Peeking at Normal

 

Oak trees shadow the moonrise over the Santa Lucia Mountains in Cambria  

        The dawning success of getting jabs into enough arms so the vaccinated can now socialize, inside, sans mask, will awaken distant memories of how great it used to be.

        Another tell is what we are talking about. The "royals" have grabbed headlines after talking to our Queen of media, Oprah.

        Our local King, ruler of the polydactyls, is pleased his ridge top savanna is green again.  Hemingway shows more dignity than those in the palace who have driven yet another young woman  to the edge of despair, and displayed tone deaf racism in the process. 

        It seems if the appalling anachronism of "royalty" is to continue, they need to use CRSPR to design princesses to endure the silliness of such as thinking someone must be bowed to. Oh but we love The Crown and the cheap pleasure of royal gossip and intrigue. These people used to lop of heads and got away with it. So, you don't think history convicts us?

    New direction in Washington is helping lower American blood pressure levels. The Biden Covid Relief plan offers assistance the US needs to recover from the disaster; the disease's devastation of life, economy, normalcy and the malignant incompetence of the Trump-McConnell reign. 

    The Biden plan is a bi-partisan success, favored by a majority of US citizens, both Republicans and Democrats. It is etching itself into Presidential History. It may prove to be a  significant legislative remedy on the scale of FDR.

    The House and Senate Republicans are hopelessly trapped in a psychotic death cult where truth is a sin. Isn't it cute, that right on cue the party of run-away spending and economic recessions is putting on their budget deficit faces again, though a majority of their voters await the Biden relief.

    

    

        Overhanging the way forward is the need for a national nonpartisan investigation into the causes and facts of 1/6. This is something Republicans would like to forget. 

        Another overhang, and one where the bill is coming due is the costly undoing of the Iran nuclear deal JCPOA. Since the mistake of quitting the agreement, Iran has enriched more uranium, is using advanced centrifuges and restricting international inspections. Thank you Mr. Trump.*

        And because horror stories need a teasing ending, I hope you've watched the knife attack the Trump organization has directed to his chump party mates. Only he can raise money using his name. His political fundraising may be his best scam and con yet. 

       * The change of scenery or personnell at the State Department and White House will have impact on the looming Iran fight.

         Ali Akbar Salehi, one of Iran's Supreme Leader's most trusted advisors and the head of the Atomic Association of Iran said this week, a deal is a deal and the US walked away.

        Intelligence analysts tell us the first phase of reengaging the JCPOA will be a kind of dance and war of nerves to see who blinks first. They tell us Biden has sent his first message, letting it sink in with the Iranian people, as they face their own inner turmoil and economic trouble.

        An early Biden test is how his humanitarian instincts and the reality of refugees flooding the border will resolve. His critics are looking closely.

        

        And finally, a sailing story. This little single masted craft

has an interesting history. It was a piece of drift wood, apparently bark of some sort, found by our grand daughter Addie, who professed "this will float."

    It lead to looking up sail boat designs and making a sketch.

Nana then helped cut a sail and set the mast. It was time for a test.

    

   It proved its sea worthiness in several tide pools and was the source of pride and glee. Lessons learned, and something proven it was time to return the slightly altered bark to nature.

        When last seen it was moored in a channel between a couple of tide pools awaiting the return of the high tide. Maybe there is a sea shanty in this, but not from this writer. There is a little lass however who found her first trip down to the sea, a great adventure.

        Now, don't we all feel better these days, with hope and a new normal on the rising tide?

        Stay well. 

        See you down the trail.

                                   

COMPLICATIONS

     Left overs here, from meditations while face down on an acupuncture table. Nothing is as simple as it used to be.

     The needles were set, some were wired, the ethereally peaceful music tranquilized my inner savage and it all created a sense that my being was on an infundibuliform* journey to some place deep and profound. More than sleep, something aspiring to full out bliss. It's that elusive place where certain things in life can place you and where one can, pretend at least, to achieve a kind of clarity. So, here we go.

the O factor

    Oprah is an extraordinary person. Enormously talented she has created a cultural empire. Interviewer, host, actress, business executive, visionary and social force. She is brilliant in all of those roles and she may well be a very good person.

     She speaks with passion and those who share her views are moved and inspired and those who don't cannot ignore her. But no matter any of that, it doesn't mean she should run for President.

    Even if she could win, she should not run. I hear some of my liberal friends or Democrats beginning to groan, and maybe even taking me off their invitation lists. She should not run, because even if she is only a notch below sainthood, she is not qualified.

   Yes, she is smart, powerful, influential, and beloved but she has no experience in that special arena in America we call governance.

