TRICKLES TO TORRENTS

Photo from GOES-16  Courtesy of NOAA via Agency France-Presse

           As my friend Tom said when reviewing the recently released photo, "Spaceship earth still looks pretty good, despite all of the abuse." Indeed it does.

          But it confronts us with the challenge of protecting it and all of us from a dangerous man. We look at that in a moment, but first we celebrate.

forces of nature

    The rains of January have turned Santa Rosa Creek in Cambria into a river. These shots, where the creek meets the Pacific, show how a normally trickling creek has re-contoured the beach.

  It has moved with such force as to cut embankments and deposit drift wood in piles.

emergency signals

    First a word to readers, an apology. When I began Light/Breezes 7 years and more than 1,000 posts ago it was not my intention to fill this space with political analysis or rants. It still is not. However 42 years of journalism including investigative and political reporting and international documentary work has shaped and instructed my world view. I have devoted more words to politics in the last couple of years because of the reality we are living. 
    During my career I assiduously tried to remain non-partisan. In my personal life I have been bi-partisan. I have voted for Democrats, Republicans and Independents. But I tell no one who I vote for. I am a pragmatist and favor those candidates who tilt toward solutions. I distrust all politicians and especially those who are ideologues. I admire those who engage in realpolitik.
    Some readers, and some friends have responded that I have been unfair to Donald Trump and so that brings us to the realpolitik of this moment.

                    

dump trump

     Donald Trump is a danger to this Republic. He lacks the skill, temperament, ability to reason, finesse, character and intellect required of the President. He is a liar, tax cheat, shifty business hustler, sexual predator, narcissist and is not smart enough to know he is being used. I will give him this, he knew his reality television show audience would love him and he knew both parties had ignored some who had been damaged by the near depression and the changing nature of work in America. 
      It is not just that he has no mandate, a minority president behaving as if he'd won by a landslide, I think he lacks the mental balance to hold the office. I have posted all of this but everyday bears it out. 
      That is about Trump, a sick and deplorable cretin. More important is what this means to everyone else?
     I would not assail you were it not a great challenge to our future in several ways. You can read better analysts or ethicists but I would think it failure and cowardice should I not use this opportunity to engage your concern. 
   This is not merely sour grapes, or simply disagreeing with policy or politics. You win and you lose, that is life. No, this is to support the case Trump is unfit and a danger. 

where do they stand?

     What about the Republican Party? What about Trump voters? Before we wade any deeper there is an undeniable reality at work. He is acting, via executive orders, to do things the majority of American voters disapprove. It is fact most Americans don't want him in the office. They certainly don't want him doing what he is and threatening not only this nation but the planet. Presently most Trump supporters are in denial of that, even his serial lies. 
      It is important the Republican party leadership stand up to and even challenge Trump. Sadly, it appears, Mitch McConnell and even Paul Ryan would like to have it both ways. They want to use Trump for their own advantage. Unless they make a break they will be seen as cowards.
      Think I have overstated that? Consider this-from a man who served as counsel for Condi Rice when she was Secretary of State. This is a conservative Republican speaking to others of that stripe. The writer is Eliot A. Cohen in the Atlantic. 

"For the community of conservative thinkers and experts, and more importantly, conservative politicians, this is a testing time. Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist. Your reputation will never recover, nor should it."

      Mr. Cohen is director of the Strategic Studies Program at Johns Hopkins, an author and a highly regarded international analyst.  Consider this as he echoes what former Presidents, national security, intelligence and military leaders have said of Trump.  

     Precisely because the problem is one of temperament and character, it will not get better. It will get worse, as power intoxicates Trump and those around him. It will probably end in calamity—substantial domestic protest and violence, a breakdown of international economic relationships, the collapse of major alliances, or perhaps one or more new wars (even with China) on top of the ones we already have. It will not be surprising in the slightest if his term ends not in four or in eight years, but sooner, with impeachment or removal under the 25th Amendment. The sooner Americans get used to these likelihoods, the better.

     I believe this. History has shown us a precedent. So, I am sorry if you come to this blog for something else, that I intrude  with these passionate thoughts. I write this as a defense for my daughters and my granddaughter. When I am gone I will have, at least, left an honest effort to help motivate people to think about the seriousness of how we live and respond, especially now, in the face of this unprecedented menace. 

 a future

     I will seek to guide this blog with photos, reflections and thoughts that are indeed filled with light. Still I will use the energy I have to cast light where it may illuminate.

     Now is not the time to bury your head in the sand and that is especially true for those of you who provided the minority votes that were enough to put this threatening menace in office. How much do you need to see? Millions around the world take to the streets, experts by the score warn about him, mental health experts offer their advice, he's already begun to destabilize international relations, he's replaced a military chief from his top council and replaced him by a Neo Nazi malcontent as strategist, he lies and obsesses about the size of a crowd, he believes he is above the law. It is madness. No administration in history has begun like this. Already social order is being pushed. When enough of you come to your senses it will help to remove this man.

     See you down the trail.

LIVING IN HENRY MILLER'S PARADISE and WHY ISIS CAN'T BE BEATEN

IT IS LIKE HENRY MILLER SAID

   There's a line in a commercial that says "California cows are contented cows." Why not, huh?

    Our "Heinz 57" Joy finds endless contentment in the garden.
    Author Henry Miller, who lived just a few miles north of our home said "I am constantly reminded that I am living in a virtual paradise."
     Amen to that!

   Spring's color wheel is at work on the coast,

  and on the hills and slopes.

WHY ISIS CAN'T BE BEATEN
Because they should be destroyed

    ISIS, a threat to the world, is a particularly challenging problem for Christians.

      Graeme Wood's What Isis Really Wants, in the March The Atlantic is an excellent examination of the menace and peril they pose and underscores why Christians are particularly challenged.  I've read and watched as much as I can, from a variety of sources and suggest Wood's article, even if you think you know all you need to about Isis.

      Followers of Jesus know that he taught to love your enemies, to forgive them, to pray for them. He admonished one of his closest followers who struck out at an enemy. He said to love your enemy is tantamount to pouring coals on their head. Nations do not live for salvation or redemption and their objectives are survival and not perfection or transcendence.

      One can advocate for a loving response and argue that  a measure beyond human justice will bear out the rightness. Some will disagree, but that is only coincidental. In a hard world of cultural and religious diversity, populated by a pastiche of beliefs, analysis, intellect and skepticism, a purely Christ like principle will not rise to the muscle of national strategic policy. This is a fully human dilemma, the kind of vile business that has been set before us in the former garden. And ISIS is a death cult, working to achieve its own religiously inspired belief they are agents of the Apocalypse.

      By civilized standards they are barbarians, ruthless with no respect for life, convinced of their "holy" mission and certain only they are right. They are a perversion of humanity, have twisted decency and justice and live as an evil strain.

      By idealized measure Christians should love them. Not to do so opens a calculus that becomes an entirely intimate equation and is for no human discussion. For those inclined it is a matter for regions of heart and soul and an accountability.  

      In this challenge, from this evil, in this time, in the practical realm of saving life, preventing destruction, stopping a lunatic movement, and destroying evil, ISIS should be eradicated. Their complete and total demise is the work of humanity, faithful or faithless, observant or atheist, contrite, convicted or contemptuous. All of us can then live with consequence, each according to our own. That is more than ISIS would ever permit.

     See you down the trail.

      

OF MATES, PARTNERS AND OTHER CREATIVE ADVENTURES

WE CAN WORK IT OUT

    Joshua Wolf Shenk uses the pages of The Atlantic to tease a new book and to launch us on a journey into creativity in duos. 

    Lennon and McCartney are front and center, the odd couple they were but with historic impact.

