Friday, April 10, 2009 - Elephant Butte Lake State Park, Elephant Butte NM
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Vultures at Roost, Percha Dam State Park, Arrey NM, March 26, 2009
After seeing Jane off at the Albuquerque Sunport this morning for her ride home to Fairbanks I headed back to Elephant Butte to hang out here for a few more days before I begin the long trek east to Red Rock for the summer.
Night camp
Site 32, South Monticello Point - Elephant Butte Lake State Park, Elephant Butte NM
- Verizon cell phone service - very good
- Verizon EVDO service - very good
- Find other references to Elephant Butte on this website
- List the nights I've camped here
- Go to the Elephant Butte Lake State Park website
- Get a Google map of this area
- Check the weather here
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