Protecting Your Assets and It Is a Shame

June Lake, California

In the high Sierra

upon reflection-there will be no winners

thoughts on the professor and the judge later

    It's September "protection time." Pinot are some of the last grapes to be harvested as the precious fruit draws a little more California sun. While the winemaker will wait, the grapes are just fine for the birds, deer, or bear right now.

      This vintage of Stolo Creekside Pinot grows less than 3 miles from the Pacific. The cool climate, foggy nights and early mornings and the later day sun has primed the crop and it needs protection and maybe a serenade. The music is just across Santa Rosa Creek road.      

    Yes, there is romance to wine country. Vistas, parties, beauty all around, but there's also hard work. Those protective nets didn't put themselves on so snuggly. Tackling acres of vines gives home garden and yard projects a different slant eh? 

no decency

no winners

    When and if the judge and the professor trade memories of a distant event there will be no winners, only victims.

     Few, very few people know the truth of what happened in a bedroom at a house party all those years ago. The story is out there now, so it must be dealt with.

     But it's a shame our culture has come to examine the history before a US Senate Committee. A shame that a nomination to the Supreme Court travels this kind of path.

      It is a shame for the families of the judge and the professor.

     If the assault occurred it is a shame Professor Ford has to recall it and before the world. If the assault did not occur it is a character assassination.

     If Judge Kavanaugh was a sexual aggressor all those years ago it is a shame he does not acknowledge it. If it is true it is a shame that he has lied.

     It's a shame that all those years ago sexual aggression, especially fueled by alcohol even happened and even more of a shame that in much of US culture it was "understood" and tacitly accepted. It is a shame that much of our culture has been patriarchal and unfair and unjust. 

     It is a shame that pain such as this had to be the change agent in our relationships.

     It is a shame that this time of change has so hyper charged the relationship and conversations between men and women.

     It is a shame that our due process has been hobbled. It's a shame that to question a woman who makes an allegation risks bringing scorn or political peril.

     It is a shame that our political system has become the public square for a culture that seems to lack decency.

     It is a shame Mitch McConnell blocked a sitting President from appointing a Judge. It is a shame the vile tone he brought into the Senate deliberative process. 

      It is a shame this nomination has now become about something more than a court appointment. It is a shame that a percentage of citizens already have their minds settled on what happened and who tells the truth. It is a shame that a sexual predator has the authority to appoint a Justice.

      It is a shame what has become of us. It is a shame what we have done the ideal of this democratic republic.

      No winners. No human winners. Perhaps the system wins if there is an agreement, a settlement on what  is true. And if this nation abides that. If. If that is possible. 

       It is a shame we don't know if we can resolve this with decency. It is a shame decency is no longer a public standard.

       See you down the trail.

The Heart of Summer

   An artist ponders a picturesque setting and strikes a pose.

   Accompanied by sunshine and blue sky the La Familigia picnic and bocce tourney at the Stolo Family Winery farmhouse was a gentle day.

gentle calm, welcomed

    The day was a transition for many on the central California coast. The Chimney fire is now 75% contained. 46 thousand acres were ravaged and 49 homes and 21 other buildings were destroyed. Almost 4,000 California firefighters battled the blaze that began August 13. They have been received as heroes in this area. The cause is still under investigation. In our near 10 years in California I have come to learn arson investigators are experts and thoroughly diligent. It sometimes takes a while but they generally find the cause and in some cases it leads to prosecution. Fighting fire in California is a multi million dollar proposition and is tantamount to going to war.

    Thanks to so many of you for your concern and words of encouragement. While Cambria was never directly threatened, the blaze was only a few miles away.  When you can see fire from your home, your concern level rises. People here are grateful. We get back to summer joy.

     See you down the trail.

     

SWEET & SOUR...ALLURING PLACES, BAD NEWS ON RACES

     Since the first reading of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, palm trees have had a special place in my heart, symbolic of something exotic.

      They represented escape from the Indiana landscape of my youth.  In time palm trees became synonymous with vacation retreat, away from snow, ice and gray.

  Years later there is still a special pleasure evoked by lounging under palms.

  Places with palm trees also provide natural color.

