GOLDEN OLDIES & OTHER SENTIMENTS

a throwback 

    Old images come back to haunt. This was a billboard in the 1970's when Gold Cards were the big thing. Cris Conner and I hosted a morning show on WNAP. Cris, the "Salvador Dali" of radio jocks and yours truly, the sedate investigative journalist, made an odd couple though enormously compatible. Halcyon, salad days they were. 
    Cris was and is a supremely talented photographer. He also handcrafted a walking stick that has gotten miles of California trail time. 

when a plan comes together

     June Lake in the Sierras

    Karen, a friend and former colleague and her husband Larry have just completed a move from Indianapolis to California, something I am familiar with. Karen reminds me that 5 years ago when she decided on the move I told her how quickly the 5 years would go. Joy of joy, they have located in the Republic and have been reborn as Californians.

   Karen and her eldest are planning a trip up to the Sierra and was asking for info. It gave me a chance to evangelize my absolute love of the eastern slope and that area from June Lake to Yosemite. It is our favorite place to hike.

the continuing saga of

an electoral college drop out

    Those of us who have been around the block a few times and especially those of us who were paid to cover politics  are seeing something without precedent, political pros who boldly question the competence and intelligence of a candidate who could be given the nuclear codes. Nor have I seen national security experts en masse warn the nation about the danger of electing said candidate. One former director of the CIA gave up a compensated post at a network and membership on boards of directors, also at personal financial loss to warn us about the danger of Donald Trump. 

     It is my view Trump lacks the character, skill, experience and emotional balance required of the job. He is irrationally irresponsible. His remark of  the "second Amendment people" stopping Hillary Clinton is "morally criminal" at least. 

     He and his apologists can try to explain this away as a joke or an off the cuff comment that is now being overplayed, but that is bullshit. He knows everything a presidential candidate says will be scrutinized or he is stupid. The comment is either another nail in his coffin of incompetence or he is advocating violence. Either disqualifies him. I wish there was a prosecutor out there with the stones to file a charge of some sort to punctuate the gravity of such mindless trash talk.

     You don't have to like Hillary Clinton to realize Donald Trump and his campaign should be flushed. 

     See you down the trail.

    

ELVIS IS ON THE ROAD and I'M AN ELECTORAL COLLEGE DROP OUT

sun and shadow play in morro bay

enrolling in electoral college

     I'm waiting for the New York Times or Wall Street Journal to break the news that wiki leaks discovered a check made payable  to Donald Trump for "services rendered" signed by the Clinton Campaign.

elvis and the crusher 

     Friend and former colleague John, once known as Elvis, was a recent guest.

    He was in the midst of a loop of the west that had him log an extraordinary number of miles and hours on what he affectionately calls "the crusher!"

    The day after the frame below was snapped he set his personal best for miles in a day. He was bound from LA to Las Vegas and wanted to beat the expected 112 degrees in the desert. John left LA at 4AM and arrived Vegas a little before 9AM.  He calculated he averaged 85 MPH. He noted that BMW's and Mercedes also inbound to LA from Vegas were flying by him. But that was just the warm up. He decided not to hang around Vegas.
    Before he got back to his truck and bike carrier he drove 849 miles in some 16 1/2 hours. He caught a nap and drove straight through to Indiana, where he proceeded the mow the acerage of his home. 

   John was an ace in his job in television news and smart as a fox, though mostly he was always a very wise cat. On this trip he was a traveling cat-Elvis on the Orange Crush.

another orange cat looking for cool

taking out the trash

     Taking, keeping and then making light of "always wanting" one-the Purple Heart business by trump-is a low point. He mocked the honor, reverence and respect due all men and women who have been injured in defense of the US. How can such a social and egotistical cretin be a potential president? In many ways he is the poster boy for how toxic and dysfunctional American electoral politics has become.

     See you down the trail.

Originals

originals
ideas

     What if the new President empanelled a "blue ribbon" task force to tackle what looms as precipitous threats to the republic?

