No Place Like Home

The sink is leaking.  The tub drain stopper doesn’t work.   The toilet leaks.  The gutter pours more water on our doorstep than the storm does when it rains.  There are no screens and the walls and floor were filthy when we moved in.  

The landlord and his son are a pair of tragic comedians without meaning to be so, displaying more stupidity and ineptitude in one day of “maintenance” than I have witnessed in twenty years on construction sites.

But the floors are hardwood, a mix of local pine and cherry, mismatched, but swirled with gorgeous grain.  Our apartment is actually part of state history, an old classroom in what was one of the first schools for Negro children in Petersburg.  From the back window the Allegheny mountains roll away to the northeast, where blossoms of sarvis, redbud, apple, cherry, peach, and locust have begun to touch the dark grey-blue hills with color.

Another city, another epiphany of beauty in the midst of the rush and confusion, the grinding impatience and frustration, the endless waiting and sheer nonsensical hilarity of this thing called life.

There’s no place like home.

I must be thinking out loud again, because Cindy smiles that incredible smile and says one of those things that take my breath away.

“As long as I’m with you, I am home.”  She looks down at slender, graceful hands, one balancing a book, and nods as Dire Straits swings like sultans in the background of our tiny apartment.

 

“When we were out west, we talked about ‘home’, or-” she smiles and looks up at me over her glasses, “-’back east’ as you started calling it when we were trying to settle in.”  

Twin vertical lines appear between her eyes as those dark windows focus back over the last two years, and clouds drift over that sunny smile. 

“But we’ve gone so many places without finding a ‘home’, no matter how hard we tried.  Then we came home, but it wasn’t home, ever, not in the way we wanted it to be.”  She sighs, pushes hair away from her eyes.  “We’ve met so many people and lost touch with most of them and we kind of made ‘home’ where ever we both were.” 

Another smile, and she looks down at her hands again, my slender brown Madonna, curled like a cat in a rocking chair made in Nicaragua, wrapped in a black cotton khaftan from the opposite side of the world. 

“I like it that way.”

As do I, my love.

Thousands of miles of displacement, to so many places, doing such an assortment of things in a determined effort to make a home, the lessons learned and truths witnessed in a quest that never coalesced into that elusive prize have changed all the rules, perceptions and definitions. 

We’ve lived (as ‘extended houseguests’) in luxury and dwelt in the definition of austerity (a 12 by 24 foot studio apartment in a decaying hotel), fought rush hour traffic and bedbugs and black mold, crack head neighbors and ossified bureaucracy, camped in metropolis and on the edge of the wilderness, on moss and snow and sand and grass.  We’ve pulled cactus spines and lichen and a wide assortment of spiders from our persons, clothing, bedding, and tents, learned to sleep with the sound of trains and freeways and coyotes and bears snuffling through camp, and eaten more rice and beans than some locals in Nogales.  

We’ve memorized the basic street layout, rush hours, public transit, trash services, bad neighborhoods, recreational opportunities, area and zip codes of five major metro areas and a dozen outlying regions in which we routinely traveled, volunteered or camped.

We survived crossing the continent aboard Greyhound Bus Lines, twice, and if I ever find myself aboard another Greyhound, I will know that I have indeed died and gone to the deepest circle of Hell.

We have the run from east coast to west dialed, down to the day and the dollar; miles per gallon (25), miles per hour (65-75), hours per day (8-12), miles to destination (4027.6), power drinks, water, coffee and snacks in the cooler, everything it takes to cook, camp, and conduct the basics of daily life packed into a 4-by-5-by-7-foot space behind the cab and an endless supply of topics to discuss, even after all these miles and what is hard to believe has only been five years since I met this amazing woman and began the process of detachment and surrender that led to this Journey in the first place.

And now we find ourselves home, but without a home.

We have found shelter, and for that I am truly grateful as the storms of spring bring the heat and insects of summer.  I can see that Cindy has blossomed over this past year, making an amazing assortment of jewelry, hiking for miles in some pretty astounding terrain, on full days even I found to be a test, setting and surpassing personal goals in her climbing and keeping a positive energy through so many trials.

But I know she is tired.  As am I; tired, a little road worn, slightly disillusioned, and low on enthusiasm for sacred cows and cliché perspectives.

Well it’s rainin’ out in California

And up north it’s freezin’ cold

And this livin’ on the road

Is getting’ pretty old.

Or is it believin’ in just livin’, that’s such a hard way to go?

We’ve fought with the apathy of bureaucracy, the inner demons of anger and control and depression, battled together against Cindy’s Multiple Sclerosis with natural medicines augmented by lots of love and laughter and adventure, with good music, great food and an assortment of books for the rest days.  Our journey has led through an amazing cornucopia of natural wonders on public lands, stumbling across a vast, lost history that slumbers along the byways, tiny milestones of our heritage unseen in the race to the horizon.

We have shouted in too many deaf ears, listened to too many false promises and danced to the tune of too many repetitive, predictable rationalizations.  Too many people filled with envy for what they see as our 'leisure' (instead of determination and sacrifice) to live a dream the envious would not dare follow.

The perception may exist that we are ‘homeless by choice’, that Cindy could have remained here and stayed in standard treatment and I could have found work in the Valley, at the mill, retrained for employment, et cetera.

That conceit suffers from two fatal flaws: the first; that I could sit idly by and watch the woman I was falling in love with slowly die from the experimental drugs and narcotics that did nothing to treat her disease, only to mask its effects.

The second; that we would long remain free and outside the walls of a federal penitentiary given the zeal with which the war on Americans known as the Drug War was pursued by RUSH Task Forces and other acronym-laden police arms of Prohibition.

We had to leave, quite simply, so that we could remain free long enough for Cindy to heal.  Here in the East, disinformation and prejudice about medical use of cannabis has been deeply ingrained in people that routinely use opioids without a thought, people who are admittedly addicted to their assorted anti-depressants and pain relievers, who regularly vote for harsher penalties on cannabis users.

But the availability of medications for fighting Cindy’s disease and for use as a general sleep aid, performance enhancer (forget Red Bull and Viagra!) and guaranteed effective-every-time analgesic turned out to be just a foot note in the adventure, albeit a welcome one.  Thanks to our friend Sheri Erickson, Cindy was introduced to lion’s mane extract, a natural fungal extract created by Fungi Perfecti, the company owned by Paul Stamets, one of the world’s leading researchers into the uses of mushrooms and fungus in ancient cultures and as modern medical alternatives.

With regular ingestion of cannabis s and lion’s mane extracts, the change in Cindy’s health and functionality was revolutionary.  If this had been a product produced by one of the large medical companies, we would be on every talk show in America and writing the book and screenplay by now.

Instead, we kept track of the changes, as her nerves regenerated and the spasms in her legs and arms stopped.  The burning and tingling under her skin at the slightest pressure faded, as surface sensitivity, long overwhelmed by the static of overload, slowly returned.  She woke up better and faster, functioned more clearly, and showed improved memory, energy and reflexes. With the cannabis, she was able to eat and rest on “bad days” or after extreme exertion, usually recovering in two days instead of the week it had taken when we first met. 

