FOOTBALL ABUSE, A JUDGEMENT-BETTER DAYS AT YOSEMITE-DROUGHT TOLERANT AND A THROWBACK

AN INEVITABLE JUDGEMENT

   A group of us sat around a table talking about the concept of judgment. I offered that most of us, despite any differences on other matters probably agreed about Ray Rice, the now suspended NFL star seen knocking out his fiancee.

   The current Sports Illustrated asks what the Ray Rice matter tells us about the NFL?  It's a huge enterprise, enormously wealthy and feeds a massive audience. At the bottom it is all about money, even greed perhaps.
    The league has serious troubles in that many of the gladiators are barely above the rank of street thug. Football programs since their childhood have permitted if not contributed to the condition. Schools tolerated only a pretense of education so star talent could play. Young men learn athletic skills but may know little about civility and how to be mature men. Character is rarely coached or taught. Strength, power and athleticism is valued. Off field violence and run ins with the law are all too frequent. The NFL has been woefully negligent in caring about much more than the big show and the big dollars.

    I know good men of up standing character who have been NFL players and even stars. There are many and some are truly extraordinary. Tony Dungy is a man I admire, respect and hold up as a role model. But all of the good men in the league, be they coaches, players or team executives, have less influence than the real power-that exclusive club of team owners whose primary interest is money. The Commissioner is their employee. They make the rules. They own the players. Sometimes they bilk money from cities to build huge stadiums where they can earn many more millions. They have extraordinary control and they can and should do a better job of riding heard on their combatants. 

      A small little personal experience is a window into the owner run league. When the league can tell a local television station where they can and cannot shoot, when they can and cannot shoot, even in a municipally funded stadium-public space, even if it is not football footage, it demonstrates the autocratic power they exert. So the democratic balance of power should be such that society can tell the league to get serious about criminal activity. They can control their fiefdoms, but the public can demand enforcement of regulations that respect and honor public law and statutes.
       There is news the owner of the San Francisco 49'ers suspended a team broadcaster for comments that could have been interpreted as insensitive. I think he just made a simplistic or even stupid comment about women who are victims of abuse. It is not just a matter of a victim speaking up as his comments implied. I don't think the radio announcer wanted to come even close to saying he condoned the abuse, but his comment underscores how little the public knows about the psychology and pathology of this kind of abusive relationship.  Still, he's out for two games. Yet you have to wonder about players, who are still playing, despite previous offenses of spousal abuse or criminal behavior. It's probably easier to penalize a broadcaster than bench a star.  Who's going to put the most money back in the leagues pocket?

      So, yes, there is a lot opportunity to judge. A judgement most of us have made is that if there had not been video of Ray Rice knocking out his fiancee, he'd still be playing. What does that say about how serious is the league?

DROUGHT TOLERANT

      It is a fascinating mystery how Coyote Brush can remain green when all around it withers and browns in drought. Also called Chaparral Broom it is not only drought tolerant, it's a nectar source for wasps, butterflies and flies.

    Wild fennel also tolerates drought.

   We've hiked past this plain when its nature as a wetland is apparent. Life here awaits rain.

   A lot of nature seems stressed by the third year of the California drought.  The owner of this Live Oak said he's never seen it produce acorns, let alone such an abundance.

   Those who know say it is a type of self protective response. 

   Dying Monterey Pine will often produce an abundance of cones, apparently as a kind of last hurrah. So many rhythms and subtexts in nature.

WHERE YOSEMITE BURNS

   Revisiting shots taken on a trip to Yosemite-trying to get my mind around the fire.

   More than a hundred people were helicoptered out the area near half dome. About 4,500 acres have been burned. 400 firefighters and 8 helicopters have it about 10% contained.  Hoping for cooler and damp weather to help.

     Those who helicoptered from here have adventures to tell.

 THE THROWBACK

     1965- On assignment, covering a county fair. That square microphone and cable?  They connect to a reel to reel recorder, now ancient technology. I was a college freshman, working on room and board. This is the first "promotional" shot I participated in. That's a polaroid I'm holding, probably the photographers test shot.

See you down the trail.

DESPITE THE CLIMATE DIVIDE--NOT WHAT IT SEEMS--DIVINE COLOR?

Warning-this post includes notes on climate science.
TREES AS ART

    Cambria artist Bruce Marchese said he was experimenting with an abstract work. Bruce is best known for his rich color and realistic capture of people and scenes so I was intrigued. His vivid abstract piece now hangs at the Art Center. It's a brilliant representation of Eucalyptus bark. I see why he was so captivated.

