Defusing the Bomb

        Talk of war, cultural or otherwise, is dangerous, emotionally precipitous and enables forces that strangle rationality.

      There is no shortage of bad actors in this destructive detour of the American experience. We'll take a closer look after first some good news and diversion.

        The numbers are up, some 3,500% at the Pismo Beach Monarch butterfly grove.

        The Monarchs fly some 1500 hundred miles to winter on the California Central coast. The numbers had been in decline.

        Scholars say the habitat they seek, in which to cluster, is being destroyed for development. Pesticides, and changing climate patterns have also taken a toll.

        The increase this year at the grove is encouraging as people on the central coast have been planting milkweed which attracts the butterflies.

shadowland

        As a kid I was fascinated by shadows and shadow play. The other day I noticed our new kitten "discover" his shadow. It surprised him. 

        Shadows make for fascinating photos. 

        Please permit these shots to offer you a visual rest, as we dive into the bad blood being stirred by shadow warriors.

        Those who know war and war zones are not those who are exciting the strife. 

        War is an act of desperation. It means that diplomacy, rationality and problem solving has failed. It means we have failed as human beings. 

        The more that media instigators, Twitter and Facebook combatants, and the under educated amp up the rhetoric, the more they foreclose on understanding, settlement  and their own enlightenment. The more they divide us!

        There is a large and unhealthy dose of delusional thinking in the nation. Those who buy into the big lie should sue the right wing cable networks and social media outlets for mental abuse. Propaganda has gotten us to this point. We are on edge.

          Both the the right and left claim guilty players. 

on the right

        The blitz on the credibility of the election, a fully delusional and dishonest effort is none-the-less believed by an misinformed mass. It's testament to the power of brainwashing. Tragically, it is compounded by the majority of the Republican party in Washington.

        Republicans try to ignore the January 6th Insurrection and attack. If they were to summon honesty and candor, it would go a long way to lesson the impact of the blood thirsty right wing lunatics fomenting for "war." Party complicity speeds destruction of our belief in democratic principles. 

        The American Republic is being undone by Republican collusion with lies and authoritarianism. 

on the left

        No less an unlikely alliance than Linguistic scholar and author John McWhorter and political strategist James Carville precisely describe the progressive left's destructive impact-"Wokeness."

      Carville says it's "faculty lounge foolishness" and it's killing Democrat's appeal. McWhorter's new book "Woke Racism:How a New Religion has Betrayed Black America" makes the case that Woke is in fact racist. He says it is a kind of intellectual suicide as well. 

       It is typical of far left ideology. No matter how well intended a new "social moralism" or idea may be, it can often be elitist, out of touch, and without "real world" grounding. Far left ideas can be as ill hatched and damaging as far right fear mongering and racism. 

        "Cancel Culture" is fascism. Those who engage in it are foolish, and enemies of free speech and thought. 

right wing fear

        There are historic principles at work behind this conflict of values and attitudes. 

        Conservative politics has always been fueled in part by fear. There is the fear of changing the norm, or the status quo as a bedrock. Conservatives have seen "socialism" or "marxism" like some see the boogeyman. It was there in trying to stop the union movement, in the civil rights movement, in welfare or child care or medical relief legislation. It's like Henny Penny and the "sky is falling." 

         Critical Theory, an intellectual discipline for study, a tool for understanding, is in the minds of conservative strategists and polemicists a communist or marxist plan to dismantle the Republic. Never mind free thought, the freedom that comes with challenging a premise or intellectuality. Now mobs are storming school boards fomenting about CRT when it is likely the majority of them never took a class in legal theory, philosophy, criticism, or civil rights. But it's red meat and rally's the base.

 

effetely left

        There is often an arrogance in liberal certitude. So sure that virtue is on their side when it comes to extending liberties, or using government as a tool to aid and assist, they too quickly dismiss those who disagree as being racist, ignorant or unbathed.

        Brian Williams refers to that wing of the Democrat party as the Whole Food's wing. Smug, self confident, and out of touch with the most of America.

there is no same as it ever was

       Progressives have been leavening in the loaf of American politics. Our founders were progressive thinkers, in fact they were radicals even revolutionaries. 