Her Multiple Sclerosis episodes became infrequent, then virtually non-existent, beyond some occasional tiredness, usually on bad weather days when the titanium buried throughout her body ached in time to her arthritic spine and knees.  On those days, it was hot cannabis tea for breakfast, or pancakes with special butter, or the simple expedient of a deep lungful or two of some Indica strain that would level the boom on the pain.  Brownies or Ronin’s Rational Pasta Sauce for lunch, when the chef definitely exposed himself to the dangers of second-hand smoke, and then whatever milady might need til it was time to call it a night.

We went on websites and chat rooms and forums and shared this miraculous transformation on Facebook and Blogger.  No one wanted to know, beyond the people who already knew, who had relocated to cannabis-friendly states to avoid going to prison for being sick.  Our families operated in a frenzy of avoidance, trying at any cost to steer around the topic.  The cure for several of the most devastating diseases on earth, including cancer, had been found, and no one wanted to talk about it.

We gathered in, tightened down, cut away the dead weight and honed our art.  Life assumed a simple rhythm of rest and work, sleeping and eating, reading and sending emails and news, gathering and recycling the tons of aluminum and glass scattered along the highways of this country, tending to assorted chores during irregular forays into town, exploring the incredible array of mountains and canyons, forests and rivers in which we found ourselves traveling and camping.  Packing gear and making snacks, mixing energy drinks, to rise early and drive or hike out after it on some sweet chunk of stone either unknown or just unoccupied, or not, sharing the dawn with whatever other hardy souls have come out to greet the sun, stringing ropes and setting gear, clipping bolts and pulling until your flesh surrenders to the distance between desire and mortality.  Listening to the deep silence as it seeps into the inner spaces of your heart and stills the raging seas.

We have watched with the rest of the country as our elected representatives have lied and stolen, cheated and lost control, destroyed and covered their tracks, justified tyranny with security, wrapping their sins and errors in the flag, as did those in whose shadow they stand, in whose tracks they have walked.  Without the daily distractions of milk for the cat, vet appointments, kids’ plays, house payments, an ailing water heater, road work on the daily commute, office politics as usual, or reality TV, we’ve absorbed more than our share of raw data as our leaders have dismantled the country’s most basic and sacred safe checks and institutions, and as sensible people have supported demagogues whose only interest lay in the mirror.

We cranked out new lines and old, repaired and hiked trails I’d laid a decade ago, ate lots of citrus and local red chili burritos, camped under the stars of Apache Leap and talked about what America was becoming, from where we stood. 

In the west, where there was progress towards ending the pointless war on cannabis, we dealt with shady dispensaries, shifting city ordinances and political games between corrupt law officials and over-zealous supporters of legalization.  Meanwhile, knock-off oxycodone and hydrocodone and high grade methamphetamines were pouring in courtesy of the cartels. 

In the gorgeous desert where we camped and climbed, a huge multinational mining operation was threatening, no, actually, they were promising to destroy or render unusable land of incredible significance to both national and climbing history.  Resolution Copper was looking to save a few pennies on the ton for the vast wealth they were digging out from under the gorgeous plateau of Apache Leap, by using practices that no American mining company could legally employ, and they were (and still are) doing so with the support of Congress members who had sworn to defend this country and its interests and ideals.  Recreational users had fallen to infighting and squabbling over old feuds, and the classic areas had been beaten to dust as the tide of development and involvement simply turned away, leaving Queen Creek and Devils Canyon to their own fates. The advocacy groups which claim to represent climbers had only this year put a field operative in place, after this issue has gone on for most of the last decade.

It made you want to ask people what they were smoking, because cannabis does NOT make you that stupid.

Meanwhile, back in the city, in microcosm of the rest of the nation, pro-cannabis advocates tried to reconcile thug-lovers and trustafarians with Baby Boomers and middle-class grandmas, much the same way a man might attempt to herd cats with a badminton racquet, while the people who made millions waging the war on drugs just kept pushing the same old stereotypes and disinformation we had seen in the east.

It got old.

Damned old.

We had built trail, hosted events, and fed the homeless on a pittance, and we watched organizations and communities with millions in resources and massive PR machines pretend that they had no grasp of how to deal with obvious problems and realistic solutions.  Government and the advocacy groups clearly did not want to find solutions when they make a career out of searching for them, and the puppets who fund both deny the strings that jerk them around. Government officials tasked with providing volunteers with tools and missions are too burned out, under-funded, or unmotivated and clueless to have anticipated the next sunset.  Climbers were too caught up in the next Rendezvous, climbing DVD, pub crawl or gym session to do more than post on Facebook when we tried to share the truth, too focused on ‘the scene’ in exotic locations to find time to explore the wonders right at their doorstep.

We prayed, we meditated, we tried so hard, and in the end we simply stopped giving a damn on a lot of levels.  The price of making this our new ‘home’ seemed too high; crime, bureaucracy, wasted work and money while the real needs went unanswered, and the endless headache of dealing with hundreds and thousands of people going about the business of hating their very existence. 

Far worse were the givers.  Most of the people who seemed interested in our stories or offered any kind of job or help were like bad fairies out of an old Grimm tale; they either stung like scorpions out of sheer kindness, or we could not get rid of them, and/or they were mad as bloody hatters. 

We kept digging for those precious nuggets; loving the adventure and yet dumbfounded as our assorted friends donated to, supported, and promoted the stories of much better funded people who were doing the same thing we were, living on the road, but doing so with a film crew and corporate sponsors, without building trail or replacing hardware or putting up new lines, without the complications of Multiple Sclerosis, an empty bank account, and no fall-back to which one could retreat if things went astray.  Hot chicks in a new truck with a shiny Airstream are apparently more of what ‘soul climbing’ is about than two people in their fifties living out of a 6 x 8 foot tent, nursing a twelve-year-old truck across the country on a wing and a prayer.  

As we traveled, and in the many camps we had set, Cindy made some truly fine jewelry from native stones we found on our hikes, for which I created a webpage which was showered with praise and attention and Facebook ‘Likes’ by people who then turned around and bought their birthday and holiday gifts from strangers with a good sales pitch.

Faith is a gift we receive, if we are blessed, at a young age.  Losing it is a terrible battle, sometimes, or the stroke of a bolt out of the blue.  Trying to recall the exact moment at which you first felt that loss is like trying to catch hold of the retreating tide; it rushes away… it all rushes away.

But I stop, and put out my hand, and Cindy looks up from her book and smiles as I touch her cool skin, putting a finger in her book to close it as she reaches out to cover my hand with hers.

“What?”

And I know, again, how we have made it, so far, through so much, and how there always seems to be something to hold on to. 

Love.

Love levels all preconceptions of  your own heart, or what it can take, how many times it can break, and heal, and rise up to beat on. Love lifts the glory of the morning mountains and rolling clouds out of the rain, finds the tiny flowers that thrive along the shore of the flood, silences all of your laments against the song of a billion billion stars in a desert sky. 

Love fills an empty belly better than food, holds back the chill of night better than the warmest wrap, casts light into depths no lantern can plumb.  Love finds courage when the battle is long since lost, strength when there is no further to go, laughter to greet the arrogant advance of despair, and hope, to rise up, each one of us, all broken anew and remade, to try, once again, to forge dreams into days. 

Love is hearth and home in the midst of the wastelands.  Love is the unique note, echoing forever between two people, struck at the right time and in the right way to resonate, just so, a harmonic only they can taste, but which fills the world and souls around them with light and laughter.  Love connects families across the miles and beyond this veil of tears.  Love is the unspoken knowledge that true friends remain friends, even through the silence of years.

