A GREAT AMERICA, AGAIN

     It has been a kind of healing. It's as though we settled upon an island of how it used to be. And for those few hours in the National Cathedral we saw again the America that aspires to greatness. We experienced again the temperament, tenor and a sense of the essence of America's better self and soul.
    The very nature of the George HW Bush observance has been a picture of a better nation. Dignity, decorum, tradition, respect, honor, devotion and service has filled the days. The formality is out of the American handbook. The stories have been from those who knew him and from the historians who have studied and documented his life.
     The point here is not to see the late President Bush as anymore than he was, but to see in him the qualities of what has accompanied the American journey. Loyalty, friendship, humility, service, courage, love of family, and a guiding faith.
     Certainly there have been other men and women who also displayed these qualities. Given our recent history it has been good to remember who we can be, who we really are.
      What has been on display in our Capitol is a core sample of the dignity of a nation, a government larger than mere mortals, the yearning, maybe even the dream to transcend the human stain to be something truly great, something that helps America lift the human condition to something noble.
       One need only to look at the images of the front row, the men and their mates who are part of an exclusive American echelon. It was telling, very telling. Maybe nothing more dramatic than when the creed of belief was being read. Almost everyone in the Cathedral read or recited a belief, but one President scowled and glowered.     
        Was the Bush mourning, memorial and observance enough to shock this nation out of its toxic mood? Can those few brief hours of class, historic symbolism, and evocation of the hallowed work of trying to live full to the reach of a democratic republic, and the ghosts who made it so, bring us to our senses? Perhaps, but perhaps not. It has been, however, a cleansing, re-charging and hopeful spring in this winter of a pernicious and virulent administration. By the very comparison on display we may understand we all have a hand in the job to form a more perfect Union, to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility...to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.

seasonal visitations

  faces from the sparkle shop

celebrating new days

photo of sunrise in Cambria by Karen Dean-a good neighbor

   See you down the trail.

THE LIBERATION OF FOX NEWS & TIDE POOLS

washed up

     From Pacific detritus to a world apart, tide pools offer a kaleidoscope. We go there, just ahead.

how will America's conservative voice survive the slime?

      The future of Fox News is the serious speculation in media and financial circles now that its creator and driving force has been dumped for being a sexual miscreant and bully. This is a story larger than the offenses of a dirty old man and sexual extortionist, Roger Ailes.

      Fox News is a huge cash cow, the largest money maker in the 21st Century/Rupert Murdoch empire and a key to it's market value. Fox is also the principle mouth piece for a brand of Republicanism and conservatism. The king of Fox News's culture of sexual harassment is offender number one, creator Ailes and that raises yet another question, the integrity of anything you see on Fox News. More about that quandary in a moment.

not a journalist

      In serious journalistic discussion, Roger Ailes is considered a propagandist, despite being the brains behind the successful Fox News empire. 

      Ailes concocted the notion of a propaganda network when he worked for Richard Nixon. Before Fox News Ailes was a political word smith and hack.

He was a partisan in the employ of Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, plus other candidates. His specialty was spin, selling a candidate and their position. There was nothing fair or balanced about his work ethic. He did not care about facts or truth other than what a campaign or administration wanted the public to know and or think. He was a shill, and if the reports are to be believed he was an abusive sexual predator all the while.

      Ailes was outed by high profile Fox News talent. Since then victims of his harassment from past decades have come forward and the Murdoch family canned him, albeit with a multi million dollar severance. Ailes made them billions, still the younger Murdochs do not like Ailes and so Fox must now manage a future without the dirty old man and coverage tyrant.

fox news is big money

      Fox News with it's conservative to arch conservative personalities and the Ailes spin on news has amassed an audience of devotees. To abandon it's current format risks a huge financial loss. But it has become clear Ailes directed the tone, nature and content of Fox News-both it's personality programs and it's "news coverage." Ailes decided what and who got on the air. He hired the talent and directed coverage.