•      how to unlock government grid lock
•      how to create a new job generating economy
•      how to initiate a multi decade rebuilding of America's infrastructure
•      how to shorten federal elections and pull the big money out of politics
•      how to bring accountability and greater efficiency to the federal bureaucracy 

       There is certainly more on the horizon but almost everything else follows these critical needs.

        The panel would consist of economists, theorists, scientists, political scientists, big data analysts and be led by real doers. Who would be the leaders? People like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Amory Lovin, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Larry Page, Safra Catz, Mary Barra, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Meg Whitman, Mary Daly, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Michael Bloomberg, Lawrence Ellison, Jamie Diamond and that caliber of person. With a group think process "managed" by these innovative thinkers, the process would produce more results than leaving politicians to sort it out.

       Political leadership would be there to listen and to be questioned. Writers and thinkers as diverse as Noam Chomsky to Charles Krauthammer, Tom Friedman to David Brooks, Midge Decker to Peggy Noonan, Barbara Ehrenreich and others would also be invited to be quizzed and asked to feed ideas. 

       The work process would glean ideas right to left. It would amount to a huge intellectual product, idea and data dump that would then be assimilated, studied and processed by the blue ribbon managers. They would author a document.

        Nothing like this has happened in American governance. Dwight Eisenhower began to approach the concept when he'd invite eminent scientists and scholars to have a sandwich and talk about what's new.  Eventually bureaucrats took it over and it morphed into something else as is typical in Washington.

       Getting the full range of problems, potential solutions, practical applications and real political understanding would help not only probe the depth of the crisis, but would begin to build a road map to solution.

       The world has changed since I began studying political science. The complexity of problems facing our government and others, has woven so intricately and our guardians have so blown their assignments we now face waves of pressure and force than can force modern civilization into a tail spin.

Partisan politics has replaced a desire to fix, solve, lead and serve. This presidential election is a marker as to how bad it is. 

       Congress cannot function, but they have created a special class for themselves. The White House, under almost any person, is terribly outgunned and over worked. Our Supreme Court is not at capacity and is more political now than in a century. The political class has failed. It is past time for a new Ap, an application of innovation and professionalism.  We need the help. It would be hard to say no the President.

original skills

    Cowboy is a job description here on the California central coast. Skills we used to see in the old movie westerns are still well practiced here.

         Below a young male is being branded and is about to be castrated. The missing parts are put into the bucket you see to the right of the frame, and moved promptly to a grill where they become Rocky Mountain Oysters. 

     Fisherman still go down to the sea off the central coast with Morro Bay being the nearest local port. 

     On this day this particular catch was taken some 30 miles off shore.

     As seals and gulls hope for a snack, a couple of fishermen 
prepare the catch of slimy eels. 

    They are  processed and put in a transportation tank to be sent to Asia.

original genius

the young lion 

who should have been president

    In 1979 Senator Richard Lugar, a runner, sponsored a fitness festival. Years later the highly respected Senator made a bid for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. 

    I've often wondered what a difference that would have made. Lugar was admired by both sides of the aisle and played a key role in stabilizing the world by controlling nuclear war heads and biological weapons that fell to local control when the former Soviet Union collapsed. He and Senator Sam Nunn intervened and kept weapons of mass destruction off the black market. 

    In this post featuring American originals I wanted to pay tribute an original political thinker. 

     I remain stunned how young we both were. I was producing a documentary on running and this was a break in that day's shooting. 

author, author

   Kudos to a tennis friend for his creative writing. Ray Derouin plays a skilled game of tennis and writes with depth and aplomb as well. The Pewter Plough Playhouse, an historic Cambria theatre presented readings of three of his one act plays, Perfect Strangers, Tea Time and A Week of Mondays. 

   Intricate and thoughtful scripts and nicely read by Janice Peters, Randall Lyon, Viv Goff and Mikaele Alicia.

original defense

    Why not outlaw open fires unless in the rainy season and why not find a stepped up enforcement plan?