The bittersweet truth is that you cannot go home again, for ‘home’ is a shadow on the grass, a moving shape in the clouds, a whisper on the winds.

Home is not where the heart is.  Home is what the heart is.

We traveled thousands of miles to return to the place where it all began, only to find that the place we sought was gone with the winds that had first taken us away.

The sink is dripping.  The tub drain stopper doesn’t work.   The toilet leaks.  The gutter pours more water on our doorstep than the storm does when it rains, and it looks like rain. 

No worries.

We have enough love to weather any storm.

With love, there is no place like home.

One from the Back of the Rack

The Price of Prohibition

Check out the evolving cost of the Drug War at http://www.drugsense.org/cms/wodclock

All Else is Silence

Saw a news broadcast last night telling me that the Congressional "Gang of Eight" are working on a visa system to allow "thousands of low tech workers into America to fill labor demands."

Apparently, I missed the nationwide announcement and ensuing celebration when unemployment for our own citizens fell to 0%.  I definitely missed the call from whoever it is that has my new job and paycheck just waiting, from the housing authority with a ready apartment or home or even corner room in the barn that my wife and I can move into immediately, no background check or interview required.

We just released over one thousand detainees, some of them guilty or suspected of crimes far worse than illegal immigration, some of them linked to the cartels we are claiming to battle, some repeat offenders with a half dozen kids and thousands of dollars in unmade child support payments, children who will be taking grants and filling spaces in our universities as well as our job market, because apparently it the fault of American citizens, not their parents, that they were born here to illegal aliens.

And we just put those illegals right back into that job market, while Americans in that same store roam the aisles with empty carts, amid slim prospects, trying to mortgage their dreams with the worthless promises of a corrupt administration.

Eight states and the district of Columbia allow gay marriage, and most people really couldn't care less, would certainly never suggest that resolving the issue will stabilize the economy or unite the country.  The government is not currently spending a single thin dime to interdict gay marriage, prevent gay people from crossing the border, arrest gay pastors, seize the furniture and assets and buildings of churches where gay marriages are being performed, or using the RICO Act to prosecute people who have made a career of planning gay weddings.

But this topic dominated every newscast, every discussion panel and forum, on the internet, radio and television for the last week, as the SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES considered a question "newer than cell phones or the Internet", whether or not the "right to marry" and thus, gay marriage, was a human right, instead of merely a codified piece of civil registration and fee schedules that makes county and city governments a tidy little revenue from the happiness of couples in their jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, EIGHTEEN states have decriminalized medical uses of cannabis, Colorado and Washington State have legalized it entirely for recreational or medical use by responsible adults, the District of Columbia is getting ready to open its first dispensary and ten more states are discussing legislation to regulate, decriminalize, or legalize.  TRILLIONS of dollars have been spent, millions of man hours used, and the lives of tens of thousands of American citizens have been ruined.

But this same Supreme Court refused to even hear arguments for why the Federal Government should consider rescheduling or removing from the schedule an herb that has not caused a single fatality in the history of mankind.  There is no dialogue for differentiating between this herb and its cousin the industrious hemp plant.  There is no support or tolerance for an exchange of ideas that would let us rejuvenate our nation and end a war on our own people to protect corporate profit margins.

And while they continue the siege, these mountebanks, these autocratic, self-important, overfed, overweening fools have the audacity to come to the nation and say, with the emotionally-wrought pleas of an easily-manipulated crowd of idealists echoing behind them, that we must now give up our small arms because the United Nations, an organization to which we have not regularly paid dues or even attention in decades, now insists we do so, even as it insists that we continue the war on drugs and the failed racist policies of prohibition.

Free will cannot die in this deluge of irrational acts, no matter how deeply bowed by the anchor chains of regret, no matter how suffocated by the shroud of despair.  It can only catch fire, burning brightly, unafraid of the cost of speaking out, of speaking true.  If illegal immigrants need a "path to citizenship", if their children need a nation with opportunity and a future, then LET THEM GO HOME AND FREE THEIR OWN NATIONS!

And if the government of the United States is considering withdrawing troops from the Middle East, might I suggest that, instead of the Korean theater you have quite obviously been preparing ever since we chose to go to war with a country that "might" have Weapons of Mass Destruction (Iraq... oh, and Afghanistan????) instead of the one that had just proven their possession of the same by setting one off for the whole world to see, might I instead be bold enough, to have the crass audacity to suggest that we invade South America, kill the juntas and the tribunals and the narcolombians and CIA cash cows and that we wipe MS13 from the face of the world?

Or would that just get rid of too many boogeymen at one time, leaving virtually nothing to divide the United States, or the new United Hemisphere of Independent States?  No need for the prisons, the cops, the SWAT teams, no more material for COPS or candidates for American Midol, REAL lives to lead instead of a narcotic haze of vague fear and dissatisfaction?

Keep dreaming.

But this final word of promise, and all else is silence.

Keep sticking it to us, Washington, Wall Street, assorted state legislatures and police forces and extremists on the left and right.  Keep reaching through the bars with a long, sharp stick, poking at that vaguely-glimpsed shape that grumbles and stirs but still slumbers, slowly waking to rage, in the back corner of the golden cage you have built around mankind.

You will not rest, for you have sown the wind, and the wasteland in your heart hungers for that harvest.  You will not cease, until you wake the Dragon.

And on that day, in the hour when one burning eye finally opens and fixes you with its unwavering hunger, its unforgiving judgement and unquenchable rage, you will rest, this I promise you, for my hands will join the rising tide of millions who will put you to rest.

In peace, or in pieces.

Eagle Rocks: the unofficial guide

Eagle Rocks

This formation is one of the icons of the canyon, and is located just 2.2 miles from the Route 220 intersection on the south-east end of the canyon.  Opposite the campground entrance is the grave of William Eagle, Revolutionary War hero and local legend.

Eagle Rocks is a cluster of vertical limestone fins jutting from the flanks of Cave Mountain.  The Rocks are blessed with a plethora of cracks, aretes, dihedrals, and faces, vaguely reminiscent of Seneca in much the same way that the Tetons are reminiscent of breasts.  The 10th Mountain Division trained and climbed here, as had God knows how many brave little naked red hunters and local sweethearts; exposed to the elements and subject at any time to any of a number of sudden, perhaps catastrophic geological changes.  

The Rocks are covered with semi-detached flakes, stacks of loose stone, precariously-balanced blocks the size of stoves.  Trees, debris, and indeed entire large portions of the numerous faces can and will fall off without provocation or warning.  Apparently-solid rock can suddenly fracture and plunge earthward, taking you with it and sucking your belayer right through the first quickdraw.  Massive sections of the talus slope below can shift or collapse without warning, including sections which have until then been stable for years, centuries even.  

Trails were established by whitetail deer, black bear, local climbers and other unstable forms of indigenous life, and cannot be counted on not to hurl you to a painful and untimely death or even to get you to the crag and back again without winding up like the Donner party. 

Venomous snakes, stinging insects, biting animals, and vicious plants can and likely will attack you for absolutely no discernible reason, at any time, anywhere.  Being outside is a risky business, and you probably shouldn't do it if you are unwilling or unable to accept those risks as your own responsibility.

