HIGH DRAMA

HUMAN KIND AND NATURE

Take 2

     There is chilling new information since yesterday's post about the great white shark taking a bite out of kayak just off Cambria's Moonstone Beach.  The Cambrian and San Luis Obispo Tribune reporter Kathe Tanner has details.

Link here to read the kayakers dramatic account.

IF YOU LIKE THESE

YOU CAN SEE IT LIVE

Magnificent Yosemite

    You may recall previous blogs where in I profess my passionate love for the majesty of Yosemite National Park,

one of the wonders of the world.  If you would like to see the park from your screen, you can visit live.

Link here to see live webcam shots, courtesy of the National Park Service. 

You have your choice of six cameras.

See you down the trail.

WARNING SIGNS

TAKING THEM SERIOUSLY

First there was one...

 Then there was two

      Kayakers who were enjoying the big blue got a bit more adventure than they wanted when a great white took a chomp out of their craft here on Moonstone Beach in Cambria.

     There is always a bit danger at the shore.

     Today however there is another seasonal warning.

     I know some folks worry about the "nanny state" intrusion
into lives, however I'm grateful for the San Luis Obispo County Health Department diligence. 

DAY BOOK

BEACH SIDE SCENES

Despite the warnings

     Driftwood builders have been busy...

 ....almost as busy as this guy

See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER :) LIGHTER-BRIGHTER

THE CHANGE OF PACE

    After weighing in on a couple of heavy topics this week

the WEEKENDER :) arrives to bring cheer and something you may never have seen.

I NEVER DID THIS

    I will acknowledge that as a news anchor we did, sometimes, amuse ourselves (us and the studio and control room crews) during breaks.  But in all of the clowning-we thought of it as stress relief-we never got this elaborate. This is kind of fun, though you may never look at a news anchor the same again.

CALL THIS "THE ANCHOR DANCE"

Courtesy of WGN Chicago

DAY BOOK

CHEERY BLOOMS

 The orchid cactus is an heir of Lana's grandmother and her mother.  It was one of the plants she refused to leave behind when we moved west.

 We've tried before, but this is the first year the 

"Bird of Paradise" has bloomed.

 Lana has done a wonderful job in creating a beautiful garden where once it was just a hill and ice plant.  I'll provide an update in a future post.

Enjoy the weekend.

See you down the trail.

SKULL TATT'S AND 40 K A PLATE ??!!

SKULL TATTOOS SEND A WEIRD MESSAGE

    The LA Times prompted the LA County Sheriffs office to

investigate a "secret clique" in the sheriff's gang unit.  Members wear a gun toting skeleton, which according to the Times, the members alter after they've been involved in a shooting. They are called the "Jump Out Boys."

     I understand the need for camaraderie.  I saw it work as I spent weeks with Army Snipers in training, followed FBI Agents through 16 weeks of preparation, embedded with tactical weapons teams, and covered countless other law enforcement or security and intelligence operations.  You go through things civilians never see and it does contribute to a sense of bonding.  There is an however here.

     Cliques, private creeds, as alleged in the Jump Out Boys, are wrong, and send a terrible message.  Yes, we ask cops on drug and gang task forces to deal with the dregs of our society and it is difficult and often dirty work.  The line between good and bad is hard to see.  Still, even when dealing with the dirtiest of dirt bags, or most foul of criminals, cops need to stay within the law and propriety.  They are the line of demarcation between true law and order, civility if you will, and the lawless degeneration of crime. 

      We don't know where the LA Sheriffs investigation will end. Nothing wrong with a tatt, unless it is a symbol for a 

code of a behavior in violation of procedure, policy and law.

I remember rooting out a federal employee-a postman-who

swore a secret oath and wore a tattoo of his allegiance to the Ku Klux Klan. He put that belief above the law that 

governed those of us who paid his salary. He openly advocated violation of some of those laws. 

       If we are a nation of law, we must behave that way, especially those who enforce the law. 

TOO MUCH $$

     One more thing has me venting today.  A $40 thousand

dollar a plate dinner at George Clooney's home?  Even though the attendees can afford it-they are all wealthy, it is just another symbol of the influence of big money in politics.

The Obama campaign will get a shot in the arm.  Romney's campaign also does high ticket fund raisers.  Most of the money will end up in commercials and advertising.  

    The need to raise and spend money has perverted the 

process and supplanted principle, intelligence, problem solving and vision.  What a helluva way to choose office holders!

DAY BOOK

CAT PLAY

The Further Adventures of 

Luke and Hemingway

 "Hey, you know I could sleep a lot better if you'd knock
off that scratching down there."
  "Oh yea?!  Well if you didn't hog the top deck all the time."

 "OK big boy!  I'm down on your level now.  Hey, look at me
when I'm talking to you."
  "I don't want another of those stare downs. But I can see you looking at me.  I just want to get up on the top deck."

 "I'm watching you.  See this right paw?  I can take you out with it."
 "I see it.  Big deal!  Keep the top deck. I'm going to take a nap."

 "Now if you'd please get that camera out of here....."

 "I've got a nap to catch up with....."

   "It's too hot in the sun.  He can have the top deck.

I just want this shady spot."

See you down the trail

A LION GOES DOWN

A LOSS OF EXCELLENCE

    All political careers end eventually and rarely does the last act play out in grandeur, but I am saddened by the defeat of Richard Lugar. 

    Indiana voters did a shabby disservice to America. A small turn out in a strident and nasty campaign ended the reelection hopes of one of America's longest serving senators. He is also one of the most capable to grace the US Capitol's upper chamber.