       Progressive thought is in the DNA of America. They seed ideas about progress, and reform. They are a good counter punch to the monied oligarchs who own a kind of wealthy selfishness/stinginess that has driven Republican business worship. It is "the rich take care of the rich" politics of the last century. Please recall that it took a turn coat elite Republican to bust his party when they got too much of their way in the gilded age. Teddy Roosevelt busted the trusts, brought regulation, standards for food and drugs, giving the average citizen a break after they had been savaged by the wealthy, and robber barons. Republicans look out for business and wealth. 

        Democratic compassionates have tried to bend the levers of government to uplift the downtrodden, level it out, bring equality to the table and make government service for the public a reality. Democrats reason those services are needed and taxes are a way to pay for it. They think the wealthy should pay a fair rate. 

        The wealthy, corporations, and bankers of course bristle at the idea of a large government providing for child care, family leaves, public assistance and keeping up roads and bridges especially if it means they need to pay taxes or that government tries to penetrate their off shore veil and tax shelters. Republicans are their representatives. 

        More or less this has been the battle-line, and historically it worked its way to finding legislation and governance through compromise or a middle ground. It has rewarded both views periodically, pendulum like. 

    A point I've tried insert is that over the years liberals and conservatives, Democrat and Republicans and have swapped positions, changed views, morphed, helix like. Case in point, Democrats were once the racists, Republicans were the racial progressives.

        This mutability underscores the insanity of this angry time in America. We have been on a slide to this moment of division for some time. To understand that, one needs a sense of history, a knowledge of government, a long view and an understanding of driving forces. One must also believe in a commonweal, or common good. There is little of that now!

        We've become fractured, with short attention spans, easily diverted and manipulated, media has become shallow, politics has become a profession, elections are a business, too many of the players are egoists, zealots or racketeers. Newt Gingrich was the modern virus that killed off collegiality, compromise, negotiation, and truthful legislative government. 

The Republican party allowed itself to taken over by thugs more interested in themselves than national consensus or good.

            They've become anti democracy fascists in the grip of a mob boss mentality. The Democrats with no real majority are being held hostage by an internal fight between progressives and moderates while two selfish outliers see how much they can get for themselves. At its best the system is sick, and the America body politic needs emergency triage.

        We are shouting at each other, behaving horribly, and not interested in holding the center. Idiots want to provoke a fight, or secede, and sadly, tragically a huge percentage are being roiled up in a giant and malignant fantasy.

        Scholarship and the work of historians will look upon this time in America as the nadir. We have failed as human beings, we have failed as citizens. We have failed to think for ourselves and we have become angry and frequently stupid mobs.

        If people put national interests over their clique lust,

if a few Republicans would act with honor, a transformative and long overdue infusion of investment in our people, our very essence, and our national bones would energize commerce and spirit and would rapidly marginalize the lies, the liars, the fringe, and make all of the culture war/civil war talk so much hot air.

        81 Million voters, the largest vote ever, cast their ballots to depose and dispose of a malignant force. The will of the majority of us is being stymied by selfishness, ignorance and cowardice that allows the basest, most villainous, venal and contemptible behavior to become common place. 

        If we don't lower the volume, and begin to listen, truly listen, open our minds and reclaim our national soul of aspiration we will indeed become the wretched and dissolute states of America.

        It is time for reason and cool heads. Time to honor the idea of civil debate, not war. Time to understand the radiating power and good that comes in compromise. It is time for an age of reconciliation.

        There is probably something in this that angered you.

Will this make a difference or cause even one of you to widen your view? I suspect the answer is no.

      So to Addie and Henry, my grandchildren, I hope that when you read this, your world will be less strident and that we humans treat each other with more decency and respect.

       Regardless of your reality, please know no one is always right, that all ideas are the work of mere humans and subject to all the foibles that make us the complicated, confounding and wonderful beings that we are. We are all children of creation, imperfect but we share the planet, and we share a future, and each life, each one of us is sacred. Our destiny should not be to divide and to make war, but rather to work for peace and understanding. Truth matters. In the end truth rules.

        In the end there are no shadows. Everything comes into the light.

 

        See you down the trail. 

Finding Focus

     Something is going on, changing deep in the inner universe that is consciousness, mine and perhaps yours too.

      Maybe it is age, or the jarring reality of recent social change. I'm at a bridge where personal interests are being over taken by a concern for those who will live when I no longer do. 

