RESPECTING NATURE'S ELDERS

THEY DESERVE MORE RESPECT

I am, literally, a tree hugger.  Years ago I learned 

 a native practice for young men. Sorry to report I can't recall which tribal nation.

  It requires standing in the spring with your spine aligned  with a tree that is of your relative age. You put your arms behind you, encircle the tree and clasp your hands.  

This is done at a time of year when the sun and damp earth create an awakening and budding in the tree.

The idea is to sense or feel the energy flow along your spine

and to be "one" with the tree. In the practice, the

young brave stood for hours.  I've been a piker by

comparison but it is something I try to do each spring,

though young is no longer an apt description.

I think of trees as a kind of planetary elder.

I am in awe and marvel at the age and size

of redwoods and sequoias.

I've been to this point before.

A story through-line and subtext of my

second book, THE SANIBEL CAYMAN DISC,

deals with development vs. nature

and how civilization interacts with the environment.

Those under pin the surface story, the black market

in chemical and biological weapons.

I tell you this so you know my bias when

I say old trees deserve respect.

These are scenes of a recent cutting of

eucalyptus trees in Cambria.  I understand

 eucalyptus trees are fire hazards. But when a tree, still healthy, gets to this age, what is gained from felling it?  This cutting occurred on public land,

near to a trail and at a great distance from power lines. 

Smaller trees nearby were left standing.  In fact

there are many in the area that should be

pruned.  Thinning also makes sense.  I am not averse

to sound forest management practices and indeed

there are areas of the Central Coast where work needs to be done.  I am left wondering though, why an ancient tree, posing no threat needs to be felled.

I'm sure there is an official rationale.

 I've heard such explanations before and 

often they are narrow minded and usually involve

funding. 

Maybe I'm wrong headed, and overly sentimental

on the value of a tree.  But how many people do you 

know who survive to 150, 300 or even 2,500 years?

See you down the trail.

WHEN VALIANT EFFORTS MATTER

OF HAVING BEEN IN THE ARENA
PURELY PERSONAL RUMINATIONS
A confluence of events has me seeking strength
from a favorite observation by
Teddy Roosevelt.
I offer it below.


I was saddened to learn from a tennis partner and friend
 he is hanging it up. He also plays a few days
a week and I joined his longstanding foursome for Monday doubles play about a year and half ago. We met him and his wife when we arrived 5 years ago. They are
fine people. He is a talented and crafty competitor 
who has played the game for decades.  He offered
great patience when I picked up the sport about
3 years ago and I've improved from those matches
when he was on the other side of the net.  He
gave no quarter.  He could smash the ball to your feet,
kill you with a cross court or alley shot or one of his feathering drop shots with spin. He seemed to love the game
and the spirit of competition and every match, win or loose was great fun.  He told me today it just hurts too much
now and that after playing he is forced to take
a pill to stop aching.  He said "it is just time. It was bound to
happen."  You hate to see a great competitor leave
the arena.


I also noticed an obit that fed the sense of melancholy.

From San Luis Obispo Tribune

Sunday January 8, 2012

Art Rogers passed away in a nursing home Morro Bay, just down the coast from Cambria. He was 93. In his day
Art was one of the best sports photographers around.
You've probably seen his work in Time, Sports Illustrated,
and the old Look and Life magazines.
He spent his career with the LA Times where he
won the National Headliners Award among others. He was 
part of the team that won a Pulitzer for the coverage of
the 1965 Watts Riot.
He was a U.S. Navy photographer in the south Pacific
during WWII.  He is also enshrined in the Hermosa 
Beach Surfers Hall of Fame.
Like my tennis buddy he is also a Californian.


I've always been a bit envious of California guys. After all
this is the state that we chose to move across
country to after reaching a maturity in our own lives.
I confess that coming here in someway was
motivated by a spark of an idea that in California
you can play forever.
Well, to be sure Californians do play a long time
and with a gusto and joy.
Thus the touch of sadness when the game is over


Another sportsman offers a bolstering thought:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt issued those great remarks

in a speech "Citizenship in a Republic"

delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris in April of 1910.

