MUSLIM PRINCESS BREAKING BARRIERS & DEFINING SPACE

SHAKING UP THE OLD BOYS IN THE ARAB WORLD

Courtesy gccwomen.org

     Could this be a face of the new Saudi Arabia and/or a face that is trying to create a new Saudi Arabia?

Courtesy saudiarab11

      Princess Al-Taweel, known as Princess Amira, is

as she says a "common girl" but married to Prince al-Waleed bin Talal, the nephew of the King of Saudi Arabia. Princess Amira, a magna cum laude graduate of the University of New Haven is an advocate for women's empowerment.  She is outspoken in her call for equal rights for women in education, the work force and voting rights.  

     Those are difficult and challenging issues for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the royal family.  Her "outspokenness" has been challenged by her uncle, another of the royal princes.

     Amira says women have the right to come out of the burkas, if they wish, it should their choice and not a man's or the government to make. 

     Her husband is fully supportive. He is a power in his own right, being the chairman of the Kingdom Holding Corporation, essentially the investment arm of all those Saudi billions. She is involved in the business and in promoting interfaith dialogue.  

     Both the Prince and Princess are at some risk from Saudi and other Arab parties who are less modern.  She considers herself a devout Muslim and her very openness for dialogue also has earned her enmity. She has defied some archaic edict by driving and then talking about it. 

     Soft spoken, articulate and emphatic this is one Princess

with fairy tale wealth who is challenging a great evil of the real world. She could just as easily live the good life but

she has chosen to battle ignorance, repression, prejudice and cultural chauvinism. We wish her well and hope for a 

happily ever after for Arab women. The 21st Century belongs to them as well!  Talk about a shift in the balance of power.

DAY BOOK

A FENCE

     An artist friend who is also an avid gardener told Lana that a fence can do wonderful things for a garden.  She told her "it defines space."

     So, Lana will have more defined space and the world will

have one more barrier to the marauding killer deer of Cambria.  I'm hopeful the wild turkeys will also be blockaded.

      Don't write me off as a wild life hating old grump, but merely a guy who has seen his wife's loving efforts at providing the world with blooms and beauty be devastated by the marauding killer deer. Year after year.  "They" say that some things are deer proof.  Ha!  

     As for the turkey's-while they are fun to watch, unless you are one of our terrified cats, they leave one of the world's most noxious calling cards.  It's not enough they uproot plants and scatter dirt over walkways.  Those little traces of themselves they leave behind are not little and probably could rate as a weapon class substance.  What do they eat-kryptonite?

      So, we've joined the fence builders of the world.

I see another place to watch the play of light and shadow.

     The fence has forced us to "recover" a back hill top

for more gardening and for a meditation spot with a 

wonderful long vista of Green Valley.

     Our good neighbors David and Lois reworked a portion 

of their privacy wall and tied it in nicely with our fence.

     See you down the trail.

PS-Oh yea, there is plenty of open acreage for the killer deer and dirty turkeys.

THE BAG BAN & A LOOK INSIDE THE EMBASSY

  ...OF THE PEOPLE

BY THE PEOPLE...

     So now the people are debating plastic bags.  San Luis Obispo County, which pioneered no smoking in restaurants, 

is in the process of voting whether or not to ban plastic bags at all stores.

      The plastic bag lobby, hiding behind a so called health and environmental front group, has mounted an extensive campaign to keep the bags, arguing cloth or canvas bags are unhealthy.  Tell that to the Europeans who have used non plastic bags for centuries and whose experience has been invoked and weighed in the debate.  

     This is one of the healthiest, fittest, most natural and

organic pockets in the world, so many folks already travel 

with their own reusable bags.  Still the democratic process is at work, which means at least one law suit, and while it is 

not making national headlines, it is a good local fight. 

Stay tuned.

ANOTHER HOT ISSUE

      The US government will reduce the staff of the Iraq embassy by one half, leaving much of the $750 Million complex unused. The situation in country is bad enough the government can not justify the $6 Billion annual budget. Including contractors, the number of employees in the complex has risen to 16,000. The State Department and Pentagon have begun to acknowledge they may have over deployed.

     Link here to see a New York Times photo tour of the complex.

     HERE'S ONE THING YOU CAN DO WITH OLD STUFF

 Scene along Highway 41 between Morro Bay and Atascadero

DAY BOOK

California Succulents

See you down the trail.

WAR CLOUDS OVER IRAN & SPRING IS SPRUNG

THE MOVE IS IRAN'S

     The best analysis comes down to this-Iran will be hit by

an Israeli strike unless it shows the world a sign that it has or 

will shut down its nuclear weapons program.