     I ask this as 5,552 men and women continue to battle the fire north of Big Sur that has spread to 71 square miles, 51 thousand acres and has destroyed 57 homes with thousands more threatened. The most terrible thing about the fire is that it cost the life of a bulldozer operating trying to prepare a firebreak.

    How did this fire get started? A camp fire. True it was an illegal camp fire, but open fires are permitted in state and national parks and that is just wrong. We all have memories of sitting around a campfire, sure, but in the future those memories should be written only in the rainy season. The idiots who caused this fire are being pursued. Nothing can undo the damage, but justice can be punitive and in that way make an example of the fools who in all honesty may never have been taught about the danger of a camp fire.  

    See you down the trail.

INSPIRED II

A DOSE OF GOOD MEDICINE

   This is a new top to a post that drew much interest. It has been revised. We gathered these images on a visit with dear friends. It was a tonic.
   Now this focus is brought to our current political rumble, which includes a fight with the media. We'll revisit that below. 

INSPIRED

   Frequent readers remember I'm a First Amendment fanatic. I'm the kind of goof who reads the Declaration of Independence each Fourth of July, and who is adamant about protecting our liberties and who holds dear the extraordinary set of bones upon which this republic hangs-the Constitution.

  All of us are entitled the full extension of  rights, privileges and responsibilities laid out for us by the founders, protected by sacrifices through generations and increased by our perpetually growing enlightenment. 

   So Washington DC is the touchstone, in so many ways.

   Ingrained in the raison d'être of these monuments and memorials are intellects, sacrifices, leadership, vision and a devotion to an ideal-a nation where all live in equality. 
   Personalities who have risen to lead are honored, beyond their days, as a challenge to us in our time.  These stone reminders are a tonic. We are humbled and inspired by what we see and remember.

Memorial to journalists killed in the line of duty.

Newseum, Washington DC

     Service personnel and journalists have given much, including their all so that we may know and live free. They inspire me.
   Politicians who rise above petty politics to move the arc of history as statesmen inspire me.

    Temples that celebrate the best of our creative dreams,  reaching and artistic output, inspire and offer a healing balm.

    And so our divided and dysfunctional Congress, beleaguered Presidency and questionable Supreme Court do not detract from the wide and long sweep of the true greatness that can and has emerged in and from this Capitol of human longings and achievement. It is not perfect.  None of the heroes who are memorialized were perfect. Like all of us, they had feet of clay and were made of the same star matter. 
   We have eras of which to be proud and periods of shame and embarrassment but it is always on a human scale, moving toward an ideal, an inch, a day, a moment at a time.

    So I take from all of it an inspiration and renewed zeal to stay stalwart in my belief that all of us, regardless of birthright, are children under the same heaven, brothers and sisters of planet earth. I may not like you, I may not agree with you, but neither that, nor how and who you were born should stand between you and full equality, even in a church.

    Your color, your gender, your ethnic heritage, your sexual orientation, your physical or mental challenges simply make you a human being, entitled to the full privileges of life.

    I thank the good Lord for a vision that it is so, and for a nation where we get better at making it so and for a place where we build monuments and temples to remind us to make sure it is always so and to recall those who have said so.
   
    Afterthoughts in this political season. Reporters and other journalists have been barred by the Trump campaign. That is stupid and it is wrong. It is also critical to note.
   If there is anything our generation should take from the history of 1933 forward is the rise of Hitler, his coopting of workers and his use of power. We witness warning signs and similar behavior. Trying to manipulate the press is troubling.
    Recourse? Some have suggested a fight back-refuse to cover his candidacy. If one outlet is barred, no coverage from everyone else. That may "vent," but it's not right nor effective.
My friend Frank, who hosted our Washington visit observes it keenly.
      "The media is always stuck between principles (protesting this kind of treatment) and responsibility (continuing to report on craziness.)
     This election offers American voters an opportunity to do a reality check and to think in view of US history and all that implies.
     

    See you down the trail.

GAVEL TO GAVEL-THE FENCE-DONALD dumb to dumber

gavel to gavel

     The nation owes immense gratitude to Brian Lamb, the founder of C-SPAN. A crowning glory of his vision has been full screen the last couple of weeks, true reality television in C-SPAN's coverage of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. It is television for adults and the best kind of history teaching for students.

