SEEING IT & SUPERB!

Barrels with a view

Paso Robles West Side 

February Color

Political Scraps

    Regardless of the politics, you've got to feel sorry for Jeb Bush. Those who know say he's a lot smarter, classier and more capable than his brother, but he just never caught on in this year of political anger and bombast. 

     As the improbable Trump parade continues Ohio's Kasich remains the adult in the crowd.  Cruz is an extremist. If you call him a nut case I won't disagree. Rubio is the hope for many, especially the less right wing or those wearing evangelical blinders. The knock on Rubio is John Kennedy and Barack Obama- another young man from the Senate who could benefit from more vintage time.  Others see his youth as a plus.  Kasich has been on the Hill, knows the way around legislation and Washington including the military and has been a governor. He's got a more pedigreed resume.

     Sanders tenacity and the abiding loyalty of his supporters can't make up for lack of super delegates and numbers, but seems bound to keep the Democratic race interesting in the immediate future.

     Clinton has a generation gap issue and trouble with likability. Her negative numbers could be harmful in the general election.

     Barack Obama should put forth a nominee to fill the Scalia  vacancy and the Senate Judiciary Committee and full Senate should consider the nomination. That is the Constitutional way. The Thurmond Rule being sited now is complete garbage. Strom Thurmond, a bigot and racist, used the tactic against Lyndon Johnson when the fellow Democrat nominated Jewish Abe Fortas, already on the Supreme Court, to be Chief Justice. It was a political tactic and has no value. The Constitution speaks for itself-as the late Justice Scalia would say.

     Mitch McConnell should check into a cryogenic tube or should be volunteered to be the first man on mars!

    

FOR FOODIES ONLY

    Chef Jose' Dahan of the late but remarkable Cafe et Voila now does special dinners including this grand evening at Sinor-LaVallee Winery in Avila Beach. 

   The evening started with a sparkling brut rose' from Alsace. 

 The appetizer: Ratatouille, seafood bisque, duck pate' with cornichon and shrimp in mustard sauce.

  Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc

Salad: Baby wild arugula, orange, haricots verts, fennel and goat cheese in olive oil and citrus .

Entrees: Roasted rack of lamb with wild mushroom risotto and ratatouille Nicoise with garlic, herbs and Syrah reduction

  Sautéed sea bass with braised baby bok choy and fingerling persillees' topped with a creamy ginger drizzle. 

Desert trio: Citrus and Ginger creme brûlée, bread pudding with bourbon creme Anglaise, chocolate raspberry tart

  The Wines of the evening were all Jose's choice and were French-unusual in California Wine country-but we heard no complaints.

See you down the trail.

ENTERTAINED OR INFORMED?

TEXTURE

An Uncertain Road

    The road to November 8 will exhaust us but this juncture of the journey hints that something is coming true. The test of the hypothesis is Trump and Sanders.

     In lectures and addresses audiences have been told of what I call a divide between the informed and the entertained. As Americans became more media dependent,  consumption of entertainment eclipsed serious information gathering, either by book, magazine, newspaper, documentaries or broadcast news, which has morphed into something less serious, more personality and ratings driven. 

     To the point, more people "follow" Kim Kardashian than President Obama. More know her than the Speaker of the House or the Defense Secretary or Scott Pelley, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer or Megan Kelly, even combined. 

      Teachers and professors thanked me for speaking of the eventual divide between those who are entertained and those who are informed.  Those who use media like fast food and those who seek intellectual nutrition. Consequently those who would be led and those who would lead.

       About Donald and Bernie-both are in their own way populists. This is not to demean followers of either candidate, but to draw a generalized comparison. People in both camps  fall outside these definitions, but they are exceptions to my rule. Both men seem to channel an anger, a resentment with the status quo. 

       Trump channels those who don't like government, worry about immigrants, fear federal over reach, are upset with gridlock and inaction. Trump, who offers no specifics but plenty of bombast is "the man." They are unlikely to look deeply into an issue, including Mitch McConnell's pledge to make government stop working and John Boehner's failure to make the House function, the nexus of gridlock and the failure to fund enforcement efforts to keep the money hustlers in check and out politics. Trump even brags about how he bought politicians.

        Sander's followers know the nature and genesis of "the problem" and agree with Bernie's articulation of the disparity and role of big money. Their anger is at the 1% precisely, investment banks and the way Congress has specifically rolled over for big money, in their individual PACs and wallets and to the influence that has been purchased by lobbyists and special interests who also write the legislation that becomes law.

THE CHAYEFSKY PRINCIPLE

"Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore"

        Both groups are angry. One is just mad and fed up in general. Their candidate offers no tangible solution. The other is studied, specific and understand what kind of legislative remedy is needed. In a very real sense these two populist movements underscore the point-entertained or informed? 

