Letters to the Editor

We want to make sure that our readers know that we now have a regular section for letters to the editor, and we welcome submissions. We love to hear from folks around the California desert region - and beyond.

Exciting news this fall at The Sun Runner Magazine!

Hello all,
I'm writing this to try to catch everyone up on what's going on with The Sun Runner Magazine these days. Things have been harder for desert businesses, and therefore harder for us this year with the recession. The talking heads on TV keep saying the recession is over, but I wouldn't be so sure that our local economy is listening.
The recession though, has resulted in us offering incredibly reasonable offers on advertising, and has led to the launch of our new value-oriented website, www.DesertFunCoupons.com. All of our print advertisers are now listed there, with links to their websites, online maps to make it easier to find them, and discount offers for desert locals and visitors to take advantage of!
We're assembling a great team here at The Sun Runner - with Barbara Buckland helping as calendar and new media editor (you can find us now on My Space, Facebook, and Twitter). With demand continuing to grow for the magazine (LA, Orange County, up Highway 395 toward Mammoth, etc.), I think it's exciting for us to reach all these new readers (at 36,000 per print issue, that equals almost a quarter of a million readers per year!
We're also on our third edition of the visitors map we produce for the Twentynine Palms area, and we'll be featuring some delightful additions to this year's version.
I was elected president of the California Deserts Visitors Association in September, and we've been busy recruiting a fantastic board of directors from around the desert, and properly organizing. The CDVA is the California desert's regional tourism marketing organization that works with the California Travel & Tourism Commission to promote the desert as the great visitor destination it is. Look for us again at the LA Times Travel & Adventure show in February 2010!
Right now, as we prepare for our December 2009/January 2010 issue - the issue that takes us into our 16th year of publishing - I can tease that it looks like we'll have a pretty famous personality grace our cover for this issue, along with some impressive art. I don't want to give everything away quite yet, but Associate Editor Ed Munson is busy as we speak!
Finally, as we approach Thanksgiving, I want to thank all our advertisers, subscribers, readers, and supporters for your help and backing. The Sun Runner wouldn't be where it is today without all of you, and we're all grateful!

Christmas, 2008

Greetings to all Sun Runner readers, and a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
My apologies for such infrequent postings over the past several months - things have been rather hectic out here in the California deserts (funny - I thought I came out here to kick back and have fun - now I'm busier than ever before).
We will be posting much more in 2009, with bulletins on desert issues, so check here - and our Desert Blogs page at www.thesunrunner.com, frequently. You can also sign up for our weekly Sun Blast newsletter at our website, and keep up to date with all sorts of desert goings on. It's all for free.
As the magazine celebrates its 14 years of publishing on January 1, and we enter our 15th year, things are both challenging (the economy), and inviting (there are all sorts of wonderful things in the works - the desert seems to be rich in opportunities and challenges). We hope you come along with us for the ride as we continue to explore the beauty, cultural wealth, history, legends, issues, and fun of the California deserts!
Our wishes for all the best for you and your loved ones this holiday season,
Steve Brown
Publisher/Executive Editor

Samuelson's Rocks, Joshua Tree National Park

By Steve Brown

My wife and I have hiked Joshua Tree National Park for years, and one of the great things about this wonderful park (practically in our own backyard) is that you never run out of things to discover and new places to explore.

Today, we drove into the park (I don't call it "the monument" like a lot of the current LA crowd who keep trying to sound like they've been out here in the desert for years - the place has been a national park for more than a decade now) with no specific destination in mind. Frequently, we drive into the park and when we see some place that looks inviting or interesting that we haven't been to before, or if we remember a location that we wanted to explore further, we stop, and hike.

Today, we were enjoying the stunning display of wildflowers in the park, when I spied a far off canyon we hadn't explored before on the western end of Lost Horse Valley. We found a dirt pull-out to park the car, and hiked westward from the road (Note: To me, it seems that the NPS management of JTNP wants to curb the roads of the park, not so much to protect the roads from erosion, but rather to control where you can park your vehicle, and thus limit access to areas of the park. More and more, I find myself driving the "improved" roads through the park, looking at some place I'd like to hike, but with no place to pull off the road, I can't stop.).

