In the mid-west and east people will begin looking for hints of color in the maples, sycamores, oaks, hickories, and other deciduous trees, now that we are getting deep into September. Out west we spot the color in the aspen, oak and madrone trees, especially in the Sierra. As a former mid westerner one calculates the connection between color in leaves to leaves on the ground and then the arrival of snow. While we hope for a lot of snow in the Sierra, that part of the equation-snow-changes when you get to the coast. In fact autumn may well be THE season here on the central coast. We still have blooms, the sky is blue, the temperatures are moderate to warm and it stays that way. The only variance are those few days when rain allows for more blooms and a renewing greening. Nominally the rainy season, October through March, means a lot less rain than elsewhere. 24 to 26 inches is a good normal year. Spread that over a 5 to 6 month span and you see rain is a precious and indeed a somewhat rare resource. So, for now, more color from those things that don't require much water. And we'll be on the look out for color in the leaves and reports of the first snow, high in the mountains or back east.
The presidential campaigns continue to court the undecideds, especially in those key and decisive counties in the "battle ground" states. I'm not sure how someone can be undecided at this point, but this is also the age of the "low information voter, so..." BTW, does the concept "low information" voter give you pause too? Or maybe just scare you? To those who might be still undecided, we send along memories of that MeatLoaf classic Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. "What's it going to be? I need to know right now!" "Let me sleep on it." "Tell, what's it going to be? I need to know right now!" "Let me sleep on it." Etc., Etc., Etc. until, you may recall, the refrain "Now I'm praying for the end of time..." You know, for some, it may be better to remain undecided eh?
DAY FILE
DECIDING
Cloudy & Gray or Blue and Sunny
sort of stuck in the middle
If you wait long enough around here,
that California sun shines through
and the skies go blue. REEL THOUGHTS
THE INTOUCHABLES
This French film has been playing The Palm, our favorite art and foreign house, for a few weeks and continues to draw crowds and great reviews. We know why.
The story of a wealthy French aristocrat who suffers a paralyzing accident and the Senegalese emigre from a poor extended family who becomes his caregiver is hilarious, touching and true. Subtitles seem to disappear because the acting and story line are both superb. It's a great little film that will give you a lift.
AND HERE IS ONE TO WATCH FOR
It seems this has greatness written all over it.
Actors, producer, director, and the storyline itself.
We passed about 15 horrible minutes today looking at the insipidly terrible trash video that whipped fundamental Muslims into riotous frenzy. Though it is pathetically stupid and attempts to be offensive to Islam, it is also stupid that intelligent people would riot in response. Rotten is rotten so the best response is to ignore it. Fundamentalists of any stripe seem to abandon reason though and so the protests continue, giving longer life to the very thing they abhor. Duh!!
BACK TO THE POWER
At coffee after tennis this morning David, an admired and respected man, widely traveled and in his 80's, spoke of the extraordinary power of youtube and other internet videos. "It's changed everything" he said, "there is no control over what people see or how they'll react."
In his youth, radio and newspapers were the predominant
carrier of attitude and information. Those media, like television, represent structure, organization and a process that touches and shapes the information at least. The internet of course gives all players equal access to your eyes, ears and brain. It is without an inherent balance, establishment of significance or quality control. And it is pervasive.
With that as a full disclosure disclaimer, allow me to put a piece of propaganda before you this weekend. This is a short trailer about a growing issue and a likely problem across the land. This is a one sided teaser-but it's about something we all need to think about. Note my emphasis on think...something absent in all aspects of the first item posted today.
The best information to date is the Innocence of Muslims was a badly made and cheap film that attracted only a handful of viewers at a screening in LA. It could have died there and never been heard of again. But social media changes all the old rules.
Clips of the film circulated on YouTube and fanned Muslim anger. Strains of fundamental Islam take little to work them into a frenzy. Those who hew to a rigid line of never thinking critically about their own faith, or even thinking in an open minded and rational way are quick to foam and be seized by manic anger. What apparently is a piece of trash with mysterious origin has now become a pivot point of anger, foment and a genuine foreign policy issue. For all that is good about a wired world and communication power, an incident like this points to its dark side.
Ignorance is just that, whether in a film, or in a response to it. Ignorance is rampant in the world, and it wears Muslim, Christian and Jewish garb. A decentralized, non aggregated, free-for-all communication web can simply add fuel to a fire. It obviously can also set sparks. When so much ignorance plays in the tinderbox, the world is more dangerous.