         We have become an increasingly frivolous nation, less well educated than historically, though we are certainly entertained. The nation is materialistic and consumption oriented, with little sense of history, exhibits poor critical reasoning skills, is more fragmented and with a dangerous lack of a sense of commonweal. We can be selfish and too often our religion is mean spirited, judgmental and exclusionary. Madison Avenue appears to have had more impact than Academia. Entertaining diversion trumps educational vigor.

       Traditional Republicans are sick that someone like a Donald Trump or a Ben Carson can be taken seriously when others with relevant experience, regardless of what people  think of them, can hardly move the needle.  Who are the wind in Trump's sail? The entertained.

       Hillary Clinton, a traditional, professional politician is being nudged, feeling a bit of the Bern. Like her or not she is the old fashioned pol in this fight. Who are the people empowering Sanders? The informed.

       Sure, there are informed followers in the Clinton camp as there are in the supporters of Bush, Christy, Paul, Fiornia, Kasich.  The sad joke however is Republicans are now reaping McConnell and Boehner's influence and that of the Tea Party. Recent Republican strategy has so empowered evangelicals, freedom caucus wackos, conspiracy theorists, birthers and the one issue mouth breathers they now have an orange haired, impolite, hate mongering, ego freak of a  clown running strong. Scary stuff when low information voters can also do more than pose for all of those weird Walmart shopper photos.

      There's a lot to be said for being informed, even if it requires using the brain and bumping up against hard questions, complex issues, challenges and difficulties that elude simple solutions or rehearsed sound bites. Gaining knowledge and being informed is not a simple as sitting and staring.
      Being upset with the way things are is a good thing. It's a start. Ideas need to follow.
     History is a relentless scribe, though it could be such a nurturing companion if we were but to embrace it.

    See you down the trail.
      

        

Despite Everything and a Bizarre Presidential Scenario

WILD WHAT IF

     Here's a crazy thought. The Donald could be liberal and progressives best friend.

     If Trump continues to gather a base and manages to win the GOP nomination, he makes a Bernie Sanders candidacy much more viable. Talk about a shootout between opposites!

     Eric Sevareid said you never say never in politics. Political prognosticating is a fools errand and as bloggers, web writers and cable commentators prove there are many fools. 

    With that as a disclaimer-Ohio Governor Kasich impressed even Democrats. Trump is such a bullyboy and ego freak he is a force the Republicans have to figure out.

     Hillary is precarious, despite her clear advantage. Joe Biden is the secret favorite of many traditional and liberal Democrats. If Hillary begins to falter, Joe is there.

     But wouldn't Trump vs Sanders be a kind of Cohen brothers scenario?

      

 with apologies for invading his space

OBSERVED IN SILENCE

A WAY TO A GREEN VIEW

ANOTHER FRUIT

"Feeling fine on Elderberry wine…" the Elton John song comes to mind. 

   Despite the drought, the elderberry crop seems to flourish. 

     So we dedicate this golden oldie to the crops-including squash with good posture.  

       See you down the trail.

OLD-HIP-AND NOT SO-PLUS LEAVE GEORGE ALONE

GENERATIONAL

     This is a shirt with a lot of history.  It's a genuine Lyle Tuttle, purchased by Lana in 1970. It's been handed down first to our eldest daughter, then to her sister and has now come back to Lana.

    Tuttle is the famous San Francisco tattoo artist who's own body is the basis for the shirt.

     Lana wore the shirt the other day and I was stunned to see it again. I'm amazed at what great shape it's in after about 45 years! In passing it on to Kristin and Katherine she asked them to care for it. Obviously they listened. 

     The free spirited, colorful, expressive and even a little kooky time of the late 60's and 70's looks great these days and produces a joyful mirth.  And it should not be left unsaid that it's cool how Lana can still rock the shirt! 

      Yeah, we live in California. 

GEORGE AND THE CLINTONS

     Most of the "furor" over George Stephanopoulos and his contribution to the Clinton foundation is more about snark, "gotcha" and buzz than substance.

     First, the ABC Anchor should have acknowledged his contribution, only because he's in a position to be reporting about it. Same would be true if he, or another journalist, were to contribute to the American Heart Association, or Doctors Without Borders, etc. Journalists should not be banished from making charitable contributions simply because of their prominence or likelihood of covering a topic.

     (A Sidebar-I did not vote in primary elections when I was a working reporter, because I did not want to declare a party preference. How I voted in general elections was my own business, same as everyone else. I contributed to charities and if ever the group came up I would add a line in my broadcast- for example, "full disclosure. I contributed to United Way.")

