The First Casualties

 

Truth is the first casualty of war.

            The origin quote, "The first casualty when war comes is truth," was uttered by the second most senior member of the US Senate in history, Senator Hiram Johnson of California in 1917.

        Time has proven Senator Johnson correct. One is led to believe it has been ever such.

        We live in a time of hybrid war, a mostly psychological conflict. Culture and media are weaponized. Public policy and politics are combat. All of us live under assault.

        Truth and a common "reality" suffer attack around the globe and, dangerously, in the US. 

The First Offensive

        To the best of my knowledge, neither Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy nor any leading Republican has been asked about the truth of this prophetic news article published by the New York Times on August 8, 2016.

        By David E. Sanger and Maggie Haberman

            Aug. 8, 2016

Fifty of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump “lacks the character, values and experience” to be president and “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

Mr. Trump, the officials warn, “would be the most reckless president in American history.”

The letter says Mr. Trump would weaken the United States’ moral authority and questions his knowledge of and belief in the Constitution. It says he has “demonstrated repeatedly that he has little understanding” of the nation’s “vital national interests, its complex diplomatic challenges, its indispensable alliances and the democratic values” on which American policy should be based. And it laments that “Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself.”

        No thinking person will deny that truth. 

      Noted here previously, the names read like an honor roll of veteran policy experts; cabinet members, State Department, Defense, Intelligence, National Security, Justice Department and most of them conservatives.

    The US moral authority has been weakened and we have been put at risk. Isn't it in the public interest to put the issue to the leaders who cower to or abet the twice impeached ex president?  

Hard Truths

    This criticism today is geared not at the propagandizing tools of the right, but a check on how that perversity has spread to unlikely other sources. 

    It is true the false narrative of the Roger Ailes created faux news attack on American values continues to make the Murdoch clan richer by manipulating information for the suckers of Fox News. They have done terrible deeds as enemies of the American Republic. 

    The legacy damage to America's belief in itself has been fanned by Fox and Trump. But like a virus, it has spread. These are merely random examples of a larger bombardment on truth.

    Consider this headline from the New York Times

OPINION

 

DAVID BROOKS

Did the F.B.I. Just Re-elect Donald Trump?

Aug. 11, 2022

 

        Later David Brooks said on reflection and after learning more, he understood how grievously serious was the matter of Trump having the most sensitive of secret documents, and about nuclear weapons, in his possession. He acknowledged the process of getting them back was proper and justified. But even the Times, no editorial and opinion page friend of Trump, took their own shot at the credibility of the nation's law enforcement agency with a reckless headline.

        Marvin Kalb, a respected former CBS News Correspondent, now a senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the founding director of the Shorenstein Center on Media at Harvard University posted something recently that will sound familiar to those of you who have been readers of this blog.

"The American press corps struggles every day to prove to readers and viewers that it is “fair and balanced,” the slogan cleverly adopted by Fox News. If it strongly criticized Donald Trump during his presidency (and since), then it follows that it must also strongly criticize Joe Biden, which is exactly what it’s done.

Fair, isn’t it? Balanced, too, right?

Wrong.

Not only does criticism not come in equal shapes and sizes, appropriate for all presidents and both political parties (a journalistic curse called “bothsideism”), but, when unfairly applied, as it has been in covering Biden, it runs the serious risk of further damaging our still free press and weakening our already shaky democracy.

The press image of Biden, president of the United States of America, has been whittled down to that of a doddering old man, wobbly on his feet and barely able to articulate a single thought without slurring.

Is that a fair and balanced image of Biden? Hardly. But can the press do better?"

        Certainly the press can do better. "Bothsideism" or false equivalency are wounds,  serious casualties, and they are self inflicted. 