Today they make me feel better.

DAY BOOK

The Sun Always Rises Again

See you down the trail

THE WEEKENDER :) GO FOR IT

DO IT, AND KEEP DOING IT

Consider this THE WEEKENDER:)'S moment of

coaching and inspiration.  Some of you may have

made resolutions to be more fit or active this

year.  As a boomer, I know how it is some days

to force yourself into a work out.

I draw lots of inspiration from people here in

our village, our seniors, who are extraordinarily active.

Many of the better players in the tennis club have

several years on me.  I play doubles with gent

who I thought was probably mid 70's.  He's 88 and

you should see him run for the alley and net shots.

Inspiration indeed.

So in that spirit and THE WEEKENDER :) creed to

enjoy, enjoy this. And be inspired.

See you down the trail.

HIGH TIDES AND CHOCOLATE TONGUES

ROUGH SURF

 High surf advisories were up again today.

 17 foot waves were predicted. Even where it was

 less than that, you could see the power of the Pacific.

 Surf advisories turn the ocean into a kind of pallet of motion and action.

 It was mostly gentle at San Simeon cove, near to

where the Friday Lunch Flash Mob gathered.

 Today was chocolate taste test day.

Six candies, to be evaluated, 1-6.

 Our official CPA, Jeanie, did the tabulation.

 Our royal surrogate, Princess Pam and Ruth, the matron of our salon, presided.

 Troy announced the results.

 And everyone took home citrus grown

by Bob in Bakersfield.

In the last couple of days fellow blogger, Bruce a.k.a the Catalyst, and I have traded notes about living in a small town or village.  He was somewhat incredulous when I said I loved it and can hardly imagine living again in a large urban setting. Village life is different, indeed, but so sweet.

Can you imagine a Friday lunch crowd like ours

in many other locations?

I told him the saying we hear out here is true.

"Cambria is not like the rest of the world."

His wise counsel (he is my elder) was

"To continue to enjoy life in your oblivion,

stay out of local politics!"

See you down the trail.

GOLLY MR. WIZARD

A WRINKLE IN TIME
Maybe that take on the Mayan Calendar is right
and this is the year for the end of time.
OK, OK, I'm not serious. 
But in a way I am.
More in a moment.
CONSIDER RECENT SCIENCE
Government labs that create a new form of bird flu, without an antidote.  Stupid!!  That could be an "incurable" problem. Maybe time marches on minus the human race.
Can there really be time if there is no one there to observe it?
Higgs Boson research detects, maybe, evidence of the God particle or dark matter.  
The discovery of possibly inhabitable planets hovering hear a black hole and more of that dark matter.
All of this sounds like variation of down the rabbit hole
with Alice, into some strange new world.
Then I read that researchers at Cornel University have created a tiny hole in time where things occur that 
are entirely undetectable. A few years ago physicists found a way to do "spatial cloaking," that is make things
disappear.  Now they've done it with time.
According to David Brown in the Washington Post
"the extreme bending of light that makes spatial cloaking possible requires so-called optical metamaterials made through nanotechnology.  Temporal cloaking depends on special lasers and optical fibers that disperse or undisperse light in predictable ways."
If you are at all curious, I urge you to read about
the Cornel research.  Yep, it is mind bending. (Where is 
Don Herbert, Mr Wizard, now that we really need him?)
Anyway, here is my proposition:
If the Cornel researchers have made time invisible,
then maybe that saw about the Mayan Calendar
predicting the end of time was right.
So relax, that's out of the way.  You can quit worrying
about Apocalypse 2012.
Unless that damned bird flu gets out of the lab.
Oh, I can hear this old lyrics now
"...when will they ever learn?"
DAY BOOK

TEXTURES

See you down the trail.

