GOING IT ALONE AND ANOTHER WAY

    Photo by John Stanley

      Have you found there are times when life just positions you in a way that you are alone in something? It may be temporary or for a specific purpose but for a duration, there it is, you are out there alone.

      Being out of step, out of the norm or not in the "flow" is that way. I'm about to walk in that world, by way of nerdom, or is it nerddom? What I think is a practical solution to a little problem casts me in that role.

      I've got a snazzy pair of tennis shoes, they are blue and until recently were laced with bright yellow strings. They're excellent platforms for this aging player. The shoes are part of a signature line of Novak Djokovic, a pro whom I admire. One of the strings broke! I saw it coming and tried to prepare but finding a bright yellow shoestring proved futile. So when the moment arrived and necessity dictated, I removed a white string from an old pair of tennis shoes I wear working around the house.      

       There are white stripes on the blue shoes so it's not entirely objectionable, however I will enter the court at my next match with a left foot brandishing a yellow laced shoe and the right with the non matching white.

     And since life is complicated I replaced the purloined white string from the "work" shoes with the only thing I had available, a black lace. You see how rapidly I'm devolving into geek hood. One broken string thrusts me into wearing two non matching pair of tennis shoes. Alone in this predicament certainly, but I've reached an age when I don't think I'll be embarrassed about the matter. "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"  
     And this stroll in mismatched oddness will provide a chance to measure folks on their power of observation and how they may respond.

living stones

    

   A couple of Lana's favorite succulents, Living Stones, are  showing proof of life. 

      

dumber than a box of rocks

circus trumpus

    The unfit, unqualified, predator president is working overtime to prove that he is also an idiot.  

      Case in point. America auto makers sold a record number of cars and earned record profits for the last two years. Auto workers benefited, consumers loved the product and it has been an American success story. So what does mr tweet propose? He wants to revisit the whole matter of gas mileage and government guidance. If he is successful he will force the entire industry to adjust. What will happen? Cars prices will rise. If fuel efficiency standards are trimmed American car owners will pay more at the pump because they'll use more gas. There will be a cascading affect on air quality standards. Can he really be this stupid? 85% of the public supports improved fuel efficiency. So why fool with CAFE standards, as the guidelines are known. To paraphrase the vulgarian himself. Really Dumb.  Really, really dumb.
      But there is California, ready to go it alone. This state won the right to establish its own fleet standards (CAFE) for fuel efficiency. The affect has been that most car makers build according to the California standards. California promises to fight for its waiver right to set higher fuel standards, standards most Americans want.  

even the foxistas get it

       The star of trumpland, the American nightmare, is on the skids. It's bad when Fox News viewers give him an approval rating of only 41%. At the same time in his administration President Obama had a 63% approval rating.

        Fox News finds only 7% of their crowd say repeal and replacement of Obama Care should be a priority. Only 41% approve of his immigration policies. 

       Maybe somewhere Arnold Schwarzenegger is holding a prayer service for trump the frumpy's precipitous ratings dive. Arnold, ask folks to pray for America, for that matter for the world. 

a thing of beauty

Photo courtesy of Indian Wells Tennis Garden

          Much of the sports world is focused on the beginning of the big dance, the NCAA Mens Basketball Championship. I'm certainly a fan as well, but I'm a tennis enthusiast too and the BNP Paribas Open is underway at the beautiful Indian Wells Tennis Garden near Palm Springs. I saw this frame of one of the practice courts and thought it captured the beauty of tennis in the desert.  We've enjoyed our visits to Indian Wells but this year we'll be flipping between basketball and tennis on the big screen. Good luck with your brackets.

          And good luck Hoosier fans. Sorry Tom Crean didn't work out. He seemed able to recruit well but something just didn't gel. Teams that should have been better or gone further didn't materialize. I know IU Athletic Director Fred Glass and he's a bright and capable man. He and President McRobbie, who is also a good guy, face an important challenge now. And they do so in a hyper aware and active state, where by the way arch rival Purdue and little Butler are enjoying the big dance. Pressure!

      See you down the trail.

ISOLATED & WEIRD BETS

    Some 450 to 500 people are cut off from the world and isolated in a paradise.

    The failure of a bridge and landslides burying portions of majestic California Highway 1 have isolated and cut in half the community of Big Sur.

Photo Courtesy of Mercury News

      The Pfeiffer bridge, damaged in winter storms, will be demolished this week. Those who know speculate it will be a year before the route from Big Sur north to Carmel, Monterey and San Francisco is open.