       Recently Judy Woodruff, anchor and managing editor of the PBS News Hour asked a legal analyst and former federal prosecutor; "how do you know that they followed procedures?" and, after reprising Republican accusations about the search and the FBI, "how do we know who is telling the truth?" (Positing an arbitrary either or between Republican bombast or Attorney General Garland)

        The analyst, in so many words, said "common sense, look at what happened?" He could have said, look at the document or read how these federal warrants are issued. He might also have said "consider the source of the criticism." I would add the question was contrived to get an accusation and entirely missed the point of the larger story line.

        The back and forth related to what was evident in the legal documents, evident that Trump and his people had ignored earlier requests and subpoenas, evident by the procedure that was legal and methodical and was not a "raid" as stated by many in the media. 

         Woodruff was caught up in a game of "gotcha" or the hard question or the snark that is the common currency of media posturing. Questions are asked for the sparks or friction and not for the light that might be shed. It was as though she was saying, "Choose between the Republican shrieks or the Attorney General." Like lesser talents than herself, she was trying to be "tough" or maybe trying to placate Trump fans. 

        He and his administration have not earned respect. Their record should in turn earn them extra scrutiny and skepticism. To elevate what they or their apologists say to a level of equivalency is wrong and evidence of poor journalistic process and judgement. 

        

        Woodruff is a respected legend in broadcast journalism. We first noticed her when she was a field correspondent for NBC working out of the Atlanta bureau in the '70's. She has had a storied career and enjoys a distinguished reputation so it is disturbing to see someone of that caliber fall victim to what Kalb and others, who have also worked in the hot spots and under deadline, are talking about. The media today is playing for appearances, image, and pretense. It is bad journalism and it is disingenuous.

        On a program she interviewed Republican Senator Tim Scott who has written a book. Not every member of the House,  Senate or Cabinet gets interviewed by the News Hour when they write a book. Scott is an African American Republican and in this age of bothsidism either Woodruff or a senior producer decided it would be good to have him on. Was there news in the interview? No and she let him blather prattling political spew without much of a challenge to the obvious politicking BS. He is up for re-election. Will his challenger get similar national airtime? If there was a need to interview Scott about his book, a better format would have been to record the interview and edit it before airing it. Truth and balance took a hit in the way it was done.

    I'm focused on PBS because they provide a broader perspective, more in depth focus, thoughtful investigations, intelligent balanced analysis and they devote more content time. They don't have to sell dog food or pharmaceuticals and etc.

    PBS is down the middle and objective, not caught up in political leanings, or show business punditry. Their business is news, done soberly. The correspondents are knowledgeable and experts on their beat. PBS is absent the hype and artificial production elements common to the commercial networks and cable operations.

     American network and cable news need to be profit centers, slavish then to whatever gets and keeps ratings. PBS on the other hand is content driven, intellectual and does not pander to partisans or those who seek "silo" news that affirms their beliefs. 

    It is for all of these reasons that I wish Woodruff and her senior producing team would seriously consider the wisdom of Kalb. 

        I was a managing editor of nightly newscasts, a news anchor, and a television news director. My advice is to follow the flow of the story, try to advance the viewer's understanding and expand the story line, anticipate consequence, stick to the facts as you have them, provide context and explain it all. What does it mean? Avoid the mindless group think that being an adversary means being nasty, or trying to catch up someone or prompt them to say something bombastic. Think about depth and spend less effort on toxic social media. Do not rely on the Washington bred idea of "bothsideism." Those are unhelpful and distracting. 

        As an example, using something that a Jim Jordan, a Ron Johnson, even Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy says as the basis of a "challenging question" is simply falling into their trap and getting "used" by them. You can note what they said, but to raise it to a level that exceeds veracity is doing harm and is poor editorial judgement. Avoid being played.

        We have learned this Republican party is interested in maintaining power without an agenda or a platform of principles. Republicans have been caught in lies, suborned insurrection, and have been cowards to or complicit with Trump. Their strategy is to cast doubt on the electoral process, the Justice Department and in the value of our institutions. It is part of the war on Democracy.

