The Quantum Nap

        Is it my reading and viewing list, or have you too noted there's a lot of recent information out there about quantum physics, quantum computing and how things quantum make the potential of "multiverses" something more than fodder for science fiction?

        It's all a push for my pragmatic sense of things and my hard headed desire to "understand." 

        A recent science article and an Apple television series had me puzzling through the idea of "alternative realities" when the moon shadows seized my attention. I grabbed a camera and got a frame of myself standing on our upper deck, in the world of shadows. I haven't worked out how the distant Pacific surf may have sounded in that shadow universe, nor do I know what would become of that shadow reality if I, or someone, had not seen, observed or photographed it.

        What marvelous riddles, and possibilities there are!  And what potential there is for those to whom the future belongs. Still, there is that nagging human problem about learning-learning from our past and from our frequently misguided ways.

        But for now, a deep dive into the present here on the California central coast and in Lana's garden, all, appreciative of the season's rain.  
 

Is it one or many?

           The peas are growing well. 

         Lana complains the hillside is too full of weeds-she has had back issues and her weed eradication effort has been slowed. I continue my more than half a century protest that weeds are also life and provide their own contributions to the blue sphere. Alternate realities, eh? But Green is green.

        Our youngest of the brood, Sunny is enjoying the return of the Sun...     

The old tiger gal, Joy, is particularly taken with the beds near the front walk

    And the old boy Hemingway, our polydactyl, would be Garfield, does what he enjoys most, next to eating. Naps tend to make a lot of sense to me these days as well.

    Madmen still make war, a taste for power has driven a whole political cult into a trance of stupefaction and insensibility, and we've unleashed machine learning and artificial intelligence experiments on our children. Phones, screens and social media are rewiring our brains and undoing society. 

    It's like the meme, "Here hold my beer"  while we blindly jump into the next thing, never mind we have forgotten the word consequence and the mere idea of forethought.

    Yea, naps are a good alternative reality.

          Summon your wits good people, gird your loins and activate that life of experience and learning. 

        Our hand are no longer on the throttles of power, but we have voice and a vote and we are still to be reckoned with. There are facts to note, truth to tell and a Republic to defend between now and November. 

        We know this drill, we can still answer the call, and we'll be effective, if we take our nap and remember our meds. 

        Be of good cheer, we have the cosmos and eternity set in our hearts.

        See you down the trail.

Getting back to forward...

         Enduring the deluge of atmospheric rivers California has turned green, 

        and the view from the study has started to bloom.

        The cheer spring brings is a bracer for dealing with the slide backwards.

        I read that one quarter of all Americans are "food insecure," we used to call that hungry. For people of color the numbers are out of proportion to their population percentage . 

        I watched an investigative report that learned between 25-30% of all organs intended for transplant are wasted or rejected because the logistic of getting the harvested organs to recipients in time is so badly managed or fraught with transportation issues.

        Those who know say we used to do better than that. 

        The asthma medicine albuterol is in short supply and the problems that creates for millions will get worse. A pharma that made it is out of business.

        Polio and measles are showing up again, after years of control. 

        

      Do we seem to be losing intelligence, capability or even the ability to recognize the problem(s). Can we not function with foresight and efficiency? 

     I've already abused your attention and overstated my incredulity that "we"-the civilized world-have not stopped Putin's war crimes and his brutal assault on humanity. He is an international thug-killer and we watch, debate and even arm the invaded, but we have not found the courage to stop him. 

        History speaks to this matter. We act as if we are blind to those warnings.

        Donald Trump again bathes in media and continues to fertilize the hatred and division he seeded. 

        Some media are giving lip service to the conundrum, how do you cover such a malefactor and wretch and not give him the free ride that made him in 2016. The grievously flawed decision by then CNN chief Jeff Zucker was steroids for MAGA. 

        Here we go again with banks and money. Did we learn nothing from even as recently at 2008? The Fed is simply a council of banks. Banks are the bad actors, and always are. Inflation is and always has been a manipulation of price and supply. History teaches us  it is best to take care of and look out for the populace, the working folks. But banks and the bankers get the money,  get bailed out, and get the bonuses. Why can't, why shouldn't they get the haircut?  

        Guess who owns the legislators via lobbyists and campaign contributions?     

