carrizo springs tx
doug & others submitting clips or links
could you say what it is you like about this story
or why you are wishing to share it with us here
or what you are expecting us to enjoy about it
etc
since i havent gotten very far with it yet
& would like to know this if i go farther
our mxus journey too has stalled a bit as the search for decent maps
of the texas nuevo leon tristate points intensifies
i will check topozone after i post this message but so far it looks
like the usgs has little interest or ability to show such points
a new rand mcnally mexico map i just found here has a surprisingly
disciplined depiction of all mexican state lines
& that is my best available source so far
but admittedly this still does not yet bode very well for actually
finding the tripoints
what this new map did do tho
besides giving hope that rand mcnally could lead us to the entire
mexican bible previously requested here
is to bust my surmise that the chihuahua sonora boundary follows the
continental divide up to the rio grande
for this line is shown by rand as a fiat zigzag rather than a true
crest line
& this zigzag appears not to meet mxus at the continental divide at
all but some miles to the west of it
so i am sure glad i didnt try that chnmso point last week or it might
have been idmtwy deja vu all over again & more
& of course i must retract the impression i gave yesterday about the
chnmso & mxush point shown in the book 2 eagles being one & the
same point
tho the book is still heartily recommended to mxus nuts
& the photo is still fantastic for mxush
but accordingly i must also retract the mxus meld bid i made yesterday
since we are in fact entirely without data for this chnmso point
but the search for nutatx & conutx & any mexican state line
monumentation anywhere at all continues undaunted even if our chance
of shooting the moon this week was chimerical
so please stand by as i stand by
m
also doug
how is the gcebe film coming
& do you have an approximate date yet for the point roberts preview
or premiere showing of it
--- In BoundaryPoint@y..., "Doug Murray for StockPhotosOnline.com"
<dmurray@s...> wrote:
> January 2, 2002
> With Wrath and Wire, India Builds a Great Wall
> By SOMINI SENGUPTA
> URSERY BORDER SECURITY FORCE POST, Jammu and Kashmir, Jan. 1 - The
partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, an enduring
symbol of longing and loss, is being enshrined here in concertina
wire.
>
> On the India-Pakistan border, along a strip of land pocked with
elephant grass, the Indian Border Security Force is erecting a barbed
wire fence, laced with concertina wire. Overlooking the border, like
giraffes with bright eyes, stand 25-foot-tall floodlights. All night
long they wash the thatched-hut villages nearby with their hot white
glow.
>
> The point of this ambitious and wildly expensive project is not to
keep out illegal immigrants, or even to stanch the illegal traffic of
gold, liquor and dried fruits across the border that had been, until
recently, a source of bounty for villagers on both sides.
>
> This fence is India's effort to keep out what it says are
terrorists trained and backed by Pakistan to wrest control of
Kashmir, the valley just to the north that has been the subject of
two of the three wars between India and Pakistan. (India says that
the gunmen who stormed the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13 were from
groups involved in the guerrilla effort in Kashmir, backed by
Pakistan, a charge Pakistan vehemently denies.)
>
> When completed - Border Security officials say it could be as early
as the end of 2003 - the fence will stretch across much of the Indian
side of the roughly 1,800-mile border with Pakistan, except the
mountains and marshes where it is impossible to erect one.
>
> Those spotted trying to cross from Pakistan to India are shot and
killed. Last year, 87 people suffered such a fate and several guns
were seized, border officials said.
>
> One mile of fence costs 3.2 million Indian rupees, or $68,000, a
lot for a country where many villagers live on a dollar a day.
Laborers from villages near and far - pumped up by motivational
speeches about one's duties for Mother India - do the construction
work. They carry out their job on this perilous chunk of border
interrupted by spurts of gunfire between Indian and Pakistani forces.
>
> "No matter the cost, it's for our national interest," said Vijay
Raman, the chief of the border force in the southern part of this
state. "This is a physical barrier to check infiltration."
>
> But nature sometimes rebels against Mr. Raman's designs. In
Rajasthan, the sprawling Indian desert state that shares the largest
stretch of border with Pakistan, shifting sand dunes obscure the
fence from time to time, or a fierce sandstorm smothers entire
sections of barbed wire. (Border guards there supplement the fence
with patrols on camelback.)
>
> In Gujarat, the border is so marshy that the Border Security Force
has not yet figured out how to erect a proper fence. In Punjab, weeds
sprout every day beneath the fence; border guards have to crawl
through the wire and pluck out the underbrush. Given the lessons from
Punjab, a concrete bed has been built under the barbed wire fence in
Jammu.
>
> Of course, before the violent division of the subcontinent in 1947,
such a fence was unthinkable. There was no this side and that side.
The people who lived in this area were kinfolk and friends. They
spoke the same tongue. They ate the same chapatis.
>
> They still speak the same tongue and break the same bread, though
they are now citizens of enemy nations on the precipice of war - and
if they happen to live on the border, they bear the brunt of gunfire
across dividing lines.
>
> The border fence, along with the land mines that have been planted
during the last two weeks, have swallowed up acres of fertile
farmland here in Jammu. Many villagers said they had not seen a penny
for their land. Mr. Raman said they would ultimately be compensated.
>
> There is arguably no more powerful a symbol of souring relations
between the two nations than the border fence, and never more so than
today when travel links have been frozen and diplomats have been
called back. The last direct flights between Pakistan and India left
today, and trains and buses had already stopped running between them.
>
> Border officials here say it was different only a few years ago.
They would hunt in each other's territory. They would conduct joint
border patrols to inspect the condition of the pickets that mark the
border. During Eid and Diwali, the biggest holidays of the year for
Muslims and Hindus in these parts, they would exchange sweets and
greetings. The holidays passed this year in November and December
without such pleasantries.
>
> Before the fence was built, animals that strayed across the border
became subjects of border diplomacy. If a Pakistani farmer's cow
crossed into Indian territory, say, a flag would be raised by the
Border Security Force, a meeting between two sides convened and the
offending bovine returned to its owner, recalled Sukhjinder Singh
Sandhu, the commander of the Border Security Force's 39th Battalion,
which controls this part of the Jammu stretch.
>
> If a wild boar migrated from India into Pakistan, instructions
would be dispatched to come get the unmentionable animal. (Pakistani
Muslims will not touch a pig, or even speak its name, so border
guards there would invite border guards here to come recover
the "hunt.")
>
> The animals are no longer able to stray hither and thither, thanks
to the fence. Today, only birds, like the black partridge native to
this land, can fly freely over the border.