Shades of Gray

 

        The sky interfused with the gray marine bank on the horizon and everything muted in the cast of a haze and filtered flat light.

    

        A "Fogust" day with a twist, more pelican squads than I have seen.

        North of Cambria the kelp beds and sea vegetation is thick, heavy and in my untrained observation, thicker than normal.

        

       Pelicans, cormorants and gulls gather near the kelp forest and sea grass.     

        The pelicans were dressed for a late August gray at the coast. 

        A natural display and lots of fresh air. Living, between sea and sky.

    See you down the trail

Bad Never Ends Well

MEMORANDUM

     To: Citizens of the United States

     From: History

        The present status of Afghanistan was obvious October 7, 2001, the day the US invasion began. 

        A casual knowledge of history would have reminded the President and Congress that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires." No less than Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the bully Soviet Union had floundered and failed in the geographically beautiful and resource rich land of warring tribes, and trouble.

        

        The alleged purpose of the invasion was to get Osama bin Laden and to degrade the terrorist network. 

        From the outset there was fraud, mismanagement and perhaps most importantly, no clear view of an end or exit strategy. We stumbled into the notion of "nation building" and got stuck. We failed to learn from Viet Nam. 

        What begins as a mistake ends that way. 

        In the emotion and political blather we should remember and note a few things as a record since we live in an age of public stupidity, historic ignorance and ignorance of history, media hype, hysterical politics and the penchant of politicians to play the blame game.

        Since this post is not without ire and heartburn we'll interlace it with scenes intended to pacify or lower your blood pressure.

        In the immediate news one should look to see the valor, patience, good spirit and character of US service personnel as they maintain order, assist the exodus, soothe and assure the frightened and frazzled, and help to bring function out of brokenness.

        The optics, panic in the first hours, have changed as thousands are being evacuated, and the scene will change again.

        As always happens our attention will be diverted, our screens will be on to something else and the shutting down of a bad war will become old news and likely forgotten by most.

        Most do not know or remember that weeks before the invasion US personnel, CIA, and special forces military including Marines and Army had tracked Bin Laden to the region of Tora Bora and a series of caves. Men on the scene reported Bin Laden could have been had in September. They needed additional support to "close the back door."  Those in pursuit were told by commanders they needed authorization from the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld balked, at the insistence of Vice President Dick Cheney who was masterminding the invasion ramp up that was to become America's longest war. The Battle of Tora Bora did not come until December, and by that time Bin Laden had fled, likely to Pakistan. 

        More than the troops who had tracked Bin Laden were furious about the Cheney-Rumsfeld delay, so was CIA Director George Tenet and Secretary of State General Colin Powell. Inside sources have said Cheney and Rumsfeld blocked the CIA/Special Forces advance on Bin Laden because an early success would have endeared Tenet and Powell to George Bush. Bush already liked Tenet, who suspected the President was being "played" by his vice president.

        Despite the chicanery of Cheney, the W. Bush administration never developed an end of the war exit plan. Members of the Senate were angry that Rumsfeld blew off the request of those plans. They got away with it and they got their bad war. That bad war is now coming to a bad end.

        Afghanistan is a place of tribal loyalty and there is hardly a sense of nationhood. The Brits and the Russians learned it is a place of corrupt politicians and military leaders. It is land of poppies, the source for much of the world's heroin and is a cash rich enterprise. It is a land of deal making and duplicity. Modernity comes slowly because of old ways. Fundamentalism, wahhabism, and superstition dominate the vast number of uneducated. Even today modern Afghan women are being forced to hide, or resort to Sharia law stipulations. US troops were appalled by the brutality of man on boy sexual practices among some Afghan fighters and regional leaders. This is the place were almost 2,500 US troops were killed, part of the 3,500 Allied troops who died there. 

        20 Thousand US men and women were injured. 69 thousand Afghan fighters were killed. 51 thousand civilians died. The financial cost to US taxpayers was 4-6 Trillion for the Afghanistan and Iraq war.

    

        Billions upon Billions of dollars were fraudulent or wasted. 

