Decency and Normalcy

    Fleeting as any generation may be, we live amidst certain constancies. Confrontation, conflict, is as certain as sea and earth. Forces collide.

     The American republic is ground zero for a collision that historians tell us is the most severe test of our existence since 1860, the cusp of the Civil War.

       Last week those who paid attention saw decency, normalcy and were transported to a reality far away from the toxic bedlam of Trump world. 
     The Democratic National Convention, the virtual edition, was effective, loaded with voices, faces, expression of hope, examination of issues and powerful in message. Obama and Biden delivered the best speeches of their careers. Kamala Harris crossed an historic threshold with dignity, force and intellect. The many other speakers were passionate and pointed. Because they were not speaking to a hall full of delegates, they were able to speak more directly, more one on one, to the heart and the mind. 
     As someone who began reporting on presidential politics in the late '60's and a veteran of decades of conventions, I found the virtual presentation to be more intelligent, focused,  and in depth than the circus like exuberance of the old school. Once those conventions served a purposed, but since the 80's they've become staged productions and big parties.
     The Democrats were the first in this modern pandemic to build a structure. We were imbued with family, earnestness, purpose, commitment to equality, a vision of caring, plans for healing and rebuilding, and the normal tradition of America aspiring to greatness and competency.  
      Now the Trump party will take center stage, and those fractures that divide us, and the forces of deception and fraud that threaten us will be in the spot light.

toxic 2020

     The bad year took a turn for the worse this week as the air on California's central coast was listed as the most dangerous in the world. It happened as smoke from fires to the north and south were trapped in a heat wave. Since midweek houses have been closed, outdoor activity was a no-no, and the temperatures set new high records.

    The milky sky was acrid and full of a fine soot and ash that covered houses and cars. Most of us who live on this side of the Santa Lucia Mountains do not have air conditioning. The mountains would normally be seen in this view, but have been obscured by the bad air. 

    A local air quality expert said it is the worst he's seen in his 30 years of measurement.  We take precautions, stay inside and know that soon this will clear, an inconvenience. But we share a concern for our fellow Californians fighting the blazes, evacuating, worrying about their homes, on top of the pandemic. 

tender mercies and gentle victory

   A quick trip to the shore, where the air is at least moving, presented a couple of sights worth sharing. 
   The green patina on this outcropping is visible only during seasons when the low tide exposes it. I took delight in the artistic shading of Providence.

   I marveled at this discovery of clay figures of some composition, set atop rocks on the shore. Someone, with care, added to the tableau of the Pacific shore. A thoughtful and creative kindness.

    And there was the joy of this duo. Notice the bend in one of the rods.

   Look carefully in the frame below and you'll see a trophy of this day of fishing on the rocks. 

   So, even as we journey on in this historic passage, there are moments of the normalcy we seek.
   Stay well, take care of each other.

   See you down the trail.

Surprises and Divides

   August on the California central coast comes with surprises; the Surprise Lily and a rare August rain leaving .2 of an inch.

      From the amaryllis family, the Surprise Lily's are also known as naked ladies. Why, I haven't a clue. And any measurable moisture this time of year is welcomed. 

   The naked ladies are considered a pest by some, but not around our place on the ridge.

coming at us on the horizon

    

      As the US Presidential election draws near it is though our culture has been tossed onto a hot griddle, we are dividing and spreading further apart. It is barely hyperbole to say the vote in 2020 is a kind of civil war.

     We've been divided since the majority of US voters rejected the unfit, unqualified Trump. From the carnage of his inaugural to the very real carnage of economic collapse and his failure to lead during the pandemic it has been first mystifying, and then disheartening to find that his craven, boorish, inept, dishonest and unhinged behavior attracts a cult of supporters.

     Those with any sense of history, knowledge of government, appreciation of the United State's historic role in the world, sense of compassion, decency, concern for the future, worried about climate change, belief in equality, respect for science, truth, the role of a free media, and general civility are appalled not only at Trump but by those who support him. The divide could not be more clear.

      If it were merely political and philosophic differences there would be no movement by traditional Republicans, including every leading strategist, conservative intellectuals, former high level government servants and rank and file to defeat Trump. This is more than politics, this is a thorn in the soul of the republic, this is a rip in the fabric of our constitutional aspirations. Trump is a cancer on American history and his supporters are part of the pathology.

