Void of Honor

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     There's a wise old proverb "As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man."  Can we say a man's heart is reflected in his face?

     Two recent bumps conspired as entreaties to toss off the malaise that has kept this old reporter's angry voice quiet; the destruction of the East Wing, and a note from a long time reader and correspondent/friend Mike Mulligan. Mike you woke up the old fire horse response that inhabits after spending most of your life chasing news, responding to warning bells, seeing power up close, reporting from the fractures, failures and crises. 

     Longtime readers may recall my reference to an August 2016 open letter from 50 senior national security and foreign policy experts, or Cabinet members in Republican administrations from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. The men and women, many names you know, warned that: 

-Trump was unfit to serve, 

-lacked the character to be President  

-would be a danger to the US and the world. 

That was the death rattle of the Republican party.

    Now people who thought he could "grow into the office," casting that warning and caution aside, have come to understand the wisdom of another proverb; "Though you grind a fool in a mortar, grinding him like grain with a pestle, you will not remove his folly from him."

AN OFFENSE TO AMERICA

    His destruction of the East Wing is an offense to history, protocol, the norm and to the citizens. It is symbolic of his presidency. 

    If he can order the arrest and seizure of citizens by masked thugs, if he can kill without warrant, evidence or proof, if he can extort universities, law firms and cultural institutions, if he can claw back funds already appropriated then he can and is treating the White House and it's historic significance like another of his gaudy hotels or resorts. So far he's getting away with it. 

REPUBLICANS THE NEW AMERICAN COWARDS

     It is there, in that fact dear citizens, we reach a confluence of two sinister forces that may break us. There is no counter force, no punch back.

    1) There is, at best, acquiescence, maybe approval, or more likely cowardice of the Senate and the House. Please recall the double acquittals in the Senate. Mitch McConnell will be be remembered as the necromancer of this Trump reign. One of the great screw ups in history, they could have crushed the snake!  

    2) Even with all we know, with all the facts before us, the chaos filling our screens, the inconsistencies, the trashing of the economy, his humiliation and whipping by Putin, his use of the White House to fleece the devoted to build his wealth, and now his threat to sue the government to enrich himself, and private funding for armed forces, but he was elected. That might have been the day the music really died. 

        Bye, Bye Miss American Pie. Now we  "sing dirges in the dark."

      Another truth-this is a self inflicted wound.

      Most of us recognized the implicit danger of authoritarianism, fueled by his divisive and toxic campaign 10 years ago. His racism and fraud were already published and litigated years before. 

     As he disregards propriety and endeavors to destroy 250 years of federal systems he's surrounded by an appalling team of talentless sycophants eager to do his pleasure so they get to play in the gilded delusional kingdom. 

    Author Garrett Graff says Trump is "taking a wrecking ball to America itself."

Other historians and analysts have lamented the failure the system of checks and balances.

A MAN SO VILE

    The system worked until now. Trump came with a factor unseen at this scale; a complete void of honor, not even the pretense. After two and half centuries, the noble experiment of the American Republic is being proof tested by something the founders did not plan for, a man so vile.

   He is without a wisp of honor, a man who will neither respect tradition, nor the way it has worked, the unwritten code. He is like a cur at Westminster, a vulgarian, the kind of man the founders did not expect, nor did the millions who have since worked in and served the government and civil service.  

SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS    

     Self inflicted indeed. We did not pay attention to the diligent teaching of history, the full and honest American story, nor did we teach basic government, nor civics   explaining our role as citizens. That lapsed.

     I would list the power of money, big money in political campaigns as a sin in a democratic republic for which we are now paying. It has turned elections into an industry and government into a bought and paid for system of dispersement.   

    Zero sum politics is a road to chaos. Abandoning compromise and negotiation is deadly to the body politic.

    We are in new terrain. We can't predict where or how this will go.

THE TRUTH OF TRUMP

      At his best he's a real estate hustler and pitchman. As a leader he is an amateur, full of himself, who fires those who criticize or challenge or tell the truth. He has no grasp of history. He rarely speaks the truth. He's fixated on revenge and retribution. His estimation of himself is a narcissistic mental illness. He is a cheat and a fraudster. He is a sexual predator, a vulgarian, an overweight, out of shape old man who has convinced himself he is most powerful man on earth and can do anything he wants to do. And he is doing that.

