Atmospheres

         It is that time. 

     Tradition is we begin with gratitude. Celebrations ensue and we are to be festive. We then end the year with hope, light, and peace. 

      Nothing is as it was, still we remain children of star dust, all of us, siblings on a planet.

      I am one of those who find pleasure, maybe retreat, in just looking around. 

      The day, the light, the scene, the nuance and all paint for me a mood. We live in Atmospheres.

       Here, at the changing of the season, the beginning of Holiday, are some tones and moods of place of my California.

       

    We are people of mood, affected by so much. So, the last two frames,  Lana's blooming "Thanksgiving Cactus" and a promise of the future bring us to a thought. 

     The scene directly above is the launch of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The reusable Falcon rocket is riding a plume of fire that ignited our southern sky. Vandenberg Space Base is 83 miles from my upper deck where I watched the rocket with its tongue of fire soar into space and take me into the future.

     It is the future we count on. In less than a year, October of 2022, DART will demonstrate it's "kinetic impactor" technique when it strikes a non threatening asteroid named Dimorphos, to see if it is effective in protecting earth from asteroid hits. Dimorphos, Greek for "having two forms," is the smaller planet moon of a synchronous binary system where the larger asteroid is Didymous. 

      DART is 1,200 pounds and the size of a refrigerator. It will pass around the sun and then stalk and hit a space rock at 15,000 miles per hour. 

       This thing about "having two forms," is interesting. Divided though we are over truth, and reality, while some respect science and others dwell in lunacy and lies it is, none-the-less, exhilarating to think what we star children can do in space, when we are our better form.

       It all gives us hope, that the season of light will someday bring us to an understanding of what we should and can do on earth to propagate peace.

       Let our better instincts, our higher aspirations, create for you an atmosphere to surround your times at the end of the year. May you see your world for the beauty it holds. 

        See you down the trail. 

            

Accountability and Hope

 

     Nature, life's portal, like human hope, springs anew. Poetic that spring follows the season of dark. It has been a long season.

    The world reeling from pandemic, brutality instead of reason, and nature's recent hostility renders us weary, wounded and in need of lifted spirits. 

    We offer these:

•  frames of spring 2021, early as it is in California 
• and the word that is the elixir for all that plagues us, Perseverance, as in Percy.

    This elegant flight machine, a Great Blue Heron that graced our ridge top this week is a thing of beauty, grace and wonder. So is this...

NASA 

Perseverance on Mars 

      As bad as it can be on planet earth, the best of our huddled masses has put us in the heavens, again, and with selfies.

    Our technological offspring, a global darling, will rove and produce science exploration and contribute mightily to the intelligence of humankind. 

NASA Illustration

       Out west we can still see footprints of our pioneering spirt and long suffering endurance. Humankind is capable of the stars if we remember the foundational basics and lead with our intellect and act with character, listening to our hearts, where we know right from wrong.  

        We are sorry for the recent misery in the Texas Republic. They could have, should have, been prepared. Many places on this planet routinely handle winter's blast, but Texas thinks of itself as bigger, badder, and tougher. Texas is the home of the Lone Ranger. 

        A commission has been launched. Before it lifts a hand we know why the state was so hammered. Poor planning, no accounting for climate change, maximized profits, cheaper construction techniques, the "we've got ours, you get yours" attitude, a belligerent sense of energy independence and money, inequitably deployed along the spectrum.

        Ted Cruz, his other qualities not withstanding, is the poster boy for the attitude in possession of some Texans in authority. But there is also Willie Rios

Photo by St. John Barned-Smith  Houston Chronicle 

        The South Houston Councilman, who is a tradesman, led herculean efforts to get sewage treatment plants operating and water running. The councilman worked around the clock tending to the needs of his district.

Rios on the right with constituent   

Photo Yi-Chinn Lee Houston Chronicle

    We see the model of public service in Willie Rios and his kind, the ideal "politician," there to meet the needs of neighbors. Theirs is not to set blame or to steal away to the beach, but to fix, and serve. It is good to see acting on principle instead of political careerism. Elected office at it's nexus is about the constituent.

    Accountability matters. As one who called for a national inquiry as early as January 6, it is my sense it should be under the Department of Justice. A congressional inquiry could get at the truth, but history, and you and I are served if it is far from a political landscape. 

    Perhaps because I know and for decades covered co-Chairman Lee Hamilton, I have a bound volume of the 9/11 Commission and have pulled it from the shelf a surprising number of times over the years. A good commission report is necessary for understanding and it can be curative. We need that now. It too can be a tonic, a springtime for the soul of America.

       When the trees bloom on the California central coast, spring for the rest of America is not far off. The vaccine is being distributed, good and decent people are in control again, and investigative efforts are underway. 

    

    One more look at the Great Blue Heron. I was busy in my study when daughter Kristin called to alert us it was next door.

    Usually I see them only from a distance, unable to capture the texture of their feathers. In this case she or he was busy apparently stalking gophers. That too strikes me as justice at work.

    Where spring is always at the right time, it seems also Providential the most complicated space landing happens as we confront climate, disease, lies and division. It reminds of a human skill and also our destiny, to persevere.

    Stay safe and stay well.

    See you down the trail.