       Historians, social scientists and other scholars will provide the searing analysis of how and why this nation became so unhealthy as to enable the Trump disease. He is by no means the cause, but he is the enabler, the hater, the poster boy for all that is wrong with America. But he is real and so are those so addled as to go to an arena, become part of a super spreader event and then die. 

       Donald Trump is a broken man, suffering mental illness, being irrational, and stupid. Attempts to remove him failed because racist opportunists, and masters of manipulation like Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham and their pack of poltroons have taken advantage. And so those once Republicans who sold their soul to become Trumpists have further coddled the very worst of us.

       It is not a coincidence that Trumpists sound and behave like the old confederacy, slave owners, entitled and privileged white men. Sexists, chauvinists, oppressors, and not well educated. 

       We owe the future another repudiation of the confederacy and it's kookie new spawn of those who give allegiance to fabricated and bizarre conspiracy theories, and white supremacy.

for the future

         There will be much to do, to repair, amend, recalibrate, heal and prepare a United States for our heirs. It starts with a vote. We know the aspiring dictator is doing all that he can to destabilize the process and to cast doubts. McConnell has again been an accomplice. 

          Vigilance, diligence, commitment will be required to oversee and protect what must be an overwhelming rejection and repudiation. Done properly it could be the last battle of the Civil War. But understand there will need to be a kind of new Reconstruction, beyond what we can imagine now, to finally address what ever it is that is the beast in the hearts of those you see at a Trump rally. They can and should be vanquished, but they too are human and they will need attending to.

          As for Trump, we can just hope he is litigated to the end.

        Stay safe, stay well. Take care of each other.

        See you down the trail. 

difficult conversations

     There is a reach in this post that may move us to not entirely comfortable places, though the place we land is better, I think.

          As a result of an impending surgery last week, I wrote
"The Letter." 
      "The Letter" is that document you leave your loved ones, in case.  It is your last words. You say what should be said, you offer valedictory thoughts, you include details to help their moving on, managing the business of life, and you say good bye. It is grim work. The finality of your own mortal life is front and center. It gets your full attention. 
       When it is complete, it is a good thing. It offers a peace of mind, but it also generates a clarity. There is much in living that keeps us from a clear view of life. This task leads you to the essence.
       Writing "The Letter" is something I suggest, for people of a certain age, even if there are no surgical or medical riddles on the horizon. It is either the best, or worse, kind of what if contingency. 
       I think it helps draw you closer to your own life and to understandings. 

         
         There is another difficult conversation, a dialogue, I think the nation should begin. 
          Some will find even this suggestion hard to abide, but I've come to think it is our only hope. We should begin a 25 year process of a moderated public conversation about reckoning and reparations.
       A quarter of a century is a long process, but we are talking about origin issues. It is time to come clean, to acknowledge an unvarnished history of this nation and to dial it back to the time of sovereign residents, before European exploration and colonization.
      I imagine a national commission of sorts to preside over a calibrated and measured process that would have an impact on every aspect of our national life. 
      Education, law, economy, cultural mores, and human understanding would reap the benefits and consequences of a society having a discussion with itself in a very deliberate and intentional way. 
       25 years would allow for every historical accounting, gripe, grievance, tradition, presumption, mis understanding, dishonesty, and all the other effluence of our hundreds of years of becoming who we are, to be heard, seen, examined and understood. 

     The first years would be the fact finding and the sharing, putting all things on the table. Detailed and exhaustive, building what amounts to an honest revelation of all that we have been, done, in unescapable clarity.
     It would be the national discussion and the world would watch. I can see public hearings in every major city and state. The mechanics can be worked out so everyone could have their say.
      It's a broad idea, but it emerges from a life being spent as an observer, watcher, journalistically reflecting who we are.
       Maybe it is just my time on the watch, but race has been at the core our national existence and drama since I started reporting.

      1965 put me on the trail of the Ku Klux Klan, which became the rabbit hole of race in America that occupied much of my reporting life.
       The late David Brinkley and Senator Barry Goldwater  were two of the judges who awarded me a National Emmy Award for an investigation of the Klan. Brinkley called it  "one of television's finest hours."
       For almost 50 years I've watched and wondered why don't we try to fix this, why don't we just get painfully honest. 