Climbing Eagle Rocks is especially dangerous, for the reasons noted above and many, many more.  The face is spotted with old pins and ring angles left behind by soldiers before the Second World War, some of them psychotic killers, many of them unstable young men terrified by the enormous exposure and pushed to the limits of sanity by bad food, homesickness, venereal disease contracted from local girls, abuse from overbearing homophobic drill instructors and the challenge of trying to follow driving instructions from the locals.  Almost all of them arrived and departed equally inexperienced in the placement of protection (thus the venereal diseases).  A few, like Fred Becky, went west and figured it out way up in Leavenworth, WA or out in the Sierras. 

More modern gear like rappel anchors, face bolts, and cold shuts may have been and likely was installed by drug-addled, brain-damaged trad climbers with a pathological resentment of gymbies and newcomers, deeply-seated antisocial issues, no sense of personal safety or respect for the sanctity of human life, and an addiction to Seneca Indian Pale Ale. 

(Of course the author has no personal knowledge of this possibility.)

No anchor, bolt, piton or ring angle should be trusted to save your life.  Of course, removing these items, as well as found biners, gear laying on ledges or left in cracks and pockets or anything else that you didn't bring with you constitutes reckless endangerment, vandalism, destruction of private property, and theft and the landowners as well as the NFS will likely prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. 

Don't steal our stuff.  Not our hardware, not our beta, not our projects, and not our gear.  Lynching is socially embarrassing, and prison is a bad place, worse even than Eagle Rocks, and you don't want to go there.  The coffee is horrible, there's no Net Flix, and room service is something you really don't want.

While Eagle Rocks are private property, the family which owns it is pretty casual about access.  They are also pretty casual about having the aging outhouses pumped or picking up trash or mowing.  Camping is pick your spot and do as you please, fees are collected sporadically, usually late in the morning, by the aging landowner.  Climbing is your call and your liability: you cross the river, you take responsibility for yourself.

There is no real record of who first climbed the trad and aid lines of Eagle Rocks, or indeed much of Smoke Hole.  Every first ascent is a theoretical first ascent in an area so devoid of shared knowledge and so commonly visited by strong climbers in the early days of climbing. What records do exist have rarely been available to anyone except the close personal friends of the Seneca Rocks guiding community, and requests for information are a fine way to waste a rainy morning or fill a gap in the conversations on the front porch. 

(For an example of this need-to-know attitude, ask the guides how they are getting into Champe Rocks.) 

Routes listed are those the author has climbed, names given are for reference and to avoid endlessly calling everything “Unknown #13”.  Route descriptions begin with the West End (the left side of the front, in other words).

West End

The West End of Eagle consists of Little Eagle, a small buttress, adjoining The Chimney Face, a corner of ledges and incredibly featured (and fractured) faces, culminating in a wide, rotten chimney running the entire height of Eagle Rock.  

Undoubtedly, this face has seen many fine epics, ascents, and retreats, but there has been little to no consistent record keeping of these milestones.  The author has rapped, top-roped, and even led portions of this face, and recommends strongly that anyone choosing to set out on the sharp end climb extensively on other Eagle lines or on rock of the same quality and composition before attempting what you think will be a new line.  

A wealth of moderate and horrifying routes alike can be winnowed from the cracks and faces of the corner.  Several long cracks split the right side of the dihedral, with tons of loose and/or low-quality rock, rotten cracks, bee’s nests that stay active year round, poison ivy, and everything else that goes with the term “epic climb”.  

It is also important to remember that, lichen and loose rock aside, few if any “new” trad lines remain to be plucked on such a prominent feature so close to the road. 

Little Eagle**** (5.7PG, natural anchors, pro to 3 inches, 55 feet.  Climb the short, featured river face of the small pillar formation at the far left (downstream) end of Eagle Rocks.  At mid-height, move up right to a vegetated ledge below a face, make a few unprotected moved to easier ground and a fantastic finish.  Rap from boulders or walk off.

To the right (upstream), is the South Face.

South Face

Karma Cracks***** (5.9 R/PG, gear to 6 inches, anchors at belay stations 1 and 3, 285 feet)  (P1) 40’ from the left end of the formation base, up and left of the steps leading up from the old road, climb a short grungy face to a ledge, usually inhabited by poison ivy to some degree or other.  Move up and left to a stance with a two bolt ring anchor.  45‘  (P2) Move up and left into an obvious slot on the face above, which leads into a wide crack snaking up a clean face.  Climb several exciting moves up and right where the wide crack ends to gain another good crack.  Climb this to a stance at a pine tree in a beautiful corner to end on the Original Route, or climb up and left to gain a wide ledge with a beautiful cedar tree and the featured end of the fin.  100‘  (P3 Original Route) Climb the corner to a vegetated ramp/ledge that climbs steeply up and right towards the top of the main formation, ending at a set of rings on a fin of rock above the crack that ends Welcome to Eagle Rocks. 65 feet   (P4 Silhouette Variation) From the ledge with the cedar climb the sweet cracks and face of the West End to the top and traverse the knife edge to anchors.

The Original Route**** (5.6R/PG) - From the road, the corner that leads to the final crack is fairly obvious.  From the ground, it can be harder to find.  Begin in a low angle, left-facing dihedral, which can get pretty vegetated in spring and summer.  Move up into steeper and hopefully cleaner climbing in the long, moderate dihedral, moving right to gain the Welcome mid-face station or belaying from the gear placements and stance of your choice. Gain the ledge below the final crack and follow classic moves to the top.

Welcome to Eagle Rocks***** (5.8 R/PG, gear to 4 inches, rings, 190 feet)-  Near the center of the West Face, about 30 feet right of the steps up from the old road, begin in a right-facing corner formed by a huge flake/ramp.  (P1) Boulder up to access a ledge with a column of freestanding blocks leading to a left-facing dihedral/flake.  Climb classic flake and stemming with slightly runout pro to finally gain a ledge with two trees and a comfortable stance at ring anchors in the middle of the face.  100 feet.  Enjoy a snack, shoot some pictures, or just swap gear and head into (P2) Move left around the loose flakes overhead to gain a corner and flakes.  Climb enjoyable flake and face moves up to a ledge below a slot/crack.  Climb the slot and crack to a stance up and right at ring anchors. 90 feet. 

Patriot Games**** (5.8 R, gear to 4 inches, natural anchors/shared, 190 feet)  From the end of the first pitch of Welcome, climb up and right to gain a series of corners, ledges, and detached flakes.  Climb flakes and corners past old ring pins to gain a stance just below the flag and notch in the face near fading graffiti ED.  Move up thru rattley flakes and ledges to end at a walk off or 4^th class around the top to gain the rap anchors above the Notch or (this is actually free-soloing- stay roped up!)  the anchors of Welcome.

Kimmel’s Corner**** (5.8, gear to 4 inches, 80 feet) - Instead of starting on the Welcome column and corner, move right 20 feet and climb the long flake and face to eventually gain the mid-face belay ledge.  Beware loose blocks just before you reach the belay. 

William’s Way**** (5.5 R/PG, gear to 4 inches, 300 feet) - Climb the first pitch of Obvious Direct.  At the mid-face belay, wander up and right, across mainly 4^th class ledges, to gain the Notch and more 4^th class terrain.  Switchback, free solo and scramble up through the Notch to the top.

Local stories hold that a Native American local used to climb this route every year on the 4^th of July, to commemorate William Eagle’s ascent of the rock in search of an eagle’s nest and a lost lamb.

