Surprises and Divides

   August on the California central coast comes with surprises; the Surprise Lily and a rare August rain leaving .2 of an inch.

      From the amaryllis family, the Surprise Lily's are also known as naked ladies. Why, I haven't a clue. And any measurable moisture this time of year is welcomed. 

   The naked ladies are considered a pest by some, but not around our place on the ridge.

coming at us on the horizon

    

      As the US Presidential election draws near it is though our culture has been tossed onto a hot griddle, we are dividing and spreading further apart. It is barely hyperbole to say the vote in 2020 is a kind of civil war.

     We've been divided since the majority of US voters rejected the unfit, unqualified Trump. From the carnage of his inaugural to the very real carnage of economic collapse and his failure to lead during the pandemic it has been first mystifying, and then disheartening to find that his craven, boorish, inept, dishonest and unhinged behavior attracts a cult of supporters.

     Those with any sense of history, knowledge of government, appreciation of the United State's historic role in the world, sense of compassion, decency, concern for the future, worried about climate change, belief in equality, respect for science, truth, the role of a free media, and general civility are appalled not only at Trump but by those who support him. The divide could not be more clear.

      If it were merely political and philosophic differences there would be no movement by traditional Republicans, including every leading strategist, conservative intellectuals, former high level government servants and rank and file to defeat Trump. This is more than politics, this is a thorn in the soul of the republic, this is a rip in the fabric of our constitutional aspirations. Trump is a cancer on American history and his supporters are part of the pathology.

       Historians, social scientists and other scholars will provide the searing analysis of how and why this nation became so unhealthy as to enable the Trump disease. He is by no means the cause, but he is the enabler, the hater, the poster boy for all that is wrong with America. But he is real and so are those so addled as to go to an arena, become part of a super spreader event and then die. 

       Donald Trump is a broken man, suffering mental illness, being irrational, and stupid. Attempts to remove him failed because racist opportunists, and masters of manipulation like Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham and their pack of poltroons have taken advantage. And so those once Republicans who sold their soul to become Trumpists have further coddled the very worst of us.

       It is not a coincidence that Trumpists sound and behave like the old confederacy, slave owners, entitled and privileged white men. Sexists, chauvinists, oppressors, and not well educated. 

       We owe the future another repudiation of the confederacy and it's kookie new spawn of those who give allegiance to fabricated and bizarre conspiracy theories, and white supremacy.

for the future

         There will be much to do, to repair, amend, recalibrate, heal and prepare a United States for our heirs. It starts with a vote. We know the aspiring dictator is doing all that he can to destabilize the process and to cast doubts. McConnell has again been an accomplice. 

          Vigilance, diligence, commitment will be required to oversee and protect what must be an overwhelming rejection and repudiation. Done properly it could be the last battle of the Civil War. But understand there will need to be a kind of new Reconstruction, beyond what we can imagine now, to finally address what ever it is that is the beast in the hearts of those you see at a Trump rally. They can and should be vanquished, but they too are human and they will need attending to.

          As for Trump, we can just hope he is litigated to the end.

        Stay safe, stay well. Take care of each other.

        See you down the trail. 

Taking for Granted?

California Persimmons-Mill Street, San Luis Obispo

for granted?

    Blogging brother Mike, keeper of the Genial Misanthrope found in the Rich Blogs list on the right of this page, launched  a rumination with his Just A Late Fall Day post.
     His thoughts on our peaceful and bountiful lives, vis a vis most of the earth's population, punched my guilt button. Assignments put me in some of the most desperate and fearful places in the world. Upon returning home my gratitude for how good we have it pushed that button too. I regret that too many of us take too much for granted. So, motivated by Mike's reflections we will today celebrate some thoughtful, creative and simple but wonderful things.

the great experiment

      This is the pin I received 62 years ago as a Polio Pioneer.