     A 25 year national conversation will allow the honesty and  time to create a full account of history. With that achieved in the early decade, generations can then begin to mediate what to do about it, how to adapt, how to make amends. 
    By adding the element of Reparations, it will force this nation to come to a time of adjudication, judgement, and seeking meaning through recompense. It becomes an act of contrition, a national seeking of redemption. It will not be easy, nor should it be. It will force knowledge to become common and it will challenge our sense of justice, and it will force us to proceed with honesty, vigilance, and a new sense of who we are and who we will become. It will change the balance of things.

     Living through a pandemic has given all of us time to think. Our initial "We've Got This" attitude got tired as disruption continued. Flattening curves worked, until we rushed too fully back to a sense of normal. No one has lived through a challenge of this magnitude and we have come to realize we are indeed vulnerable and without a cure.

      That realization can work on a human psyche.

  

    The eastern slope of the high Serra has become a favorite place. The power and beauty of nature is awesome. But I also find great renewal in the vestige of the frontier life, thinking about the spirit of those hardy souls who made their way against it all.

    
    I felt an extra measure of that when I visited ancestral Scotland the brave.  Surviving challenges has pushed our advance and toughened us to living on this planet in the face of hostility.

          

     As California summer brings the thirsty brown and tan, I've been watching a few fighters.

     The thistle is the flower of Scotland. Here in California it is the bane of ranchers and gardeners, but I delight in their persistence.

    And after cousin of the wild thistle, our prolific artichoke bed passes its zenith, it offers a final salute of resilience and beauty.  

       So there you have it; challenging notions, hard suggestions for difficult conversations. If we are to see this republic survive, if the best of our aspirations are a noble human endeavor, we need to get tough and we need to be fully honest.

       Stay safe. Take care of each other.

       See you down the trail.

American Omens, Warnings and Good Signs

Photo of NEOWISE over Morro Bay by Daniel Worthington superiorangle.com

published by San Luis Obispo Tribune

    Looking at the NEOWISE comet the other night, I wondered about the status of life and humanity on planet earth when NEOWISE flies by again in 6,800 years.

   Scientists estimate the frozen left overs of the formation of our solar system are some 4.6 billion years old. We live at a time when history and the perspective it brings, gets short shrift. We'd do better, and be smarter if we paid more attention to history's lessons.

historic signals

     A leading conservative Republican intellect, George Will, made a little history when he announced he was going to vote for Joe Biden. He added promptly that he would also quickly become part of the loyal opposition, challenging Biden on policies he thinks are too liberal.

     Will is part of a migration of Republicans who recognized the depravity of Trump. He predicts a landslide for Biden though he says "a nervous Democrat is a good Democrat."

of cabbages and kings

King George from Buckingham Palace

        In fact a nervous US citizen is a good US citizen. Trump's reign of ruination has become more portent. 

        England's King George, who ruled from 1760 to 1801 was known as the "mad King" and "the King who lost America." Evidence of Trump's mental illness has been as evident as his stupidity and incompetence. The other similarity is his "losing of America." Here's a for instance; his disregard of the constitution.

        Under King George the British Parliament passed the Quartering Acts of 1765 and then made them more onerous in 1774. They mandated that colonists provide "quarters," room and board, for all British Soldiers on American soil. Our ancestors were also taxed for the provisions. 

         This young nation to be did not want the soldiers here. When colonists protested, destroying property at the Boston Tea Party, the tyrant sent more troops to our cities, trying to stop demonstrations and protests and demanded that British Troops be quartered in homes even, if there was not ample room in saloons, ale houses, inns, hotels or in barracks.  The new orders were part of the "Coercive Acts" a kind of colonial Law and Order. In a year the American Revolution was a shooting war.*** 

         US citizens have a right to protest, loudly and constantly. Sending unmarked federal police, dressed like combat soldiers, into cities and states that have said no is not unlike the actions of  King George. Federal police do indeed have the right to protect federal property. They do not have the right to beat, detain, arrest or intimidate people who protest and demonstrate. That is a constitutional right. 
        Cities and States have the right to tell the President not to send his federal storm troopers.
        Constitutional scholars and lawyers warn Trump is running afoul of our American way of life. His use of the unmarked police/soldiers has drawn the wrath of our own military leaders, active and retired. It's another reality TV style campaign tactic by a desperate, sick and evil man. He is a man with no sense of the history of the nation. I doubt if he knows who was King George, or the roots of the American revolution.
        A further historical irony follows below.