The Notch and Eastern Buttress

At the center of the formation, a large Notch divides the South Face from the Eastern Buttress.  At the base of this feature, a crack/dihedral accesses the 4^th class terrain and faces above. 

Notch Direct*** (5.8+ PG, gear to 4 inches, natural anchors, 100 feet) - Climb the crack through a small overhang, then follow cracks and corners up and right.  Chase 4^th class ledges back and forth to the top or climb the surprisingly challenging faces at the center of the Notch.  Exit via rap anchors on the back of the fin to the right (east) of the Notch.

This entire section of the cliff is a drain for the face and ridge above.  It can get pretty tangled with fallen branches and leaves, and stay wet for long after the other faces have dried.  Beware of snakes and bees.

Notch Indirect** (5.7PG, gear to 4 inches, natural anchors, 100 feet) – Boulder/scramble up left from the base of the crack, through easier to climb but harder to protect terrain, until you reach a vegetated ledge.  Move right back into the original corner.

Just left of the Notch is a surprisingly flat, high-angle slab face.  A line of bolts ascends this face to a set of ring anchors.  This is the Begoon-Hensley Route.

Begoon-Hensley**** (5.11, 6 bolts, ring anchors, 65 feet) Thirty feet right of the Notch, a clean greenish face sports a single line of bolts.  Follow ripples and grooves past 6 bolts to reach the anchors.  While this is a bolted route, it is NOT a sport line.  The anchor was installed by the author after the tree originally used fell off in a storm.

Orange Dihedral**** (5.9PG, gear to 4 inches, natural anchors, 135 feet) To the right of the Begoon-Hensley route, the face ends in an overhanging cave-like formation, leading into a left-facing dihedral.  Climb the dihedral to a small slab ledge with a tree, and belay there (no bolted anchors), or run it on up to the summit and rappel with two ropes from trees, or from the anchors on the back of the fin about 50 feet west or downstream.  You can also walk about 75 feet east (upstream, towards Cave Mountain) and come around the end of the entire formation to scramble down through deep leaves and forest back to the base.  This line often has poison ivy growing in the middle of the long first pitch.

There are numerous small faces to the left (south) of the Orange Dihedral that can be set up as top ropes or leads.  Beware all the usual hazards: poisonous and thorny vegetation, loose rock, snakes and bees, and sketchy protection.

Reason Lies Far From Home

"Seriously ill persons who need marihuana to treat their symptoms are forced to choose between their health and their liberty. If they choose their health, they must go to significant lengths to obtain the marihuana they need, including lengthy trips to purchase the drug, resort to the black market, and living with the constant stress that at any time they could be subject to criminal prosecution.

These already sick individuals must further cope with the added stress of the stigma and social rejection of friends, family and members of the public who see them as criminals.

This is not to mention the real fear of losing one's doctor simply by inquiring about the drug and damage to the patient-doctor relationship."

While our Supreme Court refuses to even entertain evidence to change the scheduling of cannabis, Ontario's Supreme Court struck down all that province's medical marijuana laws until such time as the government sees fit to create a functioning structure instead of an obstacle course.  The Court put the Government on 30-day notice to resolve the issue before the law took effect.

Hey, Mister Obama, assorted Justices... Why don't we "create a path" for citizens to get their meds, like Ontario, before we worry about giving away any more jobs or spending money instead of making it?

http://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2011/04/13/Ontario-Judge-Rules-Canadas-Marijuana-Laws-Unconstitutional

Doc Goodwack- WV 's Unknown Hardman

There's this guy I know, have known for what seems like half of forever.  A few inches past 6 feet tall, he has a wide smile, an open manner and a straightforward delivery, in an unmistakable Southern accent, gesturing eloquently and making eye contact with every listener when he gives directions or beta or relates some hilarious construction tale or heinous epic in one of WV's many lost corners.

He's pretty quiet, keeps to himself, mostly, although at the crags he's usually noteworthy for the fact that he's one of the only people you will see actually working on the trail or replacing worn-out hardware at the routes, without Access Fund banners, a free T-shirt, or a horde of networking Facebook friend participants and their dogs.  You might also note that his is one of the few rides pumping serious metal as it rolls in or out of the crag... no Dave Matthews here, ladies. If it ain't metal, it's crap.

He is a master home builder and expert carpenter who has done more work for poor people for little or nothing than most Habitat for Humanity offices.  He is also an expert on the Shaw Brothers' kung fu films, and an ardent fan of science fiction and action movies, good cooking, beautiful women, motocross and the Colt AR-15.

He is a patriot in a country that has almost forgotten the real meaning of that word; a man who has stood by his ideals and what he calls The System; the way things should be done when putting up new routes, building trail, or traveling in the outside world.

This is my friend Mike Fisher, aka Doc Goodwack, the creator of some of Franklin Gorge's classic pumpfests; Two Blind Mice, A Moment of Clarity, Persephone, the fun Jump Start and the thuggish Davy Jones' Locker, as well as Pendelton County five star lines like Hunter's Moon, Shaolin Mantis, Apophus, Slight of Hand and Defenders of the Faith.  He's the man who introduced me to the key principles of the Fisher Manuals, inking them inside the front cover of my "Rockingham County Climber's Guide":

1.  Eat meat every day.
2.  Drink good wine or ale every day.
3. Work hard, play hard, go to bed hard and wake up hard.
4.  Accept NO STUDENTS!

Together, we've built miles of trail and put up somewhere in the neighborhood of 45 routes, sport and trad, many of them ground-up in bitter conditions on occasionally horrifying rock.  There are harder climbers in the region, but they don't build much trail or take the time to carefully craft high-quality routes anywhere outside "The Scene", and since most of them make a paycheck from climbing, one could view their involvement as just a trifle self-serving.

In sharp contrast to 95% of the climbers in the world, Mike Fisher has always tried to give as much to climbing as he has gotten from climbing.  He has raised the bar and never compromised his integrity to simply slap in another poorly cleaned/bolted 5.12 or impress anyone.

The Master at work: Mike Fisher focusing his chi on the first ascent of La Machina

And because I know that that few others have, it's high time I said, publicly,

Thank you, Mister Fisher.

Climbing in our little corner of WV wouldn't be what it is today if it weren't for you. Trails at the crags, especially Franklin and Reed's, would long ago have faded back into the landslides they were when we started.  God knows, it wasn't until they saw us working on those trails that the Access Fund had ANY interest in West Virginia, outside New River and Seneca, and they're still incapable of matching, as an organization with hundreds of members, the work two of us have done with little or no support or fanfare.

Most of the best and/or hardest routes I know of have your name on them, and few of mine would exist without your input, belays, and constant encouragement to never stop trying.

I have been and will ever be your friend and student, my master.

Climb on.

A Year In Motion, and Counting...

This post will continue to evolve as I add up different totals of materials used and think of tips for travelers.
-mg

On March 9, 2012, with my wife Cindy riding shotgun, co-pilot and navigator, I left behind a fantastic job with the Flagstaff Family Food Center in the northern Arizona city of Flagstaff and, with it, all the comforts of indoor living.  

We ate a fine dinner from the Food Center, then headed south through Jerome and Prescott as the moon rose, finally joining I-17 to reach Phoenix and make the run for Devils Canyon before sunrise.