HERE COMES THE SUN & THE MYSTERY FLIGHT

SUN STORMS

Photo from Solar Dynamics Observatory

     The solar flare depicted above is striking Earth today and is the largest flare in 5 years.  Power grids and communication could be affected.  We are in he midst of a period of increased sun storm.
      In February 2011 I posted an extraordinary video of a solar flare and detailed potential problems. 

Photo from NASA Satellite

       Most nations have been slow in developing contingency

plans.  So, as the old saying goes, we have to just wait and see.

SEEING FROM ABOVE

Photo from US Air Force

      This is the Air Force space plane the X-37B before launch.
W.J. Hennigan of the Los Angeles Times reports that after a year in space, the drone continues its mystery mission.
       The X-37B it was scheduled to land before the end of 2011.  The craft is only 9 feet tall, 29 feet long with a wing span of about 125 feet.

Image from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

        There is a lot of speculation about the nature of its mission.  The Pentagon says only it is a "test bed" for technology.  It was built by Boeings Phantom Works in Southern California-the Space and Intelligence Systems Division in Huntington Beach.

DAY BOOK

CATCHING THE SUN
AND SHADOW PLAY 

See you down the trail.

TURKEYS-JOURNALISTS AND OTHERWISE & WHAT A SHOT

FIRST, THE AMAZING IMAGE
Unless you have a powerful scope, you probably
missed the fly by of the asteroid 2005 YU55. 
Thanks to NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab here is a short clip.

NOW ABOUT IDIOTS POSING AS JOURNALISTS
SPJ, the Society of Professional Journalists
drew attention when Herman Cain accused reporters
of violating the Journalist's Code.
You can link here to the SPJ blog by Kevin Smith,
SPJ President and Chairman of the Ethics Committee.
In his excellent analysis, Smith provides context and cites two recent examples of national journalists being unaware of the Code of Ethics.
Example 1
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus went after Cain, defending the paper but admitting she wasn’t familiar with the SPJ Code of Ethics. She wrote: “I suffer from the instinctive journalistic aversion to official codes of conduct.”
Example 2
Later Monday, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell showed her relative lack of ethical knowledgeby snarking to Politico reporter Jonathan Martin, the reporter who broke the original story, “I assume you’ve read the journalistic code of conduct, whatever that is.” 
Well,
the Mitchell snarking and the Marcus arrogance of destitute ignorance make them poster children of the WORST OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM.  I didn't know they were both
so empty headed, ungrounded and intellectually lazy.
Martin's snide response to Mitchell was also stupid and a disservice to real journalists.
I spent several decades in journalism and the SPJ Code of 
Ethics was something that guided my shops from when
I was a street reporter to my years as a news executive.
True journalists, serious journalists know about and 
abide by the code.  Fools, egotists, gas bags, snark queens,
and posers apparently do not.
SO, THIS IS DEDICATED TO
RUTH MARCUS, ANDREA MITCHELL AND
JONATHAN MARTIN--


THE TURKEY TROT

Perhaps they are not students of irony,

but as we near Thanksgiving, we can count on a 

parade of wild turkeys making their daily

migration across the ridge top.

We noticed that Mr White, the albino, is back.

Like some people, they are not very intelligent and

are ignorant of honor and codes of conduct and leave us

with messes to be cleaned up.

See you down the trail.  Watch your step

especially if Marcus, Mitchell and Martin are around.

THE IMPOSSIBLE

GOOD AND BAD
from root to branch

Do you find it difficult to hold opposites in your mind

at the same time?

Before you answer, here's a little ditty from

Lewis Carroll.

Alice is speaking with the queen

"There's no use trying," she said "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice." said the Queen. "When I was your

age I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many

as six impossible things before breakfast."

 Frame this in your own sense of possible.

Stanford University has offered a free online course that has

has attracted 58,000 students. That's four times the size

of the school's enrollment.

I find this exciting and perhaps even a dawning.

 Consider this from the New York Times

The class on artificial intelligence is one of three being offered by Stanford’s computer science department and will be taught by two leading AI experts, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig.

Thrun led an effort at Stanford to build a robotic car that drove 132 miles over unpaved roads in a California desert. Lately, he has spearheaded a Google project to develop self-driving cars, many of which have already been tested successfully on American roads.

Norvig is Google's director of research and a former NASA scientist. He has also written a widely read textbook on artificial intelligence.

The online students will not get grades or credit for participation, but they will be ranked in comparison to their online classmates.

Thurn explained that the course was part of an effort to increase the accessibility of once cost-prohibitive higher-education. “The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” he told the Times.

What amazing advances might emerge. What creative solutions could occur.

AND THEN

There is the Pentagon Budget process, another place that can't be reached or the embodiment of thinking the impossible not only before breakfast, but constantly.

McClatchy Newspapers reports it is practically impossible to get an accurate and thorough account of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 

 Impossible to know how much we are spending.  

One estimate puts it at $3.7 Trillion or as McClatchy reports "$12,000 per American."

As we suffer a budget and economic crisis we don't even possess the tools to understand how and where to cut where we should.

These wars are THE economic crisis.

I guess our President and Congressional leaders can't hold two opposing ideas in mind.

Nor do they seem to recall the words of the highest ranking US Military leader ever. 

He was also our Commander in Chief.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

— Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961 Presidential Farewell Address

See you down the trail.