     

• In just six years, the IG has tallied at least $17 billion in questionable spending. This includes $3.6 billion in outright waste, projects teetering on the brink of waste, or projects that can’t — or won’t — be sustained by the Afghans, as well as an additional $13.5 billion that the average taxpayer might easily judge to be waste. Exhibit A for “You be the judge”: $8.4 billion was spent on counter-narcotics programs that were so ineffective that Afghanistan has produced record levels of heroin — more than it did before the war started. 

        That is from an analysis of the Inspector General's Report on the Afghanistan war.  I urge you to read the analysis published by ProPublica if you do not wish to read the full IG report

            Link here to read the Propublica analysis

        The war that President Biden shut down needed to be ended. There is a simple minded thought being advocated  that that we could have just continued with the low troop presence of the last couple of years and have not withdrawn. How long then should we have done that? Forever?

    

     Afghanistan would never be ready to be weaned from the American breast. The collapse of the government and military in less than two weeks proves it. Our loyalty here is not to Afghanistan but to the US.

        Here is the kind of damage that media, Republicans and even critical Democrats will not tell you. 3 short examples of the kind of drain that comes with a continued presence. 

        --The US Dept of Agriculture funneled 34.4 million dollars to induce Afghans to grow soybeans. Soybeans don't grow well there and Afghans didn't want to eat soybeans.

        --The Dept. of Defense spent 43 Million dollars in developing a concept for a compressed natural gas station. It failed.    

        --The US, through several agencies, spent 2 Billion in building roads that will cost Afghanistan more to maintain than the nation has.

        There are scores of such costs in a "maintenance and support" of a nation that did not want us there, did not want to be pushed into a nation built in our image, that cannot support itself and that allows an old testament band of zealots to take control. Those "maintenance and support" programs were however great for the defense contractors and "beltway bandits." Shouldn't those resources be better applied to needs in the US?

        Things should have been done by the Biden administration. It is still not too late for NATO and the UN to establish an Exit Corridor for all who wish to leave Afghanistan, especially those with visas. Refugees should be escorted to resettlement centers in several nations. Saudi Arabia has facilities to handle hundreds of thousands and they should be tasked to do it. The Taliban can be traced to Saudi history.

        Few understand that when the Intelligence Community reports they offer a range of scenarios and information. Some members of the community may not be sync with others. The President and his advisors have to act with sometimes conflicting frames of information. 

        The visa process for Afghans who assisted the US should have been streamlined, but it is unclear if even the President can cut through the burdensome red tape.

        Some say Biden could have abrogated the disastrous Trump Pompeo surrender plan, they called a peace deal. But had Biden done so, after Trump's inept pulling out of international accords and straining relations with allies, the US would again look like it could not be trusted to keep a deal. 

        Biden campaigned on the idea of getting out of Afghanistan. As much as 70% of US citizens support him.

        

        As a father of daughters and a grand daughter I am especially sensitive to the tragedy and danger facing Afghani women. UN and world attention should be focused, assisting women to leave and monitoring the behavior of the Taliban government.

        The extension of rights in Afghanistan is not the province of the US. Women here still struggle against oppression. The fight of an American President should be here and that goes for the loudest advocate of rights in the US as well. 

        Those who are frenzied now about what a shabby thing the US and the President has done in ending the war and leaving modern Afghans in harms way, would do themselves a favor to recall how shabbily this nation has treated its own veterans, war fighters and first responders.

        During the 20 years of the Afghanistan war, fortunes have been made. Areas around Washington DC have blossomed and have become some of the wealthiest areas in the US. This war had winners, Dick Cheney and his defense contractor allies. They got the war they wanted. 

        Under the best potential circumstance, war is a failure. It is a failure of intellect, diplomacy, human decency and spiritual codes. Bad wars are a worse kind of hell and they do not end nicely, but they must end. History will reward President Biden for bringing to an end America's longest war, a war that 3  President's would not end.

        Those who got us into this war lacked it, but in ending "their" war Biden displayed a virtue, courage. 

        See you down the trail.

     

      

Heavy Lifting in Tomorrow Land

 

        You can understand if they, anyone under 30, want to toss us over. We have certainly handicapped their future. 