 Slide photos courtesy of Big Sur Kate

     Slides and road erosion have closed the Pacific Coast Highway south of Big Sur to Ragged Point about 20 miles north of Cambria. It is likely the slides and road cave-ins will be repaired sooner.

      Presently, the residents of Big Sur and environs including a monastery of monks have no way out. Food, propane, animal food and supplies have been air lifted in.

       The famed Nepenthe Restaurant, Ventana and Post Ranch resorts, historic Deetjens Big Sur Inn, the Coast Gallery and Tree Bones Yurts and Restaurant are among those places shuttered until the road is open. 

       Also closed as well is the Henry Miller Museum. A friend's house where the author spent time is now a delightful Big Sur address-a library, bookstore, curio shop,  concert, film and lecture venue.

     We rarely make the drive up the coast that we don't stop at the Miller. 

      Our favorite hiking trails are also off limits until the road is open again.

   It has been our custom to enjoy the some two and half hour drive from Cambria to Carmel for a lunch or a get-away. 

    The drive is world famous because it is spectacular and an engineering marvel, but sometimes nature is not to be denied.

       We are simply inconvenienced, denied access to some of California's beauty but those who are stranded face separated families, loss of employment, threats to the viability of their businesses with no clear indication of when things will be made right.

       Big Sur hit my consciousness during the "back to the earth" and "flower child" era. I'd read Kerouac and had been dazzled not only by the music of the 67 Monterey Pop Festival, but scenes of Big Sur, Monterey and San Francisco. The beauty of the area was alluring.
      The first trip to Big Sur came in 1969 when our pal Jim Cahill drove Lana and me from Manhattan Beach up to hike and camp at Big Sur's Lime Kiln Canyon. Love at first sight. It is probably the magnet that drew us to California. 

        With vacations to Big Sur now off calendars and schedules we will occasionally post archive shots and hope they help a bit.

circus trumpus

•      Compass needles are spinning.  It seems this White House and the Fed are on a collision course. Trump wants to fan economic growth but the Fed fears it could overheat and so moves to permit slower growth. Who is your money on?
•       Experts in both parties say this administration is the slowest in history to complete transition, including key appointments. Both Republicans and Democrats say they are way behind and it could cause problems.  
•       The head of the EPA has views on carbon and the climate that are diametrically opposed to science.
  

      While none of this is particularly surprising, it is none the less annoying to the majority of Americans who rejected his ideas. It is further evidence of a lack of qualification and experience  and has furthered speculation about how long he may last. Who knows if there is anything to it other than pipe dreams of millions of worried Americans, though it is making for a dangerous bit of wagering.

      Ladbrokes, the English gaming house is offering odds on the Trump presidency including impeachment, leaving office before his term, a visit to Russia and other lines. Gamblers can find a line on almost anything. Ladbrokes is a "legitimate" business and is listed on the London Stock Exchange, so their Trump lines are "respectable." 
      Other games, less respectable, have speculated on Trump's health and longevity. One wonders about the people who would put money on those lines and how do the book makers set odds on. This is different than "legitimate" gamers who bet on sports. How deep down a rabbit hole have we come when you can make book on whether the president will stay alive. Odd bets, odd games in a world where big money can crash the odds.

       Maybe it's not so surprising when a former casino and real estate hustler takes over the White House. 

     See you down the trail.

WHEN TRUTH IS ON THE WIND

    Fixated on a kite in the breeze we can often forget about the person pulling the strings, down below.

     It's like a puppet master. Maybe it's a bit like Washington. While we are rightly fixated on the Russian intrigues look what's happening over here-in the House.

    Perhaps you have seen a list of House Resolutions that have been introduced-reminding you in the process that Republicans who introduced these pieces of legislation, control the House, Senate and White House.

     There are bills to :

• terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
• terminate the Department of Education
• defund Planned Parenthood 
• criminalize abortion
• provide vouchers for public education
• repeal the Affordable Care Act
• National Right to Work Law-getting rid of unions
• mobilize against sanctuary cities
• repeal wildlife protection

    At the risk of being pedantic, it's like this--

  teaching a child to never turn their back on the ocean-you just never know.

  circus trumpus!

   One of the great headlines about Attorney General Jefferson Sessions

 IF SESSIONS HAD NOTHING TO HIDE THEN 

WHY DID HE HIDE IT?

     I'm curious to know why he lied, under oath? I also want to know what his fellow Senators are going to do about it?

