THE SHIFTS

   While we seem be damned by current political attitudes,  profound changes are right behind us. We ponder views and the attitudes that drive them, after we first fog it up.

 Going over the Santa Lucia pass toward Paso Robles I was struck by how Morro Rock, Mt. Hollister and a couple of other volcanic peaks seem to be adrift in a sea of clouds.

 Fog moves quickly this time of year, one of the wonders of living along the Pacific.

big sur tribute

    As Big Sur remains isolated and inaccessible we are mining the archive to help those of us with a Big Sur jones.

     Fog and Big Sur are like Coffee and sugar-

We feel sorry for visitors who pick a day to drive Highway 1 when fog rules

      It moves quickly, literally before your eyes.

    

   Future posts will feature more of the Big Sur file as we lament its current status of being off limits.

  the political fog

   We should all be troubled by Secretary of State Tillerson's comment he is "not a big media access guy."
     The secretary needs to understand he is no longer a private CEO/Chairman of the Board dealing in a corporate world. He is a public employee, an official appointed by the President but responsible to the American tax payer for whom he works. This job is bigger than him and requires process and transparency.
     Tillerson's refusal to travel with at least a press pool instead of hand picking one journalist is unacceptable. It is wrong and dangerous, even more so given the pronouncements of the irrational liar and lunatic who appointed him.

here comes heart burn for non progressives

    The much maligned millennials are about to have their way. Those who are 19-35, the largest component of the Bernie Sander supporters now number some 75.5 million.

    They are a generation raised on disruption, new ways of working, living and a decidedly socialist cultural and political lean. The same goes for their younger siblings Generation Z who total some 77.9 million-they are 18 and younger but in the next two election cycles will become a force as well. Add them to the 65.9 million Gen X'ers, 36-51, and the tables have not only changed, but it is a new game. 

     Millennials and Gen Z bring such profound change to the political landscape that Boomers and the generation immediately preceding may not recognize the social landscape.

      They are decidedly more egalitarian, color blind, accepting of sexual and gender identity selections and differences, ethnic diversity, in favor of economic equality, globalism, defenders of the environment, suspicious of corporations and to such a degree as to render much of traditional political practice irrelevant. 

      One of them just sold his business to CNN for $20 Million. He has a daily vlog (video blog) with 6 million subscribers and more than 1.3 billion views. He's also been hired to be the front man for a multi billion dollar global corporation's advertising.  Here is a look at  the kind of style, cultural and political attitude that may decide the next presidential election.
      Hear what Casey Neistat has to say to "haters and doubters" and pay attention to the Titanic and Iceberg analogy. Listen to the attitude...and consider their massive numbers. Bye bye trump land..

         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.