pickles, venison, yet another biscuit, half a boiled egg, and a cookie – but it was a meaningful and delicious a Christmas meal as I had observed in many year.

After the meal ended, two to three of the folks I remembered having instruments pulled them out. And, of course, we sang the Carols of Christmas.

I say “Sang”. That may be a misnomer of sorts as not everyone could sing – at least well. And to be completely fair, some of the verses were perhaps a little different than I might remember.

After the songs went on for a while, Pompeia Paulina pulled me up and handed me a Bible opened to the New Testament. And so, after many years of reading it silently, I read the Christmas story out loud and openly.

There is something, Lucilius, about sharing the Christmas story verbally. Perhaps it is tied to memories of hearing it years ago, in church on Christmas Eve with family now long gone or reading it aloud to my own family. That story, so simple and yet so profound, can speak to us in every era.

Even in an era of a Collapse.

After I finished and sat down, one of the musicians started picking out the notes to Silent Night. And so, we sang to the crackle of a fire under the garish lights of a Christmas tree made truly magical by the fact that such magic did not happen like this at all.

At the end, there was a natural moment of silence. We all sat there in the glow of fire and lights and sunlight through the windows.

Perhaps not truly Peace on Earth, Lucilius, but perhaps as much as we are likely to find in these troubled times.

“In his master’s steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted,

Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed.

Therefore Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing:

Ye that now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.”

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2025 Cambodia And Vietnam: Random Phnom Penh

 Independence Monument, built in 1958 to celebrate Cambodian Independence from France.  It is meant to reflect a blooming lotus and stands 37 m (121 ft) high:

Behind it is the Norodom Sihanouk Memorial, built in 2013 to commemorate King Norodom Sihanouk:

Apparently it was graduation time; students were getting their pictures in front of the monument:

Looking back from the Independence Monument:

Looking back from the Norodom Sihanouk Monument:

A rarity for an American:  The North Korean Embassy

Armistice Day 2025

 In Flanders Fields

 In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

Lt. Colonel John McCrae 03 May 1915