         To my staffs I stressed that perspective and proportionality are important judgement tools in journalism. Perspective and proportionality disappear when formula and style overtake the character and nature of a news event or story. Everything has a context, it has a past and will carry an impact on future occurrences and how journalism is done influences that process. Arbitrary attempts at "confrontation" for its own sake are a disservice to the audience and can damage the nation and its understanding of itself. 

       If I was a news manager today, anyone who is still an election denier would be covered only in that context. This is a war.

        Those who advocate or believe the lie are a like cancer in the body politic. Journalists should keep them in focus but extend them no credibility. To give them equal time or even to consider them "the other side" is harmful. To do so would aid and abet the enemies of this nation and puts at risk our security and well being. 

    

        The uncivil war has already eroded our confidence in the electoral process. That is now a Republican strategy. News leaders need to own up to their responsibilities in this precarious time.

        In parting, we must toss a zinger at one of the nation's leading iconoclasts and commentators. Comic Bill Maher can be a jerk, but he has an amazing depth of understanding. Some of his "New Rules" analysis are brilliant. We urge Mr Maher to choose words carefully.

       He called the execution of the search warrant a "raid."

Quibble if you wish, but it was not a raid. A raid is something else. Is this a big deal? When we live in a nation where a lot of poor souls believe Donald Trump, calling it a raid is yet one more chip off the credibility of a justice system, FBI and the process of law that is under attack by the team that began dividing America, in 2016. Do not play into their strategy.

        It is not inappropriate to examine DOJ, or the FBI or any other agency of state, local and federal government. The media, the Fourth Estate, has a role to play as a watchdog. But it is a damned hard job to do, and one of the labors is operate as independently and objectively as possible. 

        We in the media need to work assiduously to avoid being spun, used, manipulated, or of adopting a heard mentality. We should seek to find truth, verify facts and refuse to be conformed to purposes of commercial or political objective.

        There is a fine line between cynicism and skepticism. I think that is the region in which good journalism functions. I have tried to hew toward the skepticism side because a good reporter also must work to keep an open mind, be willing and able to learn while maintaining an independence. 

        This is one of those times in our national history when journalism is needed and cannot be compromised by vested interests, even self interests.

        Stay alert. See you down the trail. 

    

      

The True American Story

 

    We need to widen the lens and we need more daylight on America's original sin. Strong people own up to the truth. This might be the time.

        Confronting racial tragedy, an increasing number of Americans are warming up to the idea of reparations. In some places the process is happening.

    As the discussion unfolds we need to set the starting date beyond 1619. The 1619 Project, an ambitious undertaking by the New York Times and developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, 

    "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequence of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United State's national narrative."

    Movement conservatives and old fashioned white racists,  are apoplectic about the educational programs and intent of 1619. Too, they are foaming about an old academic idea, Critical Race Theory (CRT). More about CRT later. My complaint about 1619 is that it's myopic.

the first victims

    The starting date for discussions of reparations should be moved back to the late 1400's, certainly the 1600's as European colonialists and trading companies continued a genocide of indigenous people in addition to the slaving that would stain our national character and pervert our destiny. 

    To be fair, reparation analysis must encompass the formation of the American colonies and fledgling federal system of the United States when it engaged in criminal behavior, theft, fraud and murder of those who lived here.

    The kidnapping, buying and selling of Black people and the centuries of its damaging legacy must be accounted for, but our egregious national history began before that and is larger than just the abhorrent period of slavery.

    When talking about reparations, we must discuss the theft of the very land we call home and we should atone for the evil our forebears did. Native people, their culture and the consequence of their treatment must also be at the "center of our national narrative."

      The symbols painted on the stone stand above the middle fork of the Kaweah River in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. They are a legacy of the Potwisha who lived in a village near the stone. They were a subgroup of the Monache or Mono people who were there around 1350.

      A hike here roams through land also occupied by the Yokuts and the Tubatulabal people. They were 2 of the approximately 600 tribes that populated what we call North America. 

