American Omens, Warnings and Good Signs

Photo of NEOWISE over Morro Bay by Daniel Worthington superiorangle.com

published by San Luis Obispo Tribune

    Looking at the NEOWISE comet the other night, I wondered about the status of life and humanity on planet earth when NEOWISE flies by again in 6,800 years.

   Scientists estimate the frozen left overs of the formation of our solar system are some 4.6 billion years old. We live at a time when history and the perspective it brings, gets short shrift. We'd do better, and be smarter if we paid more attention to history's lessons.

historic signals

     A leading conservative Republican intellect, George Will, made a little history when he announced he was going to vote for Joe Biden. He added promptly that he would also quickly become part of the loyal opposition, challenging Biden on policies he thinks are too liberal.

     Will is part of a migration of Republicans who recognized the depravity of Trump. He predicts a landslide for Biden though he says "a nervous Democrat is a good Democrat."

of cabbages and kings

King George from Buckingham Palace

        In fact a nervous US citizen is a good US citizen. Trump's reign of ruination has become more portent. 

        England's King George, who ruled from 1760 to 1801 was known as the "mad King" and "the King who lost America." Evidence of Trump's mental illness has been as evident as his stupidity and incompetence. The other similarity is his "losing of America." Here's a for instance; his disregard of the constitution.

        Under King George the British Parliament passed the Quartering Acts of 1765 and then made them more onerous in 1774. They mandated that colonists provide "quarters," room and board, for all British Soldiers on American soil. Our ancestors were also taxed for the provisions. 

         This young nation to be did not want the soldiers here. When colonists protested, destroying property at the Boston Tea Party, the tyrant sent more troops to our cities, trying to stop demonstrations and protests and demanded that British Troops be quartered in homes even, if there was not ample room in saloons, ale houses, inns, hotels or in barracks.  The new orders were part of the "Coercive Acts" a kind of colonial Law and Order. In a year the American Revolution was a shooting war.*** 

         US citizens have a right to protest, loudly and constantly. Sending unmarked federal police, dressed like combat soldiers, into cities and states that have said no is not unlike the actions of  King George. Federal police do indeed have the right to protect federal property. They do not have the right to beat, detain, arrest or intimidate people who protest and demonstrate. That is a constitutional right. 
        Cities and States have the right to tell the President not to send his federal storm troopers.
        Constitutional scholars and lawyers warn Trump is running afoul of our American way of life. His use of the unmarked police/soldiers has drawn the wrath of our own military leaders, active and retired. It's another reality TV style campaign tactic by a desperate, sick and evil man. He is a man with no sense of the history of the nation. I doubt if he knows who was King George, or the roots of the American revolution.
        A further historical irony follows below.

        

pretty and tasty history

      These are some of the 60 acres of grapes that grow closer to the Pacific Ocean than any commercial winery in California.
      You can grab a peek of the big blue beneath the marine bank to the west. Ray and Pam Derby have grown Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris since 1998 and have operated the Derby Winery since 2008.

         These grapes are windswept, sun blessed and with a magnificent view of the ocean in their Derbyshire Vineyard in San Simeon.

thoughtful and kind

        One of the signs we are a decent people is the frequent appearance of "free librarys." These book give-a-ways and sharing posts dot many a central coast neighborhood. 

      Further evidence of an intelligent, thinking civilization that dwells somewhere beyond social media and reality television.

history of life

     There is a sweet sense of the continuum of life in having a 
2 1/2 year old grand son excitedly point out a monarch butterfly pupa or chrysalis.

   He taught his "Poppy" something I didn't know. They create a beautiful golden rim.

     He also pointed out the lizard, keeping watch. 

     How much happier we might all be if we could retain some of that wonderment and fascination.

old school lesson

     As we say goodbye to American hero John Lewis it is good to remember he was a devoted advocate of non violent protests. Repeated beatings, almost to the point of death, broken bones and multiple arrests did not deter Lewis from non violent protest and demonstration. 

     

photo by Times of Israel

      The Governor of Oregon, the Mayors of Portland and Seattle Washington have sounded the same warning-do not be baited by the police/soldiers Trump has sent to antagonize. Destructive acts will play into their hands and the Trump campaign. Damage to property will not move the nation closer to reforms and accounting that are due and could even set back the momentum. 

photo by Insider.com

       John Lewis lived into the first amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Non Violence is as peaceably as one can push for change. 

       ***The movement of reckoning midst a pandemic echoes a chilling reality from the War of Independence. More Americans died from a small pox epidemic than died in the war. 

       The population of the colonies was about 2.5 Million. It is estimated 130 thousand died from small pox. Less than 7 thousand died in battle. 17 thousand Patriots died from disease and most of them as prisoners of war, being held by the British. 

