IS THIS TRUMP A TRICK

REMIND YOU OF SOMEONE?

The Donald

Nature's perverse humor

      I keep searching the side of the political coverage scenes, looking for a flash of Joel or Ethan Coen or George Clooney. Seeing them smirking around the edges of the political swamp would bring relief, this is all a joke.

    Warning bells are ringing. No less a traditionalist than conservative and Republican David Brooks laments and pleads for sanity arguing that neither Trump nor Cruz can be elected, he hopes.  Ditto for Sanders. They are not stable he argues so America will not take them on as long term companions. But the venerable Mr. Brooks is not convinced so he says he will spend the next few months in denial. He's not alone in the GOP, the Gagging Old Party.

    It's now an old joke-TV News has become all Trump all the time. There's far too much truth in that. It's the funny pages moved to the front page. The freak show moved to the big top. Donald is so colorful the modern journos can't help themselves.

    Ah, but they can.

Rachel pounds Flint 

    As so much of the media universe was making silly over the entirely over rated politically active Iowans and Donald Vs. Megyn, or basking in the annual Super Hype, Rachel Maddow did something different-real journalism. Like her or not, approve or disapprove of her tilt, she had the presence of mind and conscience to focus a big media light on an  unbelievable American disaster. 

    The story of lead contamination of 100 thousand Americans, including 9,000 children is symbolic of how broken, morally bankrupt and politically corrupt this nation can be. The story of Flint is something you'd expect in Russia or North Korea.

    Her town hall meeting was a tangible and credible effort at understanding yes, but also a beginning pursuit of doing something about it. Honestly, Flint is a helluva lot more important than the Iowa Caucus, New Hampshire Primary and the clown car media carnival they have fostered. And more honesty-crumbling infrastructure is not the exclusive problem of Flint.  How wide spread might it be? If you really want to know, pull up a map and begin counting every major city in America. When you've counted them all you'll have your answer.

KERMIT WAS RIGHT

   The modicum of good news in this post is the picture above. Moisture and green, in California. It hasn't been easy.

    We are sorry El Nino has produced serious problems elsewhere, but here on the California coast and into the high Sierra we are getting relief from four years of drought. Nothing is back to normal yet, but it is getting better. Lakes are no longer bone dry and the mountain snow pack is healthy. We have several more weeks in this rainy season and we are grateful for the additional moisture on the way.

       By the time the political circus comes to town out here our lovely green may have begun to fade into our golden season. The June primary here will be the end of the preliminaries and the eve of the national conventions. In the last few years the conventions have been nothing more than television programs, a sort of perverted telethon. There has been nothing to decide, so the delegates gather to party and offer up platitudes. This year could be a bit different.  We'll see. And how I hope I see the Coen's.

     See you down the trail.

TALES AND TAILS

Flowing

  Creeks and waterways are beginning to resemble their old selves again. The vaunted El Nino has been producing rain in California, including on the drought stricken Central Coast.

 Driving in the rain in California is akin to driving in snow or on ice elsewhere. Since rain is about the only diversion from sunshine and blue skies in most of California, rain is a big story.

    But after four years of drought, every drop is a cause celeb.

   Here on the Central Coast, half way between LA and San Francisco, it looks as though we are in for a week of rain, with a few hours between cells that allow the ground to soak it up.

   Back in Indiana we never gave much thought to rain, unless it was ruining a picnic, ball game, wedding or etc. due in large part to the fact there is so much rain. Here it is a seasonal oddity and some people and most animals are frightened by it. Really!

THE CATS TALE

   So we begin with the end, before the tail, or tale.

 Joy, on the left and Hemingway are young enough to have missed what a California Central Coast winter is like. All they know is the abnormally warm and dry winters of the past couple of years. So this year, cooler temperatures and rain have them in a dither.
  Because of allergies, they spend their time on the deck and porch and in the garden on the hill. They sleep in the garage.

     To help them through their first real winter and recognizing their love for boxes, Lana made a Cat Condo. They've taken to it. The connecting "door" allows cuddling.

   Hemingway was perturbed I disturbed his nap for a photo op.

