IT'S ABOUT THE HEAD

life under the oaks

    Our annual Father's Day weekend sojourn to the Live Oak Music Festival is a photographer's paradise.

     The fundraiser for the California central coast NPR station KCBX is nestled between the San Raphael and Santa Ynez mountains north of Santa Barbara where it is beautiful under the ancient oaks. This year brought warm temperatures, so this shooter decided to document how people covered their head. Did you know there was such a variety of straw hat?

a popular man

The eclectic music mix was superb...

   Langhorne Slim made friends when he moved from the cool  shade of the stage into there sun and asked people "to get involved!"

    Joe Craven and the Sometimers blew everyone away with a version of Blackbird.

  Jessica Fichot dazzled as she sang in French, English, Mandarin, Russian and Spanish. 

    Live Oak runs three days and is famous for a stunning array of music.

     Though only a day tripper, we are always dazzled by the Live Oak nation and life under the big oaks...

beating the nincompoop 

       If it is at all possible schedule yourself into Cuba before the latest disruption from the cheeto colored idiot takes affect. Frequent readers have read on the scene posts from the Cuba File. They can be found in the archive of the blog. 

       It is a shame the nincompoop is trying to undo a step in the right direction. The bloated cretin is taking action that violates the belief of the vast majority of Americans. Don't we wish he'd just disappear?

      See you down the trail.

CHANGING HISTORY?

peace

     Gentle breeze, warming sun, resplendent nature. A quiet calm inviting deep breathing. 

    The timeless horizon of sea and sky is another good antidote to fatigue brought on by the furies of our day.

living by the gun

     As regrettable as the shooting in Alexandria is, it is an enactment of how a sizable portion of Americans think it should be. A "bad" man, in this case probably deranged by anger, is brought down by "good" forces. 
    The Alexandria shooting is a perfect axiom of the NRA advocacy that Americans should be armed. They are willing to accept the violence of Alexandria so good Americans can have unfettered, unrestricted full access to the Second Amendment-at least the way they spin it. They are wrong of course and they have manipulated the Second Amendment for cash, to further the mercenary aims of their sponsors, the gun industry. Still, the Alexandria incident is part of the NRA vision for America.
    We hope representative Scalise recovers and our thoughts are with his family. You should know Scalise has an A+ rating from the NRA. He has been active to make sure Americans are fully armed and he has worked to allow carry laws. He has fought every move to control the volume of weapons and the access Americans have to them. 

action-reaction

     In an NRA America their own lackeys including congressmen can be collateral damage, but that is how they would have it. 
     If Wayne Lapierre, the president of the NRA has a shred of decency he will be at the Scalise bedside and he will spend some of his nearly $1 million a year salary to help the Scalise family. Don't hold your breath.
     In an NRA America there could well be another angry gunman putting in a clip with Lapierre in mind. That's how it is in an NRA America where even their sycophants can be targets. Karma can be a bitch!

do we leave history alone?

    I was stopped the other night by something I heard on CSPAN and I still have not "unvexed" my mind.

    A group of historians were discussing how to regard Woodrow Wilson, a complex man, posing a multitude of issues. Reflecting the sensitivity of our age much of the discussion ran to his racism. One of the panel offered that a small aspect of a large and active life should not be the defining characteristic by which he or she is known.  

     The conversation digressed to how to regard our historic figures and the questions were many.

•  Should schools, buildings and especially dormitories be named for people possessed by "flaws"-at least "flaws" as seen by our generation? 
• Should statues to confederate officers, for example, be destroyed? 
• Is that revisionist? 
• Is it not a bit like what Isis has done? 
• Where do you draw the line?

      This area of inquiry is like a rabbit hole. There's much to be said about every aspect of the conversation. I watched to the end but the scholars reached no definitive consensus. 

open minded confusion

     While it is not wrong to entertain the questions and sensitivities of our time, it seems there must still be some way to mediate and tolerate history with truthfulness and full disclosure.  I'm not convinced contemporary American culture has found that method. A rabbit hole indeed and so I'm still vexed. 
     It proves once again, CSPAN may well be the most dangerous, and nutritional channel on TV. 

never has there been....

         The New York Times Frank Bruni said it well, "...to buoy his ego, they deface themselves..."

such a sickening seen    

     Watching the video of the Trump cabinet made me feel as I did when I watched the aberrant behavior of a criminal sexual psychopath in a day ward in a state hospital. He alternated between sucking his thumb, like a child, and grabbing and fondling his genitalia. It was disturbing, bizarre and I thought my role as a documentary journalist made be an observer of things too sick and too obscene to view.

      It was like that in seeing the Trump gang. Seeing the unprecedented ass kissing and weasel waltzing was nauseating. These people are sickos. They have no self respect. 