      Ailes was not a journalist, remember. He was a propagandist but he found an audience of true believers and he made the network a profit center, a huge winner of cash while he advanced political agendas of his own choosing while also harassing, intimidating and extorting women who worked for him.  He set a tone and in the last few days we've learned there were other men who emulated the boss. Conservative America had no idea who was playing them for a chump.

saying no to miles

      My problem with Fox News has always been Ailes. Years ago a well respected political operative and now a former Governor suggested I might reach out to Ailes as he was building Fox News. This public servant knew Ailes because they had worked for the same President. I passed on the option because of my sense of Ailes. He was not out to create a new brand of journalism, he was out to create a clearly tilted perspective on news with the sole purpose to feed a conservative political audience it's own view of things and to make billions of dollars in the process. Some will tell you Ailes created a response to a liberal bias, to balance things. Poppycock! Ailes poisoned the well of journalism by politicizing it in an overt and obvious way. Obvious to those who care about real balance and no slant. But it is the nature of the poisoning. Everything at Fox was according to Ailes. He was a dictator.

      If the New York Times has a liberal bias it is the product of an editorial page and even that is the enterprise of many voices and input. At Fox News it was all Roger Ailes. Hannity and O'Reilly would not exist if they did not tow the Ailes line.

      I don't believe the swill that some spew that CBS, NBC, ABC or even CNN are liberal media. It is just they are not conservative and that alone condemns them to being "liberal." MSNBC is indeed liberal, the antithesis to Fox News, but for the most part the other networks traditionally were simply equal opportunity offenders. A good news organization will tow no line and will in all likelihood irritate left and right, republican and democrat. 

the credibility crisis at fox news

       So here's a hard point. Fox was created by Ailes in his image and to his own designs. He was a manipulator, a political propagandist who dreamed of having a network to sell a party's point of view. That is not fair or balanced and it is not journalism. Any real reporting that was done on Fox was probably done by virtue of enterprise and professionalism of those who worked there. Obviously not everyone drank the Ailes cool-aid. And finally women with courage came forward and exposed the lecherous political hack who posed as a news executive. How can a network that took it's marching orders from a sexual offender who emotionally brutalized employees and who's purpose was to sell a particular political point of view, and who ran the place with an iron hand not be ashamed, embarrassed and exposed for being what it is, a mouthpiece and the tool of a jerk. 

       Bill O'Reilly should put this in the no spin zone. Sean Hannity is a perfect Roger Ailes creation, but O'Reilly is different. I don't think O'Reilly cares much at all about anything that he blathers about.  It's an act. He's a television player and good at it. His real concerns are his ratings and his bank account. He's living a good life with the elite and he played the Ailes game for the big dollars. In that way he is a symbol of Fox News. It is not real, it is spin. But now that Ailes is on the trash heap, Fox has a chance to prove it can be something else, not a Roger Ailes project and not under his menacing regime of an old boy world where white men ruled, where they could sexually intimidate women, where a narrow point of view was spread as truth even if it was not so. So in the months and years ahead it will be interesting to see how Fox News might care more about news than Roger Ailes did.

        Oh, there is a lot of speculation that Ailes might be an advisor to Donald Trump. They are long time friends. How does that sit with you?

a private world

a visit to pacific coast tide pools

    See you down the trail. 

PRESIDENTIAL PIPE DREAM & THE SESSIONS

PRESIDENTIAL PIPE DREAM

     ANNOUNCER: And now to the Oval Office and the President of the United States.

       PRESIDENT OBAMA: " My fellow Americans, the election is over and it is time to get to work addressing the very serious challenges that face us as Americans.  So today I am issuing a special invitation which, if accepted, will help move this great nation forward, beyond our gridlock and stalemate.

       Today I am inviting former Presidents Jimmy Carter, George HW Bush, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to chair a special working group at Camp David.  The former Presidents will preside over the deliberations and will jointly draft the final report.  