This was not our first rodeo.

We left our longtime home in West Virginia on the July 4th holiday weekend of the previous year, camping our way across the west through most of the spring and summer of 2011.   After getting married in the tiny Chapel of the Holy Dove outside Flagstaff in August, we had spent the fall and winter months living indoors; moving into an apartment in September and starting two jobs in the same week; as a line cook for San Felipe's and a Bobcat operator for Flagstaff Snow Removal.

After five months in the furious rush of San Felipe's, I had applied for and landed the job of Operations Assistant at the Food Center; picking up donations, directing community service workers and volunteers, assisting the cooks, preparing and doing clean up in the facility before and after preparing meals for up to three hundred and fifty people.  With my lovely new bride, I'd weathered some tough times in those six months; crackhead neighbors, black mold, bedbugs, trying to find my way back into a young man's labor market on the verge of my 50th birthday and handling flare-ups of my wife's Multiple Sclerosis.

When serious news came back from the east, we were ready to break away, first heading to Joshua Tree, California for a week of high desert plateau sun and fantastic granite climbing, then camping on the rim of Northern Devil's Canyon, just outside Superior, Arizona, for another week of pulling down some serious desert dacite before being chased south and east by a two-foot snowfall.  

We spent the next two days outrunning microbursts and hailstorms while driving 2400 miles back to the east coast, there to deal with too many heartbreaks to list here.  We gratefully looked forward to our rendezvous with the annual migration of the Lyndon State College Outdoor Adventure Program, in Smoke Hole Canyon, a lost corner of heaven in West Virginia.  Jamie Struck was once again leading a group of enthusiastic students to the hills of the Allegheny to work on trails, climb our stellar stone, puzzle out our cruxes, explore our mountains and take something of God's country back north with them. 

The least we could do was meet up with them.

We spent five weeks building trail, taking photographs, climbing, visiting with family and friends, and polishing some of the details of the guidebook I'm writing and trying to publish.  We met a new class of Lionhearts, some of Lyndon State's finest young souls, saw our daughter Rebecca graduate from nursing school, and visited with Cindy's family in Ohio after her father's heart surgery.

On May 7th, we bid farewell, once again, to the green valleys and rolling mountains of the east, making the passage from Logan, Ohio to Colorado Springs in just over 72 hours (not bad for a couple of geezers in a thirteen-year-old S10 pickup truck full of gear).

After a bit of rest and recovery at the well-appointed home of our friend and brother, The Tall Man, we headed out to see more of this place called Colorado.

We camped and climbed and gaped our way through our allotted fourteen days in Boulder Canyon, clipped bolts and slung gear and in general loved every minute of Eleven Mile, then  hung out on for a week or three, working a handyman job and exploring the nearby hiking and climbing on BLM land surrounding the tiny pro-cannabis industry town of Nederland, Colorado.  

We lived at 10,500 feet amid moose and marmots at Brainard Lake Rec Area in the Front Range of the Rockies, jammed the splitters of Turkey Tail in the Platte and pulled on the crumbly granite of Buena Vista, Colorado. 

When we arrived at the entrance of the state park outside Gallup, New Mexico just seven minutes after closing time, we found the gates locked and no way to contact the host aside from waiting out the night, sleeping in our truck. Consequently, we finished the drive from Colorado Springs to Superior, Arizona in a single thirteen hour, eight hundred mile push. 

We've served as National Forest hosts and volunteers, line cooks and wait staff, restaurant management and janitors, dishwashers and landscapers, vagabonds and dumpster divers. We've dealt with divas and trophy wives, bureaucrats, boy scouts, high rollers and low riders, gangstas, cougars and crackheads.  We've eaten out of delicatessans, dumpsters and soup kitchens, enjoyed a midwinter bumper crop of desert produce and citrus from new friends and reveled in the simple luxury of a six-pack of brews or a CiCi's Pizza Buffet.

Most of our meals have been prepared on a single burner propane stove, requiring seventy fuel canisters over the last twelve months.  The stove, fuel cannister, steel 1 liter bottle for olive oil, french press, dish detergent, canola cooking spray, spatula, can opener, nesting pots and two bowls fit into cylindrical 4 gallon Igloo water cooler.  

Stove tip: an old metal bucket with the bottom rusted out makes a great windscreen for a Coleman single burner.  Raise on rocks for added venting or improved windscreening.  A rolled up ground pad will work, as well, but you will have to take care not to melt a hole in your sleeping arrangements.


We've brewed at least eighteen pounds of coffee, mixed it with about ten pounds of sugar and chocolate and creamer, brewed six pounds of assorted tea, eaten over twenty pounds of pasta, with ten gallons of sauce, gone through at least three gallons of olive oil, used roughly twenty pounds each of beans and rice, eight pounds of cheese, ten pounds of butter, filled about five hundred tortillas with everything from chili to peanut butter and honey, spread or spooned ten gallons of peanut butter, nearly as much honey and maple syrup, mixed about twelve pounds of pancake and biscuit mix, opened about eighty cans of chicken and tuna, and cooked over six cases of ramen noodles, as well as boiling about ten pounds of oatmeal with four pounds of raisins and three pounds of figs.  We learned to use solar energy to make tea, rice, pasta, and ramen noodles, saving on propane.

From that energy, we've pruned, built or repaired hundreds of yards of trail, shot sixty-four hundred plus photos and about nineteen hours of video, hiked over one hundred miles in exploration and climbed two hundred and six routes in four states, reuniting with old climbing partners Rich LeMal and Marty Karabin to create several new lines in the Pancake House of Upper Devils over the Thanksgiving holiday, as well as putting up four new sport lines (one bolted ground up) in five weekends over the 2012-13 Christmas and New Year's holidays, while revisiting and repeating a dozen of my old areas and lines in Northern Devil's Canyon.

Marty, Rich, and Cindy prepare Thanksgiving Dinner, Upper Devils Canyon, AZ

We've been through three tents, two from Coleman and one from Ozark Trails, and retired a Mountain Hardwear 2-man for anything except emergencies. 

Tip for tents:  standing room is nice, but a smaller tent means less wind resistance and fewer broken poles when those gales try to tumble your camp across the plateau no matter how much weight you put in it.  

Regular washings using a spray bottle and a wiping cloth will save the zippers from wearing out due to dust build-up, and a $20 tarp will save your $150 dollar rain fly from UV, falling twigs, hail, and ice.


We use an MSR water filter ($89 at Peace Surplus in Flagstaff, 'cuz we LOVE Local Businesses!), which field strips and cleans simply and quickly, and has pumped hundreds of liters of water without problems.  

A lot of folks have spoken in envy of their opinion that we are "living the dream."

Perhaps we are... if your dreams include hunger, arctic cold, gale force winds, ice and snow storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, baking heat, insect swarms, humidity, rats and/or mice gnawing the wiring of your vehicle and foodstores, wet feet, weeks between showers while living in the same clothes, or the reality check of dividing the number of packs of ramen noodles by the number of days til payday and coming up with a fraction.  

If you being dream of being looked down on and treated as a second-class citizen throughout your day, even in the "outdoor community",  and getting constant attention from police and Forest Service Law Enforcement (except, of course, when you need it, like when someone is shooting up your campground in the middle of the night), this is your dream.  