I'm grateful my parents agreed to let me take part in America's largest public health experiment. 
       Polio ravaged communities in the 1950's. In 1954 600 thousand school kids became the first to take the Salk vaccine as human guineau pigs. 443 thousand of us got shots of the experimental vaccine while 210 thousand got a placebo. It worked and soon inoculations were offered to all.

       Today is World Polio Day. The disease has almost been eradicated though there is more work to do, and remembering is a part of that. I don't recall being terribly frightened about taking the experimental medicine. I was more frightened about the disease which had crippled or killed in our hometown. 
      We also realize the Polio Pioneer public experiment was one of the first society changing events involving boomers.

it takes a village  

        There are places where this election year has been a joy. A couple of weeks ago candidates for our village government, the Community Services District, gathered for an open forum. By the way that really is Ed Asner at the far left. He began the evening by saying he "had a big mouth." He was there to help moderate and to offer his own brand of humor. 
         The forum was civil, intelligent, helpful and was evidence that when approached properly, representative government is as good as it can get, a real conversation among neighbors about a common future.

party in the garage

    Friends who are nearing completion of a major construction project invited friends to a "bless this building" dinner in the new garage.

     Shame on me if I ever take hospitality and friendship for granted.

    Regardless of what it is, seeing a plan come together brings satisfaction.

   Celebrations are for remembering.

    No one can see around the bend. No one lives in constant bliss. Complex problems, changes, the hurt of dear ones, health and so many other matters are real. But there are moments, memories and situations where the best response is to simply be happy and grateful. 

     Mike, thanks for getting this train rolling.

    See you down the trail.

      

SHIFTING SANDS and WHAT AMERICA DO YOU SEE?

    Just another day at the office for the Curlews, not mindful of the seasonal shift of sand.

    Where are the steps? "Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives...." Remember that old soap opera opening line?

    It will take seasonal tides to reveal the missing steps, but of no consequence to our Curlews.

   Here we see a gull considering grand larceny. Slowly it tracks toward a fisherman's rigs and kit.

united we stand
...don't think so...

    Campaigns have always been divisive, after all a choice is rendered, deciding for one and against another. But it's a new world and rifts under gird everything.

    Trump and Clinton present two vastly different visions of America and thus paths forward. Who do you believe?

    Media has become entirely too parochial or partisan to ideology or party. What happened to non-partisan or at least bi-partisan?

     We've crossed the Rubicon. This election, like so much else in daily living has devolved to "feeling" "emotion" "personal belief" and attitude. Where is critical analysis  intellectual work, truly weighing pros and cons, or thinking about it?

     Do facts matter? To whom? For what reason?

     Why are so many Americans fed up? Why is there so much anger?

      I fear this election will settle nothing. The rifts will continue to run beneath our feet. Old democracies and republics have problems, some are lethal.

      This is the Boomers last stand. In another 4 years most of our parents, the greatest generation, will be gone. Boomers are now dropping off the actuarial tables increasingly and in 4 years the once large "census bubble" will be faded and diminished. 

      Gen X and or Y or whatever will be aging and the largest group that matters will be the millennials. They will inherit a government and electoral system that is presently bought and sold where all too many who labor in it are in it for themselves.

      Some men and women who work as prostitutes are forced into it. All too many of our "electoral industry" and "government business" workers are in it because they want to be. They do it for the money and they like it.  How does that square with the historical intent of elections and governance?

      How will the millennials change things? Watch how they vote, or do not. Some things are a given. Race, gender, sexual identity will be passe to all but a few cretins, sons and daughters of skin heads. 

     Millennials have grown up where disruption is the norm and where the old norms of family, career, attitude are as out of date as the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. We will be a relevant as the Civil War, WWI, the telegraph, or horse and buggies were to us.

      Grouse and belly ache, worry and shout all you want.

Our relevance, our attitudes, our way of doing is getting wrapped with the garbage in the newspapers and headed for the trash. I wonder how much of our ways are even worth recycling.