We walked roughly southwest along the tracks of a long abandoned dirt road, encountering well over a dozen varieties of wildflowers in bloom, and a beautiful female Leopard Lizard, complete with orange stripes, indicating baby lizards are in her future.

When we intersected a broad wash, we turned to follow it, more directly westward, wandering a little north sometimes too. After a time, some old fencework came in view, along with a small hill with a lot of larger rocks, to the southwest. From a distance, I noticed what appeared to be writing on one of the rocks, and we wandered over to investigate.

"The Rock of Faiht. And Truht. Nature.is.God. The Key To Life. Is. Contact. Evolution. is. The Mother And Father of Mankind. Without Them. We. Be. Nothing."

It was signed, "John Samuelson."

There was a modest bench to the right of the rock where we sat, gazed out at the fields of wildflowers, and drank a bit of water. There were bed springs on top of the little hill, and seven more rocks where Samuelson had etched his political, economic, and religious philosophy, poorly spelled, but quite interesting, nonetheless. It appeared that he had likely been immortalizing his thoughts on things during the Great Depression, from the tenor of some of his rocks. The view from the top of the little hill was delightful, with yellow and white flowers blooming as far as the eye could see.

As it turns out, Samuelson, a Swede, showed up at Bill Keys' ranch in the area in 1926, looking for work (The park's own website, http://www.nps.gov/jotr/historyculture/samrocks.htm, gives you the story). Keys hired him to help with the Hidden Gold Mine, and Samuelson, along with his wife Margaret, decided to homestead the land, and they erected a shack on top of this little hill.

But when Samuelson filed for his homestead in 1928, his claim was denied, as he was not an American citizen. He sold his claim and moved to the LA area.

In an incident that I definitely want to learn more about, Samuelson went to a dance in Compton the next year, got into an argument, and killed two men.

Erle Stanley Gardner found that Samuelson was never tried for the murders, but was sent off to a mental hospital, having been judged to be insane. He later escaped in 1930, and wound up in the state of Washington, where years later he was mortally injured in a logging accident.

We were so fascinated by this little hill with its philosophical etchings from a man who took the time to carve his thoughts into the rock in a place where few were likely to ever see them, that we circled the hill, finding all eight of his rocks. We wandered the corral nearby, and noted what seemed to possibly be some diggings on the hillside to the north (Samuelson's little hill had abundant quartz).

I highly recommend paying Samuelson's Rocks a visit if you're in the mood for a hike in Lost Horse Valley with its expanses of Joshua tree forests, and (right now, anyway), desert meadows of yellow, white, purple, and red wildflowers. I know this is one hike we'll take again.

Locopelli - Progress & Mescal (from the April/May issue of The Sun Runner Magazine)

Locopelli- Progress & Mescal

(from the April/May issue of The Sun Runner Magazine)

I picked my way carefully through the cholla and on up into the rocks. Good old monzogranite. The full moon rising from the east made the climb easier. No eclipse tonight, I noted, the long deep shadows contrasting beautifully with the glowing desert floor. I sat down on one of my favorite rocks and looked out across the desert.



I always like this rock. I feel comfortable here, at ease. Not like those new age people who talk about power-emanating rocks and stuff like that. That’s just the pulse of nature they’re picking up on—the combination of all that is old and new, existing. Life comes in a lot of varieties, but rocks aren’t like people anyway. They see things a lot differently—and a lot slower—than we do. But that’s a topic for another time.



I looked north, out across the ever-increasing number of lights of Joshua Tree. At night, I relish those desert landscapes where no lights glare, and the Joshua trees leave long tall moon shadows.



After a time, I heard someone approaching and turned. It was my old friend, Coyote. He looked exhausted, worn out from carrying his full pack of medicine—not funny-named pharmaceuticals, real medicine.



"Hey, Loco," he growled.



"Hey yourself, you mangy old thing," I replied, offering him some of my mescal with a grin. I know how much he likes that stuff—the liquor, not the beans.



"I’m on my way," he said, gladly accepting my offer, looking out to the north.



"On your way where?" I asked.



"Out," he gestured vaguely to the east. "This place is done for. Wait for a lull in the traffic down there. If you listen then, you can hear it—the sound of the old soul of the desert being torn from the rocks, the sky, the earth. And when the soul of a place leaves, the place dies."
"You mean like Temecula, or Adelanto?" I asked. "They’re dead as can be."



