EXPECTATIONS AND VIEWS

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lows

    Low information and high motivation are grumpy parents. The offspring is a chimera now morphing the DNA of the  body politic and it's occurring before our eyes. It isn't the Revolution you expected, but it is televised and phoned, tableted, app'ed, and alogrithimzed.

     The 2016 Presidential race is a warrant. We see from the campaign trail a disturbing image of America.
     Donald Trump campaigns like pitchmen who sell products on late night tv, tweets like a mouthy punk and does so with the frequency of a hormone riven teen, but an American political party has been unable to stop him. 
     My wise friend with a rich experience in law says, "some of us are dinosaurs." The ethic of election campaigns is a moving storm and what used to make sense seems now frequently out of mode. 

    Still, it is hard to imagine a majority of American voters choosing to cast for someone who campaigns with the rhetorical skills of a carnival barker. What about temperament? Where are the first shadings of a policy standard? Where is a sign of intellect up to the complexity of diplomacy? What in his history would lead a voter to conclude he would/could work in the political culture that is the Federal Government. Yes, hard to imagine, but he hasn't gone away and he fans anger and fear.

     There is no data that shows Trump with the ability to win a national election. His followers are a fraction of a fractured party. But he's had more impact than expected. Expectations are not to be trusted anymore and that was a point my wise friend made. That, and old rules are loosing function.

      Boomers watch as reaction times shrink and depth disappear. This political season has been cheap and brawling. Americans who believe governance needs a higher tone and better participants can only shake their heads. In the end Mr. Trump should be marginalized, but those he has rallied will remain inflamed. And one wonders how the circus will play in 4 more years. In politics imitation is not flattery, it is the norm. Have we crossed a Rubicon? Are short attention spans, selfish anger, missing historical perspectives and form over content new rules?

highs

     High praise to Don Cheadle for Miles Ahead, the non biopic film on Miles Davis.  Cheadle directed and starred in an impressionistic triptych fantasy that presents snatches of the great trumpeters life, moving forward and backward, in and out of reality. It is an artful and arty film and features extraordinary music. It is Davis's music but mostly done by cover players, brilliant in their own right. This is not a purist's tale and there are wild diversions brought from imagination, but they still help shape a "sense" of Davis. 

       Miles Davis influenced jazz in several iterations as well as bop and even rock in immense ways. He was a strange cat with exotic ways and tastes but he left a musical heritage. Cheadle does not define Miles Davis for the history books, but he gives us a playful and excellent entertainment that in the end shines the Davis mystique. Cheadle is brilliant as Davis and bold and imaginative as a director.

     See you down the trail.