"Democracy's Day" in America

 

Reuters photo

Andrew Harnik Pool/AP

        America came home.

      It is as President Biden said, "democracy's day in America."

      It is the story and the images I joyfully share with my 5 year old grand daughter and 3 year old grand son, who's birthdays straddle this historic day, this day of restoration. 

        

Pool photo

        The cold January 20, 1977 when Jimmy Carter was sworn in was my first inauguration. I covered the transitions of power until I retired. I've reported many Presidential addresses. Perhaps it is the emotion of this time, but I think Biden's was brilliant, appropriate and perfect. 

        Down to earth, honest, embracing the stream of history, a moment to summon the best of us all, and a plea for unity. 

        "My whole soul is in this: Bringing America together. 

        Uniting our people.

        And uniting our nation.

        I ask every American to join me in this cause. Uniting

        to fight the common foes we face"

        Anger, resentment, hatred.

        Extremism, lawlessness, violence.

        Disease, joblessness, hopelessness."

        Not since FDR has a President faced such oppressive challenges. Not since Lincoln has the nation been so divided. In the face of this reality, we should be encouraged that a unifier, a man of faith and integrity has taken office.

       Jim Lo Scalzu Pool/AP

     Biden knows Washington as well as any President. He is a son of the Senate and has worked across the aisle since he arrived as the youngest Senator in history. His life story also gives him the mettle to guide this nation back to honesty, dignity, purpose, aspiration and hope.

     He has assembled a team of veterans and competence. The government is again in qualified and fit hands.

     As a father of daughters, I am pleased to see the ceilings broken by my former Senator, now Vice President Harris who etched several historic firsts on this inauguration day. 

     

       

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    Lady Gaga's rendition of the National Anthem is one of the finest and most stirring. It had an extra emotional interpretation in the light of January 6.

Susan Walsh Pool/AP

    

The nation has turned to a new direction. Intelligence and quality are on duty. There is a reason to hope, again.

Pool photo

    The astounding Amanda Gorman, the youngest poet laureate spoke with a wisdom of the ages.

    "We lift our gaze not to what stands between us but what stands before us...

    "...If we merge mercy with might and might with right, then 

    love becomes our legacy and change our children's 

    birthright...

    "...When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and 

    unafraid the new dawn balloons as we free it

    for there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it

    If only we are brave enough to be it."

    The republic has stepped out of the day of division, the night of evil, the carnage of deceit and delusion. Hard days and tough work are ahead, but we have a steady hand, a ready soul, and a man who believes in America to guide us. 

    We can once again be the beacon, the America of aspiration, "If only we are brave enough to be it."

     See you down the trail.

        

    

Gaga and Melissa Rule

     Americans have experience with this idea. A quick look follows-but first tribute to two Americans who rocked the super weekend.

THE MOST VALUABLE

      Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer is destined for the SNL Hall of Fame. The unannounced star and her skit were a devastatingly hilarious take down of the White House press secretary. The video is already a classic.

       The Super Bowl champion is Lady Gaga. Her beautiful patriotic opening atop the stadium was ample politics before she dropped and tumbled into a stunning explosion of song and dance. As good as was the game it was secondary to a production and performance by the extraordinarily talented and perceptive young artist. "We Were Born This Way" is an anthem and at this time in our history carries even more power.  

America first?

       There's a good chance Trump had no idea the America First movement and slogan is an American artifact. 

       It was one of the oddest amalgamations of Americans and one of the shortest movements in our history.

       Founded at Yale in 1940 it was a movement to pressure the United States from entering the second World War. It lasted barley more than a year but was the largest anti war organization in history. It boasted diverse members, Republican and Democrat Senators, wealthy business leaders, writers, poets, political activists and had nearly 1 million paying members in 450 Chapters. 

       Associated with America First were future presidents Gerald Ford, John Kennedy, a future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, future Peace Corp director Sargent Shriver, Walt Disney, Gore Vidal, novelist Sinclair Lewis, poet EE Cummings, Frank Lloyd Wright, actress Lillian Gish, political activists as diverse as Charles Lindbergh and Socialist Norman Thomas, members of the House and Senate from both parties.

        The group disbanded three days after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. If the current occupant of the oval office read, or studied history he probably would have struck another slogan to hang his shortsightedness on.

THE TRUMPET

news for a post-truth world

      Rest easy Americans, the Donald's got this covered. He and the master counselor Bannon remain one step ahead by use of their blitzkrieg of disruption.