This is the kind of world where the US foreign policy and national security apparatus must operate. It reminds me of muddy and muck filled rivers populated by crocodiles and snakes. I was glad to have a veteran at the helm. Hysterics in this climate can be lethal, but they abound.
ROMNEY'S DANGEROUS MISTAKE
Now before my Republican, conservative or Romney backing readers have apoplexy, this is not about politics.
Indeed even right leaning or right wing commentators as well as old fashioned mainstream Republicans have criticized the Republican candidate for his opportunistic and political attack on the administration. He was accused of speaking too early, or looking weak among other non presidential qualities. The Democrats were more pointed, but since this is not about politics, we leave the comment to his own kind.
From a center court seat and with an historic perspective, his desperation to score political points reflected a lack of judgement, seasoning, sense of depth and class. At a time of international crisis, the US speaks with one voice. And Romney's sense of timing was bad, at the very least.
When Americans and diplomatic personnel are under attack, politics has no place. When those personnel die, any attempt to score political points is not only repugnant and offensive, it is a stupid miscalculation in a grave moment. It was a cheap, stupid and tactless thing to do. Romney and his advisers should be ashamed and are rightly being criticized.
So there you have it. Stupid X's 3. Stupid film, stupid fundamental reaction, stupid politics. What should have been a tempest in a teapot reveals fatal flaws and fault-lines in a dangerous world.
Photo Courtesy of Coast Guard, California Highway Patrol and the Associated Press
It sounds as though the 77 year old pilot and his son were pretty cool as they waited two hours to be pulled from the sinking pontoon plane.
The AP reports the son says his dad landed it well, in the Pacific, a mile off shore of San Simeon, north of Cambria.
They were on their way for an annual Alaskan fishing trip when the engine died. Their locator beacon worked and in a couple of hours the Coast Guard chopper was at work pulling them up, just as the plane was beginning to sink.
What do you think a dad and son would have to say to each other as they bobbed amongst elephant seals, great white sharks and took the waves in a dead plane? Few conversations get that kind of setting.
COACHING YOURSELF IN OUTBURSTS
AND OTHER OATHS
It was amusing to hear what came from other tennis courts as our group took a break between sets. Guys were being vocal with them self, berating their own play or lack of control. Since the courts are on a school campus there is a club policy against profanity. In that context I heard a few God Bless Americas! being hurled in that voice that seems as if it struggles with control. Mostly, guys talking to themselves, like a coach; keep your eye on the ball (insert name), stroke it, don't poke it (insert name), oh!, where were you going with that shot (insert name)?
In a few minutes I was back on the court, and probably
They are beautiful if fleeting pieces. It provides a great weekend on the Mission Plaza. But what backbreaking work, to say nothing of the hands and knees.
His sensitivity points us to behold the power and even mystery of life beyond or beside human parameters.
Out there, up there, even in there are forces and natural occurrences that form the basis of science and dumbfounds rational tools. We theorize.
Watching star populated night skies over the Pacific and lightless mountains propounds the dazzling concept of interstellar space. Seeing depth in a star field lends credibility to the vast distances of space and time. Out there are perhaps dark holes, worm holes and theories we can't fully explain. And now the little Voyagers are about to pass the limits we biped's have postulated to in up there.
Learning about in there is accelerating in a post DNA gene sequencing world. Medicine is getting more precise. The closer we look, the more we see forces beyond our making and which influence destiny.
And there are spirit, heart, soul, religion and philosophy which bind an alternative in there. Wisdoms, truths, transcendence and riddles are pondered yet they too stand in the face of mystery.
The national political convention television shows have done a good job of defining differences haven't they?
Sense of the job to be done, fairness, inclusiveness, exclusivity, expectations of government, responsibility for self, for others, ability to tell the truth, diversity, vision, overcoming, gender rights, owning up to history, and more.
America really has an opportunity to decide between vastly different attitudes about government and who we are, who we have been and what we might become.
It is a contest and battle of will, sense of right and wrong and history.
PS-the old reporter in me chuckled when Bill Clinton mentioned both Presidents Bush and his cooperation with them. I think he gave George H. W. and George W. more airtime than either man got from their party in Tampa.
DAY FILE PICTURES OF BLUE
If you look carefully at the frame below you may spot a water spout from one of the passing humpback whales.
