Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun
Showing posts with label Washington D.C.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington D.C.. Show all posts

Sunday, October 9, 2016

And Now More Disconnect and What They See

disconnect
     Someplace near the Cupertino and Mountain View exit signs an idea began to emerge. As I routed through what the world knows as Silicon Valley it took shape. The United States is not. Not only are we not united, but this behemoth nation straddles a couple of centuries. The divide is obvious  as we look to federal Washington.
     Research and development, business, investment and the attendant cultural vibrations in this part of California are about the future. The current US electoral mania is a symbolic foil. The morass in which most government grinds to near irrelevancy is a further proof of the disconnect. 
     On the modern campuses arrayed between southern San Francisco and San Jose new horizons are being mounted. Apple, Facebook, Google, Stanford University, NASA's Ames Research Centers along with a web of smaller tech and communication companies are striding with systems, applications, models and advances that disrupt old ways of business, living, doing and being. 
     Data, sensors, nano architecture, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, space exploration, transportation revolutions and more cascade in a fountain of discovery and advance in this area oblivious to whatever moribund and retrograde shards of society that seem to fill our media. (IBM, New York based, is apart of this historic arc with its AI program Watson.)
     Whether it is in perhaps the most unpopular and unwanted presidential candidates in history, or the obsession with celebrity, racism, more guns and violence than any nation on the planet, crumbling cities, poisoned seas, waters, land and air, lowered expectations, failing schools and climate changes, it is as if a deadly inertia spread shroud like over the nation. There are pockets of bio technology and advanced research elsewhere, but it's not in the air, rippling like an energy force as it is here.
     It is easy to despair how this nation seems committed to getting more stupid and uninspired, until we ponder the extraordinary things that are happening out here.Government  is not sought for solution, inspiration or leadership. California watches tech genius, innovators, visionaries work through modern and future matters. Culture, ways of business, expectations and attitude are being changed.
     I may be working too hard to make a point, but so much of what has shaped our way of living in the last 25 years-data-communication-technology is new. They are amazing things sprung from creativity, imagination and invention. Washington on the other hand and by extension politics everywhere, is about money, power and the desire for it. Yes, there is money, big money in the Silicon Valley axis, but it comes from making something new. Politics is a business and so is government. It is increasingly bought and sold, has lost direction and is venal. Principals of public service have been subverted. It is harder for good people to do good because politics is now inhabited by so many losers without a hint of an original idea or the desire to make something better, let alone new. There is a breed of politician and their beltway bandit allies who think they are pulling something over on us.
     It is a time for vision and visionaries. Time for those who are in it for themselves to join the scrap heap. Until then, the disconnect continues. Government and politics could become irrelevant. 
     
natural agin

   Driftwood on Moonstone beach offers a never ending visual treat.
   People say the image below reminds them of a local sea otter, on its back. Does your imagination get you there?

a debate post
     Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper expended energy to maintain control, focus and observance of time restraints. They did an excellent job and did not allow themselves to be bullied nor did they let the candidates get away with avoiding the question.
      Bob Schieffer of CBS had what I thought was the best summary and he asked "How have we come to this?"

        See you down the trail.

Friday, November 1, 2013

OF OBAMA, CRUZ, SPOOKS AND FALL NOSTALGIOU-FUN TIME-THE WEEKENDER

WANTING TO KICK THEM AROUND
     While in the Washington DC area this week I took special interest in the fallen leaves, pleased by our liberation from raking and bagging.
     I confess now I hated to rake leaves.  As a kid I'd complain to mom and dad about the pointlessness of it.  "Just let them rot and fertilize the grass" I'd plea, unsuccessfully.
     Leaf raking and bagging is not an activity in our California lifestyle-fortunately.  So while these shots may be old hat to some of you, it is a sweet reminder to others of the positive of an absence.
LINGERING MUMBLES
    Overheard laments and lash outs from the Halloween party circuit.
     "I'm so over Obama" a liberal friend complained. "I almost came in black face but I still know what's wrong!"
     "I'm the affordable care web site" said a tilted box, strung with blinking lights and wires.
      "I came as Ted Cruz" said a friend in street clothes. "So now I'm going to be an ass hole all night!"
      Singer Jill Knight won my award.  Dressed as Captain Morgan complete with long curly tresses, mustache and appropriate attire, I couldn't believe it was Jill, even when she spoke right in my face.  But then proprietor Lyn Nanni was unrecognizable as well in her Mistress of Darkness attire and face paint. I'm slow on the uptake I guess.
THE OBAMA APOLOGIES 
    If anything, the Snowden document leak has given the State Department and or White House protocol officers plenty to do.  With revelation after revelation about who the NSA has bugged or tapped or snooped on, it seems the President has been as busy with world leaders apologizing and parsing words as anything else, other than maybe kicking some tail to get the web site working.  
     As a satirist said, everyone had to know we were doing it, we just didn't want talk about it.  And that is crux the matter isn't it?
INDULGENCES
    For Weekender foodies-a few snaps grabbed during our own journeys into delicious adventure while back east.
      Our dear friends Frank and Sandy have long raved about LAuberge Chez Francoise up in Virginia Horse Country at Great Falls.  It's been repeatedly rated the best and most romantic French Restaurant in the Washington D.C. area.

    Our magnificent 3-hour lunch was dream like.  Frank says when he was there once with his late father, a newspaper editor, he was told back in the old days it was a place where CIA executives used their expense accounts. At least it was money well spent.
AND THE HITS KEEP ON COMING
    A delight of the nation's capitol is the diversity of great dinning options.  Neighbors pointed the 4 of us to a nearby Asian Fusion spot.  The special rolls were edible art and the Pad Thai was the best I've tasted.  Sorry all I can offer here on the net are pictures.  They can't give the credit the place deserves.


    And then there was this crazy Asian take on baked Alaska
     Kenji Fusion is the name.  If you are in the DC area, around Falls Church Va., it should be on your list.
AND FINALLY
A VIDEO TREAT
In the spirit of the international diversity of the Washington DC area, here is something my old friend Bruce, aka The Catalyst, found.  This is amusing and a bit amazing
for a number of reasons.  Enjoy
See you down the trail.