      No, this not that sort of post or motivation. Certainly am not rushing wanting to depart. I'm fortunate to enjoy life and living but some measurements are beginning to change, lengthening and even broadening.

      Climate, resource protection and reclamation, changes in nature, pressure points in the human food chain, ethical treatment of human suffering and misery, political order, anticipating the impact of artificial intelligence, burgeoning medical technology, the wonders of regenerative medicine, evolution of our specie, preserving life in an interdependent eco system, genetic manipulation and more that present us with profound issues and questions. First, are we even mature enough to deal with the consequence. 

       There is a positive charge in engaging in something that will go beyond our own shadows. Strategizing, trying to establish and enable dynamics, systems and adaptations for a future. I am no scientist as my chemistry lab partner Janice Anderson discovered many years ago and as I have been reminded many times when I struggle to read science tracts and research. I am awed by those who advance knowledge and understanding. I appreciate their touching the arc of history and from time to time I have interpreted their efforts for a reading or viewing audience. I am not a man of science, but a man of words.

        Words matter too. They are the glue that gives our purposes structure. Getting older, reflecting on a life in journalism, study of philosophy, spirituality, religion, creeds, social compacts and decades of politics I think I have emerged as a kind of postulant ethicist. No one appointed me. There are few professional ethicists, but it is the "ethics of living" that have begun to calibrate and reboot in my inner mind, making me an unwitting accomplice in this concern about the future. As the latest iteration of human bipeds perhaps we all should consider the ethics of human existence on this verge of something.

         Living in the orbit of Silicon Valley, I am perpetually fascinated at advancements in artificial intelligence, mixed reality, virtual reality, bio medicine, big data and the like. But I have begun to also note that we make jumps and leaps without giving prior thought to what it will mean; i.e. how will this likely change things, or how could this go wrong, could it be weaponized, that sort of thought.

       We make giant leaps at a time when more people think only as deeply as 140 characters, or their Facebook news, when we see increasing evidence of a decline in critical reasoning skills, when history is barely known, when classics are replaced by Marvel, as we seek happiness in what we buy or own.

      Have you given any thought to what it means to be a human being? What makes us human? A brain, a heart, emotion, love, what?  Now consider how many implants or  replacements, or memory chips in the brain, or bio mechanical organs, prosthetics or synthetic blood do we need before human life, as we know it, ceases and something new emerges? 
       These wonderful but profoundly changing circumstances will have more impact on our children and grand children than us.

      Probably few people have given it much thought and that in itself is an ethical issue. We cannot nor should we impede science and research or healing systems and technologies. In just one simple query-how well equipped are societies for extended life spans?
       Isn't now the appropriate time that humanity deliberates, before epochal changes? Sci-fi writers and directors have long toyed with these themes but would we be content to see life imitate art?

     For the record we've had 8.7 inches of rain on the California central coast since January 1. That is more than we had for the full year 2013-2014. Total for the season is 20.93 making it the most since 2010-2011. Yes, there have been mud and rock slides. Historic Santa Rosa Creek road caved and it will be some time before repairs are made. Scenic Highway 1, the Pacific Coast Highway, has also taken some abuse, but after 4-5 years of drought, we are happy we've been blessed with the rain.

The bluff trail north of Cambria

standing together

    A lot of people are pushing the White House Correspondents Association and other Washington based media groups to push back against early signs the new administration intends to play rough and dirty with some media outlets.

    Tough questions are simply part of the process. An adversarial relationship is the nature of the game and everyone, the White House, the media and the electorate are served when the media plays a watch dog role.  

     Divide and conquer is a technique of this administration. Combine that with the too common "careerist" motivation of some of the press corp and we could be on a slippery slope. Reminding the outlets that if one is targeted or banned, all could be has been the effort of many around the country. This is no time to forget the important role of the 4th estate.

     One thing they need to do a better job of is pressing this administration for details. We still haven't seen the health care plan that is supposed to replace the Affordable Care Act. Nor does the president elect ever give much detail. At some point we hope he realizes he's got to be presidential. He seems stuck in the mode of being the hustler on the campaign trail.  He's done nothing to convince me he's not an narcissistic idiot incapable of a complex sentence, let along thought. But maybe I'm wrong.

     See you down the trail.

