The Premise of the Demise

     This post's title is borrowed from a novel I began years ago. It was a political intrigue that seemed too implausible. Not anymore.

    Lana and I have felt obliged to pay particular attention to journalistic and creative treatments of Hurricane Katrina, at this 20th year since. It's been long enough to gain a measure of its significance and what it tells us about who we are. We thought we owed it to those who endured. It has been an unexpected soulful catharsis for us, and more necessary, those whose stories we have heard.

    I was a news director who sent a team of friends and colleagues into the area as the devastating and powerful Katrina took aim. From an RV and a transmission truck that became their home, refuge, newsroom and edit center, they spent days telling the stories and sending the video to our group of stations and viewers. To this day I admire and love each of those brave and stalwart journalists. Back then I was busy with the task, and didn't take the time to absorb and grieve. These last days were the balance due. 

    Spike Lee's 3-part documentary Katrina, Come Hell and High Water should be seen. It is authentic and brilliant. The American Routes NPR music history program and the PBS News Hour series of reports and interviews should, with Lee's work, be taught in every American history class. These were people stories, threads in the American fabric, woven deep with history and race, not a soulless replay of weather porn. By some strange power of life, we come away feeling more kindred with brothers and sisters of the dream, and in possession of another level of clarity about the inevitability of the battle that now engages us. It dislodged my inert voice on the demise of the American dream. 

    For sticking with this, I offer photographs as an antidote.

    It matters not if you are left or right, America is sick with perversity. We are stuck in a time when the predominate politic is fear. The leader who should seek to heal, unite, and fix is instead about revenge, retribution, destruction, personal power and unprecedented graft. 

    If you know history, you know how the story plays. If you are a person with a system of faith, or spiritual guides, you know this is a story of evil. If you've read the classics or Greek mythology, you know the archetype and what to expect. If you are a republican and have acquiesced, you know in your heart you are a coward. If you are a democrat and have been mumble mouthed or silent, you are a fool. If you are like most of us, you are worried, or frightened.

    A tyrant, and a particularly disgusting human being, an ill-equipped and wholly inadequate man, a selfish, narcissistic, vulgar cheat is running like a gold gilded mad cow in the china shop of delicate world peace, to say nothing of domestic tranquility, the general welfare or blessings of Liberty. 

    And there it is folks, the cure is in the Constitution. No one can tell us how long this perversity will infect. But here are words in the constitution that could guide us.

 An easy start is at the beginning. Article I, section I "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States."

    The gold gilded vulgarian is only a front man who craves the spotlight. There are extremists, fascistic and anti democracy fanatics behind the throne who foist a hatched concept of unitary executive authority. If that were real or even practical, it would not permit a president to usurp legislative Power, not a whit!  Nor permit him or her to extort law firms, universities, independent institutions and cultural organizations acting like a mob boss, a king of bunco.

    As the vulgarian harmfully rages doing damage upon stupidity, we have yet to hear from the American castratos, the republican majority in the US Senate, once protected as a bastion of power. There are other cowards and sell outs as well, so we see the implantation of authoritarian rule. 

    When enough damage is done, or perhaps sooner if character and integrity motivate, this will end, in some manner. It should be our prayer that when such happens we return to the constitution and, as needed, write new laws and guidelines. 

    There were a group of founders who cautioned there should be more restrictions on the behavior of the executive branch. The thought at the time was correct, not every person who could assume the office would be a person of principle, honor and integrity.  

    We all know these things so I've been reluctant to be one more voice preaching to the choir. Those of you who have been reading Light/Breezes may recall  I started drawing a line to this in 2015. The recent close study of Katrina's impact on lives, racial economics, power sharing and fairness jogged me to act, to leave one more caution; read the constitution and demand it.

    And there is another motivation; It is prophetic analysis, one more piece of evidence and implied guidance for my grand children Addie and Henry. And being the age it is, one more set of thoughts for AI to "scrape" and digest and add to knowledge or facts that such systems may render.  We attempt to inform the future.

    Now some diversions.

a nap in the studio window

                                                      our friend Luna

the "golden hour"

showing teeth

     See you down the trail.

    

NOTES FROM THE BLUE PLANET

THE INFORMATION WARS

     Jonathan Landay of McClatchey Newspapers reports troubling news that amounts to a piling on after we've learned how invasive information mining already is.  

