Waiting, In the Interval

        Between seasons. Between change. Between atmospheric rivers. Between the America we knew and where it goes. We live in the interval.   

        On the California central coast this is the season some call Irish.

    If you know Ireland, you know this is an imposter. It is reminiscent, however. 

    Just being California winter is plenty good. From the perch here, it seems entirely too many citizens are loosing their grip.

    This includes the Alabama Supreme Court and at least 6 activist US Supreme Court Justices, all of those who have surrendered heart and mind to the MAGAban, those who give comfort to Russia and their mad czar, and those want to kill the almost two-and-a-half century experiment in a democratic republic. 

    We are between sanity and them. 

    If the MAGAban sycophants were to gain control, we likely would slip into a struggle that no one deserves. That we need to address these realities is a signal  we are in descent. 

       There is much about this America that is troubling; beliefs that are badges of ignorance gone malignantly arrogant. Uneducated and now unhinged. 

       The hijacking and the weaponizing of faith is misbegotten. Christian Nationalism, the atrocity of Hamas, and Netanyahu's abuse of the history of the Jewish state to conduct a war of genocide are three footmen of hell. There is plenty of evil creeping about.

        Nations respond to attack, but a counter attack that targets civilians, and ignores pleas for restraint is a case of two wrongs do not make a right.

        Authoritarianism, theocracy, and a new feudalism are active threats and sadly too many are poorly educated and/or manipulated to understand how they have become tools. 

        Again Russian agents are manipulating US citizens and attitudes. The MAGAban Republicans are part of the attack. They also put our children and grand children at risk of going to war to stop the aggression of the same Russian czar they support. It is madness.

        We stand between continuing the struggle to realize our aspirational promise or a regressive mania that seeks to discard human rights, freedom of thought, choice, belief and expression. 

        The poisoning of faith is insidious. We have seen it before. Dietrich Bonhoeffer a Lutheran minister was an outspoken critic of German Nationalism and the rise of the fascists. He was executed by the Nazi government. 

        Bonhoeffer asked humanity to think deeply and weigh the consequence of what is said, thought and believed. "Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are."

        Be it a philosophy, faith, or a personal code requires examination, giving respect, and thinking of others. This is more diligent than being a follower, scrolling your screen, posting emojis or rants. It requires getting out of echo chambers and silos.

    Look closely and you will see in Christian nationalism, Christian Trumpism, and MAGAban Nationalism, the seeds of the destructive evil that coopted faith, churches and the German regime.

     Things change. We can make choices. Big decisions are ahead.

       We live in the interval.  

        See you down the trail.

As Summer Visits.....

         The scene above, summer evening in the park on the square in Paso Robles captures my sense of summer spirit.

        The busking singer songwriter, a young man full of dreams, children at play, families strolling, green foliage, blue sky and a gentle, peaceful scene.

        Summer is still a time of hope, for ripening gardens, an improved game, no matter the sport, leisure with friends, evenings of simple relaxation and reflection. The scene speaks to me of that essence and it is evocative of a simple time, still possible.

        Lana's orchid cactus's have celebrated summer's arrival with an array of giant blooms. They are dazzling.

        So we celebrate the solstice, and the days of summer with a few scenes of the way it is around here, on the California central coast, a place of "endless summer" in so many ways.

        As members of the US Senate ponder their post summer plans it might be good for the Judiciary Committee to rally an investigation of sitting Supreme Court Justices, all of them if they prefer, but certainly Thomas and Alito who may well have proven themselves unfit to serve. As the House January 6 Committee presented a document to the nation and future generations, perhaps it is time to look into the snake pit on the high court. 

The photo above and below were taken by Lana while tending to her garden.

While here she tends, harvesting fava beans.

An evening in another garden, as Jill Knight and Eric continue to create the score of our lives in Cambria.

Sweet Summer....

    I hope that your summer is peaceful, gentle and includes lazy naps.

   See you down the trail.

When the fog shrouds...

          Our summer nights have been cozy, wrapped in fog.

      The spirited vapor rolls in from the coast as late evening sun and shadows play across the Santa Lucia slopes. As darkness descends, the fog rises from the valleys and thickens.

        I've taken it as a sedative. It's a shroud, buffering and insulating, changing the appearance of things. It helps take the edge off life's pain, if only temporally and if only in an illusory way.

        We live in a season of madness. We postulate extinction. My generation will not see the end of the whirlwinds we have given flight. Our friends are disappearing. We are no longer fleet. We are increasingly irrelevant. But we, some of us, rage against the insanity, the short sightedness, the decline, and demise.

        Those hard lines and sharp edges of life soften in the fog. 