     When a lost Christopher Columbus landed in this hemisphere there were some seven to ten million people living north of the Rio Grande.

 

    Our hikes have taken us to "kitchen" areas. These are mortars where native people ground and pulverized or refined food materials. Today they make fascinating visits to history.

        In this space some months ago I suggested we set aside 25 years for a time of national reconciliation, beginning with years of establishing the full accounting of history and the airing of all grievances, through a series of hearings in every state. 

        Once the record is established, and the truth is known the nation would enter a time of discussion including deliberations of reparations. It is the view of this old reporter that is the only way we will heal and resolve our divide.

        Generations hence, knowing the full history, will be better prepared to live with truth and each other.

    

    President Biden said it perfectly:

    "Democracy is more than a form of government. It is a way of being, a way of seeing the world. Democracy means the rule of the people, the rule of the people---Not the rule of monarchs, not the rule of the moneyed, not the rule of the mighty-literally, the rule of the people." 

        It is true this experiment of government is in a fight for its life. Democracy is under threat from authoritarianism and autocracy. One of our major political parties has become an enemy of the State.

      The republican party is in the words of historian Jon Meacham "irrational." It is  without platform or principle. Republicans have displayed abuse to the democracy, a lack of honor and disgusting cowardice. The old GOP is long dead. This party is symptomatic of the rise of aggressive ignorance.

        Perhaps this is a way forward. Either the President appoints a Commission, or the House and Senate appoint Select Committees, or both options, to investigate the 1/6 insurrection. In either case, Republicans should be appointed to the Commission and/or Committee.

        At the bludgeoning of Mitch McConnell Republicans are trying cover up and ignore culpability and seriousness of the insurrection. I wish that arrogance and naked lust for power were criminal, but future generations will see him and Republicans for the deserters and Judas like apostates they are. An appointment of a few republicans could help guide a just investigation and would in the end trump the Trump cult.

        Senators Romney, Portman, Sasse, Collins, Cassidy or Murkowski would certify a non political inquiry.

    

    When Black, and Latin kids were my classmates, friends and teammates, CRT meant cathode ray tube, the vacuum tube that enabled the new wonder of television. There were racial disparities and the civil rights movement was nascent.

    By the time this class was in high school the Democrats and Republicans were debating and then voting on the historic  Civil Rights Act of 1964. It passed in the Senate 73-27, but the party break down is illuminating.

    46 Democrats voted for it-21 voted against it. (69%-31%)

    27 Republicans voted for it-6 voted against it. (82%-18%)

    The House Vote was 290-130.

    Democrats 152 to 96  (61%-39%)

    Republicans 138 to 34  (80% - 20%)

    That kind of consensus does not exist. That kind of Republican party no longer exists. Gone are the days when each party had wings of liberals and conservatives. For more than a half a century republicans have twisted themselves into a tighter and tighter knot of absolutists driven by their right wing. 

crt is the new boogie man 

    Today the conservative to right wing of politics has gone back to the 1970s and collected writings of legal scholars looking at race and the law and have bloviated those academic theories and thoughts into a monster. CRT looks at sociology and legal rulings in trying to decipher racism. It examines how white supremacy, and racism relates to power through the law and how that can be changed. Conservatives reject underlying academic notions of communication and sociology. Some  reject the idea of racism being imbedded into social custom and practice.

    When the Civil Rights bill was passed with bi-partisan support conservatives opposed it. They drew boundaries and resisted progress. Many have continued to oppose the law and the follow-up Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

    The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is blocked now by republicans. Voter suppression is a republican strategy.

    As ugly and in need of healing as is our racial and cultural quagmire today, imagine how awful it could be and how many grievances there would be if those 1964 and 1965 acts had not been passed. It took a fight then. It will take a fight again to align with the aspirations of our democratic republic. But the times are more perilous.

the work of truth

    There is no longer an honorable second party that believes in American justice and tradition. There is however a belligerency of ignorance and the insanity of a belief in a lie.