Race in America
A Failing Grade

     Segregation in America is getting worse according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. The GAO report find the number of racially and financially segregated schools has doubled in the last 13 years.

      The report finds that 61% of schools with high concentrations of poor students were racially segregated-schools that were at least three quarters black or Latino.

      The US Secretary of Education says fixing it must be a priority.

      This finding on top of the growing economic disparity in the US speaks legions about the ineffective response to what is a dangerous fault line in the American body politic.

Celebration of the Mediterranean spirit

Food and wine pairings are special. Stolo Family Vineyards in Cambria features a great barrel room tasting. 

   Le Vigne in the Paso Robles Appellation saluted Wine Festival Weekend with a charming dinner. 

  Vineyards abound in beauty.

  
   Between palm trees and vineyards, life provides good reason to say Cheers!

   See you down the trail.

OOPS-A THROWBACK BILLBOARD and La FAMIGLIA

OOPS

   You've probably seen those photos purported to be from India or Pakistan where power and phone lines lace through a rickety neighborhood. Well, this "brilliant" engineering is from San Luis Obispo where a gasoline station has decided to suspend the fan from a power cord!  And it's not far from Cal Poly, where smart folk abound.

LaFAMIGLIA

Picture Perfect

    The Stolo Family Vineyard and Winery hosted a wine club gathering at the family home.

    A bocce tourney played out under the Cambria sunshine.

    The pizza oven was prolific as was the expert from Mama's Meatballs.

   While Don and Charlene tended to the homemade Italian sausage, made by Don, Fiscalini style.

BLOOMS AT OUR GATE

A THROWBACK BILLBOARD  

     Sport anchor Don Hein, news anchor Betsy Ross, news anchor TC and weather man extraordinare' Bob Gregory.

     Despite the self serving nature of the comment, we were an excellent team and under the news directorship of Bob Campbell-a newsman's newsman. 

     See you down the trail.

LOVELY ART AND WHORES OF A CERTAIN ILK

POLITICIANS AS WHORES

cases in point coming up

but first-something nice

 Talent

   A moment of personal pride as we see Lana at work on her most recent series, California Grown. Here work is being done, appropriately, in California sunshine.

   The series hangs through October at Windward Vineyard and Winery in the Paso Robles westside region.

   To see more of the California Grown series link to

Lana's blog here.

 Bottles at Stolo

  In a nice coincidence, Lana's Bottles Beaucoup series hangs on the gallery walls at Cambria's own Stolo Family Vineyard and Winery.

   We note the series are in distinctive styles and both are diversions from her award winning plein air work. 

WHERE MONEY IS POISON

   Big money and politics is trouble. With apologies to prostitutes around the world, money in electoral politics is turning candidates into whores. Too much legislation is essentially purchased and written by financial contributions.

   Could this be a case in point? Laurel Rosenhall of the Sacramento Bee reports since tobacco companies have dumped big money on California politicians the legislature has rejected legislation aimed at smoking, including bans on public school campuses, at start parks and beaches as well as tax increases on tobacco. As Rosenhall writes "anti cancer advocates say it is no coincidence…" In California alone Altria and RJ Reynolds have invested  $129 million since 2000. 

MAYBE THERE IS A PLACE FOR BIG MONEY

    If corporations and special interests really must spend on public issues, why not invest the billions they spend on electoral politics instead where it does some good, helping to rebuild our aging and decaying infrastructure, or to improve operations at the VA, or to fund improvements in public schools, or etc? Money that ends up as annoying commercials and direct mailers or in the the politicians pocket could make a huge difference in the quality of American life.

    And to conclude this rant, it would be the right thing to do to outlaw the ability of members of the house or senate to establish leadership PACs. In case you are unaware, that is where the money can flow to the individual and be spent as they wish and can follow them out of office.  There was a time in America when we'd call that a slush fund. Sadly it is accepted and sanctioned by the very perpetrators. That's crazy, it should be criminal and PACs are, in fact, slush funds. How long will we tolerate this abuse?

 tough
dedicated to persistence and tenacity

  California poppies seem to thrive anywhere.

    as well as these drought tolerant succulents.  

   See you down the trail.