Light/Breezes

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

Saturday, May 20, 2023

Repeating mistakes


NEWS ABUSE

         Serious people can take comfort in how viewers, critics and other media summarily criticized CNN for their abandonment of principal and their failure of sound judgement in giving a free platform to the anti democracy, impeached ex president. 

        CNN CEO Chris Licht has acknowledged there were mistakes in the so called town hall meeting. There was such a clamor he had to back peddle from his original crowing about the broadcast. The idea was bone headed and Licht was made to take some medicine.

        As the ex-president is the leading republican presidential candidate the legitimate media has an obligation to cover his campaign, but does not include free and unchecked use of a network to, predictably, lie, demean, bully and to do his grift of fundraising. The appearances are his primary means of financial endeavor, bilking true believers to fund his legal defense needs and to bankroll his tortured campaign.

        It was CNN under the deposed and tarnished Jeff Zucker who gave the reality television actor free airtime that propelled him into the lead of the republican field in 2016. You would think CNN has some institutional memory and at least a residual sense of shame and guilt for their role in foisting the ill prepared man onto the American public and into the White House.

    It seems journalists are wrestling with how to cover the as yet un-indicted ring leader of the January 6 insurrection. Viewers and advertisers can and should leverage influence as well. There is an odious and ignominious cloud over CNN now.  Licht needs to heed the overwhelming public revulsion.


TIME TO SAY GOODBYE

       California Senator Dianne Feinstein is exercising faulty judgement and so is the exclusive club to which she is clinging, the US Senate.
        Feinstein has been an exemplary public servant most of her life, but it is obvious her health is no longer robust enough to meet the obligations of representing California. 
        Long time members of the Senate do not go easily but Feinstein and her staff are ignoring public good for the vestiges of power. At 89 it is best for her to attend to her health and it is best for California and the Senate Democrat caucus that she step aside. 
        It is time for the "Senate Club" to address the issue of absence, illness, incapacity, and the ability to fulfill the obligations of Senate work. 


MICKEY 1  SWAMP CREATURE 0

        The other blunder of judgement getting our attention is Governor DeSantis' decision to go to war with Disney. Presently DeSantis is getting his head handed to him by Mickey Mouse. DeSantis is being cast as a dud, early in his challenge of another cartoon character for the Republican nomination. 
        The fact Disney is threatening to pull back billions of commitment to future building and work in Florida is evidence enough the bully Governor's self righteous moral crusade was not only overstepping and wrong it was also bad for Florida business. 
        Somebody please suit up the governor, it would be fitting to make his campaign appearances in a Goofy costume. 


ARAB MENDACITY
SYRIAN SLAUGHTER & SAUDI SUCCOR

        Syria's readmission to the Arab League is an offense to civility and the idea of diplomacy. Syria's Assad is guilty of slaughter and brutality that could be the worst in recorded history. He is a war criminal and butcher and deserves the strongest dose of discipline the world can apply. Instead the bazaar prince MSB, who issues kill orders and slimes his way to power in the "Kingdom," has embraced Assad and welcomed him back to the league. There is no honor among thieves and the next 1001 Arab nights deserve close scrutiny. 

     Stay vigilant. See you down the trail.   

Sunday, September 20, 2020

And now this! What is your choice, America?