        Fog may hide things, but we do not hide from life. 

        It seems a lifetime of reporting is calling in IOU's. I am now clobbered by war, disaster, broken hearts, frightening futures, wasted chances, toxic personality, and disappearing evidence of heart and soul. Like many of you, we worry about heirs and the yet unborn. And in every headline and news break is a connective nerve to the moments that soak the brains and hearts of old journalists in the pain, suffering, death, misdeeds and carnival of inhumanity that we saw and felt and can never seem to forget. It is our pass into club PTSD. Of course there are others here too, and some more grievously wounded. 

        The older I get the more resilient the ghosts are. The fog is a cocoon, but only a pretender.

        The Frontline Documentary Ukraine: Life Under Russia's Attack, left me depleted and ranting that a lethal drone should be addressed to Vladimir Putin. Another madman is loose in Europe, again. Why can't we learn from history? And already we are starting to forget. Old news, exactly what he counted on. 

        I had to step out for a walk, in the cool mist.

        It is life out of balance. Election deniers, a radical Supreme Court turning back the calendar on human rights, people tossed out of homes, working poor unable to get by, huge wealth getting larger, oil companies gouging for record profits, fires, floods, and human kind seems paralyzed. Where is the common sense? Where is decency?

        I sat in a briefing this week with a just retired Lt. General who had directed the Department of Defense's  Joint Center on Artificial Intelligence. You probably don't want to hear this, but the Chinese are way ahead of us in digital transformation, global interconnectivity and Artificial Intelligence. As he said the issues are Organization and Innovation. The question is How does an organized and innovative adversary fare on the battlefield?

        The US Military struggles mightily and lags in digital organization and innovation. Same old, same old. Turf battles, who's in control, yaddity, yaddity, yaddity.

        Once some of us were called "angry young men or women." Now we are angry again. As the saying goes, we know where the bodies are buried and we have secrets we will take with us. We've seen how we've missed getting it right, over and over.

       General's also talk about fog. They call it the fog of war, a confusion and lack of judgement caused by war. We are a people at war with our values, with each other, living on a planet that we are at war with.

        The great American writer Ben Hecht offers us wisdom; I see a lot of fog and a few lights. I like it when life's hidden. It gives you a chance to imagine nice things, nicer than they are."

            See you down the trail.

The War in America

    Even as the outpouring of acrimony roils the nation since the radical cell on the Supreme Court scored with their religio-zeal, the seditious traitor who packed the court is certainly fuming!

        Cosmic justice comes with a divine irony. The ex-president's celebration has been cut short by a January 6th Investigation witness, who trumps the already damning evidence trail.

    We've learned the former president was indeed as stupid, venal, and ill equipped as we knew he was, but he was also a plate smashing, crybaby bully who got backed down by his own security man. Tsk tsk. 

     The image of the corpulent looser trying to grab the steering wheel of the "beast," the nickname of his Presidential car, while being rebuffed by his own security detail is a great chuckle.

    Wow, how he must have stewed! He must be soaked in anger and frustration that his staff, his own appointees, even those who voted for him, have come forward to provide meticulous detail of how and when he knew he had been swept from office, and how and when he knew there was no voter fraud, and how and when he knew he was dead wrong. 

    These Republicans, Trump people, have provided the inside dope on how he and a few other rum dums perpetuated a lie, even to the point of wanting to see Mike Pence die for refusing to go along with the scheme that has broken America and threatens to swamp us with his poison.

    Learning he knew the mob was armed, "they won't hurt me" 

places him into a complicit zone.

    The ex-president's direct involvement in the attempted coup and the court's five 'loser Justices' -the five appointed by Presidents losing the popular vote, signal a danger. Minority rule threatens to swamp the ship of state. 

    Overturning Roe is a broad side attack by fanatics.

       A woman's right to choose to abort has not been banned per se, but those rights have been turned over to the states. This is problematic, and more complicated than most consider.

        Outlawing abortion is exactly what this activist, right wing catholic court is trying to do. It is wrapped in jurisprudence but the premeditation was to kill abortion. They may get their way in some places. 

        Three of the justices, lied in their service to the president who appointed them. As a block, the radicals have shaken the courts legitimacy. It was a craven act to carry out a political mission for which they were appointed and so they could also satisfy their own moral ganglia.

        What was thought of as and was arguably a right, bequeathed by 50 years of stare decisis and practice, was rejected because a political thug pandered to an evangelistic right wing "faith and politic." 

        This court is so far out of touch with American citizens it will continue to create cultural spasms and political fervor. 

