Blame it on...the rain?

This the the first entry in my public blog. I intend to vent my opinions here. Feel free to comment. If you find offensive anything I say, perhaps you would feel better if you blamed it on the Devil.

The quote in the title of my blog comes from a song by Steve Earle. The song is called "The Devil's Right Hand" of all things. My "picture" is inspired from this passage from a short story by Jorge Luis Borges:

Beyond the setting sun lay the cedar-felling ax, the buffalo's huge Babylonian face, Brigham Young's top hat and populous marriage bed, the red man's ceremonies and his wrath, the clear desert air, the wild prairie, the elemental earth whose nearness made the heart beat faster, like the nearness of the sea.

It's a wonderful romanticized view of the old west (and, in some ways, the modern west as well) that manages to capture the range of possibilities afforded. The wilderness was a place of Native Americans, Utopianists, entrepreneurs, religious non-conformists, outlaws, vagabonds, families, individuals, preachers, searchers and dreamers with a bent to wander. Does such a place exist any more?

When I see the deserts of the American Southwest it does make my heart beat faster in a way the sea never has. I accept the fact I am a romantic. I'm also compelled to accept the old Latin saying, "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi".