Are They Rationing Gas?

This morning I pulled into a Shell station to fill the nearly empty tank on my Swedish Land Yacht.


The 21 gallon tank was almost empty. Swiping my trusty Shell card and entering my ZIP code. I was expecting to put about $75 in. I was surprised when the pump shutdown at exactly $50,00. As I drove off I realized the tank was not full. I don't know why it stopped. I wonder if the station was trying to limit drive offs or if there was some other explanation.

I tried calling Shell but their Credit Card Customer Service was closed.

Rewriting History

It seems to me that everyone ignorant of history is doomed to rewrite it.

Tonight, sitting in my trailer I watched a movie Geronimo: An American Legend. It was sort of interesting, until the epilogue. The protagonist expressed his regret that a way of life that had endured a thousand years ceased to exist.


The problem is that the horse culture of the Apaches and other Plains Indians could not have existed for a thousand years.

Horses were once native to North America but became extinct long before humans colonized the continent. They were only reintroduced after Europeans established contact. The exact process is the subject of lot of debate, but clearly if the earliest modern horse in North America was around about 1500, the horse culture could not be a thousand years old. It had to be less than half that, probably much less.

The larger Euro-centric view is that native americans (themselves immigrants a few thousand years earlier) were somehow a static, peace loving group of noble savages, except for the intervention of the evil Europeans.

That is a gross distortion, if not a downright lie. The prevailing view romanticizing and generalizing a group of people covering thousands of tribes speaking hundreds of different languages in vastly different environments sharing common cultural traits is absurd. The truth is some of them practiced the most appalling rituals including cannibalism, torture and slavery.

By the way Geronimo was a Christian, his name being Spanish for (St.) Jerome.

Rising Tide - The Threequel

The same Krazy Krewe that brought Rising Tide I and II is at it again. We can't get enough it seems.

Mark you calendars for the week end of August 22 through 24. Begin making plans to attend what promises to be another thought provoking and energizing weekend.


Watch the New Orleans Bloggspace as events develop we will be letting the cat out of the bag.