        Fortunately there is an however---hard ball politics. Elections. Those who do not approve of the "no platform needed," authoritarian worshipping, and criminal amalgam of a Republican party that seeks to turn the nation to fascism, and turn back the decades on human dignity, liberty and the American way, need to get off the couch, get out of the house, and go to work for or fund candidates who stand for what you believe. Or who at least challenge the minority government scam. 

     At the same time I understand the sincerity and deeply held sanctity for life that people who oppose abortion hold. Even though it was a constitutional right, there are other views of abortion and they too are part of the national mind. 

    No one however, except medical providers, spiritual counselors and family should be in a woman's ear about how she is responsible for her own body. This is personal choice, with personal consequence and government or those who disagree have no right to interfere with that personal decision. Such is freedom.

        If it is your conviction that abortion is wrong, you can pray. But you cannot stop a human being from deciding as they choose. 

        This should not be a political or legal issue. 

   

    Some, even friends, upbraided me for my "intemperate" postings about the candidate and then president Trump and for my attempt to detail why he was bad for America, even as I surmised the damage he could do. 

    Sad to say, it cost me friendships, respect, and readers.

    Sad for all of us, he was as vile as my sources, and others with global and security knowledge knew he would be.

    We are at war with each other, divided by a lie.

    We have learned how deeply in Trump empowered haters- white nationalists, proud boys, and oath keepers were on planning the violence and attempted coup. And with Trumps knowledge.  

    State parties have been taken over by truth deniers and have been empowered by his election criminality

    Faith in our elections is under attack.

    Senate and House Republicans aid and abet.  The Senate Minority leader has broken oath with the Republic. His racism has raised him into the lodge of full fledged fascists. He and his caucus value power over truth, and might over right. 

    The worst President in history has unleashed a chimera of right wing anguish and wet dreams. As we have seen in just the last few days his poison still soaks the body politic.

    

    There is a struggle between logic-reason and blind faith-deception. 

    The war in America is between right and wrong. 

    More deeply it is about the survival or death of the United States.

    Accountability is critical. There is hope the DOJ's investigation finds reason to charge Trump and his co conspirators for a range of crimes in trying to subvert the election and for orchestrating a coup, violence and murder.

    If the Department of Justice investigates Trump and his conspiracy to subvert the election, I hope he is charged and found guilty of sedition and treason. If so he should be sentenced to life without parole.

    If faith and philosophy were not a reasoning light, I would advocate he be executed. Either punishment would be good for this nation. 

    Some argue that is too much. I don't think presidential punishment comes close to creating the damage he has done. Punishment would go a ways in healing.

    The accountability is a message to the world that our laws matter. It would serve as a warning to all future politicians. 

    A sacred quality to the American way, our mash up of a democratic republic, is this: no one is above the law. 

   Wrong is Wrong. Do the crime and you'll do the time, even if you were a president. 

    See you down the trail.

    

TWISTED & SINKING

 

        It's called the Twisted Grove, one of the many Redwood families in the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Aptos, California. 

    I see it as a metaphor of now.

        The trees live on the San Andreas fault and changing land in their hundreds of years have caused them to twist to reach to for the light.

         Consider the great palaver about the leaked Supreme Court opinion; That a radical right wing clique appears to be on the verge of banning individual liberty has the majority of Americans dutifully concerned....that the Republican party who packed the court with zealots is more concerned about the leak than a regressive decision, unwanted by a majority of citizens. 

        The Supreme Court we were taught to vaunt and hallow is exposed as being more horse shit offal of our broken political system. Almost holy respect for the Supremes? The mystique is gone.  

       Please recall three of the supremes were nominated by Donald Trump, after one nomination was stolen from President Obama. Two were nominated by George W. Bush. What do Bush and Trump have in common? Both lost the popular vote. 

      The majority of Americans voted against their judgements and character, but they put 5 on the court. At least 3 of those five lied on camera about Roe V. Wade when questioned during their testimony. And on this high court is a man married to a person of questionable character who supported the January 6 insurrection. 

   

        Sinking is another matter.

        The SS Palo Alto began as a concrete ship, a tanker built for WW I in 1918. The end of war left the Palo Alto without a mission. In time it became an oil storage barge. Later it was purchased to be an amusement center and opened in 1930 at Sea Clift Beach in Santa Cruz County.

        It thrived, only briefly. After two years of dances, dinners and the social life, the depression changed the course of the Palo Alto.

      Over the years it languished, interrupted by periods of attempted revival and then more trouble. Storms cracked the hull, there was renewed effort, a hamburger stand, bait shops, more storms and broken masts, more storms and the original crack in the hull worsened, more rehabilitation and repairs, and it was used as a fishing platform. So it was until 2000 when the ship deck was closed permanently.

