MISSING TWO WOMEN & SHOTS OF CLASSICS-HOT COLORS AND HOT WHEELS

MOURNING TWO WOMEN

     Noting the passing of two women over the weekend surprisingly stirred a personal sense of loss and a low rage.

     The end of Margaret Thatcher's long decline into dementia is a merciful release and an occasion to recall her greatness in full power.  I met the Iron Lady and heard her address an American audience.  I didn't agree with all of her politics, but I admired her ability to lead, wield power and was in awe of her use of language.  It was not just her English cadence and pronunciation, it was the eloquence, even the elegance of her word choices and sentence construction.  She was an extraordinarily capable person.     

     Though Meryl Streep's performance was brilliant, I resented the Iron Lady film because its focus on Thatcher's declining years was inappropriate, disrespectful and needless.  

     As a father of daughters I have a special fondness for women of her calibre.

     And perhaps because Ann Smedinghoff is the age of my youngest, I was especially grieved to learn of the death of the US Foreign Service worker in Afghanistan.  She, and other Americans, were killed by terrorists as they delivered textbooks to children.  Her father says the family takes comfort in knowing she was doing something she wanted to do.

    I know, hired and worked with young women and men like Ann Smedinghoff.  Products of good homes, education and sound footing, they choose to work in areas where they could "make a difference" or "provide service."  There are more lucrative and less arduous paths, but some in that generation seek a more active participation in doing something good and meaningful.  She and her colleagues died trying to elevate the third century mentality of that cursed land of war lords, tribes, corruption, and ignorance.

     The Taliban are blamed.  They are the jackal thugs of an evil strain of death breeding zealots who are ignorant cowards that even their own demented version of their god would  surely wish to smite and send to an endless lake of fire. The deaths of the Americans, only the latest chapter as the Taliban once again seeks to destroy reason and leverage the stone age on Afghanistan. 

      Two women, one who fulfilled a life of contribution, the other, at the beginning of her service to humankind, taken tragically.  It's just been hard to shake this sense of loss.

CALIFORNIA CLASSICS

CRUISING CLASSIC

   See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-SANGUINE, WINE, SAX AND BLUES

SANGUINE ON THE COAST

     Pacific blue, lined by rocky coast and wide brown sweeps of sand roll to the horizon ahead and to the right as I cruise south on Highway 1 from San Simeon to Cambria.

       Son House rhyming and proclaiming John the Revelator is the audio marriage to this far western shore of the US, passing at 55 mph.  Knots of tourists on vista points collect memories.

       

        Rich colors, shades and hues in spreading patches, sweep the rolling pastures and mountain hill sides. Gold, yellow, blue, white, red and pink flora blend in and out of still spring green cattle grazing ranges. They come in long and tall miles of coast grazing lands.  Cattle roam those miles where the mountains fall to the Pacific.  Earl Hooker is "bluesifying" with Is Yo Ever Seen a One Eyed Woman Cry? 

Ticket to a Hooker video interp.

This is why California has always been a "car state," moving from shore to mountains, into broad high deserts, through farm land and vineyards while the music plays. As did this from Boz Skaggs, a Californian, who has driven the highway where now he is the sound track.

     North Korea is behaving like lunkheads.  Official Washington appears bought and paid for and apparently not the least bit concerned about it, the President can't hit the basket, his jump shot not there, and my team is not in the Big Dance, but none of it seems to matter, so much. 

A SIDE TRIP 

AN ULTIMATE WINE CELLAR

   As guests of Diane at a recent Halter Ranch wine pick up  we visited the cave beneath a hill of vines.

   The cave is perfect for barrels and Sax.

 A SAX TEASE

    The loading and process area provides space for a buffet and "slider tasting" contest.

  The Halter covered bridge is reminiscent of the bridges in Parke County Indiana.

     Have a good weekend.  
     See you down the trail.

COMEDY PUNCHES THE MUSLIM THUG & A PHOTO SPRING

DIPLOMACY BY RIDICULE

     Egyptian president Morsi, who is thugging his way along a path of repression and regression got mugged last night.  In a brilliant bit of "in your face" diplomacy, comedian and commentator Jon Stewart decimated the Muslim Brotherhood zealot.  Stewart defended his friend

Bassem Youssef, who has been called the Egyptian Jon Stewart.  

        Stewart's work, especially the last couple of minutes of the bit, beautifully demonstrates the difference between a nation of freedom and a place where zealots and fundamentalists would seek to blot free expression.

       This Washington Post piece provides good context, explanation and a link to Stewart's masterful defense of freedom.

       The visual quality is not quite as good, but this YouTube video also reprises the powerful performance.

      Do yourself a favor, spend a few minutes being entertained and come to see how precarious freedom can be.  

OUT AND ABOUT
TEXTURES & JUXTAPOSITION

SPRING TREES

See you down the trail.

COULDN'T BELIEVE OUR EYES, TRANSCENDENCE, PRECIOUS WATER AND WHAT ARE THEY?

A TRANSCENDENT MOMENT

     Something extraordinary happened in an awful moment on Easter Sunday.

     Louisville player Kevin Ware who had jumped to block a shot, came down horribly wrong, splintering his leg in a compound fracture that is as bad as any sports injury most of us have ever seen.

     Players collapsed on the floor, nearby fans were sickened and the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was silenced, stunned and of a single mind, worried about the young athlete writhing in pain.

