EARTH SMILES

E'lan Vital

    Spring is a magical season. Many see it as symbolic of hope and renewal. We've paid special notice since the ancients organized rituals to mark its impact. 
    Henri Bergson, the French Philosopher wrote of what he called E'lan Vital-the dynamic force of creativity and life. Spring seems full of that expanding and unstoppable newness and energy.
    For some of you who suffered a long winter, the celebration is probably more dear. Wherever you read this, happy spring!

    See you down the trail.

LONG VIEW and A CITIZEN'S CONGRESS

FROM THE RIDGE

     From this land of big views an idea is emerging that could/might/should change American politics. More on that after a look at spring from what is called "top of the world."

  The frame below over looks Green Valley.  You can see the 

micro climate difference in the fog that has settled below the distant peaks over Cayucos and Morro Bay.

   We are fond of the time of year when the western grazing slopes are green.

   An unusual scene in our Mediterranean climate-hail or sleet in last week's rare, but appreciated, rain.

 FOR BRUCE aka THE CATALYST

   Since my old pal loves fresh baked bread, this scene at a local Italian restaurant caught my eye.

IMPROVING AMERICAN POLITICS

   Frequent readers have heard me rail about the need to get big money out of politics.  I've been around the game long enough to see how corrosive it has been.  Years ago I used to quote HL Mencken "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."  The current system is nothing more than big business.  Big dollars are needed to run and get elected and entirely too much effort is spent hustling the bucks and then being beholden to the contributors.  

    Terribly flawed and corrupted Supreme Court decisions have opened the path to even greater influence of money-be it from Corporations, who are only people, or people who have money like corporations.  Well, a Californian from my county is in the midst of an extraordinary effort to do something about it.  He's invited you and anyone who cares out to our far west for a congress.

See you down the trail.

OUR INTRUDER , 2 SURE BETS, A LOSS OF THOUGHT and PACIFIC SPRING

FRESH

VARIATIONS ON A RIGHT FRAME

THE INTRUDER

    A midmorning call by one of our neighborhood Bobcats.

      This guy is considerably larger than Hemingway and Joy who were napping on the porch, or perhaps hiding under the deck.

THEY'LL MAKE YOU THINK

    If you like real life intrigue and are fascinated by science PARTICLE FEVER and TIM'S VERMEER are two documentary films you'll want to see.  Both are in general release, but if your art house or cinema doesn't offer them, they'd be great views at home.

       Particle Fever, directed by Mark Levinson is a brilliant, entertaining and even amusing suspense as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN comes on line and seeks evidence of the Higgs particle.  6 brilliant and charismatic scientists are your guide.  They are extraordinary and the drama is real.  

      Tim's Vermeer follows brilliant inventor, millionaire Tim Jenison on a six year quest to learn how the Dutch painter Vermeer (Girl with a Pearl Earring) captured light, glow and painted so realistically.  The film is produced by Pen Jilette and Teller. It features Martin Mull, British painter David Hockney and professor Philip Steadman.  It is a fascinating journey, amazing in what lengths Jenison will go to pursue the riddle.  

      I took personal pleasure in the viewing of both because they reaffirm the best of humanity, our desire to seek answers, learn, quest and take on mystery and to delight in the challenge.

     Which brings us to an however....

WITHOUT BENEFIT OF REASON

    Shouting into the wind or standing at the shore and telling the surf to subside may have the same efficacy as this, but here we go. It is appalling at how rapidly western culture is disposing of its once guiding trajectory of reason.

    Intellectual diligence, study and learning were either foundational expectations or the normative behavior of a culture that moved from superstition and ignorance to harvesting the benefits of knowledge and science.  Along the way we bipeds were encouraged to think and to wrestle with conflicting or opposing concepts or points of logic. Not so much anymore. 

    Knee jerk reactions threaten to become the norm. In social psychology they call it a rigidifying of the self concept.  People hear an idea they disagree with, feel threatened by it and throw up a defense, often launching  a response that doesn't seek conversation and in turn the other person responds in kind.  It's a bit like launching missiles back and forth. No diplomacy, or seeking an understanding, just an escalating scorched earth belligerence. 

    It's all over cable current affairs programming, in politics, especially posessed by zealots both in the public square and in religion and even in our little village.  Everyone seems to have adopted the "I'M RIGHT-YOUR WRONG" mind set.

     Had our forbearers been so inclined we'd still be hunting with stones and hoping for the invention of fire. We may never have learned to talk.

The New Blooms

With apologies to my pal Griff, who believes this blog is too heavy on California flora.

   As my friend Bob Foster, who's bone marrow transplant and battle with Leukemia I chronicled here over the last few years, said as he called today "Life is so good."  

    He was calling from Minnesota after driving from Northern Iowa, where spring is still only a hope. He said he has not felt this good in years. And he is especially grateful for the return of his quick and facile mind.  

   To paraphrase the old military cliche' "If you've got'em smoke 'em," if you've got a brain, use it.

   See you down the trail.

DICK CHENEY IN JAIL-A LOT OF BULL-PEACE AND LIGHTNESS

WHY CHENEY SHOULD GO TO JAIL

   That is coming up, after first we share light, breezes, color and relief for those of you in places like Minnesota, Indiana, New York, and wherever else winter continues to assault you.

SPRING IN BLOOM

A SALAD IN SPRING TRAINING

DEDICATED TO DICK CHENEY

 A LOT OF BULL

 AND BULL DEBRIS

    We made our periodic visit to a grazing land to collect cow chips that we use in our compost.  I was thinking a lot about Dick Cheney.