WHY NOT RELEVANT COVERAGE? & TREES AT SUNSET

IT IS ABOUT MORE THAN A HORSE RACE
Election night was as much fun as Christmas morning. I was always amped up by the prospect of our hours long unscripted coverage, both on radio and for many years on TV. I'm a political junkie, as you might expect after decades of journalism covering campaigns for school boards to the White House. So, with that as prelude--
WHY CAN'T WE GET BETTER COVERAGE?
We don't need more. It seems wall to wall now, but
the focus is almost exclusively on the horse race.
Oh, we have marvelous polls and data sets and awe inspiring graphic displays, but somehow it misses the point.
Ultimately the voter will decide, regardless of how
pollsters handicap or predicatively prophesize.
Don't you think we need better analysis of how
these candidates will behave as Chief Executive and
Commander in Chief?  I'd rather know how they
propose to handle the latest Iranian saber rattling and what will they do, specifically, rather than how much money
they've raised, and what their strategy is to win New Hampshire.
We have a disconnect.  There is the business, and a sleazy one it is, of getting elected.  Then there is governance.
Our media attention is almost exclusively on the  business of
campaigning, which is an important story, but not as
important as understanding who these people are.
What about their personality and beliefs?  How might they affect political decisions?  What is their competence in 
dealing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff?  How much do they know about the American Intelligence Community?
What do they really know of American history?
What do they know of previous Presidents?
Do they understand how government bureaus operate, or Weber's laws of bureaucracy?  How effective are they at managing?  Can they manage a budget?  Do they know how to hold people accountable?
 Can they, measure outcomes or articulate a vision? How do they make decisions? What experience do they have at 
working with varied special interests? Etc, etc.
I'd much rather see a few months of microscopic 
examination of character, decision making, experience, 
personality, philosophy, than canned sound bites
in predictable debate scenarios where everyone, even the panel is playing to the camera, or reportage about 
the horse race that has all the hype and speculation
of a Super Bowl lead up.
Maybe the current crop of reporters have seen too much
American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.
Oh how I miss Tom Petit, Herb Kaplow, Douglas Kiker, David Brinkley, Walter Cronkite,  Bob Clark, John Chancellor, Marvin Kalb, Cassie Mackin, Dan Rather, Lynn Sherr, David Broder, Tom Wicker, Joseph Alsop, Johnny Apple, Richard Reeves, Walter Mears, Adam Clymer, I.F. Stone, Scotty Reston, Bill Bradley, etc, etc, etc. 
DAYBOOK

TREES AT SUNSET

This series captures the texture and

magic of watching the sun dance behind

a tree in wine country.

My English uncle told me, when a boy, this is 

the time of evening of myths, legends, visions,

dreams, fairies and goblins.

See you down the trail.

TIDES OF CALIFORNIA-Money $ Surf

CASH FROM THE UNDERGROUND

Trend setting California vows to go after an additional $7 Billion a year in lost tax revenues by going after companies that pay cash under the table.  Businesses that pay cash wages don't pay worker's compensation insurance or withhold payroll taxes for Social Security, Medicare or unemployment compensation. California officials says the problem is pervasive in the building trades.  
$7 Billion a year, just in California!  Calculate the impact on government budgets if such a move were implemented nationwide.  Though savings and new revenue could be
much higher yet.  
Reefer Madness-Sex, Drugs, Cheap Labor in the American Black Market written a few years ago by Eric Schlosser 
opened my eyes to the Billions in lost revenue.  But Schlosser's study did not account for software piracy, music downloading, prostitution, off shore banking and gambling
where billions and billions more go unaccounted for and  more importantly, untaxed. 
If we really care about government funding and deficits, and if as a nation we are averse to more taxes, then
why not go after the black market dollars which could 
swell government revenue lines. Of course we would need
some accord on things like recreational drugs, gambling, prostitution and ways of policing cheap labor, software piracy, off shore banking and gambling.  But the 
debate on those might be worth the resulting income stream and/or enhanced enforcement.
We'll see where the Golden State goes with this opening initiative.  

DAY BOOK

BIG SURF

The shores of California today are awash in High Surf advisories.

The waves are 10-14 feet with some local sets at 16 feet.

Behind each frame is a roar and growl of the Pacific.

The picture fails to do justice, but those white caps in

distance are way off shore.  They are large enough to 

break a couple of times before hitting the beach.

Especially so today.
See you down the trail.