  

    Until we tell the full story, the true American story we will be condemned to live with the consequence of our lack of honor, and to suffer the fate of unrepentant thieves, liars and killers.

    81 Million citizens deposed an evil regime. It will take that and more to hold the House, build in the Senate and clean out the vipers in several statehouses. 

    We can hope that republicans can somehow find a path back to American values and purge the fascists, racists, and authoritarian anti-democracy, dictator craving and Russian manipulated puppets and lackeys they are.

    There is truth to tell and hard work to do. 

    See you down the trail.     

      

REAL MEN? AND ABOUT THE MOON

real men-take 1

   At a time when the US needs heroes, we can find them when we look at the moon.

      Once American astronauts walked on the nightly orb
and it is a wonder we made it.

         Director Damien Chazelle has given us a riveting history of how we got there in the brilliant film First Man.
      It is a mistake to think the film is a bio flic of Neil Armstrong, there is a bit of that, but it's really a gritty, bone rattling, nervy immersion into the 1960's space program and the race to beat the Russians to the moon.

       Those men, "spam in the can" as the original Mercury astronauts and test pilots were called, were indeed real men, heroes to be sure. Chazelle, the dazzling 33 year old French-American director who has given us Whiplash and La La Land has created an onscreen history that shows just how risky, unsure, dangerous and jarring it was. 

       If you enjoy Apollo 13 for its look into the "make it up as you go" science and engineering mind meld that was the Apollo program, this gives all of that plus the graphic physical sense of just how tight, rattling, and "on the edge" those early space capsules were. And how uncertain it was. The training sequences will give you an appreciation of the men who endured, or died, in trying to do something as historic as anything the human animal has achieved.

      Chazelle and star Ryan Gosling paint a vivid portrait of Neil Armstrong as a bit of an enigma, which rings true to what little anyone learned about him. Gosling and the cast are superb, but it is the story of the program that speaks to this generation of America.

     For those of us at that age, we may have listened to Walter Cronkite and watched mission control and marveled at the launches and the execution of burns and maneuvers and thought that was great science. It was, up to a point! The discoveries, developments, technological improvements that are now common place to our life serve as a hammer over the head when you get a look at how crude and uncertain the early space program was, by comparison.

     To those of you who have grown up with smart phones, social media and GPS, this is a great bit of history you need see. It wasn't always this way.

     It took extraordinary men and women to do the science and inventing and calculating, but it took heroes, real men to take the rides and the risks.

     Seeing First Man may just help you realize there was a time when American men were up to a challenge without precedent. By comparison the political men who've been filling our screens lately are pathetic.  Whiners, stooges, and ego driven sycophants who could never muster the testosterone it took to push boundaries. First Man celebrates the kind of courage and vision we should be looking for in the men and women who we elect to guide us. The astronauts were not gods without flaws, but they were men, being bold, doing good and willing to risk their lives for the future.
      Had we been not so backwards and repressive to women those first heroes could have been women too. But we've tried to advance. 

is it backwards to our future?

who's knocking at the door?

real men-take 2

           The lead paragraph in the New York Times story sends chills. 

             "The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genetalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a governmentwide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law."
             
