Revisiting The Land of Bishan vs. A Rich But Apparantly Spurious Norm McDonald Quote

 July 1, 2026

   I've told this story before, but it bears repeating: What happens when a snot-nosed kid who is a wannabe prophet, makes a juvenile and ridiculous prediction that comes true? 

"The Prophet James Collins Brewster"

    In the 1850s, James Collins Brewster, 24, had visions of a promised land—The Land of Bashan—and his passionate message gathered adherents wherever he spoke: "Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your people from the east and gather you into the west. The wilderness and the wasteland shall fall away and the desert will rejoice and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly and the glory of Bashan shall be given to it. Behold the days are coming when the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him who sows seed shall give way to the flowing of thy staff. The mountains shall drip with sweet wine and the hills shall flow with it."

   And where was this so-called Land of Bashan located? At the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers, today known as Yuma, Arizona.

A Desolate Intersection

 Never mind that the area rarely gets more than 3.5 inches of rain a year, is mostly sand dunes and harsh desert with daytime temperatures reaching triple digits every day for months on end. Oh, and never mind that James Collins Brewster had never been to Yuma Crossing and spoke of the banks of the river being lined with pine trees.

  And, so how did the most arid desert in the Southwest actually fulfill Brewster's prophecy?        

   That answer tomorrow.

Daily Whip Out: "Land of Bashan"

The Land of Bashan at The Border

I know what you're thinking: these scenes seem a tad exaggerated, or pushed to the extreme with fertile fields right up against raw desert. Well then, how do you explain this aerial view of Phoenix in the 1940s?

Camelback Irrigation

   I am always on the lookout for good history quotes and this morning I found a great one.

“It says here in this history book that luckily the good guys have won every single time. What are the odds?”

—Norm McDonald

A Too Good to Be True Quote?

   I saw this on my phone this morning and grabbed it for a future Truth Be Known in True West magazine. To my mind it's a perfect ancillary to the old saw, "History is written by the winners." But when I shared it with a few of my history friends, one of them (Mr. Eagle Eye!), said he was skeptical of the lineage and, so, when I Googled it, there is apparently no record of Norm McDonald ever actually saying these words. And, now that I take a closer look at the verbiage it does read a little shaggy (i.e. over-written perhaps, not quite the perfect words in the perfect order?)