Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Monday, May 2, 2016

EXPECTATIONS AND VIEWS

fresh


the tribes

steps

powered up

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.

12 comments:

  1. It's hard for me to believe the American people would elect someone like Donald Trump, but wasn't it P.T. Barnum who said no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people?

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    1. True, but sad. Shill and Showman with his own big bank account. He's good at taking folks for a ride.

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  2. Worst of all we still have to endure six more months of this!

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  3. Keep watching your delightful birds and smell a few flowers. Life is better away from the political swamp.

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  4. In other news I finished refinished my porch.

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    1. That's been a project. Your house is a book, or at least an LA Times feature!

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  5. Indy jazz artist Brandon Meeks plays a role in "Miles Ahead". I interviewed him about his experience earlier this year when he returned from the NY Film Fest debut of the movie. Think it might still be on the www.wfyi.org web Brandon's cool jazz/hip hop band NATIVE SUN is also one of our Small Studio Session features www.wfyi.org/smallstudio In other news... we are buckling up for a bumpy Tuesday ride :) peace~~

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    1. Very Cool to know this. Thanks. Will check out Brandon's work. Good luck with the coverage on Tuesday. Thinking about it awakes the old fire horse instinct. I used to love election night. Everything was ad lib and on the run. Great fun.

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  6. Trump reminds me that George Wallace followers have never gone away. They now have a new spokesman. I find it astonishing that their problems are never addressed by either party until they become United behind a spokesman that voices their fears.

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    1. Excellent point about Wallace. Wonder why racists are so easily lead by demagogues?

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  7. What is depressing to me is I don't see the current state of Trump/Cruz/Limbaugh/NameYourPoison as a temporary phase. We as a nation have no use or patience for solutions to our problems that require thought, compromise or adaptation. If it can't be expressed on the back of a postcard (dating myself there,eh?) don't bother. My oldest daughter, an educated, intelligent woman once told me that an article was 'TLTR'....too long to read. When I heard that, coming from her, I thought we were, as the saying went in Vietnam, 'well and truly fucked'. Pardon the language. I think you, and your intelligent contributors and cohorts are quickly becoming an anomaly.
    In some ways, Trump is a logical product of our times and actions, in some ways.
    Most nations, when viewed over time, last about 200 years before radical change comes. Perhaps we're at that cusp. The idea of the USA as a permanent fixture on the face of the world is an illusion.
    Cheers,
    Mike

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    1. Mike,
      Troubling though your thoughts are, I can't take exception. I think you are saying what my friend Ed said about dinosaurs. Being an idealist, still-at my age-I hope that my daughters generations contain enough rationalists and thinkers that we may come away from the cusp and begin to recycle our better natures.

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