Contents Page 1 of 410 Contents [ click chapter titles ] Cover ...................................................................... 7 Introduction .......................................................... 8 Down the digital rabbit hole ............................... 10 Swirling snow in the cottonwoods ...................... 14 $1,000,000,000,000 is a trillion dollars ........... 18 More than a million nomads out there ............... 22 Remembering our Buffalo Soldier ...................... 26 Can Hillary hear my microchip? .........................30 A note from St. Valentine.................................... 34 Into the deep blue sea ......................................... 37 The goddess Winter comes to town .................... 41 Addictions for everyone ...................................... 45 The Pied Piper comes to DC ............................... 49 Riots on Capitol Hill............................................ 53 And a happy new year ......................................... 57 Covid and the Grand Conjunction ...................... 61 You can’t make me .............................................. 65 Contents Page 2 of 410 Said the night wind to the little lamb ................. 69 Pilgrims and the pecking order .......................... 73 Colonel Be passes on ........................................... 82 Red sky in the morning ....................................... 86 No monsoon this year ......................................... 91 God’s flash cube .................................................. 95 TestaRossa and Solstice ...................................... 99 GM’s orphans .................................................... 103 Radioactive Thunderbirds ................................ 107 SCADA, CDOs, and CLOs .................................. 111 Nurse Maya looked so beautiful ........................ 115 In praise of Lazy Daze ........................................ 119 Cochise at China Peak ....................................... 123 Diana the Huntress strikes Sierra Vista ........... 127 Overclass ............................................................ 131 Virus: nature at work ........................................ 136 At peace in the park ........................................... 141 My shining city on a mesa................................. 145 Contents Page 3 of 410 Deep State squared ........................................... 149 Content marketing wants You .......................... 154 Copyright: who owns what? .............................. 158 Rainbows and an RFQ ...................................... 162 Shootout at Schieffelin Hall .............................. 166 Merchants vs. crafters ....................................... 170 Obsolete ............................................................. 174 Racism is a good deal ........................................ 178 Chiaroscuro in September sun ......................... 182 Meet your Marshal: Deputy Valenzuela ........... 186 Shanghai Cadillac .............................................. 190 Trapped in Tucson without an ESA .................. 194 Gorgon Stare ..................................................... 198 VFX for an exciting future ............................... 203 You can’t indict the President .......................... 208 Random thoughts, ICE and Tyrian purple ....... 212 Progressive grievances ...................................... 216 Hijacked symbols .............................................. 221 Contents Page 4 of 410 Donald as Donna... deepfake? .......................... 225 Angry at Facebook. Very. .................................. 229 Letter to the editor ............................................ 233 Dead Soldier Hill ............................................... 239 A speech by Calvin Coolidge ............................. 243 The Wizard of Tombstone ................................ 247 A video for Keever ............................................. 251 Reputation over all else..................................... 255 Beef in low earth orbit....................................... 259 Influencer .......................................................... 263 Coronado™ Aircar test drive ............................ 267 Every man a Rembrandt ................................... 271 Concorde Noir ................................................... 275 Desolation at Bachman Springs ....................... 279 Stuck on Tombstone Territorial Estates...........283 Hillary and Simulation One .............................. 287 Shout out for free speech .................................. 291 Buffalo Soldiers: desparate fights in the hills .. 295 Contents Page 5 of 410 Paradox in paradise ......................................... 300 Democracy in action ........................................ 304 Super Bowl: our capitalist fiesta ...................... 308 Mourning doves at dawn .................................. 312 A totally stupid government shutdown ............ 316 1917 Kodak Brownie 2 ...................................... 320 Up from slavery ................................................. 324 Snow, falling softly through the night ..............328 Merry Xmas! ..................................................... 333 The border at Christmas ................................... 337 Absolute power.................................................. 341 Temperature went down like a rock ................. 349 Armistice Day .................................................... 353 Mid-term elections ............................................ 357 Sears is gone ...................................................... 365 The Tin Can Club .............................................. 369 Life in the dark of night .................................... 373 Golden sun, clean air, pure water ..................... 377 Contents Page 6 of 410 Can Tombstone afford sex robots? ................... 381 Social Credit – you can’t live without it ............ 385 The miracle of capitalism ..................................389 Marketing Tombstone....................................... 393 A beautiful place to live. Here’s why................. 397 Esports is huge. Ask Rockstar........................... 401 Tombstone, my secret oasis ............................. 404 E Pluribus Unum............................................... 407 Afterword .......................................................... 410 Contents Page 7 of 410 Cover Contents Page 8 of 410 Introduction I live in the heart of a secret oasis that you’ve probably heard of, but never visited – Tombstone, Arizona Territory, ‘The Town Too Tough Too Die’. Made famous by a 30-second gunfight in October, 1881 – in the middle of an amazing silver boom that made my town the richest place in the West for a few short years. Tombstone is special. Air so clear you can see 40 miles away. Tonight with a new moon, the planets Jupiter and Saturn to the south, plus Mars to the east are easily visible to the naked eye. Air that clear. Plus clean, pure water from springs in the Huachuca mountains, 25 miles away. Lots to do, particularly if you are retired. Many civic improvement groups, plus theatrical and Contents Page 9 of 410 historical societies to join. The past at every turn: a dirt-strewn main street with stagecoaches and riders on horseback. Classic long-bar saloons and tempting restaurants. Beautiful wood, brick, and adobe buildings carefully preserved. Unlike the new suburbs in the outside world, there is texture here. The substance and grit of the past. We are a friendly town. We welcome strangers, not just for their tourism dollars but out of genuine interest in where they are from, how long they will stay, and what can we do to help them have a special and memorable visit. Like when you walk down the Allen Street boardwalk at sunset on a warm evening, with the faint streetlights coming on and suddenly the air – shimmers – and you are back in 1881, you are here, then, and the evening awaits. Enjoy! Contents Page 10 of 410 Down the digital rabbit hole 3/26/2021 The first trials are starting for the folks arrested at the Capitol in January. One judge denied a rioter's excuse that "since the president told him to do it, therefore it was okay." Which was a good try for a get-out-of-jail card, but would make a mockery of the law in a democracy, where we can't get a pass for wanting to please the king. What's interesting is that the guy actually believed in his own innocence. Like many others in this age of social media, he had obviously fallen further and further into a vortex of fantastical delusions. These days, lots and lots of people on both left and right are getting sucked down the rabbit hole. Unlike Nazi Germany, where there Contents Page 11 of 410 was only one mass-delusion trap to fall into, our social media allows many. Question being, since Americans might not be too well-educated but are definitely as smart as ever, why are so many perfectly normal people acting brainwashed? The answer lies with the algorithms, which are predictive formulas cooked up by some very bright, very greedy high-tech people to modify our behavior to their benefit. You can see how it works with online shopping. Buy a shirt from Amazon, and you'll get all sorts of suggestions about other things to buy to go with it. Everything you do online is monitored, measured, and collated with data from thousands of other people to predict your behavior and then to profit from the prediction. Wildly profitable, as it turns out. Contents Page 12 of 410 Since news has a