    I was fuming a bit about the arrogance of man I consider a criminal, on several counts. Last night I watched the RJ Cutler documentary The World According to Dick Cheney airing on Showtime. The reviews are mixed though this LA Times piece by Mary McNamara hits on one point with precision.  Her father warned her to beware of a man with no regrets.  Cheney says he has no regrets.  

   Cutler zeros in on and documents two of the reasons Cheney should be tried.  One is the absolute lies, totally fabricated falsehoods he told Dick Armey to swing him around to approve an authorization to invade Iraq.  Remember those WMD's, suitcase bombs, etc, etc.  Cheney is a liar.  The other instance was when he told President Bush to ignore Justice Department rulings that domestic spying Cheney had ordered was illegal.  Cheney had intentionally kept W, who was already way over his head, in the dark about the building firestorm in the Justice Department and FBI about the illegality and irregularity of what he had done. Even the FBI director was threatening to quit if Bush did not change the guidelines. 

    I have said Bush was an idiot and I think I can prove it.  Cheney knew he had an intellectual light weight for a boss and he abused him, abused power and abused the American public.  Cutler's documentary is not at all a hatchet job, in fact it even lends a tacit credibility to a man who went from being a drunk to being drunk with power. Yet he does expose how even W, slow as he was, learned of his machinations and finally told aids not to take Cheney's calls and not to schedule meetings with him-this while they were both presiding over the needless deaths of American kids in a war that Cheney wanted, got and that his buddies at Halliburton and subsidiaries profited from.

    This is only the beginning.  As historians continue to examine and study the disastrous years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, his puppet master, Cheney's already low ratings will decline and his villainy will be further exposed.

    I hope the criminal lives long enough to be indicted.

THE FACES OF 13

   See you down the trail.

TRICK SHOTS AND TRICKY CALLS & HOPE

TRICK SHOT

   If you care to, comment as to how this shot is a bit of a trick.

THE WORST KIND OF TRICK SHOT

       Iranian television's altering of Michelle Obama provides a frightening visual of what happens when religious zealots or right wing fundamentalists, in this case Islamists, have power.  

    Certainly they, or anyone else, are entitled to hold their view of what is proper, even if others regard that view as being archaic or repressive. However, it is the dishonesty and distortion of reality I find repugnant and evil. It would have been more honest to simply insert a large black spot over her exposed skin than to fabricate a gown.  Both are stupid, but at least the one measure is honest, as if to say, as your moral guardians and police we have determined that to protect, we will not permit you to see reality.

    American networks use a beep tone when they bleep what someone considers to be offensive language. That action and motivation is another discussion sometime, but for today it is enough to know the heavy handedness is at least played out in an honest fashion. It is a modest nod to  notions of honesty, though censorship of any sort is the work of tyrants. 

A CASE FOR THE COURT

     Are you watching the Supreme Court's action on whether  police can take DNA samples?

     Justice Alito says it is the "most important procedural case in decades."  

     While noting its efficacy in solving cases Justice Scalia compares it to "unreasonable search."

     Justice Ginsberg worries about the 4th Amendment which prevents unreasonable searches and seizures and requires judicial warrants and basis of probable cause.

     The preliminaries on the DNA case strikes me as an irony, coming at a time when the court ruled 5-4 to not permit challenges to the Federal Government's expanding  power to monitor your international phone calls and emails.

      It is part of the expansion of tools to fight terrorism and comes with less candor on government policies and powers, less access to those records and no challenge to the underpinning laws. 

FEBRUARY GREEN 

     Hope these images bolster those of you caught in winter's icy or snowy grip.  Spring has begun on the west coast.  She'll head your way soon.

WAITING TO BLOOM

     See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) REBIRTH & RENEWAL

IS IT THE AIR AND THE LIGHT?

      You know how you get one of those "ah hah" brain bumps
when you see or hear something that brings you to a recognition of a new thought or insight?  I think I did it to an artist who had studied neurochemistry and photography.  His paintings were extraordinary displays of light. I asked him        "Do you think the renaissance could have occurred further north where there was less light and Mediterranean climate?"
       His eyes and crinkling smile indicated he was genuinely delighted by the question. "That is a good question.  That is a  very good question?"  
       Being a professor, I sensed, he was going to give it some thought.
       Well, this non professor has given it much thought since something theatre professor Gilbert Bloom said, in passing, years ago.  He noted the Greek Festival of Dionysus probably
wouldn't have happened in something other than a warm spring or summer climate. That was probably the ah hah bump that put me on a bridge to the idea that great creative efforts can often be charted to places where the light is good, the sun abounds and where in the spring there is a festive spirit of rebirth.
       Paganism of several variety, certainly partied hearty in the spring. It is also the time of Passover and Easter, both of which derive from sunny climes. 
       Who doesn't feel a bit of a charge when a warm sun sweeps across spring blooms? Renewal is spoken.

WHERE THERE IS A COAST 

THERE ARE WAVES

     Local experts say this past week brought the biggest waves to the Central Coast in a few years-up to 16 feet with
an 18 second period. There were some big walls of water, hanging up there for long moments.  It is thrilling to watch
the planet forces at work in the Pacific.

SPECIAL VIEWING
THE WEEKENDER's :) featured video this 
weekend has been around a bit, but I thought
it would be a good fit for this weekend
when Jewish people observe Passover and 
Christian's celebrate the resurrection.
For that matter it's perfect if you are neither
and just simply a living biped.
This is a 3 minute film that no less than Ridley Scott celebrated. It is very good.

And then, a less celebrated film,
but a little Central Coast tribute to the 
weekend.  Music by Ma Muse from Chico.

Enjoy.  Peace.
See you down the trail.