pacific sonata and soliloquy 

   A stiff onshore wind cleared the thought that was stuck on replay since a friend's text, deploring the latest offense of 2020, stuck it in my mind. RBG gone less than 24 hours and already the jackals were salivating, revealing a soulless betrayal of their own perversity, again!
     A bluff trail along a rugged stretch was the antidote of choice. Our national tragedy just got worse. Fresh air and surf gave me some distance to riddle it out.
     I know we're in new territory, a place that is dangerous to the continued existence of the republic as we have known it, but we've gone even deeper into the dark woods. We'll explore our national mood, a bit further down the trail.
ash on the gold
    What is top of the mind, the crisis of the day? Out here on the West coast we've been forced into thinking about long term implications. Giant fires, loss of life and billions in property, limited resources, fouled air with a deleterious global impact. 
    Climate change is changing the course of history. California, the magical land of golden sun, beaches, mountains and redwoods, where the future and fantasy are built, Disney, Hollywood, Apple,Tesla, Google, and the place that loomed alluringly in the lives of boomers with every note of the Beach Boys, Eagles or Grateful Dead, must now navigate a veil of uncertainty. There is smoke and ash on the gold.
been bad before
    The calculus for our daughters and grandchildren is a different data set than we used to engineer our aspirations. But there is always the X factor, human ingenuity, and now augmented by artificial intelligence and machine learning.  
     Sitting around the dinner table recently, hearing them voice concerns about the future of their work, their children's lives, education, the government, state of the civilization and all, the best fatherly sagacity I could muster was, it's been bad before, but somehow the spirit leads to evolution, improvement and survival.
   the new "moon shot"
    Our parents would not recognize some of our everyday routines. And so it will be for our kids, and for us. Change is accelerating and it must. Life is coming at us more quickly.
    Here are a couple ideas I've tried to seed. President Biden, and we hope that is so, should do a "moonshot" approach on wildfires. All of humanity would benefit. 
    With scientists, technologists, environmentalists, foresters, architects, builders and firefighters in concert, we can find a better way to mange forests and wild land, prevent fire perhaps, battle back at blazes and survive them.
    It's more than a sci-fi notion, why can't our brightest design robotic, mechanical, scalable, "Transformer" like massive firefighting equipment and technology that can do what and go where humans cannot? Designed to adapt to all terrain, loaded or rapidly refilled with water or firefighting chemicals, able to attack blazes and withstand what brave humans can't. A fanciful notion? Perhaps, but this planet's future will involve fire on a scale unknown to our history. It's time for new thought. When JFK committed the US to get to the moon in a decade, it all had to be invented and made possible. 
   new ways to build
   Homes need to be built and coded differently where fires burn. I'm not a designer, but I told the girls if we were building today, we'd design a home that includes a large section that is subterranean, built with concrete, cement, metal and other fire resistant materials. Interior and exterior sprinkler or retardant systems and more would be part of the plan.
    After hurricanes devastated coastal homes, insurance companies, state, and federal agencies mandated new building codes. The same should go for those of us who live in states where wild fires are a reality. It would mean a massive change in construction, materials, design, and planning. It would no doubt limit development in some areas, but not to change is foolish. 
    Simply put, we need to get busy inventing our future, with an intentionality, and in response to what science and experience  inform us. 
the rise of the beast
       An incompetent, criminal, minority President who is mentally ill and a liar without precedent, the deadly pandemic, and a terribly managed response, the bull goose looney Attorney General aroused by a growing authoritarianism, a cult like party largely brainwashed or belligerently ignorant and proud of it, the nation's diminished international standing, being seen as a stooge of Putin, and a trend to reverse civil rights apparently is not bad enough juju so now we have a Supreme Court vacancy to get exercised about. 
      Well, we have McConnell, and Graham and others in the Senate saying there should be no court nominee put forward so close to a Presidential election. But that was when a Black President, and a Democrat had an appointment to make. Now they have a White Racist Republican whose feet they lick. In the real world, there goes the notion of principle. 
      Do you remember when intelligent minds told us never to accept Trump and his gang as normal and never normalize the aberrant behavior? Did we ever have a chance, with one disaster or outrage leading to another?
     Are there any Republicans, old fashioned true Republicans left in the Senate? I guess we'll see. 
     I suspect I'll be back on trails, grabbing as much pacific breeze antidote as I can in these next few weeks. In the near term we should celebrate the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an extraordinary human being who lifted the greatness of the US by her devotion to principle, liberty, intellect, law and a sense of human dignity. 
      Citizens deserve a process and timeline that allows us to think and reason. There has been precious little of that in the last 4 years. If this deplorable administration and its quisling minions in the Senate try to fill the court at this juncture, there may well be a seismic rumble. Two visions of the US are available to citizens this year. One leads to repair and problem solving. The other one is the super spreader of despair and problem making. 

      Stay safe. Take care of each other. Vote. Encourage others to vote.

      See you down the trail.


Thursday, November 29, 2012

POWER

MULTIPLICITY OF POWER
natural-phantom-shopping
A GOOD BLOW
    California's central coastline is roiling with strong surf
     driven by the first of three punches of wind and rain 
     coming in from the north.  Storm #1 left a half inch in our gauge and debris on the beach.
      15 to 20 foot waves are expected through the weekend.

    The power of the sea rakes the kelp beds.
     Writers, painters and nature lovers take inspiration from
the seasonal brooding.

PHANTOM POWER
     Appliances in our homes and offices that remain in stand by (televisions, chargers, microwaves, computer boxes) cost us hundreds of dollars a year.  David I. Levine at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business wrote an eye opening piece for the LA Times. 
OUR POWER TO SAVE LIVES
     Unraveling this string of circumstance may lead us to an uneasy truth.  Many clothing shoppers seek the lowest price, sometimes even over quality. Manufacturers seek to lower production costs. Clothes are made abroad, in nations with "cheaper" labor and without benefit of health and safety standards.  
     The 112 people killed by a fire in a Bangladesh garment factory were making clothing for Wal-Mart, Disney, Sears, Sean Combs, Teddy Smith and Edinburgh Woollen Mill as reported by the Associated Press. 
      When asked about these tragedies, and there have been several, retailers and even manufacturers often cite contract language and explain how they are sometimes duped by sub-contractors over which they have no control.  Some of that may be true, but it is also disingenuous and refuses to accept responsibility. 
      Retailers award contracts to those who can make their product most cheaply. That maximizes their profit while offering a product that we can buy less expensively. So we are back to our role in perpetuating sweat shops where humans are abused because of profits and low prices.  
      I've heard people explain how the poor of other nations are at least given work.  Yes, but under what conditions?  And at what cost to American workers, put out of work by out sourcing to cheap labor markets?  We really can't escape our blame in these tragedies.  Well, maybe my mom could have.  Before her passing, she made a habit of never buying any thing but Union and or American made goods.  She even returned gifts if they did not pass that test.  Wonder if that is even possible today?
      See you down the trail