Exploring our Sameness

        Spring has come to the mountains, and that prompts ideas.

     Do you think we can tolerate a few more? Especially about race?      

    

    Splendid revival is underway in the western Sierra. New life buds and blooms, rivers are swift, despite a low snow pack, and the Red Bud trees are painting the mountains.

    Warnings were posted about the cold and dangerous currents, but riparian life is thriving.  

 Kaweah river, Three Rivers California 

Kaweah river Sequoia National Park

    Some ideas are simple, but in the mountains they seem more grand, at least to this scribe. 

    Could we begin to "solve" racism, or even awaken ourselves to how deep and systemic it is, if we elevated our view? 

    If we could manage a cosmic perspective, seeing planet earth from a vast distance, would it have an ameliorative impact? 

        If we had the capacity to see our blue and mostly water planet in the context of a milieu that embraced galaxies, even rich with life, would we see life here, differently? 

    For the sake of this post, assume life exists in some form elsewhere in the known and unknown reaches of all creation.

   How would we think about each other down here, if "we" realized how same and alike we are, compared to another life form from out there?

        Do you think we can or should be trusted in space bustling with life, or might we disdain that not like us, be it any image of an "alien" you can imagine? And see, right here from the start, we have this problem of calling it or them or they, an "alien." Alien connotes something other than relationship.

         If you are a person of faith and discover there is indeed life, then do you have any other choice than to recognize a spiritual kinship with that life, also a product of the forces of creation. C.S. Lewis nailed the idea when he said,  "Our loyalty is not due our species, but rather our God."

    

         So with that as a frame, could we not better see how much alike we truly are, down here on planet earth as we travel the highway of life? 

    I've driven these roads in Sequoia but never before when the Red Buds were blooming. Another cosmic treat.

        Be kind to each other. Offer hospitality to strangers.

        See you down the trail.

Budding-A New Bi-partisanship

 celebrating new

    Grape vines too are showing new energy in this spring of what we hope is the first of the year of post pandemic life. 

    A new political reality appears to be budding as well.

   While it was a splendid day for a flight over the wine regions of the central coast, we drove for a look-see in the Edna Valley south of San Luis Obispo.

    We then headed north to the Paso Robles west side District and took in the Adelaida and Willow Creek Districts as well.

   Some vines are ahead of others. These 4 regions offer Pinot Noir, Syrah, Grenache, Petite Sirah, Mourvedre, Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel, Petite Verdot, Cabernet Franc, Cinsault, Counoise, Picpoul, Viognier, Chardonnay and more, so the degree of budding is highly variable. 

    Producing a massive volume of grapes, including those bound for Napa Valley wineries, Paso Robles growers and wine makers have become among the most awarded. 

    The freedom to blend brought French wine making families to the region to do what they cannot at French Chateau wineries. 

    A winemaker's art flourishes here where creativity reset standards and where a history of growing and oenology blend to redefine wine making as California tends to do.`

     Thousands of miles from these picturesque settings, a Washington veteran is channeling history and political skill in an artful redefinition of bipartisanship, "Bidenpartisanship." 

        Biden's public approval rating soars, with both those who self identify as Republicans as well as Democrats. 

        Approval of the Covid Relief Plan and the proposed Infrastructure package is high with a majority of US citizens. He get's high marks for his handling of Covid. His support cuts across party lines. 

        Senate and House Republicans dicker but the majority of their voters support the Biden package. Biden has popular bipartisan support while the Trump infected party on Capitol Hill, already divided, becomes feckless. Their scorched earth partisanship is destructive if for no other reason than weakening a legislative process where give and take and compromise makes better laws and budgets.

        If the shoe were on the other foot and Republicans controlled the legislative branch they'd push their agenda. History certifies that; blocking even a hearing on Obama's Supreme Court Nominee, reversing their "principles" by jamming through a Judge in a presidential election season. Their tax cut for the rich is now targeted by Biden, another reason the party of the wealthy and the wacky do their obdurate whining. 