    The embarrassing and unfit present occupant of the White House is a case in point. There were voters, and there still are, who thought his so called business experience was enough. If that were true why does almost 70% of all US citizens disprove of him and the job he's done? Why do our allies worry about his lack of skill, intelligence and his loutish behavior?  

    I'm not beginning to say Oprah would behave like the idiot to whom I referred, but there is a world of difference between what you can do in private business and life and what it takes to be the "leader of the free world." (That position by the way is presently occupied by Angela Merkel-It used to be the American President).

    There was a phrase we once used-a Statesman-modified to contemporary vocabulary a Statesperson. It connoted something of quality, intelligence, and even integrity of action and purpose. To qualify for that moniker is what qualifies someone for the role of being the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief. You need to prove your mettle in the hard, hard world of political experience, decision making, earning and maintaining trust, understanding the thrusts of history, the forces of a world with millions of moving parts, intelligence, security, economics,and the common good. 

    Oprah, in my opinion, is an exemplary woman but she doesn't have what it takes to be President, nor does Dwayne Johnson, or Mark Cuban, or Mark Zuckerberg, or George Clooney or Kid Rock.

    If any of them are serious, then they should run for office, House, Senate or a Governorship, or see if they qualify for a  challenging diplomatic assignment. Then and only then should this nation consider their candidacies. 

     We may be sick of politics as normal, sick of those who have occupied the stage the last 20 years, we may not like the options for 2020, but reverting into another "cult of personality" candidate will only take us further down the rabbit hole. 

     We the voters need to demand change in the ways of the House and Senate and the influence of big money and the beltway bandits that former a President warned us about. Ike had no political experience, but his leadership as Supreme Commander in World War II was as hard a training ground as ever. We have failed to heed his warning. 

     We don't need personality, with big social media influence, we need those kind of integrity and old fashioned political practices-compromise, negotiation and especially experience with reality instead of ideology. We certainly don't need another entertainer in chief, even if the ratings and popularity would be a natural improvement. Change the system, not the channel. We need a real leader, not a star.

it's not good for all

    We were delighted with the recent rain that swept the California Central Coast. It gave Lana the impetus to get the fava bean bed planted. (Frequent readers may recall our ecstatic love of favas)

But that same rain was devastating just a couple of hours south of us,

photo by Mike Eliason Santa Barbara County Fire Department

  I can't count the number of times we have driven under this over pass on the 101 near Montecito.

 photo by Santa Barbara County Fire Dept.

 photo by Santa Barbara County Fire Dept.

   Our heart aches for those who endured the Thomas Fire and now suffer through mud slides, more devastation and loss of life.

photo by Kenneth Song, Santa Barbara News, via Reuters

      And so indeed life is messy and complicated and a series of one moment after another. When we are fortunate and the moment is good we can celebrate and appreciate and be grateful. We can also know somewhere, in their own moment others may be afflicted, suffering and longing for a better moment. 

      It is complicated being a human being.

      *infundibuliform=funnel shaped.

    See you down the trail.

LETTERMAN AND OPRAH & THE HIGH VALLEY

LOOKING  UP

     If you are not a "cat person" you may think those of us who are kept by cats are a bit silly. I was taken by the expression of our poly dactyl, Hemingway. (Ernest Hemingway's cats at Key West had six toes.  Our little guy has six toes on each paw.) 

     A feral kitten, dropped by his mother as she ferried her litter over a fence, he was rescued by a Paso Robles woman.  He's the first of his line to be "domesticated." He is a link between wild DNA and being a pet. He seems perpetually curious and maybe a little bewildered. He's got an easy going personality with his greatest interests being eating and napping. He's learning quickly isn't he?

NOT SO STUPID HUMAN TRICKS

    Our old college friend was back at our Alma Mater and making news.  David Letterman's interview with Oprah created lots of interest.

Link to a CBS video of the chat here.

    In so many important ways, Dave and Oprah are people

to look up to.  

GEOGRAPHY THAT BLOWS YOUR MIND

   An easy first impression of these frames is that the valley and lake are a low altitude flatness surrounded by the distant peaks which surround and frame the images.

   Partially correct. The valley and the lake are at 7,000 to 8,000 feet.  This is the northern edge of the Owen Valley and Mono Lake which nestle, if such a massive space can indeed nestle, in the Sierra Nevada high country, bounded by the Sierra and the Excelsior mountains in Nevada to the east.  

     The peaks of the Excelsior range between 7 and 13 thousand. The Sierra Nevada peaks are at 13 and 14 thousand.  

      As the settlers trekked west they climbed to reach the big valley, only to face the more rugged eastern slope of the Sierra. Beyond that lay the central valley. 

      What an extraordinary inner drive to lift and buoy the spirit to overcome the sheer struggle.  

      See you down the trail.