      As heads spin at the production line executive orders the strategy of diversion is working well. As the crooked media react and try to keep up with the Tweets everybody is forgetting about all the other fake news

• the still pending charges and accusation of sexual assaults. There will be no Clinton moment in this White House. 
• the non release of his tax returns and his claim "I will release them after the audit."
• the first failed military operation and US fatality
• the excoriation on Goldman Sachs instead of his appointment of five Golman Sachs to his team
• People have already forgotten he has no previous foreign policy experience, no government experience. Not a problem. Look how he's handled Mexico and Australia. Plus he's got good advisers, like Kellyann Conway who is fortunately recovering from her near death experience in the Bowling Green Massacre.  
• Ethics advisers to George W. Bush and Barack Obama claim trump has not gone "nearly far enough" to absolve himself from potential conflict of interests
• The Donald will still benefit financially from his business interests while president-but why shouldn't he. He's above the law.
• There are stricter ethics rules in place for his cabinet members than for him-but why shouldn't there be?
• The President is the sole beneficiary of his Trust and he can revoke the trust any time. Now that will help make America great again huh? 

         At $400,000 a day it will cost American tax payers $548,000,000 to keep Melania Trump in New York City for four years.

           Or one wonders why shouldn't the first lady be on hand at the White House? One wonders if the old man is as wealthy as he claims to be, why not pay for it himself? 

            Or why not sell or license images from her modeling career to pay for it?

             Wonder what Nancy Reagan, Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Bush, Bess Truman, Mamie Eisenhower, Rosalyn Carter, and a few other former First Ladies would think? Until now would you ever have wondered how those former firsts would rock a bikini?

            Yep,  Make America Great Again!

         See you down the trail.

THE BIG MOMENTS AND FRESH AS FRESH CAN BE

OSCAR SHINES

    Everyone sees it their own way. I liked the politics of it. The big stage saw big moments of poignancy.

     Patricia Arquette's rally plea for equality for women and ecological sanitation in the developing nations scored points. It's something to see Meryl Streep standing, pointing and seemingly saying "You go girl!" 

     The overwhelming standing ovation for the emotionally staged Glory was topped only by John Legend and Common's powerful acceptance that repudiated racism and the over incarceration of blacks.

      Powerful were the tears of Selma's Martin Luther King,  David Oyelowo, as Glory filled the Dolby Theatre.

     Moving were the comments of Graham Moore telling how unfair it was that Alan Turing could not stand on a stage as he did. Moore won for adapting the Turing story into The Imitation Game. The brilliant Turing, an inventor of an early computer that broke the Nazi code in WWII, died of an apparent suicide after the war when he was exposed as being a homosexual.  Moore said he too considered suicide when he was 16 because he felt he was weird and different.

     There were plenty of candid and emotional moments at the microphone.

     It was stunning to see Julie Andrews emerge from the wings after Lady Gaga performed an incredible 50th anniversary tribute to Sound of Music.

      It was probably surprising to some to see the vocal skill and range of Gaga, who is better known as a costumed rocker. I've been a Gaga fan for a few years and have taken a few barbs from friends. The worst criticism of her are those who say she's a Madonna knock off. There is no way Madonna could have nailed the Sound of Music like Gaga. Nor could she perform as brilliantly with Tony Bennett as Gaga, who is a skilled musician, composer and artist. But I digress.

     All in all some major political and sociological planks got a good showing at Hollywood's big party. 
    For the record I think Neil Patrick Harris performed well, but some of the writing was shallow, self indulgent and weak. I'm sorry Richard Linklater didn't win for his epic production Boyhood. And while I raved about Birdman, I don't consider it film of the year. But hey, it's show biz!

FRESH

     One afternoon the next door neighbor where we were staying on Oahu asked if I could help him with a fruit tree.

   He had tied rope around a bundle of bananas and asked If I'd hold the end as he cut. The effort would prevent the fruit from crashing through other limbs and onto the ground.  It worked as they were undamaged.

  Within minutes, we were enjoying fruit as fresh as it could be.

COOKING LARGE

   Delivering the Paella at Tolosa's pick up party. Yum!

   See you down the trail

WHO IS RACIST? WHAT'S WITH THE SUSPENSION? and SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL

SLIDING BACKWARDS

     An agonizing disappointment to boomers is the new crop of racism that seems to be the spearhead of a wave of bigotry and narrow mindedness in the US.

     We spent the early and mid 60's fighting to end segregation, American apartheid and blatant discrimination. The entire culture was swept up in the drama and federal legislation moved to excise intolerance and set up an even playing field, imperfect and flawed though some of the legacy efforts have been. Feminism followed in that wake, connecting with efforts of earlier generations of suffrage campaigners to even the score for women. Still it seems as though it has been for naught.