         Not to beat a dead horse, but to keep this in perspective, and for my grandchildren who may read this in the future, Trump is a rogue President whom the majority of Americans voted against. He does not have the legitimacy, nor does he represent the will of most Americans to begin undoing civilization. That is what the Trump mob seeks and he is playing to his base. Base they are indeed.
        This President is not intelligent, studied, nor does he read. As a man he is unfit and a leader he is unqualified to undertake a deconstruction of a complex federal system of policies and balances that have taken years of bi-partisan effort to develop and achieve. His is the in your face, scorched earth modus operandi of a dictator or a mobster.
We should call him and his followers for what they are regressives. 
       If you were to follow the logic they intone on transgender rights, you can conclude they would say that someone born with a collapsed lung, or heart defect or some other life threatening condition are "people with a biological, immutable condition determined at birth." 
     There are millions of us who think that personhood, being a human being, is the sum of many things and should not be restricted by binary thinking, which is primitive, unsophisticated and something that is detritus of the human evolutionary trail. 
       Catherine Lhamon who led the Education Department's Civil Rights division says it well, "This takes a position that what the medical community understands about their patients-what people understand about themselves-is irrelevant because the government disagrees."
         Let that soak in for a moment. This rogue President and his mob are trying to force this democratic republic to bend against the arc of history to act like a fascist government. Immediately between 1 and 2 million Americans would be forced to eradicate the gender they live.
         If these authoritarians can do that to transgender people, who else might they seek to delegitimize? They are already into a voter suppression campaign. Who else might they come for?
         Spend a few minutes watching one of his rallies and you are likely to be nauseated or frightened or both. 
         I have a friend who keeps asking me why this nation has not risen up and flooded the streets, shutting down the government and demanding a change? 
         It is a good question. How many warning signs do we need? History should teach us. 

         Where are the heroes? It appears there is a budding crop of women and men, many with combat experience, rising in the political ranks. It is time for people with intelligence, courage, character and a sense of history to put this nation back on the kind of footing that could undertake such a long shot as putting a human on the moon, forcing us to make it up and to quite literally reach for the stars. And who understand that here on the blue marble the journey to full freedom, liberty, a good life and human dignity for all are the most noble of  goals. 

   See you down the trail.

Face Off-Rocket Magic-The Perfect Drive

into a tricky twilight

    Pay close attention. The White House is in a swirl that is unlike anything else the troubled administration has faced to date. We get into that below.

celebrating the left coast

   This veteran traveler finds this scene one of the most pleasing anywhere. Looking south from Nepenthe in Big Sur.

     Hairpins, tight turns, twists, long drops, rocky walls and sensational views compete for a drivers attention and energy. It is invigorating, though we have found friends who are challenged by the mountain ledges and winding highway. 

      It takes work to keep the iconic Pacific Coast Highway open.

the rocket magic show

      That bright light on the horizon is neither moon nor sun. It is a Falcon 9 Space X rocket racing toward space. The launch at Vandenberg AFB is about 85 miles south from the observation point on my deck.

                 As a kid, fascinated by the new space program, I never dreamt I'd be watching rocket launches from my deck.

           The separation created a bit of a cosmic light show.

    The mission was to deploy an Argentine environmental satellite, but the trick of the evening was to land the Falcon booster rocket, back at Vandenberg in a hard ground landing zone.

             It worked well and this shows the Merlin engines firing as the Falcon 9 was headed home.

       Meanwhile thousands of miles away, the satellite was being carried into orbit and we had a new way to measure the depth of our rich star fields.

more sublime

      A longtime friend, who shared ground breaking campus politics and later worked alongside on assignment in Cuba and who's skill and academic/professional arc I have admired, and I were talking like old guys or gals do. We have reached an age where it can be said of us, what they said about Dean Acheson, "Not only did he not suffer fools gladly, he did not suffer them at all."

     Thus you understand our present state of agitation.

We stepped out to look at a particularly clear and crystalline like sky abundant with pricks of cosmic light. That has the effect of downsizing the scale and importance of all human endeavor so as to render us and our intrigues to a scale of gnats. 

still we have the capacity to ruin this blue ball

    So back to the opening tease. Our rogue administration is navigating a new crisis and it is deep water with submerged danger.

     The very awful destruction of a human life, in this case a powerful, well connected Saudi and critic of the new crown prince is at the center of a pernicious brew.

      As David Kirkpatrick wrote in the New York Times, 

"The disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi has set off a diplomatic feud between Saudi Arabia and Turkey, a bipartisan uproar in the United States Congress, tremors of uncertainty in Wall Street and Silicon Valley about how to deal with Saudi Arabia, and a noisy spat between the White House and its closest Arab ally."