      When the President began with "Never has there been a President with few exceptions who has passed more legislation who has done more things than we've done...." any decent man or woman would have stood up and walked out or challenged him with reality or simply shut up.  

     My brother was the psychologist and therapist, but I tell you Trump is a mentally disturbed man. This goes beyond political revulsion. Yes he is a bloated, narcissist and either so ignorant or stupid as to be unqualified and contemptible, but he is a sick man who needs treatment. For these men and women who serve in the cabinet to have said what they did, in the manner they did, after his insane and/or lie filled preamble is nauseating. A low point. It is as if they encountered a poor soul undergoing a schizophrenic break and simply left him in the middle of traffic.

a troubled thought

      As troubling as it is to say this, I'm beginning to hope the Russians did in fact screw with the vote totals. That may be easier to accept than to know that, even though they are only a minority, millions of Americans voted for trump.

parting in scenic peace

Jacaranda trees in San Luis Obispo

linear order in rural Cambria

      See you down the trail.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

the edge of a crisis?

    People heard what they wanted to hear in the Comey testimony. Vindication or condemnation! This is a locked culture, locked into hardened views with little or no room to reason or evolve. Minds are made up and people hear only what confirms.

     It is far more complex, demanding hard thinking and honest evaluation. What mattered most in the Comey hearing was what he said in closed session. Repeatedly he said he could not answer a specific inquiry in open session. I bristle at the idea the American public is not entitled to hear and know everything about its government. But a lifetime of reporting, including investigative work and covering issues of national security and intelligence, leads me to understand why some things are better out of public view, though I regret that. As a Chair of the intelligence oversight committee told me, "Some things don't look so good in the light of day..." So it is with investigation and legislative inquiry that seek to determine if there has been wrongdoing. 

     The substantive work will occur out of public view. There are critical matters to be resolved, no matter how inflamed may be the public, the partisans or the media. 

• The Russians Attacked the Presidential Election
• Did they affect or alter votes-no evidence of that yet but the probe deepens. Newly leaked data provides a new trail.
• Did members of the Trump organization collude with the Russians? Investigations continue.
• Why did so many of the Trump team have contact with Russian principals and intelligence officers?
• Did the Trump organization's contact with the Russians violate laws?
• Why did Trump people, including Kushner go around existing protocol to have contact?
• Did Trump know about the contacts?
• Has he lied about it?
• Why did Trump want the Russian investigation stopped?
• Was there obstruction of Justice?

      Perhaps you were struck by the same thought. In all of the Comey testimony and in the memos he wrote the president never asks about how serious was the Russian attack, or what we could do to make the nation safe from further invasions. Instead, he was interested only in himself and Comey's loyalty and his efforts to stop the probe. Let that sink in for a moment-the president, after an invasion of our electoral process sitting in private meetings with the director of the FBI expresses no concern about the attack? 

      Of course this is the same man who gave secret intelligence to Russians in the oval office the day after he fired Comey and slurred him and the FBI. 

 what do we tell the kids?

       Trump admitted on national television he fired Comey because of the Russian investigation. Whether that and what he said to Comey in private and perhaps other actions constitute an obstruction of justice is a work of legal determination. 
      It could be there was nothing any of the Trump people did with the Russians that is illegal, but to stop an investigation or interfere with it is illegal. With the Mueller inquiry and two Congressional investigations, determinations will be made, according to law. But despite how Trump's words maybe parsed or how legal minds decide, what Trump did and said is offensive, immoral and wrong. It is further evidence he is unfit and unqualified. What he said to Comey is evidence of a corrupt mind. (To reach this judgment I am putting more weight in the credibility of Comey than Trump. Only a fool would not. Their own records make that case.) 

turn it down

    Much of the media lead-in to the Comey hearing was  hyperbolic  and childish. But the biggest loser of the day was the Trump lawyer brought in from New York. Marc Kasowitz fell flat on his face when he tried to discredit Comey. Kasowitz was completely wrong on the timeline, blowing his big "gotcha."  Plus he misspelled the word president in his released statement. 
     Several law firms blew Trump off when he asked for help. He brought in one of his New York gang who has threatened to sue media sources who reported on earlier trump sexual assault allegations. The sleaze is never far from the nincompoop. 
      The Trump gang is on the ropes. And to mix metaphors- they may be hanging themselves.

my how time flies

     Some of you are readers of Oddball Observations written by the Catalyst aka Bruce Taylor. You may know he and Judy have recently completed a move to a new home. Well, here is that same couple with Lana and our eldest Kristin some 30-35 years ago. As Bruce laments how hard the move was on his ancient body-I want to remind him of the inner young dude who still exists in there. 

     Take it easy.  See you down the trail.

FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP

   Dessert first. Pleasure before brain bruising. Let's party.

    It is a delightful evening-Twilight on the Terrace-sponsored by Friends of the Hearst Castle. A fund raiser with emphasis on fun.

   When the California June weather is perfect, WR Hearst's Castle is a perfect venue for fine wine, delicacies, music and dancing on the plaza.

   The scenery and setting is story book.

    Up here at San Simeon, the warm glow of the sun, the majestic reach of the rolling coastal mountains, the grand pacific on the horizon it is easy to cocoon and forget, for a while, the lunatic games in Washington.

a devalued America

       Reaction to our nincompoop president's withdrawal from the Paris accords proves a couple of things. The US has lost its status as the leader of the free world. World leaders are laughing at the camera hog with orange skin, bleached hair and fried chicken for brains. They've made it clear the US no longer leads nor can be trusted.

       What may be worse for the trump gang is that corporations, cities, states, and business alliances are saying sorry bozo-we'll do the work of the Paris accords on our own.

       It has been an historic sequence to watch these facets of the American culture step up to say, "be the bonehead you want to be mr idiot, but we are going ahead and skip right past you and do exactly what we should-which is flip you off and work to control greenhouse gasses."

      There needs to be an accounting if you are one of those disenchanted, forgotten, angry Americans who supported the sexual predator, liar, business failure, cheat and reality television star. What is it about the fact that almost every major corporation and every other nation on earth, except Syria and Nicaragua (even North Korea and Russia) endorsed the accords that is lost on you? What makes you think this blundering amateur bozo knows what he is doing? What? What keeps anyone but the most numbskulled loyal to him?

resist

     History will record this as a season of idiocy and fever. Unless politicians and people renounce the bozo and his corrupt ways, they will be recorded forever in history as being spineless, stupid, corrupt, or all of the above. Trump leads only to the ash heap and ignominy. No one of intelligence,  integrity or morality follows. 

     These remain days that require judgement and voice. The majority of Americans need to be heard.

     See you down the trail.   

Where are we headed?

    In an age of innocence it doesn't matter. Someone is watching out for us. These are not times of innocence nor is someone watching out. But first, let's ponder beauty before dissecting the latest from the beast!

     It's been a special year for Lana's heirloom Orchid Cactus. It was her mother's and since then offspring have been propagated. As if to celebrate the end of the drought,  it has been prolific this year.

    Bloom laden, this proud mother has been a source of wonder. There are relatives in the neighborhood-around front.

     Our fellow occupants of this blue planet create such pleasant moments. The frame below is a kind of "mixed media."

throw out the beast 

     Donald Trump cannot quit, be impeached, abducted by aliens, eaten by a Venus fly trap or turned into a fried chicken soon enough. The nincompoop is a menace to humanity. He has led us beyond the tall grass, to a place of danger. 

      As heads of state, scholars, analysts and historians have said in the past few days, the US is no longer the leader of the free world. Putin's man-toy, Russia's chief stooge, has created an opening for bully boy Vladimir to take advantage of. The US has lost credential, power and influence in the months since the sexual predator took office. It just got worse.

      Withdrawal from the Paris Accords-part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is dangerous to our children and grand children. It came after 195 nations signed the accord, after many lobbied the US to retain the high ground and after the Pope personally lobbied the nincompoop to continue to work on greenhouse gas emissions. The stooge said he didn't want other nations laughing at us. What? WTF?!  That is exactly how nations will respond to him. We are now in league with Syria as being opposed to the accord. 

     Here's a clue as to how out of touch he is. His primary advocates to vacate the accords were reichminister Steve Bannon and the friend of polluters and EPA opponent, now EPA chief, Scott Pruitt. Secretary of State Tillerson and first daughter Ivanka argued that to leave would be a mistake. The outsider creeps trumped the ultimate insiders. 

     These policy blunders are serious but so is the social carnage that has come under the beast. The outrage of the Portland train violence and the racist slurs being directed at LeBron James are only two of this week's examples of how  trump's world works. He empowered the worst of America to act out their evil. 
      Did you see where 16 White House staffers have been given dispensation to work on policy matters they handled as lobbyists or to work with former private sector colleagues. Conflict of interest? It's a foreign term to a real estate hustler with a history of screwing partners. 

      Nick Kristof said it well in the New York Times

"Today's White House seems to stand for noting loftier than crony capitalism and the scapegoating of refugees, Muslims and immigrants. To me, Trump "values" are primarily narcissism, nepotism and nihilism."

     Think for a moment about that. Nihilism! In movie and novel scenarios vain, stupid and evil leaders gain power and lead to destruction, in some cases on a global scale. Folks, this reality TV star is worse than our bad imaginings. He is truly a destructive force. He has to go! 

     See you down the trail.