If you long to work for the cream of humanity, doing shit jobs for low pay just to make ends meet, worrying on a more or less constant basis about someone breaking into your truck or raiding your camp and leaving your destitute while you are doing this incredibly rewarding work, this is the life for you.

If you feel no sense of despair, realizing the distance between ethics and action, between conviction and commitment, or wondering why all the folks who will spend a weekend pub crawling or soaking up "the Scene" at a "destination crag" even bother with the mealy mouth protestations about "wanting to get out to the new crags", when they obviously have little or no interest in pushing the boundaries or exploring new ground without an entourage, you were born to live like us. 

In the end, among many other lessons we've learned on the road, my wife and I have realized that all the people who sound so envious are the same people who never seem to have time to come out for even a day or two to live a little of "The Dream" for themselves.  Reality is a potent remedy for delusion, and most folks cherish those delusions far too much to so simply cast them aside in favor of hard decisions and uncomfortable facts.

Maybe it takes some of the same discipline of spirit, the same deviant orientation and stubborn individualism that keeps us out here, despite all the inherent epics and suffering, to consistently seek out and develop new climbs and climbing areas.  

Maybe that's why there's never been a crowd at the cutting edge.  For all of its hardships, though, this is a life with many rich rewards, treasures beyond price for those who will find the lessons in hardship and adversity, and look for the beauty in even the most desolate of landscapes or desperate of existences.  

I have not always been able, but I have tried.

As of yesterday, March 9th, 2013, the POWER (Poor Old White Economic Refugee) Couple has lived on that edge, on the road, out of a truck and a series of tents, tarps, and shelters, in campgrounds and climber ghettos, on BLM, NFS and state trust land, from Joshua Tree, CA to Albemarle County, VA, for exactly one year. 

No "roughing it" with a brand-new pickup and sixteen-foot-long RV, no international corporate sponsors, no Access Fund, American Alpine or Sierra Club grants, no donations, no viral Go-Pro video, no Twitter account or fan base, no book signings... just putting up new lines, building and repairing trails, seeing all the places America has forgotten in the rush to the next big thing; keepin' it real, and livin' on love and a prayer.

The State of the Union: SSDD

Anyone else watch Backflip Obama's State of the Union speech? 

Can anyone name a single REAL issue Obama is going to confront in the next four years? 

With 18 states passing laws to legalize cultivation, distribution, and use of hemp and medical cannabis, and TEN more with pending legislation to do the same (that's twenty-eight, potentially), as well as two (Washington and Colorado) that have passed laws to tax and regulate recreational cannabis use just like tobacco and alcohol, our cutting-edge, will-of-the-people-minded lame duck president and game-playing Congress moved quickly to do... NOTHING about addressing the question of cannabis, or patient and states' rights.

No new ideas, no new information, and absolutely NO acknowledgement of the fact that there is only one bi-partisan, bi-gender, multiracial, multi-generational idea that is sweeping America: the end of racist-based Prohibition; a war on its own citizens that is ruining American lives and communities. 

How could hemp/cannabis legalization affect the issues the President did talk about?

We need better schools- which can be paid for, in part, with taxes from sales and certifications, application and permit fees from equipment sales, growers, dispensaries, teachers, doctors, training centers and clinics.

We need to reduce the strain on Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare.  I actually believe the answer to this is to start by cutting off everyone with an annual income or net worth over $250,000 who currently receives payments or benefits from these programs, as well as making sure we are only sending checks to real, living people and actual U.S. citizens.

But to return to the benefits and potentials of hemp and cannabis: it has been demonstrated, repeatedly, that the disabled and seniors benefit from interaction with growing things.  A healthy garden crop of cannabis will reduce the need for narcotics and experimental meds with their numerous side effects, allowing patients to produce their own medicines in a positive feedback loop as well as earning a tidy nest egg for both the grower and the state when sold to local dispensaries or at festivals, concerts, and seasonal tasting events.  And a co-op or senior center that produces an acre or ten of hemp will quickly find every bit of its product, root, leaf, and stem, in demand from a fiber-hungry public.

We need equal opportunity for women- Plants grow for anyone, regardless of gender, and most of the bud tenders and dispensary staffers I've met in the West were females who were quite well paid for providing informed choices and supporting the local economy. Cannabis and hemp technologies are cutting edge, with no limits on who can participate or how high they can rise, save for those draconian measures instituted by the federal government to limit profits on the herb to those lobbyists and corporations footing the bill for re-elections.

We need to help our school children compete on a global scale, preparing them for jobs before they leave high school by grounding them in advanced knowledge... but we fill their heads with outright lies regarding the properties of cannabis and actually obstruct investigation into the potentials of one of the most ancient of medical herbs, or the potential uses of its COMPLETELY NON-PSYCHOTROPIC cousin, hemp, a plant that once formed the backbone of agriculture and the textile industry and led ALL U.S. exports.

We need to ensure that our returning veterans will have not only jobs but adequate medical and psychological resources to deal with their traumas. Only cannabis can treat PTSD with NO CHANCE of addiction or overdose, two things that have claimed so many of our returning veterans. Dealing with growing things has been demonstrated to be invaluable in PTSD therapy, as well, so let's put some of our returning heroes into grow operations, tending the plants they also use, and patrolling the National Forests for illicit grow-ops.

Veterans uniquely solve the security issues of dispensaries and delivery services... who is going to attempt a hold-up with a pair of armed veterans behind the counter or the wheel? No one with a high chance of surviving the first ten seconds of that encounter... thus reducing the mostly-wasted cost of processing, jailing, then rehabilitating the perpetrators.

Let us return to those illicit grow-ops. 

How is it that our government leases vast tracts of public land to ranchers whose cattle create massive erosion, devour scarce native vegetation, and foul the waterways, to private corporate recreation interests who hunt the baited game inside their boundaries with 4WDs and dogs, spotlights and sniper rifles, to timber companies that buy hundred-year-old trees for a dollar apiece and to mines that level our mountains and erase historic landmarks as they export our mineral wealth right out of the country, and yet that same government does NOT allow its poorer citizens to use land managed by the Department of Agriculture to grow useful and marketable crops?  If hemp and cannabis were legalized and regulated, thousands of acres of fallow land could be planted and made useful, small farmers would once again have a guaranteed cash crop (if we are smart enough to stop subsidizing farming operations whose clear profit is over $100,000/yr or who are corporate or foreign owned).

We need to rejuvenate our cities. To do this, the Federal Government needs only do what it is so good at: NOTHING. 

As in NOT raiding self-supporting education centers where caregivers and patients are taught how to grow and utilize hemp for fiber and cannabis to produce their own medicines, small business owners are educated in the process of setting up dispensaries, smoke shops, and hemp clothing stores, and MILLIONS of dollars pour into the surrounding communities as a result.

As in not arresting and destroying the business efforts of a man whose only crime was that he was more successful than Lilly-Squibb because he was selling natural remedies instead of narcotics, or breaking down the doors of seniors and families and veterans to kill their pets and ransack their homes for a false tip or a half-ounce of a plant that has never killed anyone... unlike the police. 

Our President has threatened to use Executive Order to enact gun controls, against the will of the majority, which would cost this country jobs and tax revenues, closing businesses and driving away industry, all while dividing the electorate.  Obama has already used this power to invade another country and kill a dangerous terrorist without due process.  He signed the Indefinite Detention Act into law in a secret move at midnight of New Years, something America did NOT need.