   Nighty night!

   See you down the trail.

Painted-Bone Dry and A Short Throw

ENCHANTED EVENING

   Marvelous summer sunsets are a California positive, helping us to survive historic drought.

IT HAPPENED BEFORE

    By 1863 the drought on the central California coast was so severe, ranchers drove starving and dehydrated cattle off bluffs into the Pacific. 

    Today ranchers have alternatives, including thinning herds. A recent walk brought all of this to mind

  It's difficult to see what the cattle may be grazing on.

DRY CREEK BEDS

   San Simeon Creek should be rushing through this. Now only traces of a flow.

  So now all of us, quadrupeds and bipeds adopt the attitude of the above lady-what's up?  In the meantime we wait for El Nino.

A FIVE YEAR THROW

    Five years ago this summer-the Journalism Hall of Fame induction. The ceremony was in a magnificent Tudor hall in one of the historic buildings on the campus of Indiana University which now houses the Hall of Fame in the Ernie Pyle Center.

  You can link here to learn more about the particulars.

  This summer my thoughts are with former president Ray Moscowitz who presented me with the Crystal plaque. A great newspaper editor who oversaw operations for 14 papers in his career, Ray is battling a brain tumor. He faces the challenge with the same zeal and forthrightness that he practiced journalism. Ray is a 2002 inductee.

  Also proud of my former colleague and longtime friend Kevin Finch. Kevin is now a professor at Washington and Lee University. You can link to his blog in the Rich Blogs column to the right of this post.
   Time certainly does fly!

   See you down the trail.

NEW CHAPTERS-IN IT TOGETHER

PLANET KINDRED

     We're in new territory now. California is in the fourth year of a drought and experts say the state has never been drier, though that may not be true. It's problematic.

      The tree above is a neighbor, one of many Monterey Pines in this area's unique pine forest, one of three natural such forests. I'm worried about the tree and many of its kindred.

     The drought has exacerbated other problems and some predict a mortality rate of 40-80% of the forest. When trees die and suffer so does the abundant wild life in the area.

      We've shared the ridge with this tree and a few that have died and thinned the copse. We've watched a marvelous cycle of life now in peril. 

      First we hear the plaintive cry of a young hawk, then in time we watch flying lessons and still later we watch the aerial combat of hawks and families of crows who have also lived here for generations. Wild turkeys seek refuge in the shade, bob cats, fox, deer and many species of birds roam or roost here. Skunk, raccoons and squirrels are here. Mushrooms spring in the under thicket, wild flowers patch their way into and share the sun. When an old tree goes, life changes in profound ways.

      This blue planet is in the midst of changes and so it has always been. Woodworkers and scientists tell us areas of California have endured droughts that extended decades. Decades! Historians have written of extended droughts that ended eras of cattle ranching. There is a theory the last 100 years have been the anomaly, wetter than normal. 

      We are all in this mystery together and largely we are powerless. We can respond and we have. People of our village have reduced water use by as much as 45%. A newly built system uses waste and brackish water to supply a percentage of our needed supply.

      Meteorologists discuss a Pacific Decadal Oscillation, intense high pressure and variations in the jet stream though, regardless of cause, we live with uncertainty. In our time on the ridge we've seen 37 inches of rain in a season and as low as 8. The last four have been the driest and that brings us again to our trees. 

      It has become necessary to thin the forest of dead trees, to reduce danger. Problems; how to get it done, how to pay for it, what to do with the old wood? Citizens, elected representatives and a variety of experts are in a kind of scrum to chart a course of action.  
     California Governor Brown has renewed the water restrictions and serious people are asking even more serious questions about what this means to California's agriculture, which feeds the nation. Many look to the Pacific and see what could be a water supply, but not without cost and process and politics.

     The good citizens of this marvelous and vast state move toward a future with unmeasured dimensions and uncertain challenges. This is a state of enjoyment where so much of life is lived outside, where the light is vivid and saturated like the colors, aromas and flavors of diversity. These are people who have built technology empires, entertainments and lifestyles where relaxation, kicking back, hanging out bespeak attitudes and spirit.  But it's a new time. Changes are coming.