Here's some context. Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Magic Johnson was at Michigan State, Stephen King released The Shining, Tom Watson won the Masters and Apple released their new color logo. 35 years ago today one of this planet's greatest accomplishments was launched. Voyager 1 began the journey that today has taken it 11 Billion miles and to the edge of our solar system. Voyager 1 and companion Voyager 2, now some 9.3 Billion miles in another direction, continue to mine data of deep space, soon to be interstellar space. Voyager has gone the farthest human kind has reached. On board are those gold discs containing sounds, data and renderings of human life, in case an intelligence encounters our sub-compact car sized "human offspring" wandering beyond our knowledge base. Alicia Chang of the Associated Press reports each Voyager "has only 68 kilobytes of computer memory. To put that in perspective, the smallest iPod-an 8 gigabyte Nano-is 100,000 times more powerful. Each also has an eight-track tape recorder." Mind bending isn't it?
THE OTHER BOUNDARY
Jack Kerouac's cult classic On The Road was published by Viking Press on this day in 1957.
From back cover of ON THE ROAD
The original manuscript, a long continuous roll of type written script, now belongs to Jimmy Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts.
A few years ago the late George Plimpton told me he was in an office as the On The Road manuscript roll was being read and considered. He said while it may be revered now on that particular day, people in the office were having fun unrolling it across the floor and back, like a kid's toy.
Photo from mountholly-lamano.com
DAY FILE
GARDEN NOTES
We've got a "volunteer" and "mystery" squash growing down the back hill side.
A tomato update. The "beautiful" greenhouse continues to endure evening breezes and winds and the crop inside flourishes. It ain't pretty, but the crop is.
It continues to amaze us that we can grow tomatoes in this climate near the Pacific fed by the cooler than hot and humid mid-west conditions which favor tomatoes.
Labor day was just one more working day in a newsroom. Yet there was a kind of cosmic foreshadowing that occurred in my kid hood.
As a grade school kid I became fascinated with radio news. There was something special about those voices coming in from great distances, telling about events of significance. Perceptive man that my father was, he made sure I paid attention and thought about the process. As it turns out, he knew the local radio and TV newsman.
Fred Moore Hinshaw had been an NBC announcer and legend had it that he and Lorne Greene (later of Bonanza) were the deep voices of NBC East and West back in the days when radio news reached more people than TV. Fred came to Muncie Indiana, following his wife who was the local drama teacher. Fred became a founder of the local television station and its news director. Hinshaw Edits the News not only aired on radio, but in the early days of television, became the only source for local news on the tube. Dad made sure I watched and listened to Hinshaw edit the news.
Well one labor day, a rare day for my dad to be home and not at work, he loaded me into the car and we drove a ways into what I recognized was a "nicer" part of Muncie. The homes were larger, many of them were brick and they all had beautiful large yards with plenty of shrubs, hedges and shade trees. There on a slight slopping large green lawn was a man, sweating and wearing a cap as he shoved a lawn mower, the non powered type, over the lawn. Dad pulled to the curb and honked. The fellow turned, recognized dad and came over to the car. It took a moment for me recognize the sweating man as Hinshaw, from Hinshaw Edits the News. I was stunned.
Dad and he chatted about politics and then said I was interested in the news. I can't remember what passed in that conversation, but I was struck by the fact the man on the radio and television was mowing the lawn. At our house, my brother and I mowed the lawn.
Then that evening as the clatter of the teletype and the announcer intoned that Hinshaw Edits the News I was struck by the fact the man behind the desk with the deep voice and serious look had been the profusely sweating fellow on the nice lawn. I'm not sure what I expected, that perhaps Hinshaw never left the station, was always on alert for news. It then dawned on me that on this big deal holiday when working men and women had the day off, this guy was there, working. And just a few hours earlier he had really been working, breaking a sweat on a beautiful lawn.
By the time I was working in a newsroom, I was not at all surprised by the fact that a holiday, even for working men and women, didn't mean a thing other than the stories we covered-parades, picnics and people working in their yards. Like Christmas, New Year's eve and Thanksgiving, it was just another day of work.
A quick post script. Years later when I was in college and working as a radio news reporter in Muncie, my boss was Fred Moore Hinshaw. He was a brilliant writer, journalist, thinker and a bit of a rascal poet. Had he chosen the lights of a big city he would have succeeded, might even have been Chet Huntley. He chose family, home and making a contribution where he lived, even if it meant sweating a couple of times on Labor Day. My dad and Fred were of the same generation. They were great teachers.
