Submit your comments on this article |
Home Front: Culture Wars |
This Week in Books, September 16, 2017 |
2017-09-17 |
Blood and Thunder Hapton Sides Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, 2006 The author of the book Ghost Soldiers takes us on a tour of the southwest, into the realm of the Navajo during the mid 19th century, centered around the frontiersman Kit Carson. Page 5 Carson was present at the creation, it seemed. He had witnessed the dawn of the American West in all its vividness and brutality. In his constant travels he had caromed off of or intersected with nearly every major tribal group and person of consequence. He had lived in the sweep of the Western experience with a directness few other men could rival. I have to admit that, at time, Mr. Sides came across as a bit too fawning, but overall I think he did an excellent job setting mood and adventure. Also, having been to Bent's Fort and other areas described in this book, Mr. Sides' candor did grow on me. Stephen Kearny's Army of the West heading towards Mexico: Pages 56-57 By early August, Kearny's troops were spread out over hundreds of miles of the Santa Fe Trail, inching forward in scores of separate caravans. Before making the final push into New Mexico, Kearny decided to pause long enough to concentrate his forces on the Arkansas at Bent's Fort, the adobe citadel where Kit Carson had briefly worked as a hunter back in the early 1840s. Mr. Sides really uses the times and location of Kit Carson as a vessel to recount an often neglected time and location in American History. The tactics and participants during the civil war, the march of the Pike's Peakers 1000 mile march recording 92 miles in one 36 hour period, Narbona, native burial rituals, General Sherman and Barboncito. Here, Kit Carson and company are in California: Pages 161-162 When it was good and dark, Carson and the two other volunteers crouched among the rocks and started sliding down Mule Hill. The slopes were composed of loose scree, and they decided their boots were making too much noise on the gravelly descent. Chemuctah was wearing soft moccasins, but Carson and Beale removed their boots and tucked them under their belts. Carson also worried that their canteens were sloshing and clinging too loudly, so they left them behind. Conflict, exploration, adventure carry the day in this quick reading book of about 400 pages of story and additional bibliography and index references. Perhaps my favorite part, though, is Kit Carson's journey to Washington, D.C. The title of the book, Blood and Thunder, is a reference to a genre of over-the-top Western novellas which came out during the period. As he was later in life: Page 392 For once, Carson seemed to enjoy the attention. He had come to accept his celebrity and was even a bit amused by it. He had long since given up fighting the fictions of the dime novels. The phenomenon was bigger than he was - why not enjoy it? When offered a copy of a recently published blood and thunder, he put on his spectacles and studied the cover for a minute. It showed an image of Carson with his arm draped around the slender waist of a beautiful buxom girl, surrounded by the corpses of countless freshly killed savages from whose clutches he had just rescued her. An entertaining and informative read; I am glad I purchased the hardcover edition. Link is to Amazon. This Week in Emergency Prepardness Naturally, there is an abundance of sites out there whose bloggers were directly impacted by the recent hurricanes. I will attest to their advice on what went right and what went wrong, especially since I am way out of hurricane land. The main take-away theme is, if the news, whose job is to whip up a frenzy so you stay tuned, is covering the event, you are already behind the 8 ball. Prep early, prep often. By prep I don't mean drinking your own urine to dig the well for an off-the-grid horse farm in the middle of a desert so you have horsepower after the NORKS nuke the space station and EMP us back to the disco age. Flat of water here, powdered Gatorade there, extra bottle of aspirin, soon there will be a decent cache with the cost spread around instead of $300 up front and a half hour of carrying water to and from wherever. Also, you get what you want, not what is left. And no, sharing a big box store with half a city's population spooked out their minds does not sound like a good time to me. Water, food, water, tools, water, gasoline seems to be the order of need. Shelter in place people who thought evacuating with 1/4 of Florida didn't sound fun. Can't blame them; imagining Denver evacuating to Kansas City or vice versa via I-70 sounds like a godddmfkn nightmare. Maybe someone here has done a trek like that....what do you take short of a Stryker? Why? Just a reminder, but the Antifa promised disruptions in November. Say 10% are true believers and will feel the need to do something. If you live in one of these riot-welcoming cities it would not take many to shut down main traffic centers, could cut electricity as a plan or side effect of fire fighting efforts, and so on. Riots can now be organized quickly and coordinated until if/when cell and internet are shut down. How would you be if that happened right now? Start from there. |
Posted by:swksvolFF |
#2 Mule Hill is in San Diego. You can see it driving south on Interstate 15 from Escondido. Wonder if I could find that book at my local Barnes and Noble? |
Posted by: Abu Uluque 2017-09-17 19:57 |
#1 Survival requires a couple of 10 pound bags of rice. No less than 30 gallons of water (in 6 5 gallon buckets), 100 pound tank of propane, and a camp stove, preferably a $100 one that comes with an oven. Bare minimum. Best to have 6 more storage boxes with other dried foods, clothes and toiletries and a small generator with a full 5 gallon gas can. That is for well supplied survival. Make sure one of the extra items is a comforter which retains body heat on the coldest days surprisingly well. |
Posted by: Threatch Jeamp8135 2017-09-17 17:32 |