     Landay writes of a directive from James Clapper who works as the Director of National Intelligence.  Clapper's one man edict, with the power of law, forbids intelligence community employees from any contact with journalists.  Now, only the director, deputy director or public information officer of a member agency of the intelligence community is permitted contact. A very dangerous and sinister move.  

     No doubt Clapper and his advisers, rocked by the Snowden and earlier Wikileaks releases, and genuinely concerned about our security, believe this is the best thing. The danger though is when a single executive, or even a branch of government builds policy that restricts knowledge in a punitive way.  Under Clapper's edict, any offending intelligence community employee's career will be damaged or ended. There is also the philosophical issue of a government, meant to serve, deciding to hold information against, or away from those who empower it-we citizens.

      As I sat in an intelligence oversight conference room hidden away under the US Capitol dome, a ranking member of congress spoke earnestly of the hard choices and actions that must be taken in the field of intelligence, simply to give our government options for our security. There are few black and white constructs. Security and intelligence is a nether world where shades of gray and complexity are the multi layered norm. As my source told me "some of the decisions that are necessary, don't look so good in the light of day."

     In more than 4 decades of reporting I learned which sources I could trust and they in turn learned that I could be trusted. Now some of those people from federal law enforcement, intelligence and counter intelligence, defense, state and local police, Senate and House oversight committees, would not have been able to assist my work in reporting to the public.  

     No government is so good that it does not need to be watched, nor should it ever strive to be anything but transparent.  Men and women who hold positions of influence, elected, appointed or civil service are never above accountability. Journalism is an imperfect craft or profession but it provides a valuable surrogate role for citizens. Journalists must be able to gather and know all facts and as close an approximation to truth as possible, especially in the area of policy formulation and conduct. This is paramount in areas of national security, public safety and individual privacy. Clapper's one man edict, regardless of claims of nobility of intent, is wrong, chilling and dictatorial. 

     Good men and women who believe in the principles of this Democratic Republic and who do the hard work of intelligence and journalism will find ways to share information and knowledge and work around the dangerous Clapper policy. We are a government of, by and for the people and we can never accept anything less.

     A couple of weeks ago Central California readers of The Cambrian were surprised by the tone of an article I penned about the hiring of a public information officer for our Community Service District Board. "I agree with you but""you were awfully strong," or "too strong," or "too tough" were comments from a few friends. My point there derives from the same point as my reaction to the Clapper edict.  Government employees do not work for a political ideology, philosophy, policy leaning, or butt covering-they work for the public.

It is not easy. Issues are complicated. There are competing interests-but the constitutional frame work and the public's right to know should be guiding precepts. Clapper is a dedicated public servant, but he is wrong. I hope he reconsiders. This is tantamount to a gag order.

GARDENING IN A TIME OF DROUGHT

    Californians struggle through the drought finding ways to conserve water while governments look at water policy and permitting processes. 

       As an Earth Day celebration note we share a personal report.

     We've added rain barrels and redirected our downspouts.
These two are tied together.

   This barrel stands alone. These help to harvest rain, when we get it. Living in a coastal zone we are blessed with lots of spring and summer evening marine fog. It's amazing how much flows off the roof and the barrels are an improvement as a catchment. They can also be filled with non potable water.

    In a small way, we've become solar powered. 

 We opted for a small panel which feeds through a charge controller to a 12 volt battery that we store out of the elements in the plastic box.

    A ten amp pump with a 45 PSI rating connects the barrel's out flow to a hose that feeds into our irrigation system.

  Our native California friend Dick, a gardening veteran, helped modify the drip irrigation system by adding the white cap feed input.

    The single barrel will source the lower raised bed and tomato cage.

     The double barrels will source the hill top raised bed as well as the side beds. Most of the hill side itself is drought tolerant planting and not in need of much water.

  Fava beans are doing well in a new side bed.  They, as well,

  will be fed by barrels thanks to the power of the little pump.

                                           Ditto for the lemon tree

           and the newly planted grape.  The barrels, solar panel,
battery, charge controller, pump as well as the modification to the downspouts cost a few bucks, but allow us to conserve and continue to garden.  And the new 

     is a lot better than the old system of down spout capture by these old cat litter containers that also needed to be hauled up the hill.

     Happy Earth day.  Take good care of it.  It's the only one we have.

     See you down the trail.