    These Eucalyptus stand in a grove at San Simeon state park. They have competition in the color department though.

    This living abstract is the peeling bark of a Madrone.

   Hey Bruce, if you have success with the Eucalyptus you might consider the Madrone as your next model!

NEW WORRIES IN CLIMATE CHANGE

   This grand citizen of planet earth is one of the largest living things and one of the oldest.

     The only place in the world where you find these 2,000 to 3,000 year Sequoias is in the Sierra Nevada. Jim Robbins of the New York Times has published an article linked here that details the concern of biologists that climate change, especially longer or more frequent droughts, may peril the existence of these masters of the mountains.

    Sequoias, a type of redwood, have no disease or insect enemies and they can survive fire, but they need water, either in rain or snow melt.

    I've pondered if there isn't a message in this for humankind. Could there be something in the bark or essence of the largest and oldest living things on earth that could provide a molecular blessing?  Disease free, survive fire? What other living thing has such a resume?

    There is something else to these living spires. I am never  in a redwood forest or among the Sequoias that I don't sense a palpable spirit. Yes, there are differences on questions of the Divine, spirituality and faith, the degree and nature of climate change, but there can be no dissent on the overwhelming awesomeness of the power and survivability of the big trees. I think of them as the planet's silent sentries. What wisdom do they hold?

 See you down the trail.

A MONSTER ENEMY-PERFORMERS FROM THE DEEP-AND WHY THE LONG FACES AT THIS BIRTHDAY

DESTRUCTION OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

     If you've been paying attention to foreign policy experts you've heard a wide range of views of what to do about Islamic State. There is consensus that something must be done. Russia, China, Europe as well as the US are duly concerned about the onslaught of these primitivist barbarians. Their immediate threat is in the middle east.
     The outrage at the beheading of a second American journalist is natural, and indeed justice must be done even if it takes chasing them "to the gates of hell" as Vice President Biden pledged. 
      The need to stop IS goes beyond judicial vengeance.  Barbarism and inhumanity is not unknown even in the middle east, cradle of the world's leading religions and faith systems, but such butchery, done in a flaunting and antagonistic way needs a harsh response from the rest of the world. The IS sadism says a lot about the nature of this enemy.  Indeed they are an enemy of civility, humanity and modernity.  They've been called evil. Comparisons to the inhumanity of the Nazis, Josef Stalin or Pol Pot have been made. They are zealots, on what they think is a holy mission, apostles of a cult of death and frighteningly, they are very capable. Somehow the established nations of the world need to find a way to destroy the Islamic State.

THEY ALSO SERVE WHO INFORM

      The beheading of Steven Sotloff, like that of James Foley underscores the extraordinary risk that journalists undertake to present us with information.  Before they were captured and eventually murdered Sotloff and Foley worked in war zones. Unlike military personnel, or intelligence officers, journalists, medical and NGO relief workers endure the dangers of combat, without weapons. The death of a reporter or aid worker is no less than that of a warrior. Those who kill the unarmed are nothing less than cowards. Those who wear masks and do so must be chased down and be made to pay.  
   

AN EXTRAORDINARY SHOW

     Ocean conditions have been perfect for plenty of this-

Humpback whales feeding on a bait ball, just yards off the pier at San Simeon Cove.

      I'm sorry I did not think to put the camera into a video mode so as to capture the awesome sound of these behemoths exhaling, breaking water and diving.

  It was a spectacular show with whales feeding, dolphins playing, otters passing by, seals making an appearance and a variety of water birds taking advantage of the anchovies feeding on phytoplankton. Gulls, pelicans, cormorants and thousands of shearwaters created clouds on the water. 

    The dark ring is the massing of thousands of shearwaters surrounding a "puff" that is the spout from a whale about to surface.

  To do justice to this show of nature, one needs gear like this.

    Several nationalities were represented in the growing throng of excited observers.

   Thousands of images were captured  and my guess is some of the best came from the shooters on the kayak.

  THE UNHAPPY BIRTHDAY

THROWBACK

   It was brother John's second birthday. He is standing between Susie, the blonde and yours truly, the big brother. None of us look too happy.  Kathy, the little gal on the left must be looking at her mom off screen.  Sorry I can't recall the name of the little gal in tears.  Mickie too seems mesmerized by something off camera. John looks perplexed and I look a bit sad that it's not my cake, that or it was nap time!

   See you down the trail

AN ENDLESS SUMMER KISS AND THE SPECIAL YEAR

TRACKING TIME

     Sipping a glass of wine back lit by sun dappled pampas grass flowing in the afternoon breeze, Jacque said "The cool thing about California is that after labor day, summer keeps going."