        The concrete tanker is now a home for sea birds and a flourishing sea life. It has become a kind of reef, as it continues  sinking, slowly into the sea.

        I think this too is a metaphor; 

    the once important Republican party, broken and infested now with extremists, non traditionalists, anti American authoritarians and fans of autocracy. Republicans I covered are repulsed. Generations passed would abhor the party.

    the American ship of state, divided and the constituency not particularly intelligent anymore.

    Tragic comedy-an irony;

    Right wingers have always worried about subversion and infiltration, by the Soviets and then the Russians. There's a great case to be made how that infiltration target was and is the republican party and their nation breaking, hate your neighbor culture wars, and grievances gaggle. Now they attempt to "game" the system, trying to rule as a minority party.

    

    Twisted and sinking.  We have been before. 

    Begrudgingly or with belief, we've course corrected, cleaned up the act, busted monopolies, jailed bosses, chased off demagogues, created government compassion, reformed courts, improved, established liberties and continue to evaluate and struggle.

    Struggle. That is our history. Forces of enlightenment and liberty pitched against ignorance, greed, self interest and control.  

    We've endured, almost as long as the youngest of these big trees, that live on a fault line.

        We were at dinner party and in the rambling conversation conviviality I heard myself say I'm ascribing more dignity and favor to trees than I am to a whole lot of humanity. Trees last. By comparison we are on a short timeline.  

        There are good people. Lots of them. Though we may be old and tired or weary, it's time to go another round for human dignity. There is work to do, truth to be told, challenges to make, courts and government to reform, laws to pass and elections to be won. We can model for and work along side like minded youth. For those of us active in the 60's and 70's, there are lessons to teach and to remember. 

        Trees reach for the light. It's what they do to live for hundreds and thousands of years.  Democratic republics could take note. 

        Find the light.  See you down the trail. 

    

              

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.

Living Beyond Binary and South Coast New

Avila Beach, Ca

    Some 45 minutes south of us the central coast offers scenes reminiscent of Southern California. 

     It's hard not to smile or feel good when seeing a symphony of blue stretch the horizon and lap onto warm sand. Enjoy the vibe because we've got a brain bruiser for you below, but we begin with nice.

     Avila is bright, fresh and shiny. It was essentially rebuilt after a 1998 settlement where in Unocal took years taking the town apart, removing tons of earth, moving homes back into place or clearing property. It was all part of the mitigation of a tank farm leak.
     Long timers say before the leak and the tear down Avila was "low rent" and a not so appealing beach town. We were there during the remediation and now it is clear time, money and real estate development changes things.

         It has become a tourist and play beach, complete with resort, golf courses, hiking, biking trails, restaurants, bistros, pubs and recreation.

      A group of north coasters, from San Simeon and Cambria follow their tummies to a spot sired by a beloved chef.
      We've always enjoyed outings in Avila, though there is slight feeling of being at Disney Beach Town or maybe on the set of the Truman Show. There is a history here, but it's lost in the designer new. Great place to visit, but.....

back on the ridge

Pasta making training continues. This is the critical extrusion phase.

    Kids can lift the spirit. There is an innocence and joy that infuses. But it's not as simple as it used to be

boys and girls and transitions and identity

       

       At coffee the other day one of the guys asked if women's sports was going to be killed by the affect of trans athletes whose male DNA makes them of a particular muscle and bone structure that provides strength, speed and power to the extent of being an advantage over their female competitors.

     It's a question I'd never considered, but it is vexing isn't it?

Personal identity is more complicated when people identifying and living as a woman may have a penis or when a man keeps his vagina because he would like to bear a child. Imagine how mind boggling that sentence would have been to your parents or grand parents.

     We may identify by way of a choice, though biological functions might even be an irony of sorts. Sexual reassignment surgery is a path for some, but not for everyone. It is no longer a binary matter. 
    Living with how we are different as men or women or in search or undecided or transition brings a need for a new protocol as well as cultural cues. These are new times.
     We are all human and under it all, we are the same. Until we meld with technology and synthetic life, but that is for another day.

     the cringe factor

      Does it happen to you? You communicate with friends who are citizens of places other than the US and you cringe as you explain something the occupant of the White House tweets or says. As a case in point the recent boneheaded tantrum over Harley Davidson. It somehow diminishes us all.

       In fact he diminishes everything? Has our integrity and intelligence fallen so low that we actually deserve him? Who needs the zombie apocalypse? The brain dead rules already.      
      And now there is a new justice to choose. 
      Did I just detect another cringe?

      See you down the trail