      If a Democrat would have done this, Fox News, Republicans and Conservatives would all be in a cardiac wing or cleaning their brains off the stratosphere. That's only a toe in this swamp.

how this administration resembles 
a trash dumpster

• Russians hacked and intruded into the American electoral system
• The web of contacts of the Trump administration with the Russian government of Putin is both weird and wide
• Trump expresses fondness of Putin, has done business with Russians and is opposed to justified sanctions against the Russians
• The President, his former national security advisor, attorney general, former campaign manager, son-in-law adviser and others have all demonstrated an inability to tell the truth about their Russian connections
• The President ordered a raid in Yemen despite intelligence it was not a good idea 
• When the raid ended in the death of an American and the loss of expensive equipment he called it a success
• When the military and intelligence said the raid failed to get good intelligence Trump blamed the Generals
• Every President has always accepted blame for a failed operation except Trump
• Reich minister Bannon is at war with Secretary of State Tillerson and the Trump children/advisers Ivanka and Kushner
• Completely without documentation Trump says his phones were tapped by the Obama administration

russia house

   There are many things to know about the Russian-Trump connection. Investigations are underway and this scandal in the new administration will not go away. Will it bring down this regime? Too early to know. But in the short run Americans deserve to know why all the contact and what were they talking about? 

     Why did the Trump organization have so many contacts with the Russians? It is without precedent-but everything about this gang of ideologues, amateurs, egoists, nationalists and white supremacists is without precedent. 

     Diverting attention and shouting lies, as they have and will do, won't stop the  professionals who are digging deeply into the Trump-Putin love fest. 

     There's never been an administration so troubled and scandal ridden, even before the boxes are unpacked.

republican ethic/morality

    Americans are waiting for more Republicans to acknowledge the President and his team are either corrupt, morons, or both but who got lucky with unhappy people and with those who truly are deplorable. 

    The trumpistas have already begun to screw the unhappy Americans, but Republicans could build an infrastructure and jobs creation program and do those people, and themselves, some good. They could, if they wished to. 
    There seems nothing to do with the true deplorables except to send them back to their racist, bigoted undrained swamps or they could take that group of haters and make them a brigade to send to Syria.

    In the meantime Rand Paul almost gets arrested for demanding that fellow republicans show him a copy of the so called new health care plan. Surely they have one. How many hundred times did House Republicans try to overturn the ACA? 

    So while the President is demonstrating ways he can be a maniac his party is starting to bludgeon itself and stumble over opportunity to do something except take pot shots. A couple of Senators have shown an interest in taking on the crazy Trump. 
    The House is another matter. Paul Ryan is looking for a spine. Maybe the far right wing can get their bearings by opening another Benghazi probe. Or go after Hillary's e-mails again. Or just maybe they could show a little of that vitriol and vigor by investigating the failed Yemen raid, or the Russian hack of the election or the lying Attorney General, or Mike Pence's Hillary disease-the e-mail indiscretions when he was governor, or the GOP could go after the lying...well you get the point....

trump land the movie

    I hope we all live long enough to see the movie and to read the books about this era. Can't you just imagine how writers and historians will play this. 

   Maybe in a movie those of you who voted for Trump will be able to find a good support group to help you get over it. Yes, you were fed up or ignored or unhappy but look what you did. It's like a "last call romance." You were in a bar for too long had too much to drink, and went home with someone only to wake up the next morning in a junk yard bed sleeping with rats and a goat. Your clothes were gone except your Make America Great Again shirt, that had been translated into Russian.

     By the way Republicans, you still have time to save your own reputations for the books, movies and real history. Mitch McConnell, even you could be admired if maybe you could convince the Donald to take you by the hand and just dance off the top of the Washington monument. Now is that a movie ending? Poor taste? How can you tell anymore? 

   See you down the trail.

WHAT IS COMING?

     It's a seasons of life thing. I've been toying with a letter to my 13 month grand daughter, to be read 25 years from now.
     Maybe I'm wrong but as I look around to develop a scope of the epistle, I keep bumping up against what seems to be a rock hard brand of short sightedness. It is dangerously so, it appears to me. There is a common denominator as well, money.
      As a nation, actually as nations of the world, we make choices. 

• Business profits or clean air and water. (Lower costs with fewer regulations vs a future of poison)
• Funding for education or prisons. (Only so many tax dollars available-where do they go? What has the greatest value?)
• Profit or public safety? (Think airbags or ignition problems and the calculus of cost of recall vs cost of litigation and pay out if a problem occurs.) Too many corporations choose protecting the "bottom line" over doing the right thing and undertaking recalls and product replacement. The culture seems to approve.
• Repairing infrastructure or kicking the problem down the road?
• The six WalmWart heirs control as much money as the bottom 42% of the American public, somewhere around $89 billion. Some 45-50 million Americans live poverty. Why is the divide so high? Why is the middle class disappearing? How has this new "Gilded Age" happened?