    I've often been a captive of the creative couple syndrome. My late business partner Ben and I began as an investigative documentary team. Years later we helmed a multifaceted television and content production company with clients in the US, Europe, South America and Asia. We often scared new staff with our "creative meetings" which the uninitiated took as arguments.

    Don Hewitt and Mike Wallace, for that matter Don Hewitt and other CBS 60 Minutes staff, employed a similar style of collaboration. Often loud, robust and emphatic. Creative arguments were being made!

     To be honest, I knew of no other way. I walked into a metropolitan newspaper city room as a naive suburban teen and knew in the first 3 minutes I had gone beyond Oz. Smoke filled, scented with hot lead fumes from Linotype machines as the floor rumbled from presses below, men and women seemed in the midst of an urgency and all conversation was stripped to the essence. The editor was the loudest in the room as he prowled or scowled from his desk overlooking the struggling minions. That was my introduction to the collaborative process.

    It has been ever such.  As a cub in a large city radio newsroom it was not uncommon to stand toe to toe, nose to nose and yell purple framed arguments about what and how to cover stories, all the while the clock ticked and another hourly deadline drew near, waiting to be fed.

    By the time I was a senior news executive for a publicly traded chain of television stations and web sites things had become dampened. Newsrooms were decorated upscale, shouting and profanity was the exception, undesirable furtive release from the still constant stress, human resource departments provided constant training in workplace civility and practices. But when my Assistant News Director Kevin and/or Executive Producer Stacy were in my glassed in office on our level above the constant buzz of enterprise, the creative couple "discussions" ensued. 

     I don't think one can invest so much life in such a creative pursuit and form of communication and have it not  seep into civilian life-a couple's life-marriage or long term relationship.  In fact I submit that long time couples are not unlike other creative duos, with this as a caveat.  The more unalike, diverse or different the couple, the better the arena and ground for such "creativity."  Those who can, work it out and leave a long and winding road of adventure shared. I think Lana will agree. You can bet we'll have a chat.

    What do you think?

     MORE CREATIVE COUPLING

Old form-New Purpose and Function

    Former wine barrels find new life.

 Extraordinarily comfortable

 and practical. The above frames are from Le Cuvier Winery

in the Paso Robles appellation. 

 Above, Windward Vineyard in the Paso west side reuses Pinot barrels in their beautiful lath house.

Some of the sweeping valley is re purposed, as you seen mid frame, into a solar farm. Lot of sun here and lot of energy too. Another kind of creative coupling.

THROWBACK THURSDAY

DOCUMENTATION

Creative Partners through the years

 Seated above is the late Fred Heckman, legendary radio newsman. My boss, mentor and frequent argument partner in the late 60's and 70's.  Standing behind him, next to me is RK Shull, the late syndicated newspaper columnist.  Arky was an Indianapolis newspaper figure from the 40's to 90's.

The PM/Evening Magazine team-1979. 

Kim Hood, Randy Miller and TC. It seems as though we spent decades together on the road in that van.  It was my first 2 years in television. 

 Kim and Tom in the old Gasoline Alley at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway-1980

 The WTHR Investigative Team 1980's

Steve Starnes-an award winning photographer and good friend and Ben Strout who became a business partner and eventually like a brother.

 With Co Anchor Anne Ryder and referees before the tip off a Pacers game.

1990's

 Ben and Martin Sheen during a shoot in our making of 

the 1999 Documentary, Virus of Violence examining links between school shootings and point and shoot video games. Martin was our presenter.

 On assignment in the Caribbean.

On assignment in Africa.

    Ben, who passed much too early, morphed from trusted colleague, to business partner to being a kind of brother. I liked that. My brothers were gone and Ben and I shared adventures.
   We escaped with our heads on shoulders and bodies in tact from more situations and incidents and survived more difficulties, obstacles and turmoil than with which one should tempt fate.

   We were vastly different personalities but as an investigative team, then as documentary producers and as business owners we were able to find that creative middle ground that Shenk explores. 

   Before all of this was radio.

   See you down the trail.