     In 1979 Lamb's C-SPAN opened the proceedings of the US Congress to constituent oversight by winning the right to broadcast from the House and Senate. Since then C-SPAN has created a larger footprint in the nation's public affairs. Book TV, studio interview and phone in segments, coverage of committee hearings, panels, seminars, symposiums, political-cultural events, historical programs and more have graced American television screens with a seat for viewers. C-SPAN treats us with respect.

        an American ritual

      It was a family ritual in our home to watch the conventions, as was possible in those days, gavel to gavel courtesy of extended network coverage. Even before remote controls (!) we would switch from NBC's Huntley Brinkley team to CBS's coverage as Walter Cronkite began to emerge. (btw I was the remote control, switching the dial with such speed that my mother warned "don't break it.")

      By the late 1960's I was covering politics as a young reporter. I covered the nominating conventions in the '70s, 80's and 90's. By the time I was ceo of a documentary and production company or a news executive, the networks had pared coverage. 

      With all of the media available, there is the obligatory yacking head panels combined with a penchant for the broadcast anchors to blather.  Not so with C-SPAN.

      C-SPAN makes no editorial judgment or interruption. What it does is provide uninterrupted coverage of everything at the podium and an opportunity to view all of the produced video segments and musical interludes. Gavel to Gavel, for real. 

no talking, please

     By the time of a certain intellectual age, most of us can navigate the dramas without the arbitrary intrusion of anchors, reporters, producers, gee whiz graphics and the droning "experts." At the end of the day or during the rest of the news cycle we can seek out those folks, but as the "show" plays forth on the convention floor, we should be permitted to watch, do our own analysis, and render our own judgments. 

      Indeed there is a lot of good journalism and reporting, on the air, in print and on-line, but there is a freedom and quality in being permitted to watch proceedings without intrusion. We would not want interruptions at a theater or movie. I've taken to frequently doing as my long time friend and fellow media veteran Frank does during ball games, turn down the sound and watch the action. Instant replays are a nice touch, but unless I'm a particular fan of the sportscaster, I watch without sound. I'm old enough to know who's scoring and who's not and how well someone is playing. As Yogi may have said, "you can see a lot just by watching."

cheers!

       The depth and essence of a political party can be measured by how they put themselves forward, even in the non prime time segments. Gavel to Gavel has purpose and is enlightening. C-SPAN is the real star of the political season. Indiana born and educated, Purdue graduate, Brian Lamb has given the American body politic a gift of true intelligence and the best seats in the house.

      

why there is a fence

Donald

dumb and dumber

     Not that one is necessary but if you need another reason to worry about Donald Trump's suitability to be president this last stunt encouraging the Russian government to hack American computers and to get involved in our domestic politics is off the charts. It could also be treasonous. 

       I can't help but think if Hillary Clinton had said what Trump said, the Fox News? crowd would be leading a pitchfork and club brigade into Philadelphia to "lock her up" until they can "string her up" or shoot her as one Republican said last week. 

      Trump is a demagogue of the worst kind, he's a con artist and entirely out of his league when it comes to the complexities of international diplomacy. I've watched as friends who are conservative or traditional Republicans have struggled with has happened to their party. As difficult as it is to concede, several have done so. They will not vote for Trump. I've watched in disbelief as people of conscience and intelligence have migrated from their abhorrence of Trump to being reluctant supporters. Donald Trump is dangerous.

      Wouldn't it be something if a federal attorney somewhere brought espionage or sedition charges against him? It won't happen, but maybe it should.

       See you down the trail

THE LIBERATION OF FOX NEWS & TIDE POOLS

washed up

     From Pacific detritus to a world apart, tide pools offer a kaleidoscope. We go there, just ahead.

how will America's conservative voice survive the slime?

      The future of Fox News is the serious speculation in media and financial circles now that its creator and driving force has been dumped for being a sexual miscreant and bully. This is a story larger than the offenses of a dirty old man and sexual extortionist, Roger Ailes.