"Precisely," Coyote replied.



We sat quietly for a moment, the only sounds being that of traffic down on Highway 62 and the low groaning of the rocks. They’re always moaning about something. An owl flitted by, intent on a kangaroo mouse down in the shadows below. Good eyes, those owls.



"I hear there’s going to be thousands of houses down there," Coyote gestured toward a dark Joshua tree forest between us and the highway.



"Yeah, but there’s going to be 16-foot-high sound walls along the highway, with berms so that only four feet of wall will show," I countered. "It’s going to be the ‘gateway to Joshua Tree National Park.’"



"No soul," Coyote replied dourly. "They say that within a century or so, maybe there will be no Joshua trees here any more anyway, so maybe it doesn’t really matter. Still, it does to me. I must be getting old."



"People have to live somewhere," I said.



He looked up at me in disgust.



"Everyone and everything has to live somewhere, unless of course, it stops living," he said. "Like the desert tortoise. When some human builds a house on a couple acres of land, there is still some room for the tortoise and other animals. This will be just the beginning. No one will hear the sound of the desert dying over the roar of the call of the money to be made. Money. It is a dead thing, yet for many, it is their god."



"People have to make a living," I noted, knowing I was just taunting my poor old friend who never had a penny, but always seemed to get by. His voice was rising in indignation.



"Making a living at the expense of all around you is not a ‘living.’ It’s a killing. Life," he opened his arms, indicating the raw desert nearby, "is worth more than little green pieces of paper. How much is the soul of the earth worth, anyway?"



"Hard to say," I replied. "It’s not traded on the NYSE or the NASDAQ or anything. I’d say it’s worth whatever a developer will pay for it, or whatever you can make cashing in on its funeral."
Coyote just sighed, then took another slug of mescal. We sat in relative silence for a moment, with just the low rush of traffic and the deep groaning of the rocks audible.



"Well, at least I hear there will be a Wal-Mart in Twentynine Palms," I said, trying to think of something to cheer him up. "I heard they want to put it at Utah Trail and the highway—you know, the entrance to the national park. Then everyone in Twentynine won’t have to drive so far to get…"



"Cheap nasty Chinese stuff," Coyote finished my sentence for me.



It was my turn to sigh. Nothing I said, it seemed, would cheer up my old friend.



"Most people," he said, spitting out the last word with what I thought was a rather high degree of contempt, "are so removed and alienated from the real world, the natural world, that they don’t care about losing the soul of the desert, so long as the satellite TV keeps pumping out the crap. They never see the owl at hunt, or listen to the cactus wren’s gossip, or the doves and quail bedding down for the night. They watch TV instead of looking at the stars, and tear around the desert in fast, noisy vehicles instead of hiking into a silent canyon. They hate the wind that has so much to tell, and they ignore the beauty and power of the desert, longing for dirty mini-malls and one-upping their neighbors in some shallow, materialistic way."



"Oh that’s not fair," I replied. "Most of them are just trying to make a living and support their families. They just want to have a halfway decent life, and they’re always being distracted and manipulated by others who want to pick their pockets while they look the other way. They don’t have the time—or space—to think, let alone appreciate beauty or connect with the desert."



"I suppose you’re right," Coyote said, after a long pause. He sniffed the night air. "But I can smell greed, and remember—it often appears wrapped in a more palatable façade. But it’s still greed, and the soul of the desert here is still leaving."



"True enough," I admitted. I’d heard the wailing of the desert’s soul rising for some time. It was strongest down below still, all along the Coachella Valley where both the souls of the desert and the mountains were almost annihilated, replaced by smog, walled developments and country clubs, shopping malls, and politicians who kept spouting rhetoric about how they loved living there because of the "natural beauty," a beauty they often were directly responsible for destroying.



But the cries of the desert’s soul were also coming from Lancaster and Palmdale, Victorville, Hesperia, Adelanto, and up here in the hi-desert too. I wondered if soon the whole desert wouldn’t be in its death throes, soulless and vanquished, but I didn’t voice my fears to Coyote. I knew I didn’t need to. He could often see far into the future, father than I, and would know what lay ahead. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t bear to stay around and watch the process.