    You can understand why we might want to toss over some of us. We, collectively humankind, have blown it, in more ways than we care to enumerate. 

    Some of us began with concern and then warnings. Some of us heard the siren and began fumbling toward correction. Some of us nailed down the science and heightened the alarm. Some of us got more serious, more ardent, more engaged and it is precisely there, on this front line between knowledge and action where "we" became frayed and then  undone. We became a DMZ between foresight and negligence, between us and them,  though we are all players in the dirty deal. 

    The planet had science, and then big money bought some of it. When scientists told an oil company decades ago fossil fuels were killing the planet and that meant ocean levels were rising, they decided to raise the level of their drilling platforms and keep the dark secret as a gift for their descendants. 

    The UN Red Warning for Planet Earth confirms what we had been told, tells us it is worse than we knew, and it is an indictment for all of us. We are all guilty of this crime; those of us who worried about the science and tried to make changes, those of us who knew the science and kept on doing business as normal, those of us who "knew in our hearts" we were doing a slow motion dance with death but still relied on legal and political means to make change, and those of us who put wealth and profit above all else! The power was in the big money and they bought lobbyists and congressmen and senators and wrote laws that were phony and ineffective.

        Edward Abbey, like all of us, was flawed, but he spoke truths and is a godfather of a strain of environmental awareness also known as Eco-Warriors. 

        He said, "sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul."

        There's been a lot of that. 

        

        We have done an accounting and learn we value money and material over the sanctity of life; ours, nature, the planet and the future. By thousands of actions we have all plundered the kid's future, a murder by a multitude of blows.

         All of that board room business and "economic cost" blather and all of the political mumbo jumbo got us to where we are. Humankind has been hoodwinked, seduced and is being undone by our greed. 

        As someone who has studied non-violence I am conflicted now, wondering if political guerrilla war fare might not have forced a better outcome, and drawn more attention to the selling of our soul. 

     Abbey wrote, "Better a cruel truth than comfortable delusion." 

      If there had been serious "monkey wrenching" we might have had more sway, more impact in protecting the future. My late brother John was a radical, a street fighter, while also an effective psychological clinician. I think now of some of our long and deep conversations. I might have better served my grand children if I would have stepped out of the neutrality of journalism and joined a fight. 

       As did others, I spent years reporting the story, even investigating environmental crimes. Our work informed, but being right and even being righteous doesn't guarantee success.

        As worthy as it might be to batch grind all of us of a certain age into dog food, I would urge the inheritors of tomorrow land to forget about old scores and instead go to work immediately in applying all knowledge and science to making adjustments, modifications, and new ways of living. Where and how you live, raise food, get water, cooperate, and even multiply will and should change. Yes, we need to stop doing damage, but you will have to make profound changes just to survive.

    Screw the profit motive. Find a way to value the totality of all human life. Nation's divide and create barriers including to solutions. The planet makes you all kindred, regardless of old power structures. Bridge and then diminish them. Be exhaustingly careful where you put your trust. Don't let money pimp science. Put cooperation and communitarian objectives into problem solving. Depose political and royal kings, queens, potentates, war lords, strongmen and those who rule or possess power because money bought it or made it happen. If money rules, life loses. Classism will only complicate the enormous challenges you will face.

     We fly computers into the heavens, rich men ride rockets for fun, but we can't house, feed or medicate people and we continue to poison our home. You in tomorrow land need to find better ways. 

       A few years ago some of us thought we could fix and make better. We failed, especially on the big matters.

        

        For those of us who will not venture deep into tomorrow land, let's get out of the way and for once begin to act in something other than our own selfish interests. Let's behave as though there is a future that has a value that exceeds our materialistic cult and age. Let's pray for the well being of future generations.    

        For those of you who will inhabit tomorrow land, respect the science, respect life, respect each other and do good, for the sake of everything.

        See you down the trail. 

  

DELUSION IN AMERICA

 

        The scenes are hauntingly reminiscent, shutter flashes of a pre-millennium sci-fi or political thriller, too absurd to believe. But here we are, witnesses to a dystopian undoing of our own world view and all that we have believed about democracy and the American way.