But Obama"cannot" use this same power to stop imprisoning and killing American citizens for having cancer, MS, or PTSD.

Cannot... or will not?

When will this black-and-liberal-as-he-needs-to-be tool of multinationals corporations finally admit he is just a puppet?  Will he ever acknowledge the fact that more people want an end to Cannabis Prohibition than the number who favor gun control, immigration reform, or the re-election of Barack Obama?

One good thing did come out of last night's speech and the previous weeks. Joe Biden is in charge of the effort to implement gun control. Does anyone else remember that "Happy Hour" Joe was also put in charge of the original War on America... sorry... War on Drugs, back in the Reagan/Bush heyday?

Let's look at the progress that particular effort has made:

We have spent several billion dollars, incarcerated any number of non-violent patients, veterans, music lovers and teens, destroyed families and communities, shut down tax-paying, local law abiding businesses small and large, created a corporate rehabilitation industry, log-jammed our courts and filled our prisons.

We have oxy- and hydrocodone clinics in Florida that dispense narcotics like breath mints, killing 17 people every day and filling the jails and hospitals of the surrounding states with addicts. We have meth labs that no longer require even a single room... the cartels can cook up a batch in a 2 liter soda bottle in a half hour that will ruin the lives of hundreds of people, with commonly-available materials.

We have a host of "potpourris" and "bath salts" (artificial cannabis and cocaine substitutes), both of which can lead to psychosis and death, available in convenience stores across the country to anyone, regardless of age, because as fast as the DEA makes up special laws to interdict them, the formula is changed enough to make them legal again and a whole new round of emergency room visits and psychotic reactions begin, with the government chasing its tail like a rabid dog.

Ecstasy and blue moly are as easy to get as a cold, and college students are consuming both, along with a sea of booze (oh, but that's Joe's drug of choice, so no problem), as well as carrying on a thriving trade in pharmaceutical speed, street-quality meth, and good old heroin.

Given this level of success for Joe's past efforts, I predict that his participation in gun control will mean that, in the next decade, MS13 and the cartels will have streetcorner sales points for automatic weapons (likely purchased from Fast and Furious Eric Holder), and 95% of North America, Mexico, Central and South America will have either a fully-automatic weapon, body armor, an armored vehicle, or their own weapon-bearing drone, if not ALL OF THE ABOVE.  

Which will be the only thing protecting us from whichever tyrants replace the one currently languishing in the Oval Office.

Inconsistency

Over the past four years, Mexicans have been locked up and deported in record numbers, while young black men and Negro veterans have been imprisoned and/or killed for doing exactly what the black man currently in the Oval Office laughed about having done as a youth, while cancer, PTSD, and MS patients and seniors have been forced back into the black market, had their homes raided and their children held at gunpoint while their pets were killed, despite that black man in the Oval Office's implied promise, during his last campaign, NOT to target medical cannabis users and suppliers.

Nonetheless, in the wake of a huge Latino turnout in November and the tragedy at Sandy Hook, gun control and immigration reform have become the primary focus of the second term, despite the fact that the Oval Office itself lost guns that later killed Federal agents, that dozens of Sandy Hooks have happened all over this country in the last decade without a meaningful peep from the press or the Prez, and despite the fact that immigration, legal and otherwise, is at 10% of the levels we had in 2000.

Ignore the fact that armed thugs in body armor are smashing in front doors and holding children of the exact same ages at gunpoint, so long as THOSE criminals have a badge.

Pay no mind to the fact that a far higher percentage of people than EVER voted for Obama think that cannabis and its cousin hemp should be taken off of the Federal Drug Schedule and regulated like alcohol and tobacco, a truly bipartisan moment that every facet of the press on the left and right is doing its very best to ignore; 

How do you talk meaningfully about "growing the economy" when, due to your actions and those of your Attorney General, the once prosperous city of "Oaksterdam" and the state of California have both lost millions in tax revenues due to Federal disruption of state-certified businesses and trade, while other states with cannabis legislation waste months in which they could be generating tax revenue, jobs, and new businesses, awaiting a Federal interpretation of intent regarding respect of their laws?

How do you justify Federal silence and inaction when almost half the states in the Union currently allow medical use of cannabis or have decriminalized personal possession? 

How can you talk about immigration reform and border violence and still not act to reduce the profitability of cannabis smuggling for the cartels, thus reducing their ability to buy guns, bribe politicians and cops or maintain a strong enough presence to dominate a region?

Latinos are voting in record numbers BECAUSE THEY ARE BEING DEPORTED and the crime cartels are losing all their money laundering and courier connections, all their operation fronts.  Want to reform immigration?  The Federal Investigation into Joe Arpaio's criminal activities might have been a good start, followed by Eric Holder's indictment and Barack Obama's impeachment for the Fast and Furious debacle.

Isn't it great that the Progressive Obama Government decided that, while promising our veterans jobs on their return and spending trillions to restart our economy, playing games with the fiscal cliff and the budget crisis, there were 50,000 children of illegal immigrants (you know, criminals?) could have jobs and/or get a college education?  I can't tell you how glad I am that a college education and a decent job aren't burdens I'll have to shoulder in the near future.

Illegal immigration is fixing itself... Latinos are going south in record numbers, here in the southwest. This is a smoke-and-mirrors issue.... Ignore the absence of the little brown man behind the curtain, we are Oz, the Great and Terrible...

Why are we fighting to free the Middle East, when the nations south of the Rio Grande are controlled by one of the largest criminal organizations in history?  How can we claim to combat terrorism and border violence and the growth of the cartels when MS13 has a cell in every city in America, while they make billions on the illegal import of low-grade cannabis?

See the bigger picture... look for the connections.

Gun Control, the other topic sure to unite America, means hitting your target as many times as you pull the trigger. Guns made our nation free, guns, not talk, stopped global tyranny, and the responsible use and ownership of guns will keep our nation and our world free, from outside influences as well as the forces, corporate, private, conservative and liberal, attempting to subvert our government from the inside. Retention of background check data in a LEO eyes-only database, with required state and federal input of felony and mental data to the NICS, and uniform enforcement of the current laws, with no loopholes, no special cases, and no privileged class would remove the need for any new legislation regarding guns. 

No gun has ever simply pointed itself at someone and killed them. 

And NO ONE, EVER, IN ALL OF RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY, DIED FROM THE USE OF CANNABIS. 

We have enough laws about humans and guns... we need clarity and reason, we need enforcement, and we need consistency between our scientific knowledge, our laws, and our actions. Cognitive independence is a term that is getting thrown around a lot.  In an age of increasing government invasion, shrinking freedoms, genetic research and scientific advances in artificial intelligence, it may be long past time to start considering jujst where a competent, thinking individual draws the line between external and internal authority and autonomy.

When the government holds medical patents on a plant that same government defines as a drug with no medicinal value, when the courts refuse to hear evidence to the contrary, the same old answers and issues will not continue to distract or dissuade a public too well informed and personally experienced to accept  those tired clumsy shenanigans.  

When SWAT and RUSH task forces are raiding family homes, killing pets, holding children and seniors at gunpoint, destroying any notion of freedom and justice, when entire cities are reduced to slums and empty storefronts by Federal contempt for states' and citizens' rights, how can we continue the meaningless charade of talking about high-capacity magazines or border fences as a solution or source of our problems?