Sanctuary

     Sanctuary is a voluble topic in California, taken seriously and now it's a fighting word.

      The trump administration is suing California, Governor Jerry Brown and Attorney General Xavier Becerra because of three California laws. The Sanctuary laws restrict how state and local law enforcement  may interact with federal immigration agents. 
      The Feds say the California Values Act and the Immigrant Worker Protection act are a deliberate attempt to hamper enforcement of federal immigration law. Brown says the  state laws protect the progressive attitudes that California embodies.
      The US vs. California on immigration, and other issues too, is a demarcation line. Relative to your view of course, California stands on the side of progress and modernity while the trump minions like Jeff Sessions represent regressive views and attitudes.
      Jerry Brown calls the trump lawsuit "a political stunt." He adds, "It's not about the truth. It's not about protecting our state. It's about diving America."
       Divisive pandering is what won trump the republican nomination. 
       California lives with one foot in the future and for that reason has been a cultural force and attitude determinate since mid 20th Century. 
       Then there is Jerry Brown's straight speaking. In defending the laws passed by the California legislature he said,  "These Laws do not protect criminals.  We have millions of of people here who are here without papers and some of them have been working for 10, 15, 20 years. They've been servicing the economy. A lot of them have been doing the dirty work, whether it's washing dishes, or picking the fruit and now the attorney general is basically initiating a reign of terror."
        ACLU executives spoke about the Bill of Rights at a Dinner Fellowship meeting this week and the conversation turned to sanctuary and the attendant issues.
       Could a group, a church or organization of some structure, provide sanctuary as an extension of the right to free speech and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances? The logic here is to list unfair ICE enforcement or the enabling laws as the grievance and the establishment of a sanctuary as the act of the petition or the exercise of the free speech?
        It gave the ACLU exec pause who said that kind of civil disobedience carried with it the risk of jail. 
        Jail for doing civil disobedience is a staple of American history and our path toward a fuller realization of liberty, freedom and the democracy component of our democratic republic. The suffragettes, the protests of veterans and most notably the lunch counter sit in and protest era of the civil rights movement.
         Out here in the California Republic millions believe ICE, under trump and Sessions, is behaving like a gestapo. Sanctuary spaces are a way of fighting back.
       I spoke with an activist pastor who said when a church decides to create a sanctuary they also assume responsibility for the person or persons; housing, food, and all forms of support because if someone seeking refuge were to leave they would be subject to arrest. Churches are doing it.
      America 2018 and we are possessed of vastly different ideas of how to live together. When I read cases of good people, beloved by their community, tax payers, fully employed, parents, Sunday school teachers, and the like who have been here for 15 to 25 years being shackled and deported, I cannot help but to reflect on how my ancestors were part of the underground railroad that helped slaves escape. I am a descendent of one of the earliest abolitionists.
They violated bad laws that needed changing. They were changed, after effort. 
      If it were all left to regressives like Sessions and trump and their sycophants we might still have slavery markets. 

     a flashback future

    This is from Kyle Communications blog/newsletter.  The Kyle is Kyle Niederpruem who founded a public relations, communications management and content company. I first met Kyle when she was a dogged, diligent and soon to be an award winning newspaper reporter. She was the best of old school journalism. Watching her career and the embrace of communications culture has been a kind of bellwether of how culture has changed. Kyle is still on point and leading the way. Here's link to her site.

on the march

       Dave Congalton is a California central coast radio icon and host of an issues centered interview program. He's also a screen writer and former college professor. I substitute hosted for him one day recently and featured Dawn Addis, a founder of the Women's March out here. The next horizon event for the Women's March movement is The March for Our Lives, an outgrowth of the most recent school slaughter.

      I first covered US protests back in the era of the civil rights movement and then the anti war movement. How could we not be impressed by the millions of Americans who marched after the election and then on the first anniversary.

     This is a wave in American politics that is a high surf. And now I am stunned by the articulate and emphatic intelligence of the school kids who are in our face, as they should be. Dawn, and women like her across the nation, are mentoring and this generation is impressive.  They are not really millennials who were born from the mid 90's to 2000. I interviewed Rutik, an 18 year old, who has grown up in the age of mass slaughter. That chilling reality gives them a unique perspective and we owe it to them to listen. More importantly we need to do a better job of protecting them. Rutik was quick to say they are different and will behave differently, and will not take the same old tired rhetoric from politicians. A high surf indeed.

    See you down the trail.

SANCTUARY

     The underground railroad is revered history in the mid-west. As school kids we learned the effort to help slaves to freedom was not without risk, or cost, but was the right thing to do. It was right to break a law. 

      The Fugitive Slave Law required free states to assist slave catchers, so those who were part of the underground railroad's network of secret routes, passages and safe houses violated a federal law. A rotten federal law passed by Congress.

       We admire the freedom riders who a century later risked life and well being to help end the vestiges of slavery. We admire those who sat in at lunch counters to protest overt segregation and racism. They too were beaten and arrested.  We admire freedom marchers who put their bodies on the line. 
       Civil disobedience, the willing violation of law to make a point about rotten laws, regulations or custom is a revered  and necessary tradition of a free people. Breaking a law, a bad law, is American.