    George did nothing wrong by making the contribution.

He used to work for Bill Clinton and, as he says, believes in some of the issues the Clinton Foundation embraces-aids, deforestation and others. The foundation is not funding Hillary's presidential campaign and Stephanopoulos wouldn't need to gain inside favor any way. 

      The Clinton Foundation is a kind of "boogie man" now and that is especially so with the right wing. Still, there are serious questions about the relationship between Bill's foundation and Hillary and between Bill and Hillary going forward.  What about his agenda's and initiatives should she be in the White House? How will that work?  There are issues about what was expected in return for some of the "gives" when she was Secretary of State. But those are issues related to the former President, his Foundation and Mrs. Clinton.

      Politico's Jack Shafer seems to be on the spear point of being indignant about Stephanopoulos. Shafer is a "pot stirrer." Some times he's right and sometimes he's just a hype merchant looking for the new media currency of buzz and trending. Shafer himself said it when he wrote

"As long as you can do the work, the journalism profession doesn't care if your last port of call was a federal penitentiary."  That says a lot about Shafer and his sensitivities, shared by many who call themselves journalists. Believe me, standards today are much different than they used to be.  

      There is an attitude today that if someone is hit and bleeding, the pack moves in for a kill. That's what this hype is all about. 

       Full disclosure; I'm not a Stephanopoulos fan and thought his hire by ABC was ill advised, but he has worked hard and done a good job to earn his spurs as a real journalist. He is not one of those "party cheerleaders" you see elsewhere.  Yes he should have told us he contributed, but that is no big deal, especially in a world where Pulitzer winner Seymour Hersh has reported the Obama administration engaged in deception about the Bin Laden killing. There are other real stories that need attention and exploration. This is more about modern media entertaining itself or vendetta.

     

OLD BOY SELFIE

    Now, how's this selfie thing supposed to work? Where are you supposed to look?

     See you down the trail.

A NEW WAY TO THINK

PERSPECTIVE

    My brother John was apparently an effective psychotherapist. Even psychiatrists, with the capacity to order medical intervention, hired him to work with extraordinarily troubled patients.

    I was fascinated by an experimental technique he employed where in he had schizophrenic patients draw maps of their brains, including neural circuits. He would,  step by step, navigate them through a thought or reaction beginning with the sensory cues. The therapy was to "reroute the traffic," to find a new way of thinking, responding and reacting.

    As the 2016 Presidential circus launches don't we all need  a similar "intervention" as regards the mix of information and its delivery and how we feel or reason? Coverage is obsessively about the horse race and is more silly, shallow and of dubious focus and proportionality than during Obama-Romney. Much of it is ideologically or politically skewed and overly generous with pundits and hot air. It is long on entertainment and presentation value and short on thoughtful, non pack, intellectually independent journalism and inquiry.

   Electoral politics also populates the prismatic effulgence of the Internet. Almost no view is left unstated. And we've all got one, at least, so there is a law of diminishing returns at work. 
     It is a renegade American Idol. We'll see the parade of GOP hopefuls in a traveling fight and we'll wait for Hillary to stumble or crumble. Independents and Democrats either like her or they don't. Those who are Republicans must come to accord with one of their multiple choice field. But can there be many undecided or non-committed between D's and R's. Is there enough to compose a "significant difference" in the interim? 
    Before the media and campaign gillies roll, minds are set, but the carnival will go on for a reason certain. Money. Politics, especially presidential politics, is an industry and commerce is good. Billions are churned and much of it gets spread around the media that has no interest in shortening the season, silly or otherwise. They're in it for ad dollars. 

    Plan on plenty of silly, inane, irrelevant, hyperbolic, partisan, mean and self important. Analytical numbers, polls, probabilities and indexes, will be creatively displayed. At the game's end, numbers win.  
     Sadly much of this will play without benefit of Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. David Letterman is riding off into the sunset too. Yikes! We're being left without our media "neural circuit" traffic cops. What is our protection? 

     Cheers to the inventor of the off switch!

WESTERN DIVERSIONS

    See you down the trail.

COAST IS CLEAR - MESSAGES CONFUSED - TBT PAUL NEWMAN "EXCLUSIVE"

THE COAST IS CLEAR

POLITICAL ROUGH STUFF

     The primary motive of the flap over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's e-mails is to create more flack to shadow a presidential campaign. But the spat raises critical issues, for all of us.

      How private should or can our communications be, whether we are a public official or a corporate employee? I wrestled with the latter issue as the senior news executive in a large and publicly traded broadcast company. In this age it is difficult to separate personal and professional communications, via phone or Internet. 