      Fox News is a huge cash cow, the largest money maker in the 21st Century/Rupert Murdoch empire and a key to it's market value. Fox is also the principle mouth piece for a brand of Republicanism and conservatism. The king of Fox News's culture of sexual harassment is offender number one, creator Ailes and that raises yet another question, the integrity of anything you see on Fox News. More about that quandary in a moment.

not a journalist

      In serious journalistic discussion, Roger Ailes is considered a propagandist, despite being the brains behind the successful Fox News empire. 

      Ailes concocted the notion of a propaganda network when he worked for Richard Nixon. Before Fox News Ailes was a political word smith and hack.

He was a partisan in the employ of Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, plus other candidates. His specialty was spin, selling a candidate and their position. There was nothing fair or balanced about his work ethic. He did not care about facts or truth other than what a campaign or administration wanted the public to know and or think. He was a shill, and if the reports are to be believed he was an abusive sexual predator all the while.

      Ailes was outed by high profile Fox News talent. Since then victims of his harassment from past decades have come forward and the Murdoch family canned him, albeit with a multi million dollar severance. Ailes made them billions, still the younger Murdochs do not like Ailes and so Fox must now manage a future without the dirty old man and coverage tyrant.

fox news is big money

      Fox News with it's conservative to arch conservative personalities and the Ailes spin on news has amassed an audience of devotees. To abandon it's current format risks a huge financial loss. But it has become clear Ailes directed the tone, nature and content of Fox News-both it's personality programs and it's "news coverage." Ailes decided what and who got on the air. He hired the talent and directed coverage.

      Ailes was not a journalist, remember. He was a propagandist but he found an audience of true believers and he made the network a profit center, a huge winner of cash while he advanced political agendas of his own choosing while also harassing, intimidating and extorting women who worked for him.  He set a tone and in the last few days we've learned there were other men who emulated the boss. Conservative America had no idea who was playing them for a chump.

saying no to miles

      My problem with Fox News has always been Ailes. Years ago a well respected political operative and now a former Governor suggested I might reach out to Ailes as he was building Fox News. This public servant knew Ailes because they had worked for the same President. I passed on the option because of my sense of Ailes. He was not out to create a new brand of journalism, he was out to create a clearly tilted perspective on news with the sole purpose to feed a conservative political audience it's own view of things and to make billions of dollars in the process. Some will tell you Ailes created a response to a liberal bias, to balance things. Poppycock! Ailes poisoned the well of journalism by politicizing it in an overt and obvious way. Obvious to those who care about real balance and no slant. But it is the nature of the poisoning. Everything at Fox was according to Ailes. He was a dictator.

      If the New York Times has a liberal bias it is the product of an editorial page and even that is the enterprise of many voices and input. At Fox News it was all Roger Ailes. Hannity and O'Reilly would not exist if they did not tow the Ailes line.

      I don't believe the swill that some spew that CBS, NBC, ABC or even CNN are liberal media. It is just they are not conservative and that alone condemns them to being "liberal." MSNBC is indeed liberal, the antithesis to Fox News, but for the most part the other networks traditionally were simply equal opportunity offenders. A good news organization will tow no line and will in all likelihood irritate left and right, republican and democrat. 

the credibility crisis at fox news

       So here's a hard point. Fox was created by Ailes in his image and to his own designs. He was a manipulator, a political propagandist who dreamed of having a network to sell a party's point of view. That is not fair or balanced and it is not journalism. Any real reporting that was done on Fox was probably done by virtue of enterprise and professionalism of those who worked there. Obviously not everyone drank the Ailes cool-aid. And finally women with courage came forward and exposed the lecherous political hack who posed as a news executive. How can a network that took it's marching orders from a sexual offender who emotionally brutalized employees and who's purpose was to sell a particular political point of view, and who ran the place with an iron hand not be ashamed, embarrassed and exposed for being what it is, a mouthpiece and the tool of a jerk. 