       A democratic republic is by nature a messy business but the point is to find a center, a meeting in the middle. That seems to have disappeared as a skill or goal. Maybe a new generation's take on our noble experiment of a United States will do what we have failed.

    See you down the trail.

     

     

GOLDEN MOMENTS

    Surrounded by Gold

Series of photos around Cambria

Golden Memory

     She could not have known the affect she had baked. The first bite was as though being belted into a time machine and delivered to an address in the early 1950's.

      Since Christmas a couple of years ago a jar of genuine English mincemeat sat in the back of the pantry. Lana put it to life in pie-cobbler. No top crust, just the savory sweet and unique taste, so authentic it time shifted me. My English grandmother and her sisters made mincemeat pie when they shared a large home, very much like a boarding house, on West Jackson Street in Muncie. Most of them were widows by then and frankly their English culinary skills were not to my liking as a lad with a couple of exceptions, ox tail soup and mincemeat pie.

      It had been decades since I tasted real mincemeat pie and each taste fired synapses deep in the memory file, vividly. I could smell the various perfumes of my great aunts, hear the sounds of that big house, feel the buzz as extended family gathered for Thanksgiving or Christmas. What a sweet and naive time it was. And what a wonderful taste!

Generation Shift

      My great aunt Martha who eventually survived all the others used to marvel at the progress she had seen and told my brothers and me we would see things she could not even dream of. My mother and father also welcomed the promise of the future and new thinking. Not everyone is wired that way.

     While most of the focus has been on the candidates in this cycle there is a glimpse of the future in the supporters and that is probably most true in Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

     Trump is a sentry of the old and changing structure; Whites, mostly older white men and women, some angry, some frustrated and most frightened by the disruptive nature of the future. More about that in a moment.

      Look at the faces and age of the massive crowds that Bernie Sanders has attracted coast to coast. Young, all sex and gender identity, culturally diverse and very much at home with disruption.

      Disruptive innovation, big data and the shared economy are forces that are shredding old ways and creating new businesses, opportunities, economic models, ways of living and in essence our future. Trump's supporters have more difficulty getting their heads around such concepts. Sander's supporters are already living lives that make Uber, Airbnb, 

metadata analysis, cooperative living, Instagram news and more, a reality. 

       20 years in the future? Most of Trumps supporters will be dead. Sander's demographic strength will be the most viable political voting block in the US.

      Based on the fervent support they have given Sanders, and the ease with which millennials adapt to disruptive influence and data processed lives, the formulating will of the American electorate will be much more inclined to a Sander's vision of government than any of the other candidates in this year. By 2036 a form of social Democracy may well be the model for being elected. I think we are seeing the first signs of that in Sander's appeal to those who will be the bulk of the future.

      Boomers are a fault line. Some take comfort in the knowledge of what they know, the richness of their lives and memories. They like things as they are. New operating systems on phones or computers, new designs in cars, new music, fashion and etc are annoyances. Others are still early adopters, fascinated by new art, cinema, technology, eager to use it, unintimidated by diverse mores, excited about the appointments of shared economy, comfortable with change including the relinquishing of power. 

      At the risk of annoying friends elsewhere-the most exciting region in the US now is the bay area-San Francisco-San Jose-Santa Rosa. Technology, information, data, money, ideas, innovation, space science, energy, automobiles, medical research and application are proportionately more robust and fully engaged in the Bay Area than anywhere else. Disruptive influence, big data, new business models and new politics thrive. That too is a glimpse of the future.

     Watch the politics there, a generation shift foretold. I hope as I continue my march to old boy irrelevance I will be excited by new technology, scientific advance and can still find mincemeat pie.

Surrounded by Gold

   See you down the trail

EXPECTATIONS AND VIEWS

fresh

the tribes

steps

powered up

lows

    Low information and high motivation are grumpy parents. The offspring is a chimera now morphing the DNA of the  body politic and it's occurring before our eyes. It isn't the Revolution you expected, but it is televised and phoned, tableted, app'ed, and alogrithimzed.