      As another ex pat Midwesterner, her observation is born of many years when a kind of gnawing dread would sneak in on the heels of labor day, summer's last hurrah. Soon autumn would briefly glorify nature with color and then as leaves become crisp detritus, temperatures drop, skies gray and winter's agony looms.

      So maybe those of us who flee for the sunnier climes are weather wimps or looking for the prolonged adolescence of endless summer. But it feels good. And it looks good too like an afternoon at the beach, to kiss summer good bye and to say hello the special year. 
      Notes on Sage living proof follow below.

     Days continue to shorten and we observe summer's slide in the cycles and habits of the considerable wildlife that live from the Pacific into the Santa Lucia mountains.

     We marveled at the playfulness of a pod of Humpback whales, jetting sprays, breaching and showing their backs and tails in a late summer migration.

      The fewer filters between us and nature, the more we see and feel the interaction, the greater the molecular impact on our minds, bodies and heart and soul.

     Out here on the central coast it's also the last hurrah, but with a twist! After labor day when schools are in session, the tourists thin out, traffic quiets, restaurants and shops are again for locals. Tennis courts and beaches are back to normal.

      But I've come to think of September as the first of the special year.  US Open tennis and college football fills September and October, along with the NFL and autumn colors. Then we are into basketball and the holiday season and the festivities to the end of the year. Back in the Midwest when I began to put up storm windows or Hatteras shutters and saw the girls off to school, I thought of the year ending with summer. Then I proscribed the special year-September to December 31. With more of those seasons behind me than ahead, I take great comfort in Jacque's assessment, "summer keeps going." 

        I'm not alone as the 102 year old theatre director throwing kisses from his Rolls Royce, or the 91 year old director of our annual Pinedorado, or the late 80 somethings who volunteered or marched in the miles long parade can attest after their decade's long celebration of Cambria's labor day weekend, or as the 70 and 80 year old surfers, lawn bowlers, pickle ball and tennis players, bikers, hikers, birdwatchers and gardeners can attest, the endless summer continues.

      See you down the trail.

THE ALL AMERICAN WHAT? A BIG SMILE AND A THROWBACK

NOT SMART
THE KID AND THE UZI

    The incident in Arizona is tragic. A shooting instructor is dead and a 9 year old girl must live the rest of her life with the trauma of having killed a man. Tragic yes, but avoidable and criminally stupid.

     There is something repugnant.  Pay a couple hundred dollars and go from your hotel in Vegas to a shooting range where your child is given a chance to handle serious and obviously deadly weapons and then finish with hamburgers?Bullets and Burgers! Has the All American vacation come to this? What impression does that leave on a young mind?

     Having used an Uzi and knowing the kind of power it possesses, I think it should never be put into the hands of a child for commercial purposes. I've been instructed by FBI firearms instructors and US Army trainers and state police trainers and know from personal experience that lethal weapons are meant to be handled and used in ways other than at a tourist shooting range where sissy or junior can fire away and eat a hamburger before going back to that cultural bastion of Las Vegas.

      A friend wrote yesterday she thinks the parents should be charged with manslaughter. Maybe so. But certainly age limits should be imposed or perhaps the operation shut down entirely.

ALSO NOT SMART

   That is smoke above the camp chairs, drifting into the 70 degree plus late morning temperature. It comes from the  fire ring located immediately adjacent to bone dry grassland scrub near a forest suffering the third year of a drought. I can think of no sane reason the state of California permits open fires. That is more so during summer, especially in drought years.  A careless act or a wayward ember could create a disastrous consequence.  It happens.  

   I've enjoyed camp fires in California parks, but during winter, near a stream or the Pacific and never in a drought.  Even then I thought the practice was foolish, deep in a forest or under majestic redwoods. The potential consequence is simply too much for a practice fraught with carelessness, inexperience and hazards. 

    Stupidity stalks us when you see a cigarette butt on a dry and dusty trail.  It is rude when people drop butts in public places, but it is idiocy A) to smoke on a trail and B) to drop a butt near tinder like scrub in a drought.  Duh! How can anyway not see the folly in that?  As is obvious this offender failed even to stomp and mash the butt to assure no hot ash could be left to create a fire.

AND NOW, MORE PLEASANT DIVERSIONS

NOSTALGIC

ANOTHER THROWBACK

     Indianapolis Raceway Park in the '70's.  There was a time I'd jump at any chance to get in any racing machine.

    On this day we were running hot laps, going for speed with no one else on the track. That was probably a good thing.

     See you down the trail.