     His coach, Rick Pitino, is quoted as saying he fought nausea, others have said so as well.

     Clark Kellogg, who is great guy and a caring compassionate man was barely able to compose himself as he performed his CBS Sports broadcast role.  His partner Jim Nantz, another class act, also battled back tears, as did the fiercely competitive Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski.  

      For almost ten minutes cultural icons like Pitino, Krzyzewski, Kellogg and Nantz, wiped tears and worked on. The broadcasters evinced great concern for Ware and for his team mates who were in shock.  Even as Pitino and Coach K looked shaken, ashen and blinked tears, they were concerned for their charges and their well being.  We look at Division 1 athletes as men, as competitive stallions, but they are young men, some just out of high school.

      You could see people pray, the broadcasters said they were praying, later even the colorful Charles Barkley said he too was praying for Ware.

      In a moment, a highly charged and superb athletic ritual is dashed.  A young man lay seriously injured, on a playing floor, not a battle field.  The uniform he wore was that of a basketball player, not a soldier, cop or firefighter.  A terrible and ugly reality crashed into a cultural celebration.

Fans, players, coaches, commentators, in this framed world of hyper play, responded to their shock and dismay with an almost automatic response of care, concern and prayer.

      Young Kevin Ware, his bone protruding from his skin, who dreams of playing professional ball, in excruciating pain, uncertain of his future, continued to tell his panic stricken team mates, "Don't worry about me.  Just win the game.  Win the game."

      The thousands in the stadium and the millions of us watching television, have never seen anything like that before.  In the midst of a game, a horrible event prompts an almost universal concern and thousands or millions of prayers.  Something extraordinary, in an awful moment, on an Easter Sunday.

      

CLAY PLAY
wherein a new ceramic project from Lana provides an
interesting photo opportunity.

SAN SIMEON CREEK

    Our rainy season has been almost 50% deficient this year.

We are experiencing a couple of days of light rain and hoping the system slows to deliver more.  

    The photos were shot last week on San Simeon Creek, one of the two primary water sources for municipal wells. In a good year, the creek runs with a swifter current and the gravel bars are not visible, until late in the summer.  

     Talk of lifting a building moratorium to permit a "few" new construction permits a year seems ill advised in a drought year and at a time when some climatologists say we are in a drought cycle.  I understand the frustration of property owners who have been waiting years to build, but still, water is a precious resource and this year it is even more precious.

    See you down the trail.

THE WEEKENDER-UNIQUE

UNIQUE IN THE WORLD

     Jerusalem confronts and embraces you like no other city in the world.  The intricacy of its history and the depth of its impact on life seems to fill you at once with sound, echoes, aromas, textures and scenes that might well be planetary memories, broken into shards that you can feel and even seem to intuit.

     As Christians observe and celebrate Easter this weekend, the Weekender provides a beautiful and panoramic glimpse of this city like no other.  Watch this in the largest format  you can.

                                              

FACES
Luke and the Greenman

      To those to whom it is appropriate, Happy Easter!

See you down the trail.

DICK CHENEY IN JAIL-A LOT OF BULL-PEACE AND LIGHTNESS

WHY CHENEY SHOULD GO TO JAIL

   That is coming up, after first we share light, breezes, color and relief for those of you in places like Minnesota, Indiana, New York, and wherever else winter continues to assault you.

SPRING IN BLOOM

A SALAD IN SPRING TRAINING

DEDICATED TO DICK CHENEY

 A LOT OF BULL

 AND BULL DEBRIS

    We made our periodic visit to a grazing land to collect cow chips that we use in our compost.  I was thinking a lot about Dick Cheney.

    I was fuming a bit about the arrogance of man I consider a criminal, on several counts. Last night I watched the RJ Cutler documentary The World According to Dick Cheney airing on Showtime. The reviews are mixed though this LA Times piece by Mary McNamara hits on one point with precision.  Her father warned her to beware of a man with no regrets.  Cheney says he has no regrets.  

   Cutler zeros in on and documents two of the reasons Cheney should be tried.  One is the absolute lies, totally fabricated falsehoods he told Dick Armey to swing him around to approve an authorization to invade Iraq.  Remember those WMD's, suitcase bombs, etc, etc.  Cheney is a liar.  The other instance was when he told President Bush to ignore Justice Department rulings that domestic spying Cheney had ordered was illegal.  Cheney had intentionally kept W, who was already way over his head, in the dark about the building firestorm in the Justice Department and FBI about the illegality and irregularity of what he had done. Even the FBI director was threatening to quit if Bush did not change the guidelines. 

    I have said Bush was an idiot and I think I can prove it.  Cheney knew he had an intellectual light weight for a boss and he abused him, abused power and abused the American public.  Cutler's documentary is not at all a hatchet job, in fact it even lends a tacit credibility to a man who went from being a drunk to being drunk with power. Yet he does expose how even W, slow as he was, learned of his machinations and finally told aids not to take Cheney's calls and not to schedule meetings with him-this while they were both presiding over the needless deaths of American kids in a war that Cheney wanted, got and that his buddies at Halliburton and subsidiaries profited from.

    This is only the beginning.  As historians continue to examine and study the disastrous years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, his puppet master, Cheney's already low ratings will decline and his villainy will be further exposed.

    I hope the criminal lives long enough to be indicted.

THE FACES OF 13

   See you down the trail.