     The 2016 Presidential race is a warrant. We see from the campaign trail a disturbing image of America.
     Donald Trump campaigns like pitchmen who sell products on late night tv, tweets like a mouthy punk and does so with the frequency of a hormone riven teen, but an American political party has been unable to stop him. 
     My wise friend with a rich experience in law says, "some of us are dinosaurs." The ethic of election campaigns is a moving storm and what used to make sense seems now frequently out of mode. 

    Still, it is hard to imagine a majority of American voters choosing to cast for someone who campaigns with the rhetorical skills of a carnival barker. What about temperament? Where are the first shadings of a policy standard? Where is a sign of intellect up to the complexity of diplomacy? What in his history would lead a voter to conclude he would/could work in the political culture that is the Federal Government. Yes, hard to imagine, but he hasn't gone away and he fans anger and fear.

     There is no data that shows Trump with the ability to win a national election. His followers are a fraction of a fractured party. But he's had more impact than expected. Expectations are not to be trusted anymore and that was a point my wise friend made. That, and old rules are loosing function.

      Boomers watch as reaction times shrink and depth disappear. This political season has been cheap and brawling. Americans who believe governance needs a higher tone and better participants can only shake their heads. In the end Mr. Trump should be marginalized, but those he has rallied will remain inflamed. And one wonders how the circus will play in 4 more years. In politics imitation is not flattery, it is the norm. Have we crossed a Rubicon? Are short attention spans, selfish anger, missing historical perspectives and form over content new rules?

highs

     High praise to Don Cheadle for Miles Ahead, the non biopic film on Miles Davis.  Cheadle directed and starred in an impressionistic triptych fantasy that presents snatches of the great trumpeters life, moving forward and backward, in and out of reality. It is an artful and arty film and features extraordinary music. It is Davis's music but mostly done by cover players, brilliant in their own right. This is not a purist's tale and there are wild diversions brought from imagination, but they still help shape a "sense" of Davis. 

       Miles Davis influenced jazz in several iterations as well as bop and even rock in immense ways. He was a strange cat with exotic ways and tastes but he left a musical heritage. Cheadle does not define Miles Davis for the history books, but he gives us a playful and excellent entertainment that in the end shines the Davis mystique. Cheadle is brilliant as Davis and bold and imaginative as a director.

     See you down the trail.

Puzzling

UNLIKELY CHALLENGE

    Lana, a decades long veteran of jigsaw puzzle work says this ditty from Liberty Puzzles is the toughest she has confronted.

    Alone and with friends she has worked much larger puzzles and with hundreds more pieces. This wood puzzle with interesting shaped cuts may be small, but mighty.

POLI PUZZLING

    Al Hunt is one of the last of the old boy political analysts, descending from a craft where watching and observing were the tools. Unlike most talking heads now, eager to predict or pontificate, Hunt watches and takes measure, often finding foundational facts. Hunt believes what Eric Sevareid said many years ago, you cannot predict politics.

     The other evening as a pollster and other political technicians were doing a horse race assessment and talking about likely outcomes, Hunt reminded them it was impossible to predict what could or might happen or how it could affect a race.

      Too much time and too many words are spent  handicapping outcomes. Coverage is numbers crazy, doing the simulated sports coverage of the campaign, how to win or lose the game. A lot of wordage seems motivated by career posturing or boosting a media profile. Missing in the heat is illumination or thoughtful analysis. Attention spans and historical perspective seem to suffer a deficit disorder.

      Spend a couple minutes here, time traveling to 1977 when television news analysis was indeed thoughtful and provided depth and significance. Sevareid provided this role for CBS News. You'll better know  the quality and intellect of that time and work by seeing this, Sevareid's last comment at the time of his retirement. Walter Cronkite's follow also shows us a perspective that we miss.

GRAZING
cow and lens

    San Simeon Creek Road, northern San Luis Obispo County, California

  

     See you down the trail.