      It's estimated 6 thousand British soldiers died in North America. 7 Thousand Germans died in British service in North America. Again, most of the casualties were from disease.

      We cannot escape our past. But we can learn from it.

     Stay safe and well. Take care of each other.

      See you down the trail.

Days of Hope-Night of the Jackals

    Absorbing the overwhelming passions of life in the US these last days, I stammer to say we appear to be acting in diametrical dramas.
    We are separate realities, multiple players, different scripts desperately grabbing for control of our national soul.
    Our screens reveal who we have become, and who we may yet be. 
    Amidst it all a shroud of echoes hangs like a mist over America.

   
    The reverberating consequence of centuries hurled into our lives in 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Those minutes of hate blew away the fetters of pretense. Police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd on camera. The days and nights since have forced the US to face its demons, and to acknowledge that racism shelters deep in our history and is the father of malignant offspring. 

   Chauvin is the most recent pestilential hatch to betray his dark perversion. They are amongst us. It is inexcusable. Civilization knows better. Humanity rises above the beasts, but every racist heart is a liege of evil and the pulse of atrocity.

    The world has been watching. Millions abroad have also risen up. As veteran observers note, this is not just a "moment," this is about more than Floyd and the other victims before him, this appears to be an awakening. 
    The diversity of the demonstrators is extraordinary. Race, ethnicity, age, gender, and conviction of belief. We should not be sidetracked by the few; agitators, criminals, troublemakers, looters, idiots, or brutal and bully cops. There are jackals are both sides. They are overwhelmed by those who demand we understand what is systemic racism, and then do something, finally. After centuries. 

     We are adding chapters to an old discussion.

  

   A vintage photo of my late brothers, John and Jim.

  John, a charismatic psychologist/counselor was also a political radical, my good friend and best debating partner. He was SDS and on the front line of 60' and 70's politics. Protest, like that we are seeing now, was to him only a beginning. He wanted fundamental systemic change and reasoned if the system does not respond, if change does not occur, then a little revolution, even violence, was in order. He was confident he was purely Jeffersonian. 

     Being a couple of years his elder and working as a reporter, striving for objectivity and balance, I was a perfect foil, arguing that political change, the ballot box was the best route. He had little patience, citing the years of racism and economic exploitation and the privilege of the upper class and of late, their penchant for the profits of war.

     His milieu was the underground, striking at and undermining an indifferent ruling culture.

     

     50 years later I still argue for change through the electoral process and in legislation, but my patience is gone. I understand brother John's warrior soul. 

     

failed?

    From abroad we are viewed as a failed nation. We have lost credibility and impunity. Great American leaders question aloud if the American experiment has failed. I cannot recall American military leaders speaking out thusly, speaking against the character and leadership of a sitting US President. 

    We are in deep water and troubled seas.

    It does not help that a racist, spiritually crippled and inept man sits in the White House. George Will calls him a "malignant buffoon." He is a malignancy indeed who empowers a generation of racists, supremacists, and a dangerous species of losers and malcontents, some of whom are bad cops, all of whom have no place in the 21st century.
    We are better than Trump. The majority of US voters voted against him, in part in fear of exactly what we are living through. 
     He's been a bully on twitter and in his self loving rallies, now he is a bully using police and military powers. His comments on the day of Floyd's memorial service may be the most distasteful and appalling in Presidential history. There were echoes, a warning.

     After Trump finished his dark inaugural address George W. Bush whispered to Hillary Clinton "That was some weird shit."

    In our debates my brother always challenged, "...have you seen enough change, has it gotten better?"
      "It's a long process. There have been improvements, "I'd say.
     If black or brown or a woman, or an Asian, or native citizen, I would have had a different sense of timing and patience. White privilege had me in blinders.
     I suspect of a lot of us have caught up with my brother's urgency and zeal. 

a portent?

     Most US citizens don't know what happened a century ago. Aside from the Spanish Influenza pandemic, the US lived through a period of bombings, mostly by anarchists. The root was economic inequality, and the efforts of workers to organize. There was a wide gulf in wealth, wages, living and working conditions.
     The LA Times was destroyed in a 1910 blast with immense legal and political fall out. 
      It was a time of division and working people were trying to even the playing field. The Attorney General responded by trying to kill the movement and labor organizations. What followed was a series of bombings that shook the nation. Political and national leaders were targets of mail bombs. Buildings were bombed. There was fear. 

      The situation has echoed several times in our history including during those turbulent 60's and 70's, the back drop of my brotherly debates.  
       Once, John was willing to give "the system a try."