       Bill O'Reilly should put this in the no spin zone. Sean Hannity is a perfect Roger Ailes creation, but O'Reilly is different. I don't think O'Reilly cares much at all about anything that he blathers about.  It's an act. He's a television player and good at it. His real concerns are his ratings and his bank account. He's living a good life with the elite and he played the Ailes game for the big dollars. In that way he is a symbol of Fox News. It is not real, it is spin. But now that Ailes is on the trash heap, Fox has a chance to prove it can be something else, not a Roger Ailes project and not under his menacing regime of an old boy world where white men ruled, where they could sexually intimidate women, where a narrow point of view was spread as truth even if it was not so. So in the months and years ahead it will be interesting to see how Fox News might care more about news than Roger Ailes did.

        Oh, there is a lot of speculation that Ailes might be an advisor to Donald Trump. They are long time friends. How does that sit with you?

a private world

a visit to pacific coast tide pools

    See you down the trail. 

Where's the good for the old days? Thoughts on THE COLLECTION

when looking back

      It's hard to imagine looking back at these days and pining for the "good old days."

    Every generation has their favorite time, their golden age, a brew of nostalgia and the realities of growing older. Now offers few safe havens for a future stroll down memory lane.

    Disruption is a norm. Violence dominates news and lurks as a constant threat. Weather patterns are changing dramatically. We are about to watch a poison water and virus threatened Olympics. It is a time when hate is a political tool. A popular t-shirt reads, "I already don't like our new president." People ask are our major candidates the best we can find?

    Being a parent and grandparent widens your matrix of concerns longitudinally. Each era has problems and crises but it seems there used to be a larger patch of middle ground, commonweal, shared values and perceived need to solve problems and dispatch issues. I'm hard pressed to understand how we'll see this time of snark, vulgarity, insensitivity, trolling, racial discord, tribalism and high negativity as good. Maybe finding a Pokemon Go monster will be enough.

good days for Mike

    These are however good days for Indiana Governor Mike Pence. He was saved from the verge of political extinction by Donald Trump.  

     Mike has long wanted to run for President, even when I first met him as he was a small town radio talk show host. He left congress to run for governor with the idea it would enhance his presidential aspirations. Pence was expected to run in this years clown car primary but major gaffs and bad judgments crashed those hopes. His own Indiana Republican party was embarrassed and there were moves to undercut him. There is a good chance he would have been defeated in his re-election bid. Mike was depressed and his ambitions were on the trash heap until Trump. The near "has been" will emerge in November as Vice President or the leading contender for the party of Trump in 2020.

a village light

wish you could see it

The Collection

     Playwright and Cal Poly professor Al Schnupp created  THE COLLECTION a play "celebrating the life and legacy of Peggy Guggenheim an eccentric and invincible collector of modern art." 

       4 Actors, 34 episodes and 40 transformational paintings in an inspired 90 minute production that is a cascade of humor, insight and exploration that never slows, never bores and mixes modern art and biography in an ingenious manner of staging. 

       Jaide Whitman plays Peggy Guggenheim while Ryan Austin, Daniel Cook and Ellen Eves play multiple roles. They are a talented ensemble who sell Schnupp's inventive script brilliantly. The set is a kind of triptych with changing pieces of art that are themselves a wonderful homage to the 40 paintings. Kudos to Antonio Mata who worked as stage manager and stage hand in the rapid change production. The episodes are centered on a painting or sculpture from Guggenheim's collection.

       She was quite the personality. Married several times and with a list of affairs she was friends with American and European writers and painters. She had galleries in London and New York, smuggled art during WWII. She was an early patron of "modern" or abstract art and is credited with introducing Jackson Pollock's work. 

       THE COLLECTION is in a kind of shakedown cruise, with west coast performances in San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, Fresno, Santa Barbara, Ojai, Santa Cruz and Carmel.

       The veteran writer director Schnupp has created a dynamic property. His inventive approach and the larger than life quality of Peggy Guggenheim deserve big stages and theaters. 

      Personally I'd love to see Maggie Gyllenhaal in the Guggenheim role.

    See you down the trail.