       I am today inviting past Presidential nominees Romney, McCain, Kerry and Gore, along with Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi and Speaker John Boehner.  I am asking the group to assemble the day after Thanksgiving and stay at Camp David until they have finished their work.  

       I am asking this group of outstanding American leaders to draft a roadmap.  It is a roadmap to our future. I charge these great patriots to establish a structure for cooperation, a general strategy for a federal budget and a vision forward for America.

      While these leaders meet I am asking a consortium of academic, research and public opinion leaders to convene as resource group to propose bold and new ideas for our national leadership to consider in their deliberations. 

      So far the following resource people have accepted this 

challenge- Amory Lovin of the Rocky Mountain Institute, Elon Musk of Space X, Economist Paul Krugman, writers Charles Krauthammer, David Brooks and Tom Friedman,  John Lechleiter, CEO of Eli Lilly, the new Purdue University President Mitch Daniels and Bill Gates of the Gates Foundation.

      Invitation to others in medical and technological research fields have also been issued and I await their acceptance.

      I am asking these great Americans, under the leadership of our former Presidents, to gather, discuss, debate, argue, resolve and then draft a document that will help to guide this nation to a greater fulfillment of its potential and its destiny as a world leader in the 21st Century. I would ask these Americans to present to us, by the end of this calendar year, what we can call a road map to our future."

      Well, we can dream can't we?  Who else would you invite?

AUTUMN IN THE VINES

REEL NOTES

THE SESSIONS

     This unique film explores the deep reaches of intimacy with an honesty and clarity. It is fully entertaining while being charming, bold, heart warming and challenging.

     The Sessions moves you to the edge of uneasiness but pulls you back to a comfortable place. It has moments where you wonder if you are trespassing too deeply into human relationships and sexuality, but writer and director Ben Lewin uses this as a canvas to examine life, love and faith.

     Based on the life and writing of Mark Obrien, a Berkeley writer and poet who spent most of his life in an iron lung, the film is illuminating, but not for everyone.  Those who might be squeamish with dialogue about premature ejaculation, seeing a sexual surrogate work with a quadriplegic, or watching a priest wrestle with granting permission for out of marriage sex might want to avoid it. However it is a sensitive and enormously well done film.

     The acting is award worthy.  William Macy as the flabbergasted priest, John Hawkes as Mark O'brien and Moon Bloodgood as attendant Vera are all superb.  It is Helen Hunt as the sexual surrogate who deserves something more. 

     Acting must be a difficult challenge under perfect conditions.  But to be told your role requires full nudity would, in my world at least, make your day at the office more demanding.  Hunt, as Cheryl is full of grace, compassion and complexity.  A mother, wife and surrogate she helps a client discover his full manhood, but against her better intention, falls in love. How that is played, resolved and passed along is the heart tugging appeal of this film. 

    Hunt's portrayal of her own inner conflict, along with Macy's counseling and Hawke's exploration, failures and desire to live full, though frail adds to a very special film. It is a unique love story.

     See you down the trail. 

WHO ARE WE?

TO YOUR CORNERS

     The national political convention television shows have  done a good job of defining differences haven't they?

        Sense of the job to be done, fairness, inclusiveness, exclusivity, expectations of government, responsibility for self, for others, ability to tell the truth, diversity, vision, overcoming, gender rights, owning up to history, and more.

         America really has an opportunity to decide between vastly different attitudes about government and who we are, who we have been and what we might become.

         It is a contest and battle of will, sense of right and wrong and history.

         PS-the old reporter in me chuckled when Bill Clinton mentioned both Presidents Bush and his cooperation with them.  I think he gave George H. W. and George W. more airtime than either man got from their party in Tampa.

DAY FILE
PICTURES OF BLUE

    If you look carefully at the frame below you may spot a water spout from one of the passing humpback whales.

See you down the trail.