         They whine when they are not embarrassed by another Republican sex and morality scandal. Sleazy Matt Gaetz makes headlines and Mitch McConnell talks about corporations, and then walks that back. Their whining is amplified by the Trumpian insanity that infects their House members. Then there is Ted Cruz, Scott Hawley and Ron Johnson. American voters are moving toward the Democrats as Republicans fail to stifle their anti American, regressive and Jim Crow tendencies. 

        The revelation of the week is the Republicans caught on tape admitting even their own party rejects the dark money game of Billionaires trying to block the For the People Act, the election reform bill. A McConnell aid is heard worrying that even Republican voters like the legislation. A little known portion of the bill would stop the money from the most wealthy. 

This would also affect Democrat fund raising, further evidence of Biden bipartisanship. Biden is eying history. Republicans are eying a bunker.  

bunk mates

Hemingway and Joy made quick use of a car seat that spent a night in the garage.

a passage

Photo by Ralph Heimans/Buckingham Palace

        Being no fan of the idea of royalty or aristocracy, I am nonetheless duty bound to say Prince Philip lived a well tailored life. 

      See you down the trail.

When Mother Nature Paints

 

Spring revival in Lana's garden

Color and texture is abundant in our annual look

Mother nature's assistant at work

Wishing you all the best of spring's rebirth!

See you down the trail.

An American Window/Eyes of Innocence

     It's a funny business, this matter of innocence. Complex and even paradoxical. 

    I am riveted by the innocence, the state of nature, in the eyes of these elephant seal pups. I employ them here as allegory; soon they face the overwhelming challenge of what life can throw at you. Were we not all more innocent before Covid?

    Also on our mind is the window, the uniquely American window, of the President and the Press, where this matter of innocence reads itself out in revealing ways. We'll take that up later.

    Pictured here are weanlings from the Piedras Blancas rookery north of San Simeon California. These 3 or 4 month old elephant seals are "out of camp," forced to flee the rookery because of king tides, Pacific storms and overcrowding. 

    They've invaded one of our favorite sand dune beaches and, like a human chump, I've been grousing about that. Fortunately few of my specie come here and these photos were gathered using a zoom lens. 

    These innocents have bigger problems than me disturbing their naps.

    Birthing season peaks in January. Once born an elephant seal gets only a month to 5 weeks of mothering. They nurse on a milk that runs from 12% to 70% fat and grow from about 70 to 300 pounds in that month. The Friends of the Elephant Seal group has studied and protected this rookery since they migrated here from Northern California in the early '90s.

    Mom cuts the pup off after about a month and while she enters mating season the pup, now a weanling, is on his or her own.

    They live on their blubber and get nothing else to eat until they learn to hunt, which follows learning to swim, that involves learning to dive and breath and see underwater. They get no coaching and it is this time of year that life, in the form of hunger, comes calling. 

        Days of napping or hanging with buds are over and they've  got to get into the water, learn it all, and then begin forage eating as they head north. Males go to feed off the Alaskan coast, females head to northern Canada. If they survive they will return to the rookery.

    Once they are return they fast and slumber in a crowd, but while navigating the dangers of the sea, they are on their own. 

    The little guy above has no idea of what awaits. If he's lucky enough to make it back to the central coast he'll have one of the best bunks in the world-a spring fed lagoon, on the Pacific Ocean, and with a Castle view.

the president and the press

        By nature the press and the Presidency have an adversarial relationship. 

        Press freedom is enshrined in the constitution so the founders understood the value of the process. The history of the relationship is uneven, based largely on the manner of the President and/or the overwhelming events of the term. Sadly, the advent of television added the dimension of theater, performance, personality.

        The first Biden press conference was revealing and certainly a departure from the last four years. Our effort here is to examine the nature and grounding of the questions he received and suss out what it tells us about where we are.

        I watched and then viewed highlights. I studied the verbatim transcript. It is a drill of which I am experienced.  Working in radio and television I reported, edited, and analyzed Presidential news conferences starting with Lyndon Johnson.

an old news directors analysis

        In the midst of the pandemic, after the signing of a massive relief bill, historically expensive, and the announcement of doubling the goal for vaccinations, there were no questions about any of it. Surprising and telling. 