      Clinton had to live through the fall out of Julian Assange's Wikileaks revelation of thousands of supposedly private State Department cables and communications. They were the notes, observations and working messages of diplomatic personnel, were often sensitive and were never intended for public dissemination. Their release outraged foreign leaders, damaged relationships and put American assets and other intelligence officers at risk. So in that environment one understands a desire to have some protective wall.

      And aren't we all entitled to privacy of thought and deliberation? Our attitudes and positions can and do change on people and politics, but in the interim we should be free to say and think "aloud" or in emails, what we wish, understanding that a particular communication is not meant to be definitive.  But when something is brought up and focused on, with no context, it is unfair and misleading.  All the more reason to know what are the ground rules and boundaries.

     I won't predict the Clinton E-mail fight will achieve clarity on this issue, but it's something that faces all of us.

TBT 1968 PAUL NEWMAN & BROTHER JOHN

    Paul Newman campaigned for Eugene McCarthy at Ball State University in the spring of 1968.  His primary body guard was my younger brother John, the bearded lad to whom Newman is speaking.  

    I was a reporter, covering the critical Indiana primary and the coming and going of the politicians, but John had the best access to Newman.

   Newman flew in where John picked him up, along with a couple of others. Newman's first request was to stop at a liquor store where he purchased a six pack of beer.

   John, now deceased, was bit of a brawler and before he was injured was a tough football player. He went on to be a charismatic therapist and counselor and directed the public hospital's crisis intervention unit. In this picture he was evidence of the "Get Clean with Gene" movement. Before his Newman assignment, his hair and beard were much longer. John rarely wore a tie. 

   There were no problems for Newman during his Indiana sojourn. John could be a formidable force.

   See you down the trail

HIDDEN BEACHES & TRUTH IN THE BENGHAZI AND IRS SIDESHOWS

TRUTHS IN SWIRLING TEMPESTS

     Clouds hang over an already failed legislative branch of US government and they threaten further distraction.
     The IRS targeting of political and anti Obama groups should be investigated and responsible parties should be fired or prosecuted. The federal tax man must be a neutral, even if not an always popular, bean counter and collector.   
     While tax law is  the art of lawyers who influence the increasingly stupid members of congress to write legislation that favors those with money to hide, the IRS still should not target people because of politics. That is fascist, totalitarian, Stalinist thuggery and there should be no place for it in a Democratic Republic.
      There should also be an inquiry into the Benghazi fiasco if for no other reasons than to shut up the political opportunists and more importantly figure how and why the vast intelligence and national security apparatus failed Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three other Americans who died in service to the US.
      Mistakes, and miscommunication occurred and all members of the intelligence community, defense and national security apparatus need to be held accountable.
      The problem of further study though is that it will only serve to excite the yapping Republican political operatives who see this as a way to damage Hillary Clinton's political chances in 2016 and cause defending Democrats to drag their feet.  Mrs. Clinton already said she takes responsibility for the disaster, though an investigative panel found the mistakes were made below her level.
      To date there is no evidence of a cover up, as the political wind bags allege, but there is plenty of evidence of confusion.  CIA, NSC, State Department, DOD, the White House and others were horribly inefficient, poorly coordinated, and all probably have to share in the ignominy of the Benghazi incident and the follow-up reporting and communication. Was there any ass covering?  Well if history is any indication, there was probably a significant amount, but covering your butt is different than a cover up.     
       Those who compare this to Watergate should have their tongues locked. Watergate was a political dirty tricks operation, part of a sabotage of the electoral process, that involved a failed burglary, and then blossomed to where pay-offs were shuttled, lies were told, Justice Department people were fired, and it was all run out of the White House. That was a cover up! Benghazi was a screw up.  
      Failed management, failed security, failed reaction, failed mission are all worthy of inquiry, but as noted, going down this road will no doubt create another side show in the embarrassing and deplorable environment that has become the US Congress. Both parties have much to be ashamed of, but don't you get a sense these fools are beyond embarrassment?  
      So now we have another circus or two to further delay
responsible action on fixing our national economic security, improving education, caring for a decaying infrastructure, getting out of idiot wars, strategizing for a clean energy future, truly regulating the untouched criminal class of investment bankers and financiers, and preventing what appears to be the entrenchment of a new gilded age.  Gilded ages never end well.  
      The world, and our enemies have changed, but the fools on the hill continue to play the cheapest and pettiest of games, bought and sold by money politics instead of national interest. Our interests in Benghazi and the IRS flap should simply be the truth, not political gain.
      Excuse me, I think I'll tune out and take a walk.

ALONE AT THE SHORE

Between Cambria and San Simeon

   See you down the trail.