     I first covered Lugar when I was assigned to city-county government.  The Mayor's office was part of my beat and I learned rapidly this young mayor meant to serve with intelligence and a sense of vision. 

Tom Cochrun and Richard Lugar in May 1979 at Fitness Fest

I was producing a documentary. Senator Lugar was an active runner and fitness advocate

     David Halberstam called the John Kennedy team The Best and the Brightest, though the highest meaning of that phrase could apply to the Lugar administration in the Indianapolis City County building.  Dedicated and imaginative people helped turn Indianapolis from a decaying rust belt city toward the dynamic and exciting urban success America saw most recently in the saturation coverage of the Super Bowl. Lugar planted the vision and started the renaissance.

     For the better part of the next 4 decades I covered Lugar.

His 36 years in the Senate is worthy of study and will no doubt be the subject of historians and political scientists. He continued to be a visionary, a consensus builder, he chided presidents, of even his own party, he was a conscience and remains one of the world's wisest on matters of national security, foreign policy, nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction.  

      He and Sam Nunn did more to save the world from harm, after the fall of the Soviet Union, than people can imagine.

He has also advocated farm and agriculture reform and continues to campaign on issues of nutrition. 

     Some of my favorite memories are of those nights when I was president of the Press Club and when Senator Lugar 

and Representative Lee Hamilton, another foreign policy stalwart, joined us for dinners and debriefs. It was the end of the cold war, the wall was coming down, the USSR was breaking up, the world was changing and on long winter nights Lugar and his friend Hamilton analyzed and gave us

insights they gave to Presidents.

      Pundits, fellow politicians and journalists have all said

Lugar would have been a great President, but was too bright to be a good candidate.   

      Presidents, current and past, admire and respect him.  World leaders have sought his wisdom. Members of both parties acknowledge he is one of the smartest.  But even that does not make one immune from the voice of the voter.

      In this time when a tea party mind set exerts power, when reason gives way to anger, when invective and right wing money have sway, Lugar's time for departure came in a sad little primary vote.  Eventually the clock would have run on his time of service, but when reason and skill are in such short supply, it is unfortunate his service is being checked now.  America will be the poorer because of it.

DAY BOOK

SPRING SCENES

See you down the trail.

STILL VALID

 FROM THE ARCHIVE

As we dive more deeply into campaign season,

and as the talk turns to economics as it surely will

I wonder how we will hear it framed.

One part of this post puts it in a context 

that it should be put in.  

The first part of this post deals with

the fascination of what is possible.

Including a replay.

GOOD AND BAD

from root to branch

Do you find it difficult to hold opposites in your mind

at the same time?

Before you answer, here's a little ditty from

Lewis Carroll.

Alice is speaking with the queen

"There's no use trying," she said "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice." said the Queen. "When I was your

age I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many

as six impossible things before breakfast."

 Frame this in your own sense of possible.

Stanford University has offered a free online course that has

has attracted 58,000 students. That's four times the size

of the school's enrollment.

I find this exciting and perhaps even a dawning.

 Consider this from the New York Times

The class on artificial intelligence is one of three being offered by Stanford’s computer science department and will be taught by two leading AI experts, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig.

Thrun led an effort at Stanford to build a robotic car that drove 132 miles over unpaved roads in a California desert. Lately, he has spearheaded a Google project to develop self-driving cars, many of which have already been tested successfully on American roads.

Norvig is Google's director of research and a former NASA scientist. He has also written a widely read textbook on artificial intelligence.

The online students will not get grades or credit for participation, but they will be ranked in comparison to their online classmates.

Thurn explained that the course was part of an effort to increase the accessibility of once cost-prohibitive higher-education. “The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” he told the Times.

What amazing advances might emerge. What creative solutions could occur.

AND THEN

There is the Pentagon Budget process, another place that can't be reached or the embodiment of thinking the impossible not only before breakfast, but constantly.

McClatchy Newspapers reports it is practically impossible to get an accurate and thorough account of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 

 Impossible to know how much we are spending.  

One estimate puts it at $3.7 Trillion or as McClatchy reports "$12,000 per American."

As we suffer a budget and economic crisis we don't even possess the tools to understand how and where to cut where we should.

These wars are THE economic crisis.

I guess our President and Congressional leaders can't hold two opposing ideas in mind.

Nor do they seem to recall the words of the highest ranking US Military leader ever. 

He was also our Commander in Chief.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

— Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961 Presidential Farewell Address

See you down the trail.

TAKE THE TIME....

ENJOY THE GIFTS

    My partner Art and I were simply outplayed today.  We 

both struggled with control, but we forced a tie breaker in the second match. Still neither of us were satisfied with our play, but we came off the court winners anyway. 

    The temperature was in the 70's, the sky was blue, the surrounding highlands were green, a gentle breeze blew and a pal had come to watch and then join us for coffee at Lily's.

It doesn't get any better than that, even with a winning score.

    It's a matter of perspective and as a boomer I still need to remind myself of that.  The days of task orientation have been replaced by days like this and the score of a tennis match is secondary to being on the court, in the game and 

engaged in a joyful celebration of right now.

DAY BOOK

THE RUTH CAMBRIA ROSE

 Lana calls this Ruth Cambria Rose named

for our friend who gave us a clip of a 

rose that grew on her fence.

 This is a season for it.

A WORLD CLASS VIEW

We were fortunate this weekend to attend

a gathering on a coastal highland with

an extraordinary view.  The view deserves

better optics than mine, but here's

a sample of California at its most magnificent.

See you down the trail.