     As a counter to the almost universal attitude of an inevitable Israeli strike is the threat by the supreme leader,

Ayatolla Khamenei that a strike on Iran would be more damaging to the United States.  
     Iran calls the US freezing of Iran's assets "psychological warfare" as they have begun a series of war games.
     Clearly the situation is a tinderbox. Israelis have stepped up security and Jewish organizations in the US and elsewhere have been told to do likewise.  US Military and Intelligence warn that an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program would prompt an Iranian missile retaliation.
     The statement today by Khamenei is deemed a serious escalation.  Until now western sources have tried to portray the Iranian regime as being rogue and even without support of Iranians.  Now that the holy man has spoken, it will make it tougher on those elements in Iran who have been identified
as reasonable or pro western. The power remains someplace between the megalomania of Ahmadinejad and the zealotry of the Ayatolla. 
     Tricky and critical at this time.

DAY BOOK

NATURAL RHYTHM

     Coastal California is getting some needed rain today.

Amounts vary, but any precipitation is welcomed. It may be 

drier than it should be, but spring has arrived.  After 5 years

on the Central Coast, this former mid-westerner is still amazed to see blooms in early February.  We used to wait till

late March or April.  

 This is also the time of year when controlled burns are permitted.

      A personal note.  Congrats to Indianapolis for the superb job of hosting the Super Bowl.  Many friends and former colleagues were involved in a myriad of functions.

I have enjoyed hearing their reports and was proud

of how it all looked and came together.

     See you down the trail.

MODERN AMERICA & ANCIENT ROME

THE SUPER GAMES

     As one of the tens of millions who communed yesterday

by watching Giants beat Patriots, did you for a moment wonder if history will see us as we view the ancient Romans.

     There's a story about a festival in 160 BC that was to honor a famous playwright. Mid way in the performance about a mother in law some one announces the Gladiator Games were about to begin. The audience for the play, vanished.

     It seems the Romans also loved their super games, but

we've added the ironic wrinkle of watching commercials as a kind of sport.  Who gets credit for this clever advent?  There are contests, evaluation web sites and news stories about

which commercial we liked the most. It blows my mind. During the rest of the year commercials are considered an annoyance, something to endure or speed through with our DVRs, but not on Super Sunday.

     Chariot racing was a big sport with the Romans, the source of heavy wagering.  Chariot drivers were early superstars.  Then came the Gladiator Games.

      Some have compared the NFL to modern Gladiator Games, but we need to be careful here.  First those Ancient Romans staged games that were to the death.  Thousands watched and cheered as the combatants played a real blood bath and death match.

      Then, another kind of insidious and sinister spin on the game set the Romans apart from us.  Toward the end of the Republic Gladiator Games were sponsored by politicians.  It is true.  Roman pols sponsored the games to boost their standing.  In a tribute to the idea "things never change" the Roman Senate tried unsuccessfully to curb political sponsorship.

      So on balance, we must be a tad bit more evolved.

When the Boston fans talk about sacking Belichick, it is only a figure of speech, a non lethal deposing of which they foment. And mercifully it was Madonna who provided our half time enjoyment. Were we truly like the Romans, it could have been Newt Gingerich prancing in high boots and short shorts, or Mitt Romney being carried in by legions of the 99%.

      How would historians have regarded that?

      DAY BOOK

THE CATS HAVE THEIR GAME

Luke has recently shown his love for climbing on the car.

Now little brother Hemingway is following suit.

Yes, you rascal!

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) WHAT KIND OF IRON?

REEL THOUGHTS

THE IRON LADY

     First, Meryl Streep is absolutely superb, in all of the 

incarnations she portrays of Margret Thatcher.  

        In many ways the film is also superb, but it has a center of gravity that is disturbing and disrespectful.  

      Thatcher was one of the towering characters of the late

20th Century. Obviously she was a barrier breaker and an historic figure.  Regardless of her politics, and people are still divided about that, she deserves a more appropriate lens by which to view her life and influence.

      Screen writer Abi Morgan, whose credits are the movie Shame and TV movies, is inauthentic, disingenuous

and probably a wholesale fabricator in using an increasingly

incapacitated Lady Thatcher as the touchstone from which she launches into memories.  Speaking with her husband's ghost as a point of departure, for example. It is distasteful, contrived and demeaning to a true historic character.

     The director Phyllida Lloyd, a well regarded director in

British Theater, presides over a film that could have been

brilliant had it not been for her and Morgan's penchant to  make it a bit of a cheap English tattler.

