How deeply is he despised?

 left coast lamentations

   We had been a woman entrepreneur, an ad agency employee, a college professor, a jazz and big band trumpeter and a journalist.

     We are California voters. We were figuring the odds, like millions of US citizens are doing. What combination of ticket will carry the popular vote and perform well in those "key" precincts and counties that tab up the electoral college.

    Well read, well informed aside, there is still indecision about for whom to cast a primary vote. We handicapped each candidate's value and appeal.

    With tracking polls being what they are, we wondered if Bernie wins the most delegates, will the Democrat party coronate or karate chop him? Would Bernie's appeal bring those one time "abandoned, ignored, forgotten" Democrats who voted instead for Trump, to their senses?  Would Berniecrats back another Democrat?

     What is Super Tuesday likely to produce and portend?

     Oh, and the conversation also swung to visas and length of stay in EU nations, the price of housing and such in sane nations where the great ignoramus and his fascism are despised.

shoving mike in front of the bus

        I first knew Mike Pence when he was a radio talk show host and failed congressional candidate. The earlier Pence was a more genuine article. Once he took right wing and pro life money, he got squirrelly, but they bought his way onto more radio stations and after a few tries he finally got elected to congress.

     After a few terms he was marinated and lusted for power. His run for governor was part of a strategy to make a presidential run.

     By most accounts, he was a miserable governor and embarrassed the state and even the portion of the Indiana Republican party that continued to produce brain waves. (Remember they were the party that "primaried" a Lion of the Senate" Richard Lugar.)

      Those Republicans with the function of reason were thinking about throwing Pence over after his first term. But the great ignoramus called.

      The nation has seen the kind of VP he has been. It got worse for him when the stable genius grabbed him, like body armor, a human shield, and made him the point man. If anything goes wrong with the COVID-19 strategy, Mike takes the fall.

       After 3 years of being a yes man, Pence is now anointed as the scape goat. Pence gave Trump what he demands, loyalty. Trump pays him back, true to form while he lies to us about the public health threat and while making it all about himself, just "another attempt to remove him" from office.

       I wonder if Mike despises the idiot monarch too?

reaching for a metaphor

     A child on a felled ancient tree, and the mind runs, to ideas like legacy, consequence, and meaning. 

     The climate, the gig economy, the remnant hatreds of race, identity, the prospect of well being, the changing nature of work, defending privacy, even defining privacy are among the under currents of demographically relevant issues in this 2020 election. 

     As much as any of those may touch us, their latent significance will bloom in more profound ways, after most of us have left the arena.

     All I can mutter is our political system needs a generational transfusion, and a new field of developing and equipping candidates, but most vitally a new way of thinking about the ideas and the ideals that underpin our way of doing politics and government. The first thing that should go, is money. There are more important factors that need to be the influencers and drivers. Maybe we could start with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

a trip up the coast

 Wilderness and nature are always a good antidote.

 The Big Sur wilderness is like the mothers milk of creative thought and respite.

a corruption of spirit

   McClatchy journalists have led the reporting on a story that symbolizes how broken and morally corrupt a government that operates amidst greed, big money and perverted ideology can be. That government is the US and the case in point is K2.

    K2 is the Karshi-Khanabad base in Uzbekistan where US forces were housed, even though it was known the abandoned base was contaminated with cyanide, blister and nerve agents.

    7 thousand US forces were assigned duty at K2 between 2001-2005. McClatchy has verified that chemical, nuclear, and biological officers tested the facility three times in 2002 alone. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knew he was assigning troops to a dangerous posting.

    Today hundreds of those veterans have been diagnosed with cancer and chronic illnesses. Now they struggle with the Veterans Administration to even recognize their illnesses are connected with their tours of duty at the dangerous base. 

     Ponds of water at K2 were so contaminated they were called "Skittles" because they glowed with bright colors, like the candy. 

     The troops were abused by command decisions that further endangered their lives, even as they were already in a combat position. When a nation permits decisions like Rumsfeld's and the approval he had from Vice President Dick Cheney, it is morally corrupt. What Rumsfeld and Cheney did and approved is criminal. It goes on the list of other criminal and corrupt actions that duo perpetrated.
     It is the moral failure of all of us to permit these veterans, and others who have been injured or become ill while in service to us, to be denied anything but the best care and attention.
     There is much to despise about those things we permit or have done to undermine the principles and ideals that coalesced in the experiment of some 244 years ago.
     This election cycle is an opportunity for a desperately needed curative. It begins with thinking and is founded on honesty. 
      

    See you down the trail.