Thursday, February 26, 2009 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM
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Afternoon on the rocks, City of Rocks State Park, Faywood NM, February 25, 2009
Today I moved down to Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus NM for a few days. I needed to run into Deming for supplies and perhaps more importantly I needed to find a dump station and dump my waste tanks. There is no dump station at City of Rocks. Also, the good internet access I was enjoying at City of Rocks became spotty the last few days. It was time for a change.
Night camp
Site 29 - Pancho Villa State Park, Columbus NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Go to the Pancho Villa State Park website
- Locate Pancho Villa State Park on my Night Camps map
- 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