      Our approach to forest management is likely one of those changes.  Neglect and inattention did not create the problem, but they did not help.  Earlier cutting, thinning, better stewardship and management would have dialed back the fire danger.

      In our village a forest management plan was written years ago, agreed to by levels of government and regulatory agencies, but it has never been funded.  Shame on us!  It is too late for too many trees. I hope my neighbor will survive and I hope we may learn in the uncertain future that we all have a stake in every aspect life on this blue marble.
      Pollution in China, nuclear radiation in Japan, overwatered golf courses in the desert, neglected forest management, toxic waste in rivers, whirlpools of plastic in the oceans, chemicals on lawns, lack of conservation, and on and on, are all ultimately local issues in every community and threatening problems to all life. They respect no boundaries.

   We are all in this together.

    See you down the trail.

BIG CONCEPTS, SPLITTING TIME, SHOWING GREEN

A CONGRESS OF DANCERS

Yucca plants thrive in desert zones and give the terrain a populated feeling.

 They add color and texture to the brown and sand scape tones. They remind me of clusters of gesticulating dancers.

LOOKING FOR GREEN

    Following three years of drought Californians are beginning to see tinges of winter green. Two small rain showers in the last couple of weeks have charged the grazing slopes with something on which to graze.

  There is precious little green but even that softens the concrete gray and brown of the dry slopes. 

AN EPIC RIDE

    Everything about INTERSTELLAR is big. Big name cast, director, story, themes, concept and running time. 
     Christopher Nolan is an accomplished director and movie maker. He uses his full skill range in writing a storyline and then turning it into a film that is adventure, heartwarming, thrilling, mind bending, and stunning.  But it is long.
     Mathew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jane Chastain, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon, John Lithgow and Michael Caine  live up to their reputations.  Josh Stewart and Bill Irwin as TARS and CASE, on board computers, were terrific. In fact I'd love to have one of those around here.
      Planet degradation, government cut backs in science, family dynamics, parental love, black holes, and time space continuums are all treated as part of the story line.  Unexpected but nicely handled was the scene where a teacher upbraids McConaughey and his daughter for using a text book that teaches about the Apollo flights to the moon. The teacher insists that was all propaganda by the US to force the Soviet Union to spend more than they had on space research. 
      There is a lot to this big and epic film and you'll need to enjoy sic-fi, science, space, action and mental riddles to love it. Lana enjoyed it less than I did. A buddy with whom we saw the film said it was a bit long.  However there is an act, series of scenes, where time, a moment in time, is portrayed across a spectrum of realities, dimensions and time itself. It was stunning to see as it played and I've found that I continue to roam back over the concept and the visualization of it. If theoretical physics could have been taught in such a way, I might have been seduced by that sense of "reality."  It will stretch your head a bit.  Or not! At any rate I'd like to put TARS or CASE on my Christmas gift wish list.

    See you down the trail.

OLIVE COUNTRY TOO & HINTS OF GREEN

WHERE OLIVES GROW

    Last year's designation, by a leading wine magazine, as the best wine region in the world has assured the Paso Robles appellation of continued attention. But it is also a burgeoning olive growing district. This view is from Kiler Ridge where some great olive oil is grown and processed. 

DROUGHT BLUES

    The dry heat, when it should be damp or rainy cool, has confused nature. The drought continues. These hills should be green.  

    Coastal California has three seasons, golden, brown and green, but the drought has taken us from brown to concrete gray.

THIS IS NORMAL WINTER

    These are scenes from 2 years ago, the last season we had adequate rain.

Now, only a tinge of green

    The rolling hills have taken on a gray cast, instead of the normal winter/spring "Green as Ireland" look. Believe it or not we are pleased by the tinge that you may be able to spot on the western slopes.

     This is normally a lagoon, used by birds and water fowl.

     For the time being central and southern Californians are hoping and praying for more rain, so we'll see more of this-a product of the only 3-4 inches we've had this season.

   This narrow strip near the road and mailbox is the most green we've seen.  Wish those who have had an abundance of rain or snow could pipe it west.  

    See you down the trail.