     Despite those serious weaknesses in structure, Streep, Jim Broadbent as Dennis Thatcher and Alexandra Roach as a young Iron Lady were all brilliant. The film is well made

except for its orientation of focus.

      Thatcher's life was towering enough to find another through-line or means of story connection.  Seeing her in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease is cheap and in many ways a bit of a shot at her. There is enough known about her, that Morgan and Lloyd didn't have to resort to contriving scenes of

the once elegant lady rummaging around her apartment, disheveled and demented. 

      A personal note-the thing I remember about Margret 

Thatcher, made indelible in my meeting her after she had 

left office, was her supreme command and eloquent use of 

English. She spoke as well as anyone I've known or have seen.

She could be tough, yes, but so well spoken.

      There is a lot about the film that is commendable,

but the horrible contrivance of seeing her as a failing old 

woman is an artistic license that should earn scorn for Lloyd and Morgan. Streep on the other hand becomes more legendary by her uncanny and brilliant work though I wish she had not been called on to play some scenes.

GREAT THATCHER MOMENTS

A Young Iron Lady  1975

Later as PM in the House of Parliament

(Turn up the volume on this)

THE FILM VERSION

Have a good weekend. 

Enjoy the Super Bowl-at least there is a

Manning in it.

See you down the trail.

THE ARTIST & COOL LUKE

TAKING A CHANCE
REEL THOUGHTS

THE GENIUS OF THE ARTIST

       I hope someone tells the story of the  pitch session for the Artist. A black and white silent film in 2012?

       It is destined to be a classic in two epochs-ours and in some time warp sense the era of silent films.

       It is visually stunning, from the retro opening credits.

The score is understandably superb, it is almost exclusively the only audio. There are a few moments where that illusion is broken, and it has a jarring but successful effect.

        I would love to have heard how it was pitched and how it was received.  Obviously it was a bold and truly fresh idea in an industry with a lot of rehashing and retelling. That it is a French product may explain why some career minded studio exec and his or her committee of sycophants did not squash it.
        Director Michel Hazanavicius has given us a look, style and story unlike any you've seen for a while, unless you are a fan of the old silent movies.  His wife, the beautiful co-star Berenice Bejo, is alluring and fantastic as the ingenue. Male co-star Jean Dujardin personifies the perfect silent era matinee idol.  The story plays like a classic.  It is not hard to see why theaters are full and why it's gotten the buzz. This is a film to be savored and enjoyed.

THINKING ABOUT A NAP

It is easy to love this cat.  He 
is a mellow sort, though he loves 
to climb on my car.  A friend said
it is the "Bengal" quality in his genes.
When he's not playing hunter or climbing something
he's content to nap.  In fact he
seems to be always in pursuit of the next nap.
See you down the trail.

BAD MONEY &THE DECISION TREE

BAD MONEY
Big money in politics is wrong.  Wrong
whether it comes from billionaires, 
corporations, labor unions or any other
form of special interest.
The so called Super PAC's have
revealed who their backers are
and this renewed my fervor.
Regardless, it is a kind of buying of favors.
We will not see a significant improvement
in the quality of governance in the U.S.
until we take big money out of 
electoral politics.
Too much time and effort is spent on raising
money and with the money comes expectations.
The big dollar game of politics today
makes the comment from the old
cynic and iconoclast H.L. Mencken
all the more true.
"Every election is a sort of advance auction
sale of stolen goods."


FACES OF THE DECISION TREE

     Over the mountain, in the Paso Robles wine region

a tree stands as a reminder of the day we decided to move

to California. We call it the "Decision Tree."

     We had made several trips to the area, weighing all of the
factors that would be engaged in such a decision. Moving
across the country to an area where we knew no one, selling and buying a home, leaving friends and family and starting over combined to create multiple questions and all of them lead to the big one-should we do it?

     We had spent several days exploring, thinking, talking 
and knew it was time for a resolution.  We packed a picnic
lunch, drove to see Marc and Maggie, who we had been
introduced to by a mutual friend.  We visited their winery
and drove to a spot along a vineyard, stopped, picnicked under an old tree as we looked over wine country.  Lana and I love old trees and we reasoned this would be a good a place to decide as any.  

     And, so it was here we made the decision to make the move.  Since, we've called it our decision tree.  Well,
a few months ago as we were chatting with Marc and Maggie, who have become friends, we learned that as they debated
weather or not to leave Southern California and buy land to 
create winery, they did the same thing- picnicked under the same tree, what they told us they call their decision tree.

     There's a good view from the decision tree.  Wisdom seems to abound here. Clarity happens and the future seems bright.

See you down the trail.