        Part of the balance in the relationship is the press assertion of "setting the agenda." I get that, but there should have been some drilling down on the number 1 crisis or issue in the world. The AP's Zeke Miller opened the foray by surfacing immigration, gun control, civil rights, climate and asking the President how far he was willing to go to keep promises.

        The nature of the question was not substantive about those issues, but about personal political action by the President, "...how far would he go?" That is not out of bounds, but it tilts toward politics and away from policy. The answer could be interesting, but not likely to add new information.

       In the last four years Presidential-press encounters were mostly personal and politically divisive. They were about the President and his performance in the spotlight. He spoke frequently of the "ratings!" The White House press corp now has some adjusting to do.

        The tone of some questions was off, too political, too gotcha, too gaming. It is too early too early to begin covering the 2024 campaign. Out of touch with the mood of the nation.

        A Cecilia Vega question about detention centers at the border became wrong headed when it asked "reaction to images, is what's happening inside acceptable to you and when it is going to be fixed?" Trying to get a timeline is worthwhile, but asking an obvious question about his personal reaction takes us to the personality matter, again, and away from the issue and how can it be fixed and when. 

    The personal reaction of a President to something is not unimportant, but not as important as the nuts and bolts of issues. The personal is a hangover of a President and press that was addicted to Twitter.

        Kristin Welker took up a good cause, getting press access to the detention sites, but she used her national moment to press the President about when the administration would commit to transparency, 3 times. No questions about what are the hang ups or obstacles to getting better facilities, no discussion about the use of Fort Bliss and how that will work, are the kids being given counseling, is there any Covid on site, how are they being fed? She pressed him, theatrically, to get cameras in to see the kids. It was "Scene over Substance" and missed opportunities to get on record questions about the kid's well being.

    Nancy Cordes' political question about Republican voter suppression turned to if the president "didn't manage to pass voting rights legislation" his party would loose seats. Personal again-if "he didn't manage" when we all know it is more complicated than that. She also missed the larger issue-that voter suppression affects more than the President and his party, the most significant victims are American voters. The entirely too early question about if he's decided to run for reelection, came just 60 some days into his term. Wrong tone.

Too much reliance on the "horse race" which has dominated political coverage. There are more important matters before this nation than the next campaign.

    Kaitlan Collins asked good question about moving to eliminate the filibuster, but then brought up the reelection campaign again, a "running mate?" would he be running "against Trump?"  This at his first news conference? Too early, at best, silly, faux hard ass and irrelevant. How many of the Americans tuning in had any of that on their mind?

    Yamiche Alcindor asked about the immigration issue, straightforwardly asking how they are deciding who stays and what was the timeline for fixing the issue. In a follow up she asked directly about a filibuster rule. To the point, prompting a response on substance.

    Ken Walsh asked directly about the May 2nd deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. He followed directly, "will there be troops there next year?"

    Justin Sink asked directly about banning imports on forced labor products and cutting US investment or Chinese access to international payment systems. He followed about a manufacturer liability bill or executive action going after ghost guns. To the point, relevant, substantive. 

    Like the President, the White House press lives in a bubble. Reporters are career minded, and sometimes out of touch. They work in a hothouse where politics is a constant and they live in a world of click bait, ratings, breaking news and manipulation. Those pressures can have too much impact on the quality of the work.

    There were too many questions that were reflective of that atmosphere,  seeking personal reaction, and  reporter posturing that seemed to miss the depth of the issues, their complexity, substance and sometimes even the issue itself    . 

    This is the sort of after action analysis I managed with reporters, producers and photographers when I was a news director. The short summary, too much style over substance. Too much snark and not enough intellect. Performance over probing.

    It would be good for this generation of TV reporter, most of those asking questions were from that medium, to watch old press conferences, lots of them, and understand they a part of an important national ritual with more significance than ratings or gossip.

    Stay safe.

    See you down the trail.