         We are still learning how much we changed in the pandemic. I think we are increasingly distracted.  

    

        Some distractions are good, even great. 

        

        

        We are fortunate our grand kids attend bilingual schools in communities that are tolerant, open minded and that put the intellectual and emotional well being of the children at the top of the priorities. 

        With this new mania for parents "getting to review" their children's education, an artifact of the right wing's pumping of the culture war, I ask what about PTA, or PTO or parent councils or volunteering at school, or parent teacher conferences. Has that not been an historic standard in this nation's evolution of learning,  education and parental involvement? 

       The Florida model is sick and chilling. If education is to achieve its intended purpose then open minds, fully prepared to think has to be the methodology. 

        The right wing is not the only bad actor here. The left has bent so far to be  "non triggering" they have become mind and thought controllers in their own right. 

       Minds need to be open, engaged in a full on immersion in facts. We need a full stop on half baked conspiracy, a disabusing of those with such faulty notions, an accountability, clarity as to what is real, severe scrutiny of politicians, more individual knowledge seeking, holding media to higher standards and more intelligent use of communication and information platforms. 

        We've gotten lazy, we get information in silos, we don't try to understand views that we do not hold. We lack a curiosity but we swallow platitudes. We've permitted ourselves to be divided, angry and mean. I'm a geezer, but if we want a future for grandkids, things have to change. 

        See you down the trail. 

The Cure for Disgust

Iris in Lana's garden 

California poppy by a road side

        I come bearing flowers hoping they have an ameliorative affect. I also violate every standard of story telling by beginning with an apology.

   I am disappointed to have the need to return to the insanity that passes as our political reality. I am sorry. Sorry to intrude on spring, but even more sorry that we endure this democracy threatening episode.

    So as we thread a few stitches of analysis, I hope the flowers from around here on the California central coast assuage your disgust. They have been a joy to this writer. 

    CS Lewis wrote, "Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things-ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption and stupidity." 

    Some degree of fear, therefore, is in order.

wild blooms on path to beach

 

the republican link to terrorism

  

   Before writing this post I participated in a briefing with cyber security experts from the intelligence community, academia and cyber security companies. The primary thrust was the dark web and criminal and national security risks, especially in the light of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident that created gas shortages on the East coast.

    Two of the experts noted that among the most active visitors to portals of the dark web, encryption services and marketplaces selling identities and credentials, are domestic terrorists involved in the insurrection. They are amongst those who propagate the lies and deceptions designed to undermine citizen belief in the credibility of our government and our electoral process.

    When Republicans cared about national security, some of their more zealous would warn that leftists were sewing seeds of doubt in America. They saw it as a Soviet inspired attempt to undermine our beliefs, our system of government, and our faith in our Democracy.

    The recent ex-president spent 4 years pleasing a former Soviet KGB officer by spreading poison about our election process, our media and anyone who dared to challenge his corrupt and complicit, though inept, regime. 

    Trumpism is a disease of the American spirit for which we must find a vaccine, or cure. 

   wild land in bloom

   The Republican party has been recast in his image, thus a party now founded on deception and duplicitous to its core. The test of fealty is to lie.

    With their vow to deceive and their moral bankruptcy it calls into question every legislative action and intent. Joe Biden, Democrats, and the US citizenry needs, and is better, with a loyal opposition that believes in a democratic republic. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy preside over a nest of vipers. They are men without courage or honor. They are enablers. 

    As Republicans in state legislatures change voting laws, a chilling truth emerges; If they were to win control of the House of Representatives there is the highest likelihood they would not certify a Democrat presidential win. 

    They want power at all costs. They refuse to respect American history and tradition. Liz Cheney speaks truth about Trump and what he is doing to America.

      

     layers of texture of spring bloom

   A video, leaked to the media, catches the director of Heritage Action for America, a right wing political action group, bragging about drafting the legislation that states have used in changing voting laws to their favor, 

    "...or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has 'that grassroots, from the bottom up' type of vibe," she said.

    They will spend millions to change state laws to suppress votes, change election rules and election boards. It is a well funded, coordinated right wing effort to take away votes from those who oppose Trumpism, or who are not white. It is part of the authoritarian mindset, out to upend democracy.