           The man who is said to be in charge has yet to demonstrate study or an understanding of the complexity of the world and this is as complex as it gets. He's already gone off half loaded and has reversed himself. Maybe that will help in this instance. Serial liar POTUS is in good company. The Saudi's have been duplicitous in their long relationship with the US since the beginning. The Royal family has lied, cheated, backed terrorists, repressed women, dissidents and free thought for as long as the "kingdom" has been in place. 

       So we have a liar and tax cheat going head to head with a liar and cheat and perhaps killer. Isn't it a damned shame, two human beings of the character and quality of these two have so much power and impact? If you are looking for a precis of how this beautiful and fragile world has been put so upside down, here you have it as the crown prince and the rogue president take measure of each other.

        See you down the trail.

                          

NUMB

   The Sierras are their domain and they roam as they wish.

    This is a young bear and not fully grown. He or she was rooting for a mid morning snack about 10 foot off the trail.

   We encroach into their wilderness with our cleverness.

   Still nature is the dominant component of the equation.

    Normally good spirited and cheerful, Californians have been understandably heavy hearted the last two weeks.

     The horror and fiery devastation has been cut into our psyche. We all have friends in Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and points north or south. We've read the heartbreaking accounts of loss of life and destruction of homes, businesses and life dreams. The loss seems incalculable and personal.

     I was particularly taken by what Thomas Fuller, the San Francisco Bureau chief of the New York Times wrote. 

      

From the NY Times CALIFORNIA TODAY

Thomas Fuller, the San Francisco bureau chief for The New York Times, describes his experience covering the fires in Northern California.

I keep a satellite phone in the trunk of my car, the same one I used to cover disasters and insurgencies in places like Myanmar and Nepal. But I never thought I would need it in Napa Valley, not for a wildfire anyway.

During a week spent covering the fires in Northern California, I fell back on my training as a foreign correspondent: finding the satellite on the smoky horizon, locking in the phone’s antenna and dictating paragraphs to patient editors.

But this was not a foreign land. It was my own country, and the conveniences that we take for granted had collapsed. Traffic lights went black and commerce shut down.

Streets that were normally filled with tourists in the charming towns of wine country were deserted except for crews of exhausted firefighters, sheriff’s deputies and a few reporters. In the evacuation zones, rows of destroyed houses made it feel like a country at war, emptied of its civilian population.

Small fires seemed to pop up everywhere. As I raced down narrow country roads to meet deadlines, I caught glimpses of smoldering embers on tree stumps a few feet away. I felt vulnerable while driving through tunnels of vegetation — it would be easy to be surrounded by fire and trapped.

Everything smelled of smoke: my clothes, my car, my bag, my fingers.

I feel enormously grateful to the dozens of people who took the time to articulate their grieving, some while standing in the rubble of their homes. The fires stripped away their privacy. Their kitchens, their exercise equipment, their hobbies — their lives — were in cinders at our feet.

I think back to meeting Lisa Layman, her azure eyes staring at the ashes of her home at Coffey Park in Santa Rosa. She was recovering from cancer and recently had a kidney removed. The night before, she had escaped with her Bible and a scrapbook of her son’s early years. That is all she had.

It is a reporter’s job to bring empathy to disasters like this. But I wondered how I could ever comprehend the magnitude of her loss.

  There were all too many times when my assignments 

put me at locations of devastation-tornados, floods, fires, explosions, hazardous waste derailing or leaks when I asked myself the same question. This week millions of Californians are mulling such.

#metoo

   I'm not a fan of "piling on" when someone is down, but the #metoo response in the wake of Harvey Weinstein being taken down is healthy. 

    Though sadly delayed, by years, the news finally exposed Weinstein's loutish behavior. His fall from power and influence is stunning and appropriate. We are still waiting for justice for those women who donald trump sexually assaulted. We can hope another fall is in order.

    See you down the trail