     Truth is set aside. Delusion becomes contagion. They would rather die than take a vaccine. They've become a Reich, wrecking a Republic. A tidal rise of insanity, a time of vultures.

        The newest revelations of "madness-Trump" do more than confirm, they scare the hell out of us. 

        Joint Chiefs, the Speaker of the House, national security executives, former leaders all in furtive calls and liaisons desperately trying to avoid a nuclear launch, a rogue war, and the use of federal troops on American citizens. Never before has an American president talked of staging a coup!

        Even with all of that, the Republican party is interested only in restricting who can vote, and changing laws to give them control over the count.

        They seek to do what the 1/6 insurrection could not,  divert the course, change the outcome, of public elections.

        It is time to ignore Trump. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has begun to ignore politician's false statements and stunts. All media should do likewise.    

        I am a first amendment absolutist and as reporter was equally absolute about the public's right to know. I oppose any form of censorship, or restriction of media access. Media has no obligation to quote Trump or even give attention to his absurd lies about the election. There is no news in his mental illness.

         Printing or broadcasting his lies does no one but Trump any good. Giving him time and attention is a destructive drumbeat that is a call to damage or destroy the nation.

        History speaks to us. Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs has joined historians and those who see in Trump and Republican leadership similarities with the Nazi fascists of pre World War II. It's chilling to consider how the German nation was propagandized by lies into following a liar and madman. Donald Trump is observably delusional. Those who follow him and who do his bidding are a public insanity that should frighten us to our bones.

        Despite the monuments that would memorialize democracy, its foundation is not bed rock granite. Democracy is no stronger than its participants are wise. 

        Stupidity, that is a lack of knowledge, ignorance of history and fact has been rampant. Now, zombie like, mass public insanity rises from the septic mass who elect Q dupes, those who refuse to see the domestic terrorism of Trump, or who cynically swindle public trust and trample the truth as does Mcarthy, McConnell and thousands of Republican office holders. "Good Republicans" are being strangled by evil. 

            We are deep into it now. I don't know that historians can find a time so replete with mass lunacy and political imbecility. 

       

        A war has begun. The Republican party is wholly unfit, anti American and seeks to destroy democracy. They are in league with domestic terrorists.

        Democrats would do us all a favor if they went on the offensive. So too should people of conscience. 

        "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

                                  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

        Bonhoeffer was a German theologian and pastor who was executed for his role in attempts to assassinate Adolph Hitler. 

        He had said if he sat next to a madman as he drove a car into a group of innocent bystanders he could not, even as a man of faith, simply wait for the catastrophe. He said he must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.

        Not to act, is to act.

        See you down the trail.

        

An American Lamentation and A Toast!

 

        (California Central Coast) Here's a view from the western edge of this old democratic republic as it rounds 245 years.

      Demanding and challenging times are ahead. 

      After the exile of the pandemic we arrive at this anniversary of our noble and declared aspirations only to be confronted by who we have become, or a recognition of who we have always been. Proportion and public acceptance has changed. 

       In the light of freedom from monkhood and the glow of returning to friends and work and life in a nation under a steady hand, we see the enemy amongst us.  

 

        It is telling the vaccinated can live with assurance, but 30% of the nation will continue to die and suffer because they remain unvaccinated. 

        Two and half centuries of commitment to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, following our revolution against despotism, finds us divided and challenged by a fifth column that no longer hides.

        We have become more divided and more ignorant. 

         A bastion of the nation has been split from our constitutional bedrock. The Republican party, has turned against America, rejecting democracy and republic to become agents of autocracy and authoritarianism. 

        Gaining power is the sole principle of Republicans and they employ lies, insurrection, voter suppression and the abandonment of oaths. 

        We can thank the "Natures God" affirmed in the Declaration, and sworn to in oaths of office, there are more Americans committed to democracy. The majority has the capacity to limit the rise of the aggressive fascist, but "they" have become adept at minority "rule."

        They are under attack. 