        Blacks would still be property, denied rights or without a vote, women would be chattel and without a vote, children might still be indentured to work houses and sweat shops if Americans did not violate laws or ordinances to fix bad law. Presently millions of Americans, hundreds of churches and many cities connect with the ethic, principal and values of the Underground Railroad.

     Current immigration policy is predatory. We understand the need to locate and process violent offenders, gangsters, and those who threaten people and property. But the present enforcement push harms good people, business owners, parents, exemplary residents, some who have been good neighbors for decades.

     It is an irony to hear Trump supporters say while this is what he said he would do, they don't like that friends, employers or employees are being targeted. It is sad when American school children are terrorized by US Agents who are either threatening or are sending their fathers or mothers away. It is tragic when some are deported after making successful lives, paying taxes and  being responsible contributors. It is bad policy, bad law, too inflexible and the Sanctuary movement is thus an historic American response. 

     The Underground Railroad, the Suffragettes, the Civil Rights Movement, the Sanctuary Movement have at their nexus a spiritual and faith driven motivation. Principles of equality, fairness and compassion put into practice even against bad law. Some will argue we are a nation of law and laws are to be enforced. But thank God people of conviction and courage have broken laws and taken action to eliminate bad law. 

the eagle under attack

     With apology for the blurred images, we submit a few frames of a combat we watched from the tennis court.

            On changing service sides Mike pointed to the grazing slope below Scott Rock outside Cambria and noted what he referred to as a "golf ball like" white object.  He surmised it was a bald eagle. We watched as red tailed hawks dove at and menaced the eagle.

    Mike, Gail, Roy and I watched with amazement. Following our match play I attempted to grab a few photos. Distance plus the pace and furry of the fighting conspired against a good shot.

    One needs a good view of such intrigues.

same goes for the state department

    I don't know what it is-arrogance, stupidity, intended obfuscation or some other combination, but Secretary of State Tillerson needs his ears boxed. His actions of ignoring or isolating the US media is doing no one any good.  He pulled the stunt again on this middle east trip, giving a briefing but excluding his own nation's media. 

      Tillerson could get away with that as a private CEO, but as an employee of the American public he needs to be watched, studied, monitored and reported on. Importantly, a strong media presence has given previous Secretaries of State more than an equal voice or power in administrations. Tillerson is weakening his own heft. Someone needs to knock sense into him.

     See you down the trail.

NOT A DEBATE-FLOWER WARS-SENTIMENTAL THROWBACK

WOULD RATHER HAVE WATCHED THIS

    Soccer enthusiasts abound in Cambria and that is even more so for some folks of Mexican heritage. Strong family ties are evidenced in the volunteer coaching by moms and dads in Shamel Park. Maybe some future world cup players being groomed in the village.
    As we watched a recent afternoon drill I wondered what these kids thought of Donald Trump and some of his immigration worrying debate colleagues.

NOT A DEBATE

    Let me give you my bona fides.  I've moderated many state and federal debates-Governors, Congress and Senate. Having said that I thought Jake Tapper did a good job according to his assignment-but there in lies the rub.  

      CNN was not so interested in serious examination of issues, solutions and philosophy as they were in stirring up a verbal fight. The brain trust at CNN decided they'd pander and play "Real Candidates of The Campaign Trail."  They could have called it Sass and Ego at the Reagan. 

     Tapper had instruction to set up verbal sparing and he did that well. He did a pretty decent job of controlling the bombast and the real journalist in him even snuck out a few times where he got to questions that were not merely set ups for more verbal warfare. From inception it was more about atmospherics and theatrics than real substance and analysis, but such is the business of politics when twitter and trending is as important as intellect.
     Dana Bash was able to ask a few real questions. Hugh Hewitt should have been left in the make up room or in the GOP pom pom squad. What a joke he was!  
     In three hours of gab and BS we probably learned a bit more about the candidates, due to time and exposure more than it was to the format. Next time CNN should arm the candidates with paint ball guns and Nerf bats.

MYSTIQUE

    Now that I see the bromeliad bloom above and the bloom below they don't look as much alike as I thought they did. Boomer memory you know…

   The plant above is called a cama or Indian Hyacinth. Native Americans in the Northwest Territory, including Indiana were said to fight over them.  In some tribes they were considered "old ghosts," "old spirits" and the tuber or bulb was a source of food or medicine.
   It is a Camassia, a kind of asparagus. We had large patches of them growing on our old growth forest acreage on the Indianapolis north side.

   There were times of day, early morning or late evening especially when the camas seemed to radiate the gloaming light and appeared to be small ghosts dancing as they tossed on the breeze.

 SENTIMENTAL SEPTEMBER THROWBACK

   Back at our Indianapolis home late September was time to begin marking the change of season by tending to leaves and winterizing the house.
   One September was particularly sentimental, the year our eldest moved to Florida. Graduated from IU she was ready to "leave home."

   She left at the height of "leaf season" and I teased her about timing the move so she left fall chores to mom, dad and younger sister Katherine.  On 3 1/2 acres of old forest we had a lot of clean up.

     This September she is busy building a nest for her own growing family and sister Katherine begins work as an RN in cardiac telemetry. Lana and I are pleased that our boomer backs, shoulders, arms and legs are not putting up winter shutters.  We do hope for California rain, but no shoveling is required!

      See you down the trail.