    The president is wrapped in a delusion of power and lies. All tyrants come to an end. The end will come to Trump in some way. It will then be left to the American citizenry to make choices and to choose a path. The damage MAGA inflicts can be repaired if we recall our aspirational heritage found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We have not been perfect, and we have been slow at meeting our promises but we change, and we progress and improve our up potential. But not without struggle.

MASTERS OF FATE?    

     As an old boy with more road behind than ahead I suggest we root ourselves in something of value and nobility. It is better for us if we have a code for living and beliefs that we practice

   In a recent chat with three friends, realists, experienced in government, media and power I said something I repeat now. It's a realization chiseled by a life of observation, at close quarters of struggles, power, intention, loss, desire,  randomness, war, despair, faith, villains and the indefatigable nature of becoming.

Unless and until we reorient the human intellect to the ancient Greek concept of eudaemonia we will do ourselves harm in anyway available to us. Virtue and reason are the only way to survive. 

   In aggregate this nation or any nation, will realize that, or it will not. Civilizations rise and they fall. 

    It seems appropriate now to invoke a journalist, quoting Shakespeare so as to contextualize or frame this moment; "The fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves..."

      But for the point of this now, it is the line Cassius utters immediately before that;

"Men at sometime are masters of their fate."

       See you down the trail.

   

     

     

 

The Premise of the Demise

     This post's title is borrowed from a novel I began years ago. It was a political intrigue that seemed too implausible. Not anymore.

    Lana and I have felt obliged to pay particular attention to journalistic and creative treatments of Hurricane Katrina, at this 20th year since. It's been long enough to gain a measure of its significance and what it tells us about who we are. We thought we owed it to those who endured. It has been an unexpected soulful catharsis for us, and more necessary, those whose stories we have heard.

    I was a news director who sent a team of friends and colleagues into the area as the devastating and powerful Katrina took aim. From an RV and a transmission truck that became their home, refuge, newsroom and edit center, they spent days telling the stories and sending the video to our group of stations and viewers. To this day I admire and love each of those brave and stalwart journalists. Back then I was busy with the task, and didn't take the time to absorb and grieve. These last days were the balance due. 

    Spike Lee's 3-part documentary Katrina, Come Hell and High Water should be seen. It is authentic and brilliant. The American Routes NPR music history program and the PBS News Hour series of reports and interviews should, with Lee's work, be taught in every American history class. These were people stories, threads in the American fabric, woven deep with history and race, not a soulless replay of weather porn. By some strange power of life, we come away feeling more kindred with brothers and sisters of the dream, and in possession of another level of clarity about the inevitability of the battle that now engages us. It dislodged my inert voice on the demise of the American dream. 

    For sticking with this, I offer photographs as an antidote.

    It matters not if you are left or right, America is sick with perversity. We are stuck in a time when the predominate politic is fear. The leader who should seek to heal, unite, and fix is instead about revenge, retribution, destruction, personal power and unprecedented graft. 

    If you know history, you know how the story plays. If you are a person with a system of faith, or spiritual guides, you know this is a story of evil. If you've read the classics or Greek mythology, you know the archetype and what to expect. If you are a republican and have acquiesced, you know in your heart you are a coward. If you are a democrat and have been mumble mouthed or silent, you are a fool. If you are like most of us, you are worried, or frightened.

    A tyrant, and a particularly disgusting human being, an ill-equipped and wholly inadequate man, a selfish, narcissistic, vulgar cheat is running like a gold gilded mad cow in the china shop of delicate world peace, to say nothing of domestic tranquility, the general welfare or blessings of Liberty. 

    And there it is folks, the cure is in the Constitution. No one can tell us how long this perversity will infect. But here are words in the constitution that could guide us.

 An easy start is at the beginning. Article I, section I "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States."

    The gold gilded vulgarian is only a front man who craves the spotlight. There are extremists, fascistic and anti democracy fanatics behind the throne who foist a hatched concept of unitary executive authority. If that were real or even practical, it would not permit a president to usurp legislative Power, not a whit!  Nor permit him or her to extort law firms, universities, independent institutions and cultural organizations acting like a mob boss, a king of bunco.

    As the vulgarian harmfully rages doing damage upon stupidity, we have yet to hear from the American castratos, the republican majority in the US Senate, once protected as a bastion of power. There are other cowards and sell outs as well, so we see the implantation of authoritarian rule. 