        A select House Committee, despite Republican opposition, will draw blood on the insurrection investigation.

        Biden's mastery of foreign policy and his decades of Senate law making, though challenged, are serving him and the nation well. He has bi-partisan support among the electorate. His performance with NATO and especially with Putin boosted his standing and served national interests while exposing what a fraud the previous administration amateur hour had been. 

        House and Senate Republicans represent a minority of American voters, but Congressional apportionment and Senate representation give the minority a big stick. That makes the mid-terms crucial. Recruiting and funding good House and State Legislative candidates is a Democrat must, as is another successful massive vote turn out.

        Trump legal issues will mount. There is likely more coming. 

        The Department of Justice is gearing up to enforce election law, even as a rightist Supreme Court attacks the voting rights act.

        The Biden and Democrat plan for gun control and funding of police, co-opts and shuts up Republican carping about crime.

        Democrats have given Republicans the gallows and the noose on voting rights. They may not carry the legislation because of racist and fascist Republicans including Mitch McConnell and his use of blocking tactics, but Democrats and former real Republicans are betting the majority of American voters favor extending voting rights. Polls validate the belief the fascist Republicans are likely to pay at the ballot box. Despite efforts to making voting more difficult, voting activists say the way is still clear for a large turn out. 

        Expect to see our US Capitol begin to resemble a "green zone," a reflection of the troubled times. It's easy to say this national split can be blamed on the rise of Trump, and he certainly contributed by pandering to our worst strain. But the truth at this passage of another year of "independence" is that it has been ever such.

        Nativisim, nationalism, racism, retrograde simple minded ignorance, demagoguery, and the damage they do have been with us from the beginning. Every inch of progress, every law expanding liberty, guaranteeing human dignity and rights has been a battle. 

        Picket lines, demonstrations, voter drives, confrontations, jail, street fights, political deal making, compromises, and pragmatism have been behind every advance toward our noble declarations and aspirations. Some of us are older, hoping it would not require such hard work, but the truth is independence is a fight, a democratic republic is a struggle. The fight is revolutionary against the totality of deception, manipulation, the power of wealth, the politics of favor and greed. 

        The nation has endured dark clouds repeatedly, finding a way to preserve and even repair and improve the union. It may be necessary for the power of the federal government to be brought against those who seek to destroy the republic, even public officials who seek to countermand what has prevailed since 1776, though war, rebellion, assassination, disaster, struggle for equality, and time. 

        Enough politics. Time to toast summer, good cheer and the truth.

         Here's an unexpected summer scene-

     

        I was surprised to see a hybrid electric truck, especially one wearing a famed American logo, on Cambria's main street. Progress?

        

      Here's another piece of Americana-summer gardening. 

You've read here before of our love of fava beans and Lana's considerable labor with them. Case in point..the bowl on the left are the pods, the middle bowl, the inner husk or shell* and on the far right, the bean.  The artichokes are from one of our raised beds and another early summer crop.

            *It's a matter of test about getting rid of the inner husk. I think they add a little flavor. Lana prefers them gone. Here's a secret, I used them, still in the husk, in a recent dish, and she didn't notice, or at least object! 

        We welcome a new member to the blog staff here at world headquarters.

        His name is Sunny. He's been here less than a week and continues to "terrorize" his seniors, Hemingway and Joy. The old cats are learning to accommodate the never ending energy and appetite of the little guy.

        He's got some ears to grow into. Needless to say the grands Addie and Henry, have a new buddy. We all do.

        Cheers.

        Slainte'.

        See you down the trail. 

 

 

        

 

CURRENTS OF CHANGE

     Have you noticed the changes swirling around us as we re-enter life?

    Our friend Marcos, visiting from Scottsdale, watched the walkers, surfers and beach denizens on a busy afternoon in Cayucos and observed "I just can't believe how quickly we have gone from such isolation and carefulness to this," pointing to what could easily have been a pre-pandemic California beach scene.

    Some express a sense of guilt the US has opened while many nations are still gripped by fear and soaring death rates. 

    We've heard the callous, those who are dying now "have it coming" because they have refused vaccinations.