SEEING THE FUTURE and CATS IN A BOX

BEAUTY IN THE WAY IT IS

   One can't live in California without continued thought of water.

    For some it is a shroud of angst, inescapable. Others step into the challenge to conserve, educate and find a better way. Most are someplace in between. 

   Growing up where we never gave a thought to water, there was plenty, leaves me "hypersensitive" to new realities. I think those of us who live with less, those who have adjusted to finite limits, have seen into the future.

     This is not limited to California, it can be anywhere. Refugee camps are full of people who have seen the end of life as they knew it. Working poor who barely can feed children and pay rent. Those who live in cars. The good life, the good old days do not exist and for some it never did.     

   The thistle, cursed by ranchers, farmers, gardeners and landscapers is a kind of signal. In this fourth year of historic drought, the thistle flourishes and spreads. It is a survivor.

 I see beauty in these frames. This is flora that thrives, even without water.

      It is about adaptability isn't it? Some of us, some things, are better at it than others, better at learning new ways and better at survival.

      This dynamic planet, a living, changing organism appears, by our short human lens at least, in the midst of profound change. Our specie may not be responsible for all of what is underway, but we have contributed mightily and in not helpful ways. A Beijing clouded by exhaust, rivers poisoned by chemicals, dead zones of trash in the ocean are examples of changes that now imperil all of us, even those who know better and have said so. Sadly there are those who have had no say because they are yet to be born into this change.

      Despite all our cleverness we cannot bring life out of death. We can not reanimate extinct species.

      There are millions of earth brothers and sisters who are desperate and certainly in more peril than we Californians, living in one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We conserve, debate, pray for rain, bet on El Nino's, grumble, get angry about the arrogant wealthy who waste water, engineer conversion systems and wonder if luck may run out. In that way we are seeing what awaits this blue marble of a planet. 

        Forces of nature, forces of our own doing, accelerated population, advanced technology, religious and ethnic politics, bad choices, the commercialization of government and our capacity to elevate brutality over reason conspire against us. More fundamentally, there are no winners in the struggle of humankind vs "nature" or cosmic luck. There is only change.  Some of it might be good. Some of it will not.

      We bipeds are capable of great adaptation and invention and resilience. We can also make hard decisions. Making those hard and good choices, application of reason and our higher principles is how survival proceeds from here.

LISTEN TO THE 1000

   In this context, it would do us all well to pay heed to the wisdom of 1000 of the brightest minds who have said we need to make sure our Artificial Intelligence systems, are not turned into weapons. 

    On this front we need to make sure the bankers, financiers, money boys and hustlers do not prevail. 

    The statement of the 1000 is the latest in a series of signals we've been getting about the future. Are we prepared to listen?

THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF

HEMINGWAY AND JOY

Cats in a box, redux

   Joy on the left and Hemingway have yet to meet a box they did not like.

 A box from a recent shopping outing and left in the garage was a place they needed to be, despite the bulging of the seams.

   At least they've learned to share.

    See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) FUTURE TALENT

THE FUTURE

 HALF FULL

AT LEAST

     Sorry for using the tired old example of "the Glass-half empty or half full?"  But at a time when media seems to dwell on issues, problems and crisis after crisis and when political process has ceased to be dialogue but instead is bombast followed by bombast, it is understandable why people consider the future with less than optimism. 

     I've been working with college seniors and juniors in a leadership training and legislative environment. We've worked 11 hour days in amassing a great deal of information, doing evaluation and rendering critical decisions.  I am in awe of their ability to focus and exercise facility of mind.  There is also a sense of obligation to a set of core values that underpin their action.  I will leave this exercise with a renewed sense of hopefulness and expectation. In their hands, there is a future with capability, and excellence. There is also that horizon bending attribute of youthful potential.

MORE OF THAT

IN THIS WEEKENDER :) VIDEO

     A little context-This is by a student and was done for a 

school video project.  Joe Bush and Zach Hemsey culled the images and wove together this extraordinary timeline.  

     When I was president/ceo of a documentary and media production company I took great delight in "discovering" young talent, people with skills like Joe and Zach.  What boggles my mind is how young these extraordinary visual artists are.

     This is a generation that has grown up with gadgets in their hands, and man can they make them work!

      Enjoy.

See you down the trail.