Coyote sat down one of his medicine bags, took out some desert sage and matches, and lit the sage. I didn’t need to ask what he was doing, but he told me anyway.



"I’m going to sing the prayer for this place, it will ease its passing," he told me. "And it’s my way of saying goodbye too. It’s an old prayer—very old," he said. "For all that has come before and all that will come to pass."



He raised the smoky sage up into the night sky and began to sing, his shape lengthening as he began to shuffle a little in rhythm with the chant. I dug into one of his bags and found the coyote melon rattle, to add to the beat. I did not know all the words to what he was singing, if words were, in fact, what they were, but I joined in when I could. It was a sad, beautiful, and powerful song, and even the rocks stopped moaning long enough to listen.



When it was over, Coyote placed the last of the smoldering sage on the rock next to me, after waving it around me for protection.



"You’re not coming with me," he almost asked.



"No, my friend," I replied. "I must stay a while longer. Someone must stay while the soul finishes preparing for its departure. I have been here a while, and a while longer I must remain. I too, will eventually have to go, I fear. But I know where to look for you, and you for me, and we will sing a happier song when next we meet."



He looked at me as if he wasn’t quite sure of my last statement. But then he smiled.



"This soul will not be gone forever, nor this land dead for all time," Coyote said, as he gathered up his medicine bags. "The desert will change, and for a time it may die and be soulless, but things pass, and as I and my brothers have seen, it will return. And I will return too, to dance again, upon its return."



He turned from me with a half-hearted wave, and began walking off through the moonlight.
"And that," he called out with the kind of strength that comes from a connection to all that is life, "will be a better day."



As he vanished into the shadows, I realized he had kept my mescal. Some things never change.
"Vaya con queso, you old rascal, you," I shouted, laughing into the darkness. Funny, I missed him already. Even though the desert seemed to be filling up fast with people and cars and houses and mini-malls and garbage and things like that, it was feeling lonelier by the day. Change was definitely on the wind, and I got the feeling that even the mescal wouldn’t be enough to dull the pain we both knew was coming.

Art Reclaims a Lost Symbol From Hate

By Steve Brown

From the April/May 2008 issue of The Sun Runner Magazine

Art is the stored honey of the human soul,
gathered on wings of misery and travail.
– Theodore Dreiser

It is an ancient symbol, dating back to Neolithic times, its name derived from Sanskrit, ironically carrying the conno-tation of good luck, its translation roughly meaning "associated with well-being." It’s name? Swastika.

The swastika has appeared in many cultures and locations, from Iceland to India. I remember stumbling upon a beautiful and well-preserved mosaic on the floor of an ancient ruin on the sacred island of Delos in Greece. Its border was a swastika pattern. The swastika was found on a mosaic in the ruins of Pompeii. It appeared as a symbol at various times in Indo-Aryan, American Indian, Persian, Roman, Celtic, Greek, Hittite, Hopi, Navajo, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Mithraist, and Jainist cultures and faiths. It was found in ancient Troy, though I didn’t see it there, as well as Russia, Denmark, Finland, England, Poland, the Ukraine, Iran, Korea, China, Japan, Lebanon, Iran, and Tibet. It has been used by everything from Boy Scout groups to sports teams, and on clothes, coins, temples, bridges, ballots, stock certificates, historic buildings, carpets—you name it, the swastika has probably been on it at one time or another throughout history.

But starting in the 1920s, the Nazi Party in Germany adopted the formerly auspicious symbol and made it the strident sign of the Nazi’s campaign of evil, hate, and death. The red, white, and black colors of the Nazi banner were taken from the old German imperial flag. It was the Nazi’s Aryan connection, though it is doubtful any of the symbol’s historical Aryan users would ever have endorsed its denigration by Hitler and his überthugs.

Evidently, the Thule-Gesellschaft, or Thule Society, had used the swastika in its symbology, and the Nazis had numerous connections with that organization. By 1935, the Nazi flag with the swastika had become the official flag of the German nation, and the world became intimately acquainted with the formerly auspicious symbol, whose arrival usually heralded a most inauspicious arrival of German troops.