    "We literally give marching order for the week ahead," she says on the tape. "We're singing from the same song sheet of the goals for that week where the state bills are across the country."

    The threat to our way of government comes from those who spread or believed the lies, mounted the insurrection, or who aided and encouraged it including most Republican House and Senate members. Republicans on the Hill are doing all they can to avoid an investigation into the worst attack on the Capitol since the British burned it in 1814.**  

   

    echium-pride of madera 

    You probably read of the New York Times investigation about how the right wing Project Veritas ran a scam to try to discredit Lt. General HR McMaster, a Silver Star  combat Veteran. He was the National Security Advisor at the time. Why? The Republican dirty tricksters didn't think he was loyal enough to Trump. A Republican staff member of the Senate Judiciary Committee was involved.

    The Trump anti democracy cancer is rampant. Liz Cheney is absolutely correct, Trump and his Republican supporters remain a threat. They diminish the standing of the US on a global measure.

blooms on the back hill

    I expect Trump will be ensnared in legal entanglements in the not too distant future. The brainwashed populism, white supremacist nationalism and deglobalization grievance culture he motivated is up for grabs. There is no shortage of poltroons who have been to pay supplication to the authoritarian would be king, while they hope he is not a bigfoot candidate in '24.

wild bloom ocean side

wild radish in bloom and a thistle

(ranchers hate the thistle but the Scots DNA in me gives it a cheer)

    The use of news clips from the Trump years demonstrate the sheer ineptitude and doltishness. Still those who take their cues from right wing media are stuck in a deceit that has stolen their judgement. 

    That was the theft of the last election, along with the abandonment of honor, and democratic principle. 

    ** In 1856 a pro slavery congressman beat an anti slavery Senator with a cane. Two years later 30 Congressmen got into a fist fight. 

    In 1860 pro slavery advocates threatened anti  slavery congressmen with pistols. 

    Three sticks of dynamite exploded in 1915 in a protest to US help in WW I.  

    In 1954 four Puerto Rican independence supporters fired guns shooting five congressmen who survived. 

    A 1971 bomb did damage but no injury in what was claimed to be a Weather Underground protest of the bombing of Laos. 

    In 1983 a bomb damaged the Senate side in an action by a the Armed Resistance Unit protesting military incursions in Lebanon and Grenada.

    The January 6, 2021 actions of the Trump mob of insurrectionists trying to stop the certification of the election and seeking the assassination of Vice President Pence was the deadliest Capitol assault in history. 138 police officers were injured. 

    Doesn't common sense demand an investigation?

a couple of Lana's orchids

    A little more about the berries. They were harvested from a planter box patch that Lana labored to protect from birds, raccoons and a grandson. We cannot grow strawberries in our ridge gardens as we did in the loamy soil of our Indiana gardens. So those five are a bit of a trophy, though the real champs were those we raised in our truck farm patch in the glacial hills of Morgan County. We had a lot of berries, and that was a good thing because we had to protect them from the birds, raccoons, our daughter Kristin and her lab, Inkie.

    Stay safe. 

    See you down the trail. 

THE WEEKENDER-HOW YOUR PHONE CAN KEEP YOU HEALTHY & EXOTICS

THIS IS CREATING THE FUTURE

     A story by NBC News has been getting a good pass along, deservedly so, because it is both hopeful and a bit mind-blowing. Creative thinking and development such as this is a reason for optimism.  This Weekender Video shows how your phone, could be even better for you.

YOUR WEEKENDER BOUQUET

from out front flower bed

a type of hyacinth

a mini ice plant bloom

    Even the blooms of the "bottle brush" tree strike me as exotic.

A REPURPOSED SCHOOL

a great gallery

    I was pleased to see Lana's modernist Aguacante, a biomorphic abstract, in such a place of prominence in the recent hanging at the Cambria Allied Arts Association Gallery. 

     Bruce Marchese's award winning Waterfall hangs on the left.

       The well lit space is part of the repurposing of the old Cambria Grammar school.

       Behind the door at the end of the hall is the auditorium now converted to a theatre and used by a superb local theater group.

    Halls that were once filled with the sound of children now  hear the reaction of art fans and patrons as they view the latest monthly offering of Cambria's distinguished art colony.

    See you down the trail.