      And on and on it goes as I look for signals in how we live and decide now and how those choices will affect the world our grand children will inhabit. A lot more rumination is ahead. Complexities...

      shadow lace

flowers for Ruth

    Near tragedy struck our coastal mountain village last weekend.

      An allegedly intoxicated driver struck a parked car with such force it shoved it across a parking lot into a crowded coffee shop and village gathering place. Walls tumbled down, furniture was tossed and broken and 5 people were injured. One of them was our friend Ruth Armstrong.  

      Ruth was one of the first people to greet us when we moved to Cambria more than 10 years ago. She made sure we met new people and made friends. She is an artist and one of the village's most indelible people. Her leg and ankle were broken in several places. Ruth walks from one end of East Village to the other end of West Village, perpetually it seems. We are all hoping for a quick rehab because main street seems unadorned without seeing Ruth in her unique gait observing and monitoring Cambria village life.

    

self inflicted wounds

   The Trump gang just can't get it right. They hire a good speech writer who crafts a good address which the bossman reads as though he believes what he is saying, but then....

• We learn the Attorney general either lied or withheld information about his own Russian ties and a new storm begins...
• Kellyanne's bunkhouse posture seemingly ignoring the history and prestige of educators in the oval office sets off another storm...
• It is revealed the highest sources at the White House lied to a group of network news anchors doing a deliberate sleight of hand deception so as to trick positive press coverage. Reich minister Bannon may have won the day but further eroded an already tenuous assignment of truth or trust to this White House. 

       Amateur hour continues.

        See you down the trail.

EXTRAORDINARY

    Perplexing matters are just ahead but first we marvel. 

    You are looking at snow, an extraordinarily uncommon sight here on California's central coast.

    In northern San Luis Obispo County the Santa Lucia mountains run from about 1,700 to 3,700 feet though they get taller as they climb toward Big Sur. We are a Mediterranean climate and snow is rare.

     By standards practically anywhere else this is not a lot of snow and they pale as snow capped peaks, but they were a shock to the system as I gazed out of the window while sipping coffee. 

     The jolt was more incongruous since these are the scenes we've been viewing since the rain has abated.

     Bee boxes so they and the birds can do their spring magic.

      Grazing slopes with an abundance of grazing material.

    The snow was gone by late morning and a warming trend is expected.

OOPS

      Who to feel the most sorry for-The Moonlight crew, La La Land's happy and celebrating crowd or Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway?

       Oscar history there. You can imagine the conversation over the production crews ear phones, or in the network offices, or the ATAS office. What a header and plummet of emotion on one hand and bizarre ascension to the top on the other. Maybe the Russians hacked something!

Stooge Patrol

      Donald Trump and his minions should know their obituaries will be written by journalists. 

      The game the White House is playing with restricting access is foolish. But it is also the sort of thing dictators, strong men thugs and Russians do. Combined with his childish "fake news" retorts and his labeling the free press an "enemy of the people" it is also a jab in the eye of a free and open democratic republic. As we have noted "enemy of the people" is an old Russian communist tool designed to silence free thought. 

      Over the weekend I was published on the New York Times on line site raising the concern that Trump treats his followers as a movement and they respond as such, getting further out of the mainstream of American political behavior and history. They disregard the truth, are willingly mesmerized by a con man and ignore the unprecedented amateurism, missteps and blunders. One could question if they and Trump are not the true "enemies of the people."

    This photo of Stephen Miller has been discussed and dissected for several days now. The photo is real, but there is disagreement about whether he is throwing the white power salute sign or is simply fiddling with his coat while doing a television interview. 

      People who know him say he's off the deep end and has been for years. They sight his odd political thoughts while in college and his behavior since. His recent statements have convinced many he's a fascist and white nationalist. He's part of the Bannon gang. What do you think?

     See you down the trail.

Respect

orientation

     It is a difficult challenge that confronts all of us. In a time of intemperance, anger and hyperbole how can we remain civil?

     How do you disapprove, disagree and dislike attitudes and beliefs of friends and associates but not disrespect them?

     The old adage about avoiding religion, politics and sex never took with me. We have brains and spirit, passion and thoughts and we'd never fully engage our humanity if we did not exercise, fully exercise, our intellect and freely explore thought and especially those boundaries between us.

     The challenge, it seems, is to probe those lines of demarcation, so as to understand and learn, but do so in a way that does not threaten. And perhaps that is a flash point, threatening. It is difficult to watch and listen to an attitude or policy that seems anathema to those ideas and values one holds most dear. But, how to respond? I suspect this will be a growing challenge.

