Elk Down From the High Country
Goodmorning. I thought I’d take a break from my procrastinating and post a couple things for Monday Morning HST wisdom. Again, I have to let you know that I’m still using my mac, which is forcing me to use html language wich my skills don’t allow me to link or use the regular style of bold and spacing et cetera. So, bear with me until I get my pc replaced.
Here at Owl Farm, it’s been interesting. We had a major snowstorm (snowstorm in May, yes) that brought the Elk down from the high country. As I write this tonight at 1:35 am, there are about 200 elk outside my window in the back pasture. They are quiet and very powerful. It’s like a gift when they come.
Since I finished my Final Paper on the Middle East, I want to quote from a book by James L. Gelvin from a book called “the Modern Middle East: A History.” My professor Rashid Khalidi assigned it, and it’s full of info and I highly recommend it.
On a seemingly unrelated note, I want to post a bit from Hell’s Angel’s for the HST wisdom.
Here is Gelvin:
Oil has made the region strategically important to outside powers, particularly the United States. Think of it this way: the United States has a historic connection to the West Africa country of Liberia. Liberia was founded by freed American slaves in 1822 and over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Liberia resembled an American colony, in deed if not in word. In 1989, Liberia descended into a bloody civil war in which a quarter of a million of its citizens have died. On the other hand, the United States has no historic connection to Kuwait, which was a British protectorate until its independence in 1962. According to Amnesty International, during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait during 1990-1991, far fewer Kuwaitis – several hundred – were killed than the number of Liberians who have perished that countries civil war. Yet the United States put together an international coalition and sent five hundred thousand of its own troops to liberate Kuwait. The American response to events in Liberia has been tepid at best. Even after the secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, personally appealed to the American administration to send peacekeeping troops to Liberia in 2003, the United States sent only a token force of two hundred marines. Kuwait is one of the world’s largest producers of oil.
— James Gelvin. the Modern Middle East
From “Hell’s Angels”
…The run was on, “outlaws” from all over the state rolled in packs toward Monterey: north from San Bernardino and Los Angeles on 101; south from Sacramento on 50…south from Oakland, Hayward and Richmond on 17; and from Frisco on the Coast Highway. The hard core, the outlaw elite, were the Hell’s Angels…. Wearing the winged death head on the back of their sleeveless jackets and packing their “mamas” behind them on big “chopped hogs.” They rode with a fine, unwashed arrogance, secure in their reputation as the rottenest motorcycle gang in the whole of Christendom.
— Hunter S, Thompson , “Hell’s Angels”
Until next time, your friend,
Anita Thompson
