There’s battle lines being drawn And nobody’s right when everybody’s wrong — The Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth * In another case of the uncanny synchronicity that often strikes like a bolt from a Sisters Country lightning storm around The Running Iron Report, the unlaid ghosts of the Vietnam era rose in recent weeks, asserting their undying influence […]
Legal Showdown In Oregon
We have a legal showdown underway in Oregon that has implications across this battered republic. On Monday, a judge in Baker County, Oregon, acting on a case brought by faith groups, invalidated the restrictions on businesses and social gatherings imposed under Governor Kate Brown’s emergency actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, dating back to March. Judge Matt Shirtcliff, a Brown […]
Talkin’ Syncretic Frontier Blues
Governments don’t live together, people live together. With governments you don’t always get a fair word or a fair fight. Well I’ve come here to give you either one, or get either one from you. — Josey Wales to Chief Ten Bears, The Outlaw Josey Wales * Raising hell with the hippies and the cowboys They don’t care about no trends […]
A Lifetime Of Adventure
RIR reader and contributor Rob L. Thornton has a poem published in the current issue of Dark Mountain. A signal accomplishment, and we tip our hat(s) to him. I stumbled across the Dark Mountain Project in February of 2016. I know the date because I wrote a piece about it titled Chasing Buffalo Down A Dark Mountain on Frontier Partisans. I was intrigued […]
An Eruption Of Demonism Into History
“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” — Joseph Conrad * “The systems of explanation, historical and psychological, that we employ to explain ordinary human behavior, however extreme, cannot explain Hitler, who represents, (theologian Emil) Fackenheim believes, a ‘radical evil,’ an ‘eruption of demonism into history…’” — Ron Rosenbaum, Explaining Hitler * […]
A Strange Drunken Dream
As did you all, I read with great enjoyment Craig’s “Tickling The Wire” post, which set me to ruminating upon his observation that our bad-tooth, grisly-and-bubbling-infections-and-finally-death past is a mere camera-flash away from us. This, of course, set me to contemplating the wild, colorful career of Donald McBane. As one does. You see, Donald McBane should have died young […]
Blood For Oil, Zero Defect & Living With The COVID
“NO BLOOD FOR OIL, man!” That’s what the guitar player said as we listened to the news on the radio, trundling down the 405 Freeway in a panel truck. It was 1990, the U.S. was fixing to boot Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and I was serving as a roadie for a 1950s-themed rock-n-roll band heading southbound from Los Angeles […]
The Widening Gyre
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold… — William Butler Yeats A month ago, COVID-19 was a dark cloud on the horizon, a low muttering of thunder, an ill wind. With disorienting speed, we have been plunged into a raging tempest, our sails tattered, our rigging shredded in a howling […]
Mattias Tannhauser — Man Of The Hour
August 23, 1572 — St. Bartholomew’s Eve. Man of Commerce and Soldier of Fortune Mattias Tannhauser rides into Paris, where all hell is about to break loose. At a tavern called The Red Ox, he pauses to take his repast and reflect upon the state of affairs in his adopted country… “Tannhauser had abandoned all involvement and even […]
Pestilence Part II — The Winnowing
Turns out, I underestimated the potentials regarding COVID-19. I thought this would be another SARS or MERS — potentially dangerous, but containable; burning out relatively quickly. I wish I’d read this February 24 article in The Atlantic, which is still a worthy read now: With its potent mix of characteristics, this virus is unlike most that capture popular attention: It […]
The Santa Ana Wind Begins To Roar
“You may think you know what’s going on here Mr. Gittes. But you don’t.” — Noah Cross, “Chinatown” * Drivin’ down your freeway Midnight alleys roam Cops in cars The topless bars Never saw a woman so alone, so alone So alone, so alone — Jim Morrison, The Doors, “LA Woman” * It was a hell of a day to wax nostalgic about Los Angeles. […]
Will the Wolf Survive?
Standing in the pouring rain All alone in a world that’s changed Running scared now forced to hide In a land where he once stood with pride But he’ll find his way by the morning light… — David Hidalgo / Louis Frausto Perez (Los Lobos) It is integral to the mission and purpose of The Running Iron Report to be a beacon fire for […]