      New studies and reports find a complex mix of racist attitudes in American today. Some of the young, the reports say, don't know or have not been taught what discriminatory or prejudicial behavior is.  "Post racial" is a term that is used.

      Then there is a poster child of our new dilemma, the matter of NIGGER. Some of you maybe offended seeing it here. Back in our youth it was a phrase never used in civil or polite conversation. Today its use is a map of how confused we seem to have become. Is it OK for African Americans to use the term, but not for anyone else? Though people of color divide on this. Is it wrong for a Caucasian to criticize its use or even to use the word? Depends on who you ask, doesn't it?  

       Remember the early argument about weather Black's could be racist?  Some who suggested that a person of color could also be a racist were themselves called racist. Today most agree that a person of any color or ethnicity can also be guilty of being racist, ethnocentric or bigoted in other ways.

        LGBT people have probably garnered more media attention for their struggles for equality in the last few years, though old fashioned racism has not disappeared. Classism stalks modern western life even as women still fight to overcome, the barrier being their birthright.

        From where I stand on this planet there is plenty of evidence of narrow mindedness, discrimination, fear, prejudice and hatred. The targets are men and women of all color, all ethnic origin, all gender identity or sexual preference. And so too are the perpetrators.

       It is easy to paint the broad stroke villain as being white men-Anglos/Normans/Saxons and in America in particular there is a sad history of invasion, genocide, land theft, broken treaties done by our government run mostly by white men. However there are many other guilty of such insensitivity and crimes around the globe with different casts of color, ethnicity, heritage and land of birth. We know that Africans too were partners in the horrible sin of slave trading. Patriarchy is written into the history of cultures north, south, east and west. American white men are in fact easy targets for criticism, but then if that is all who you see as offenders, you suffer tunnel vision and are not looking on a large enough scale of history and geography.  

      One of the most economic and employment vulnerable

today are legions of men, 50 plus, who were dislocated by the Great Recession and who are still out of work, unemployable or underemployed. Who in today's political climate are likely to carry their banner? Perhaps I should go cautiously here, less some of the dunderheads in our legislative branch of government who fail on intelligence about or understanding and sensitivity to half of the human specie, just might pick up that standard.  

     Our ability to find a commonweal, a set of normative values, a framework of equality, a true open-mindedness is honorable and necessary work for this democratic republic. It will be challenging, painful and will demand our better angels. To continue as we are with confusion, ignorance, rampant narrow-mindedness and condoned bigotry will lead only to apocalyptic political and cultural landscapes.

SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL

      On a recent hike I saw a couple of young California Striped Racers crossing the trail, enjoying the sun.

     The area was the scene of a recent "controlled burn."

     The sky was a palate of contrails.

HATS OFF TO THE SAN LUIS OBISPO TRIBUNE

   The paper editorialized today that William Randolph Hearst would have approved of Lady Gaga's recent adventure at his famous Castle, now a state park.  Nick Franco, the highly respected local State Park Supervisor has been suspended, for mysterious reasons, since approving of Gaga's use of the Hearst Castle for a production shoot.  

    Lady G paid some $300 thousand for the use, left additional funds to underwrite a water use study, did a promotional piece and a public service message about water conservation. The Hearst Corporation approved "loaning water" and the entire undertaking. Governor Jerry Brown wrote approvingly to Lady Gaga.

    The paper hints that perhaps some bureaucrat's nose may have been out of joint. Maybe or she is angry they missed their moment of closeness to her Lady G.

     Tsk, tsk, tsk.  Stay tuned.

    See you down the trail.  

GOOD FOR GAGA

UNLIKELY PARTNERS TEAM

TO BATTLE BULLYS

Joel Page Reuters

It is buried under news of the G-20 Summit and 

the continuing Occupy movement, but it may

have more personal significance in the lives of

many youth than any other news of the day.

Lady Gaga has teamed with the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the California Endowment and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University to launch the Born this Way foundation.

The nonprofit will deal with youth empowerment, self confidence, well being, mentoring, career development and one of the most critical issues of youth development bullying.

The name of the foundation of course is from her

hit song-born this way.

Gaga is a reigning superstar of pop culture.

Her creative expression seems limitless.

The long form video of Born this Way can be

compared to a Tolkien or CS Lewis style fantasy and allegory of good and evil.

Gaga says it like it is and while that outrages some,

her effort with this new foundation attacks one of

the evils of our age. Her statement says it well.

"Together we hope to establish a standard of 

bravery and kindness, as well as a community

worldwide that protects and nurtures others

in the face of bullying and abandonment."

Can't the world use a little more nurturing, bravery

and kindness?  She commands attention and

good for her for taking on an issue she could

simply ignore.  An act of bravery and kindness

in itself.

 See you down the trail.