U.S. intelligence officials have little comfort to offer a pandemic-weary planet about where the world is heading in the next 20 years. Short answer: It looks pretty bleak. — The Washington Post, April 8, 2021 There is supposed to be some cold satisfaction in being able to say “I told you so.” I’m not feeling that, and I’m […]
Bootlegging the Imaginarium
I’ve been trying to figure out how it is I will navigate the asteroid belts of the Imaginarium – dodging the tumbling balls of frozen wokeness, the careening boulders of political duplicity and outright stupidity. In that process I’ve come to realize that in order to survive these hazards, and to pilot my family through them into what will certainly be some kind of mincing, fragile, and thoroughly deconstructed American future influenced, if not controlled, by the Chinese Communist Party, I must adopt at least some and maybe all of the mindset of the Star Wars smuggler and anti-hero Han Solo.
The Hue And Cry Over Qualified Immunity
Guest post by Mike Lazarus Lots of talk lately about Qualified Immunity. Much chest-beating declaring it an abomination that protects bad cops from prosecution. Like many of our public proclamations, we are enjoying a certain loose standard of facts, that — while entertaining — often fails to educate so much as mislead. First, let us clarify one important […]
Incitement To Riot
My wife Marilyn and I recently finished Season 2 of Cinemax’s martial arts pulp fest, Warrior. Inspired by a concept written down in notes by Bruce Lee many years ago, and heavily influenced by Quentin Tarantino, the adventure follows a Chinese immigrant to San Francisco in the 1870s, where he becomes a tong soldier and is embroiled in the tong […]
The Politics Of Plowing Driveways
Running Iron Report reader John Dutcher scouted up what may be a perfect example of a worldview that RIR stands against. L.A. Times columnist Virginia Heffernan was knocked sideways by a powerful gust of cognitive dissonance when when she discovered that her Trump-supporting neighbors had done her a kindness. Oh, heck no. The Trumpites next door to our pandemic […]
Racing In The Street
I told a friend the other day that I think Bruce Springsteen’s Racing in the Street may well be my favorite song. Then I had to figure out why. ’Cause it ain’t the cars or the racing. Of course, the song isn’t really about those things at all… * For 40 years, I’ve been haunted by theses lines: Some guys just […]
Wasting a Crisis
While filming the Len Babb Movie Project – we are eight months into this endeavor and making tremendous progress – cinematographer Sam Pyke and I have covered thousands of miles, visited six states, and interviewed some truly incredible Americans.
The Baying Of The Hounds
The hounds are baying for blood. Beware. The leashes that hold them back are frayed, and, once loosed they will rend and tear any caught in their path. * The framers of the Constitution were not idealists and utopians; quite the opposite — they were skeptics of the perfectibility of man. Knowing that a lust for domination […]
Somebody Bring Me Some Water
A couple of notes in the margin as the speed wobbles get more intense and the American Empire careens along the path to the Crash: The grotesque yet totally predictable spectacle of the Great Post-Election Tantrum has kicked up musings about civil war and secession. Most of this is is hot air from big talkers — […]
Re-Entry
A few miles south of La Pine, Oregon, highway 97 offers travelers the opportunity to turn hard east onto highway 31. At this sudden intersection in the ponderosas – it is easily missed – there is a small sign welcoming motorists to the Oregon Outback Scenic Byway. It’s a pleasant enough sign, adorned with a silhouetted coyote yipping at the rising sun, and seems appropriate in its understatement if only to remind people that the entire world is not made of concrete, steel, and inter-personal friction.
East by South: Down the Chewaucan with 700
Last week, while most of Big America was flailing about in a toxic stew of mind-numbing polemics, Murphy Ranch buckaroo Tyler Mecham was following wolf tracks up Dairy Creek. Tyler is 19 years old, 6’3, with Modoc blood in his veins, and as solid a hand as one might hope to find in this rare hidey-hole of genuine Americana.
A Cowman’s Paradise
We were riding up above it all, miles from the Murphy’s cow camp at South Flat in blowdown timber, when I saw the zucchinis. I can maybe be forgiven some momentary confusion – we’d been riding hard for several hours, chousing cattle out of some dangerously tangled alpine country – and I was feeling the fatigue from all of that when I came upon this unlikely pile of vegetables.