Most of us are acquainted enough with the evils perpetrated upon this sad little world by Hitler and the Nazis that it would be redundant to restate them here. Suffice to say that during the time of the Nazis, the swastika was an emblem that presided over some of the worst examples of mankind’s inhumanity, brutality, and insane genocidal machinations.

It is a sad comment that even today, some people with more hate than brains continue to look to the swastika for the wrong reason. That the Nazis were finally and justly defeated and their evils exposed as the cruel, bent lies they were, only serves as inspiration for these small-minded, violent criminals, whose only philosophy is hating others because they themselves are so sadly pathetic as human beings.

Ramon Mendoza, an artist based here in the hi-desert, created an art installation, The Eagles Beak, for the EarthWorks at Copper Mountain College in Joshua Tree, that incorporates the swastika into its design. Mendoza is not someone who would ever consider endorsing a hate group, and he used the double swastika in his work along with other symbols as emblems of ancient cultures, going back to the swastika’s original meaning.

A number of desert residents have condemned Mendoza and the college for displaying these symbols, but I think that is unfair. If someone effectively co-opts a benign and universal symbol for a vile purpose, does it become a part of the history of that symbol that we may learn from, or must that symbol never return to its original meaning? Symbols have been used, and abused, by humanity throughout history, as various peoples have used and abused others.

I think we can acknowledge the Nazi’s misuse of an otherwise innocuous symbol, and we can also acknowledge that Mendoza’s artwork, and other works like it, lend no support to hateful ideologies. Instead, these works remind us of a time before, when the meaning of this symbol was beneficial, not harmful. In these works, those who came long before Hitler’s rampage are connected once again with the present, and history’s story grows longer than World War II.

From the Other Desk, April/May 2008

Every day in the desert is proof that you just never know what’s going to happen next out here. Since our last issue, so much has transpired that I’m hard pressed to remember it all, let alone convey it to you.

Whether it’s wandering through the desert lilies in bloom east of Twentynine Palms in silence, talking with a wonderful and welcoming group of writers in Ridgecrest, meeting Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and German Pete out at Whitehorse Ranch, wandering into Amboy Crater where the Five Spots are in bloom and the lizards are friendly, hiking up into the mountains behind Mitchell Caverns, taking in the quiet of the community in Goffs, cruising Needles at sundown, dining al fresco on Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs, rocking out with a thousand Marines and their famiies, or enjoying a Sunday afternoon margarita at Pappy & Harriet’s—our deserts have so many memorable moments to offer those of us lucky enough to share in their wealth.

To try to help keep all of us up to date, and to help create more of a desert-wide sense of community, we’ve just established a Desert Blogs page on our website, which includes a theatre blog by our Theatre Editors, Jack and Jeannette Lyons, as well as a brand new Sun Runner blog, Mojave Winds. We’re also updating the format of our Sun Blast weekly e-mail newsletter with more coverage of desert issues, as well as arts and entertainment picks, desert travel news, and more—all in a fun format.

As The Sun Runner continues to grow, we continue to add contributors from around the desert to our roster. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming our latest folks to grace these pages—Mary Sojourner, Linda Saholt, Mike Cipra, and Edith Billups.

These four join our other fine writers in sharing their desert-inspired perspectives, information, and stories with us. I hope you enjoy their contributions as much as I do. They make this magazine special, and are a constant source of pride for me (when they make deadline).
Maddy Lederman takes a look at wind power in this issue, and we’ll continue to explore "green" power in the desert in the June/July issue. Meanwhile, all of you writers out there from El Centro and Brawley, to Borrego Springs, Indio, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms,Yucca Valley, Landers, Lucerne Valley, Essex, Blythe, Barstow, Ridgecrest, Death Valley Junction—get your submissions ready for our second annual Desert Writers Issue, coming up in our August/September edition.

Our deadline for those submissions will be July 7, and essays, short fiction, poetry, etc., will all be accepted. Those whom we can’t fit into the print edition will be included online, so please spread the word to all your writer friends. We loved last year’s inaugural Desert Writers Issue, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store this year.

Finally, to all of you who have sent notes of support and encouragement regarding our coverage of desert issues and dedication to our desert, thank you so much. We would like to hear more from all of you on desert issues, and will set aside room for your letters to the editor in future issues, as we all will have much to discuss in the coming months.