    People talk about  variants, a possible breakthrough, whether to mask again when flu and cold season return. 

    And I've noticed we have some remedial work to do in our social skills. After a year and half of limited social contact, listening, waiting a turn to speak, and sharing the floor can all use some polishing. 

    As we expected, normal is not like it used to be, but we are intent on living it fully.

Photo by Babak Tafreshi

The Great Jaguar Pyramid

        I was fascinated to see the above photo by Iranian science journalist and photographer Babak Tafreshi. He captured the Pleiades above the famed Great Jaguar Pyramid at Tikal, a Mayan site in the jungles of northern Guatemala. 

        An assignment took me to Tikal as I worked on a documentary about Mayan culture and the mysterious pyramids of central America. 

        The Great Jaguar was built in 732 AD and was part of a Mayan capital that existed until 1450. My photos are less sensational, but our videographer captured marvelous scenes.

        Thought to be a funerary temple it is nine levels high, symbolic of the Mayan underworld. We climbed those steep steps, carefully. 

        There is superstition and legend around Tikal, sometimes referred to as the place of voices. I have a theory about that.

        Our crew was scheduled to stay at a camp lodge just a few miles from Tikal, but a few weeks before our arrival it was destroyed by a fire as a result of a gun battle between rebels and government troops. We persuaded the local government to let us stay at Tikal in thatch roofed huts used by archeologists when they were working on the site. The only power was from a generator that had to be turned off by 10PM. 

        When the overhead fans stopped it was hot. We were under triple canopy and the air barely stirred. When the lights were out you could not see your hand pressed to your nose. Complete darkness. And yes we heard the "voices."

        The place is infested with Black Howler monkeys.

    One Guatemalan source says the sound is "like the lament of one of the tortured and bellicose demons of Mayan mythology." It's been described as the sound of the "devil retching."

     My memory of sweating and sticking to damp sheets in the stale air of a thatched hut as the Black Howlers climbed over the top of the roof while howling is vivid. In was in that setting I surmised the "voices" were in fact the monkeys. Others who have spent more time at Tikal say those voices are more spiritual. 

            As Babak's night photo reveals, the plaza at Tikal is a marvelous place for night sky, not so in the dense jungle.

        Cambria is like that too. In the trees it's not so good, but in open areas our night sky views are magnificent. 

        I applaud Claudia Harmon and Beautify Cambria's efforts to preserve the heritage of seeing our celestial neighbors.

        Cambria has its share of astronomical photographers and I wonder how many of us spent more time looking at the stars in the last year and half. 

        

        How are you and your pod fairing in the changes of reopening? In our case we helped hold on to sanity by gathering with a 4 other masked friends every other week in either a court yard, back deck, garage in inclement weather, or Diane's delightful back garden.  

        It was human contact in a slightly more relaxed context. At a time when we were wary of being too close to others, it was wonderful to be with friends. Now that we can dine out, shop without masks and enjoy being vaccinated, we still like to return to Diane's because it's just lovely. 

        That's another Cambria blessing isn't it? We have so many lovely gardens, meditation spaces, places to sit and enjoy.

        I'll let you in on a little story about surfing these currents of change. Our little pod decided we'd take a lunch out. First week it was grand, and not surprisingly we ran into other Cambrians we had not seen for a while. Emboldened by that we thought we'd try again and at a what had been a neat little place by the water, but out of the village. We arrived to find the afore mentioned Diane sitting on a bench, having gotten there 30 minutes early to put in our names for a "45 minute to hour wait." 

    We all assembled and stood around wondering if we were in a crowd for an amusement ride or maybe kayak rental. After another 20 minutes we were told there were still nine parties in front of us. Enough of that, we bolted for the place we had been successfully the week before only to be told it would be "45 minutes to an hour." 

        Starting this week, we are back to each other's deck, court yard and Diane's garden. 

        Guess we had forgotten that "normal" sometimes meant "the wait will be about 45 minutes, we'll call you when your table is ready."

        Bet there's a table or a bench or chair closer to home and with no wait. And Cambria is as lovely as lovely can be.

        See you down the trail.