     He "got clean for Gene" peace candidate Eugene McCarthy for whom he campaigned and worked as a body guard and driver for one of McCarthy's leading spokesmen, actor Paul Newman.
    But as 1968 played out, he found himself back on the other side of the police lines in Chicago at the Democrat national convention, where the "police rioted," as a presidential commission later reported.
    The Trump and Barr ordered rush at peaceful demonstrators at the White House was reminiscent of 1968. At our station in life we've see things a time or two. 

     In 1968 a prophet of peace and change and a man who practiced non-violence was gunned down. Martin Luther King Jr was killed by a racist. The US exploded and cities burned. Months later Robert Kennedy, arguing for a new way, for racial justice, was gunned down. There was more violence.
     All these years later it is still dangerous to be black in America. Inequalities and disadvantages and risks that are seeded in slavery, remain. The political system that I argued was a place for change is presently inhabited by a racist, fascist in the White House and pandering sycophants and racists in his party. 

experiment on

     Police officers take a knee with protestors, military heroes warn us about the danger of the president, while some bad cops brutalize for no good reason and some troublemakers try to ruin a movement for change. We are talking about American values and the use of Presidential power. It seems the lobby for litigating justice and prosecuting racism has been emboldened. 
    The American experiment is not over, but it's noisy, ugly and may get worse here in the lab.

  A democratic republic can be messy, it was intended to that way. More voices can drive us to reason. Participation is essential.
  The US is not perfection, it remains a work in progress, an experiment. Change is the life blood, the hope of our days. 

   See you down the trail.

   

FERGUSON AND HISTORY-REVERSING SUNSET ON REASON-A DEATH FOR NEWS-A DRY REVERIE

JAMES FOLEY

1974-2014

Photo Courtesy of Jonathan Pedneault freejamesfoley.org

    Executed by an IS jihadist, American journalist James Foley is the most recent to die while pursuing news.

   Faces of journalists killed in the line of duty.  Below is the memorial wall at the Newseum in Washington D.C.

   Most give very little thought to the dangers encountered by those who work to keep us informed.  We are in their debt.

     WHEN WILL WE LEARN?

      In critiquing the performance of the police in Ferguson Missouri, Norm Stamper the former police chief in Seattle told the LA Times the first thing he thought when he saw the images was "When will we ever learn?", the lines from the Pete Seeger song made famous by Peter, Paul and Mary.

     He said he was thinking, "please learn from my mistakes." Stamper made a few when his force was vilified for the way they over reacted to the WTO protests in 1999. The incident spawned books and movies.

     Scenes like those in Ferguson are familiar to many of us. If you are old enough you remember police dogs and fire hoses being turned on civil rights protesters and the media by police and sheriffs in the south in the 1960's.  Most infamous perhaps was racist Bull Connor in Birmingham Alabama.

      The 1967 Kerner Commission report on the spate of riots and violence in American cities concluded that frustration at lack of economic opportunity was the powder keg.

      In that same era I covered protests, street violence and police thuggery.  In 1968 the Walker Report called the action of the Chicago Police Department a "police riot" during the Democratic National Convention.

      I've been tear gassed, and bullied by police, knocked out by flag pole in a scuffle between anti war and pro war demonstrators and I've seen protests from Washington to conflict zones in Central America, the Middle East and Africa. There was a time when it seemed police had learned, as Norm Stamper did, though in his case after the fact.

      Ferguson reminds us there is still a long way to go. There are a few simple things that can happen immediately-

       ---police need to remember that a peaceable assembly to protest is a guaranteed freedom.  And protesters need to remember the good lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King-peaceful protest or civil disobedience, which will precipitate likely arrest, but in a peaceful way.

       ---As Stamper said "don't tear gas non violent and non threatening protesters and for God's sake don't bring dogs out…it's a throw back to Bull Connor."

       ---Stamper and others who are experts in law enforcement and security also decry the militarization of local police departments.  They look like army units, ready for invasion. Maybe there's a place for that, but it's not in an emotionally tinged protest over questionable use of lethal force. Pointing loaded weapons, that look like instruments of war, at unarmed civilians is stupid and dangerous. It is a scene you'd expect from Syria, Russia or someplace other than the American heartland.

       I've accompanied police on armed drug raids, waited hours with SWAT officers in highly charged hostage sieges, and seen officers, including friends, gunned down in shoot outs. I've been there as folded flags that draped a coffin were presented to grieving wives and children.  It is dangerous work they do, but that is no excuse to trample liberties, rights or to abuse people who have committed no crime. Restraint is required on both sides of the line and the same goes for the media.  In our case, the media, we need to remember proportionality and perspective. The sun needs to rise on reason.

REVERIE IN DROUGHT

    In normal circumstances this wetland and pond would be alive with birds.

   See you down the trail.