     

whither

into storms?

or

into light?

    My father Karl was also my best friend. I was particularly blessed that way. 

    A WWII combat veteran, political activist, competitive athlete, church officer, humanitarian, believer in human dignity and full human rights, he reared my brothers and me with the toughness of the drill instructor he had been but also with love and a liberal dosage of wisdom. A quote I grew up with was "I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it."

    Nothing was off limits in our dinner table conversations and they were lively. My parents often had guests in the home who held different views and politics. There were disagreements, but they were civil and often my dad would inject that quote. 

     By the way dad would frequently say "... as attributed to Voltaire..." I asked him once why he said that. He said it was what Voltaire thought but there was a question about whether he said it in those words specifically.  On later research it appears it was a summary of Voltaire's thinking and written as such by historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her book The Friends of Voltaire. She also wrote The Life of Voltaire. The wisdom and capacity of the philosophy is none-the-less a fundamental principal of a civil society.

      In the last analysis it's all a matter of where we stand as to how we see things.

  green extension  

   The magic green carpet of California's Central Coast extends into wine country as well.

     See you down the trail.

For the Birds- Wrong Words-and New Trump Therapy

    As we learn, life is a series of trade offs.

     Drought ending soakings may lead to slides, closings and road collapses.

 (Santa Rosa Creek Rd-Cambria down to one lane here-washed out further east)

There is flooding, downed trees and leaks, but as the water tables rise we see new sights.

     The Egret population swelled as creeks have become ponds...

       Gulls seem in perpetual frenzy in wind whipped waves and over flowing stream entry to the Pacific...

    Some days it's easy to say life is for the birds

and some days are for anger management

   
     Before we go any further history calls on "enemy of the people."
    The Roman Senate called emperor Nero an enemy of the public in 68AD. That is probably its first use. It has a sinister and bloody history.
     Maximilien Robespierre, a leader in the French Reign of Terror (think A Tale of Two Cities) said the enemy of the people is "owed nothing but death." That was in 1795.
     Vladimir Lenin used the phrase in 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the founding of the Communist Party. He paid tribute to Robespierre who engineered a radical "purification" of politics by killing enemies. 
      Stalin and Hitler used the phrase in persecuting and killing their enemies.
      Chinese Communist leader Mao used the term in identifying those he sought to eliminate. 
      More recently the term has been used by thug dictators and strongmen in repressive regimes and governments. No one with integrity uses the phrase, no one you can trust.
      It has become Donald Trump's new favorite.
      Classless or clueless? Deplorable in either case. A warning?
      
                                political karma

     Ponder now a bit of an ethical conundrum. There are some, many probably, who were not so much for anyone as seriously opposed to someone for reasons that have become obvious.

    Presently they are challenged not to say, "We told you so." It is also in poor taste to take delight in seeing this administration, explode, implode or self destruct while the bossman looks so untethered from reality as to almost earn pity were it not for the cockiness. He's got the bravado of an eighth grade drop out bully who became the insufferable bar room drunk.
    It is probably not noble to take pleasure in knowing how absolutely miserable he must be-being vilified, a laughing stock in the eyes of the world, as his approval ratings plummet to historic lows for a new POTUS. Hard times for a man of his immense ego, obsessing as he does about ratings. Don't you imagine it is crushing when his lies are challenged by reporters bearing facts-not the alternative kind-on live television. Do you think he believes himself?
     He's probably never been in a situation where an underling says "sorry boss, that's not so" or "no that wasn't just wonderful, it bombed!"  Old Washington hand Ed Rollins says that's what he needs--someone to say "your wrong...that's not true..."  Rollins, who worked with Reagan and Bush, said he had hopes for Trump. Scandal, firings, rejections, investigations, leaks from his own staff, the national security and intelligence community refusing to fully brief him and calling him unfit have created a rumpus that could signal the beginning of a crisis of government. 
      The world community doesn't know what to make of it, wondering if America has lost its mind, how did that amateur take over? Putin is said to be pleased. After rigging the election he sees America distracted and loosing confidence in it's leadership. That gives him room and opportunity.
     The investigations are needed to understand and clarify the nature of the Trump relationship with the Russian intrusion. 
     While it may be poetic justice, seeing people being chewed up by their own incompetence, it is also worrisome because he's still in charge. His attack on the media-"the enemy of the people" truly is straight out of the playbook of dictators. It was also the first stage of rolling back a free press and empowering "State Media"  by a thug named Putin. Hmmmm! 
      But for the time being it's a bit like seeing that loud mouth bully get his clock cleaned.
     

     As we've been noting---uncertain times and terrain.

    See you down the trail.