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Tuesday, December 30, 2008 - Davis Mountains State Park, Fort Davis TX

Untitled, Davis Mountains State Park, Fort Davis Texas, January 12, 2008
Untitled, Davis Mountains State Park, Fort Davis, Texas, January 12, 2008

I was going to spend a day or two in Alpine but got a bit out of sorts over a slow gas pump and a grumpy propane attendant and headed on up to Davis Mountains State Park only to discover a hold on my credit card, I'm going to guess from using it at two gas stations within 10 minutes of each other.

Then the site assigned to me by the whacky park ranger turned out to be too short and sloped for comfort. I'm still out of sorts and grumpy too. Bleeeeh....

At least the deer are still friendly.

Night camp

Davis Mountains State Park Campground, Fort Davis TX

Disaster and the Failure of Authority

Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.

The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005

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