INSIDE TRUMP'S CLOSET and CONTENTED DIVERSIONS

CONTENTMENT

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Grazing slopes on Turri Road, San Luis Obispo County

    Silly to ask perhaps, but at what point and for what reason does a cow decide to stand or to rest?

FAVA UPDATE

   Frequent readers may recall recent photos of this year's fava bean crop, showing great promise. The days of promise have arrived.

     As Lana noted and as memorialized in this 2013 post Romancing the Fava, the Fine Art of the Shuck, it takes a lot of work to get the fava ready for inclusion in a menu. Picking, cracking the pod to shell it and then freeing the morsel from an inner skin. But the flavor is unlike anything else and thus coveted.
     I told Cambria artist and Italian cuisine maven Bruce Marchese, who seemed overly pleased that we had harvested our first batch, I was putting barbed wire and guard dogs around our fava bed.
     

WITH RESPECT TO THE CATALYST

    My friend Bruce Taylor, who blogs as the Catalyst at Odd Ball Observations, frequently treats and teases his readers with posts of food. Often they are items that he has made or that his beloved SWMBO has created. SWMBO, also known as Judy has delighted Lana and me with delicious dishes for more decades that would be polite to mention.

    Recently Bruce posted about a crispy fried egg. This is not that, but something he may wish to try. It begins skillet life as a fried egg, but at a propitious moment is suddenly scrambled, but only briefly. The white is set and the yolk is only a few moments from still being runny. By the time Mr. Camera arrived to snap the evidence, the yolk had set up a bit more than is desired. If you try it, get to that moment of scramble, then spatula it onto your plate and begin to eat. Leave the camera out of the equation and you'll have yolk that is that special exquisite place between solid and liquid. If you like that sort of thing.

SYMETRY

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 HOME MADE POT STICKERS & HOT AND SOUR SOUP

RUMMAGING IN TRUMP'S CLOSET

      Though I do not see eye to eye with David Brooks on some policy questions I think he is a thoughtful essayist. I find agreement with much of what he writes about ethics and philosophy. I urge you to read this piece on the sexual politics of 2016.

     It is my belief that all are welcome in the American political rumble, even those with views I deplore. However people are responsible and accountable for their behavior. That means of course that voters should be thoughtful and even studied. That is not the case too often. We acknowledge it with the identification of LOW INFORMATION VOTER. Regardless, candidates are still liable for what they say, do, advocate and for the effect they have.

      I suspect some of you are offended by the images above but as I follow Trump and his artful manipulation of the media and his use of propaganda techniques, and read again his racist, sexist, ethnocentric remarks and see a void when it comes to specific policy objectives, other than building a wall, and see his bullying and bellicose manner I am reminded of history. So I've spent time reading about Germany from the end of WWI, the rise of Nazism, Adolph Hitler's oratory, the consolidation of the workers movement, the outrageous beer hall putsch, the writing of Mein Kampf, the growth of the Nazi party and all that followed.  Of course there many differences and circumstances.  But it is the similarities that worry me.

     Here we are when conservatives and liberal are both surprised and even outraged by Donald Trump's ascent. His own party is worried sick. Pundits, commentators and analysts are surprised his quest for the Presidency is real. Donald Trump is not Adolph Hitler nor is he a Nazi. But the similarities should worry us all.

     See you down the trail.

DESPITE THE CLIMATE DIVIDE--NOT WHAT IT SEEMS--DIVINE COLOR?

Warning-this post includes notes on climate science.
TREES AS ART

    Cambria artist Bruce Marchese said he was experimenting with an abstract work. Bruce is best known for his rich color and realistic capture of people and scenes so I was intrigued. His vivid abstract piece now hangs at the Art Center. It's a brilliant representation of Eucalyptus bark. I see why he was so captivated.

    These Eucalyptus stand in a grove at San Simeon state park. They have competition in the color department though.

    This living abstract is the peeling bark of a Madrone.

   Hey Bruce, if you have success with the Eucalyptus you might consider the Madrone as your next model!

NEW WORRIES IN CLIMATE CHANGE

   This grand citizen of planet earth is one of the largest living things and one of the oldest.

     The only place in the world where you find these 2,000 to 3,000 year Sequoias is in the Sierra Nevada. Jim Robbins of the New York Times has published an article linked here that details the concern of biologists that climate change, especially longer or more frequent droughts, may peril the existence of these masters of the mountains.

    Sequoias, a type of redwood, have no disease or insect enemies and they can survive fire, but they need water, either in rain or snow melt.

    I've pondered if there isn't a message in this for humankind. Could there be something in the bark or essence of the largest and oldest living things on earth that could provide a molecular blessing?  Disease free, survive fire? What other living thing has such a resume?

    There is something else to these living spires. I am never  in a redwood forest or among the Sequoias that I don't sense a palpable spirit. Yes, there are differences on questions of the Divine, spirituality and faith, the degree and nature of climate change, but there can be no dissent on the overwhelming awesomeness of the power and survivability of the big trees. I think of them as the planet's silent sentries. What wisdom do they hold?

 See you down the trail.