    When enough damage is done, or perhaps sooner if character and integrity motivate, this will end, in some manner. It should be our prayer that when such happens we return to the constitution and, as needed, write new laws and guidelines. 

    There were a group of founders who cautioned there should be more restrictions on the behavior of the executive branch. The thought at the time was correct, not every person who could assume the office would be a person of principle, honor and integrity.  

    We all know these things so I've been reluctant to be one more voice preaching to the choir. Those of you who have been reading Light/Breezes may recall  I started drawing a line to this in 2015. The recent close study of Katrina's impact on lives, racial economics, power sharing and fairness jogged me to act, to leave one more caution; read the constitution and demand it.

    And there is another motivation; It is prophetic analysis, one more piece of evidence and implied guidance for my grand children Addie and Henry. And being the age it is, one more set of thoughts for AI to "scrape" and digest and add to knowledge or facts that such systems may render.  We attempt to inform the future.

    Now some diversions.

a nap in the studio window

                                                      our friend Luna

the "golden hour"

showing teeth

     See you down the trail.

    

Diversions from the bitter....

    As the administration's clowns and marionettes speak their superlatives, we see affirmed an absence of character, allergy to honor and a stunted ignorance. 

    But, we divert to a collection of moments captured around here. I hope they are sweet and relaxing.

Hemingway at 14

Solstice moment

breakfast geometry

Happy cactus

"Sunny" blending the shadows and light

Sunny is Hemingway's apprentice.

Lana's workbench

Henry taking beach time

Bluff trail late spring

sit a while

Sun salute

old pauses for new

ready for tea

Hemingway splitting the shadow

Eleanor's rose finds a home.

 

    A story question of this existential quiz is who will turn out the largest vote and most qualified candidates in next years mid-term elections.

    

    The chaos, amateur governance, inept grasp of consequence and the malignant personality cult is providing a stumbling, bumbling hulk of ruin that appears to be arranging it's own failure. They don't want people to see the inner secrets of the "big beautiful bill," as it further harms and undermines his very own base. 

    But even some of the idiot king's supporters are starting to notice nothing about their lives has gotten better. People are still waiting for federal help that may never come. Some who voted for the "macho" doughboy are now watching family be jerked off the street by unidentified agents and then sent away. The economy is worst than it was when this gang took control. The world is unstable. He remains a moron. He has been easily played by foreign leaders. People are tiring of hearing his winy inarticulate self adulation. All of this is building a rumbling, tumbling upheaval of failure, moral malfeasance, international embarrassment that certainly must motivate. It should bring an ice age style shearing to the present political topography when US citizens can "avalanche" MAGA out of Washington and then get back to the business of being the United States, "One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."  Or not. 

    Who's going to come with the pragmatism and solutions? Who's going to show up?

     See you down the trail. 

Peace-Love-Dirt No Kings

        No rain on this parade. No kings either. 

In the upside down world of the new Heliogabalus

this is the land of the enemy. The land of peace, love, dirt.

Public Radio station KCBX.

This year our return to the Live Oak nation carries a heavier purpose of 

fund raising, as some stunted brain idiot king wants funding back so he

can gild with more gold and watch more tanks roll by.

So this year folks do what they have for decades

enjoy. Music, friends and the spectacle of a glorious day on the California Central coast all for the good of public radio and great music.

Long time emcee, Joe Craven, known to model new fashion between acts spoke to how this was a protest of its own, people supporting each other and standing together for public radio and television, for freedom and liberty of thought and expression.

This gent sports a solar powered had. Notice the mini panels activating dancing flowers?

So regardless of what ever else has been on your screen today, take a moment for a tour of people of all sorts and ages being together, having a good time

supporting public radio. And we like color.

Most of the folks camp for 3 days.

There's a sizable contingent of day trippers too. 

These are the T Sisters from Oakland.

These gentlemen touch legend.

Bassist Jim Kern and percussionist/fiddler/mandolin player, said Joe Craven played with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman. Joined her by mandolin player Andrew Collins and Stu Allen on acoustic guitar and vocals doing a Garcia/Grisman tribute set. 

So, do you think we look like a threat to national security?

It's all about peace, love and dirt.

Rock on Live Oak Nation.

See you down the trail.