Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun
Showing posts with label Bob Schieffer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Schieffer. Show all posts

Sunday, October 9, 2016

And Now More Disconnect and What They See

disconnect
     Someplace near the Cupertino and Mountain View exit signs an idea began to emerge. As I routed through what the world knows as Silicon Valley it took shape. The United States is not. Not only are we not united, but this behemoth nation straddles a couple of centuries. The divide is obvious  as we look to federal Washington.
     Research and development, business, investment and the attendant cultural vibrations in this part of California are about the future. The current US electoral mania is a symbolic foil. The morass in which most government grinds to near irrelevancy is a further proof of the disconnect. 
     On the modern campuses arrayed between southern San Francisco and San Jose new horizons are being mounted. Apple, Facebook, Google, Stanford University, NASA's Ames Research Centers along with a web of smaller tech and communication companies are striding with systems, applications, models and advances that disrupt old ways of business, living, doing and being. 
     Data, sensors, nano architecture, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, space exploration, transportation revolutions and more cascade in a fountain of discovery and advance in this area oblivious to whatever moribund and retrograde shards of society that seem to fill our media. (IBM, New York based, is apart of this historic arc with its AI program Watson.)
     Whether it is in perhaps the most unpopular and unwanted presidential candidates in history, or the obsession with celebrity, racism, more guns and violence than any nation on the planet, crumbling cities, poisoned seas, waters, land and air, lowered expectations, failing schools and climate changes, it is as if a deadly inertia spread shroud like over the nation. There are pockets of bio technology and advanced research elsewhere, but it's not in the air, rippling like an energy force as it is here.
     It is easy to despair how this nation seems committed to getting more stupid and uninspired, until we ponder the extraordinary things that are happening out here.Government  is not sought for solution, inspiration or leadership. California watches tech genius, innovators, visionaries work through modern and future matters. Culture, ways of business, expectations and attitude are being changed.
     I may be working too hard to make a point, but so much of what has shaped our way of living in the last 25 years-data-communication-technology is new. They are amazing things sprung from creativity, imagination and invention. Washington on the other hand and by extension politics everywhere, is about money, power and the desire for it. Yes, there is money, big money in the Silicon Valley axis, but it comes from making something new. Politics is a business and so is government. It is increasingly bought and sold, has lost direction and is venal. Principals of public service have been subverted. It is harder for good people to do good because politics is now inhabited by so many losers without a hint of an original idea or the desire to make something better, let alone new. There is a breed of politician and their beltway bandit allies who think they are pulling something over on us.
     It is a time for vision and visionaries. Time for those who are in it for themselves to join the scrap heap. Until then, the disconnect continues. Government and politics could become irrelevant. 
     
natural agin

   Driftwood on Moonstone beach offers a never ending visual treat.
   People say the image below reminds them of a local sea otter, on its back. Does your imagination get you there?

a debate post
     Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper expended energy to maintain control, focus and observance of time restraints. They did an excellent job and did not allow themselves to be bullied nor did they let the candidates get away with avoiding the question.
      Bob Schieffer of CBS had what I thought was the best summary and he asked "How have we come to this?"

        See you down the trail.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

SNARK, QUIVER AND COUNTING

SNARKING THE BROS
     Just a brief word to add to the debate volumes.
     For a 90 minute exchange on foreign policy, they certainly spent a lot of time on the economy and they missed most of the world.  Sure, people vote on economics and social issues, but in a troubled world they ignored too much.  A deeper discussion might have surfaced some real differences in attitude, approach and application.
Photo Courtesy of CBS News
     What a tough time to moderate!  Bob Schieffer, an old pro indeed, has been mugged by the insipid society of the snarky. Those who are guilty of such are probably the same crowd who suddenly have thrust the word "trajectory" into presidential politics. They are, most probably, people who spent more time tweeting, than actually listening, and who know in their hearts that all presidential politics really is about them, their twitter stream, face time and Facebook activity.  If you don't really have anything intelligent or important to say, then be snarky about the moderator.
       The last debate I moderated was the gubernatorial debate in Indiana 4 years ago. I escaped better than Lehrer, Raddatz, Crowley or Schieffer, though there were a couple of bloggers who went after me. One was experiencing their first governors race while being of voting age.  The other was a reporter whose work, I thought, always betrayed his lack of savvy, understanding of complexity and even more troubling his relative lack of intelligence.  So it is for those who practice snarky instead of real journalism.   
       
READING THE SNOW DEPTH
Photo Courtesy of cserc.org
     Autumn dried Californians wait for the snow season to
paint the Sierra Nevada range. An early storm is expected to leave 8-12 inches along the Sierra Crest and 4-8 inches below 7,000.
      At 700 sites in the Western US, where water supplies are dependent on snow melt, such as here at Mt Tallac, you will find SNOTEL technology.
    The U.S. Department of Agriculture operates Snow pack
Telemetry sites (SNOTEL) utilizing meteor burst technology.
     The USDA's National Resource Conservation Service set out precipitation collectors, snow pillows, depth sensors 
     and temperature gauges. They relay data that is used to calculate water levels from snow melt.
     Alpine ski altitude gets 300 to 500 inches a season. 125 fall on the lake at 6,400 feet.
    16 remote SNOTEL sites stand sentry in the Lake Tahoe basin alone.
     The image below is from a web cam frame grab Tuesday afternoon at Heavenly Dipp above South Lake Tahoe.
ARCHIVE PHOTOS
This is the kind of accumulation the SNOTEL stations will measure.
Photo Courtesy of weather.com
Photo Courtesy of kqed.org
    The next time you read about the snow fall or accumulated depth up in California's high country, you can picture one of the little SNOTEL sites, enduring the wind, cold and depth while transmitting data.
BEFORE YOU GO
A HALF MOMENT OF AUTUMN
Quaking Aspen
See you down the trail.