        

pretty and tasty history

      These are some of the 60 acres of grapes that grow closer to the Pacific Ocean than any commercial winery in California.
      You can grab a peek of the big blue beneath the marine bank to the west. Ray and Pam Derby have grown Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris since 1998 and have operated the Derby Winery since 2008.

         These grapes are windswept, sun blessed and with a magnificent view of the ocean in their Derbyshire Vineyard in San Simeon.

thoughtful and kind

        One of the signs we are a decent people is the frequent appearance of "free librarys." These book give-a-ways and sharing posts dot many a central coast neighborhood. 

      Further evidence of an intelligent, thinking civilization that dwells somewhere beyond social media and reality television.

history of life

     There is a sweet sense of the continuum of life in having a 
2 1/2 year old grand son excitedly point out a monarch butterfly pupa or chrysalis.

   He taught his "Poppy" something I didn't know. They create a beautiful golden rim.

     He also pointed out the lizard, keeping watch. 

     How much happier we might all be if we could retain some of that wonderment and fascination.

old school lesson

     As we say goodbye to American hero John Lewis it is good to remember he was a devoted advocate of non violent protests. Repeated beatings, almost to the point of death, broken bones and multiple arrests did not deter Lewis from non violent protest and demonstration. 

     

photo by Times of Israel

      The Governor of Oregon, the Mayors of Portland and Seattle Washington have sounded the same warning-do not be baited by the police/soldiers Trump has sent to antagonize. Destructive acts will play into their hands and the Trump campaign. Damage to property will not move the nation closer to reforms and accounting that are due and could even set back the momentum. 

photo by Insider.com

       John Lewis lived into the first amendment "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Non Violence is as peaceably as one can push for change. 

       ***The movement of reckoning midst a pandemic echoes a chilling reality from the War of Independence. More Americans died from a small pox epidemic than died in the war. 

       The population of the colonies was about 2.5 Million. It is estimated 130 thousand died from small pox. Less than 7 thousand died in battle. 17 thousand Patriots died from disease and most of them as prisoners of war, being held by the British. 

      It's estimated 6 thousand British soldiers died in North America. 7 Thousand Germans died in British service in North America. Again, most of the casualties were from disease.

      We cannot escape our past. But we can learn from it.

     Stay safe and well. Take care of each other.

      See you down the trail.

life speaks

     Much has been made about nature since we've been living through a pandemic. The earth has been clearing and healing. We are reminded of forces more powerful than human. Many good minds note this is an opportunity to learn. How are we doing on that score?

are we listening?

      We were warned not to push "re-opening" at the risk of set backs. Impatience, hubris, economic pressure and failed leadership landed us in a death spiral and so we are closing again. The scene from Washington is frankly insane.

moments of pause

       But for now, a montage of vignettes of nature, normalcy,  life, listening, and living.

       If you are familiar with humming birds, you know hyper speed is their normal. I was arrested the other day by how this creature landed on a vine that embraces our front gate. It came to a full stop, something I've not seen.

       After a stunning and disbelieving couple of minutes, it dawned that I should get a shot.  I worried my motion in the kitchen window would send it off. The little creature stayed there for another five minutes, taking in the morning sun splashing against the Santa Lucia Mountains. We shared a glorious morning pause.

morning sun

    Lana painted this, Morning Sun, in 2015. It hung in a couple of gallery exhibitions and then we put it out of sight and mind.
     Just this week a friend, who manages a winery and who saw the painting back then, inquired as to if she still had it. That set off a search by an artist who is better at creating than managing inventory. Let's say her files do not rise to the Smithsonian, or Library of Congress, so we spent time looking through the physical inventory, checking records of sales, looking through her computer archive of inventory images and calling around. In the meantime Miguel called to ask what she had learned. "Still searching," was the response.
      A call to her friend and "broker/representative," a dealer in fine art, object d'art, collectibles and such, discovered Morning Sun. Thank you Carolyn. 
      I was happy to get reacquainted, enjoying her brush work. From the time we dated when she was a budding art student, I've told her, I am her greatest fan.
     I also enjoy her gardening.

gardens are also good for the soul

      As I have been padding the front walk these last days I've admired the progress of this beauty.

     It is a lily that reminds me a bit of the orchids she raises.

      Our vegetable beds have produced an abundance of snap peas, lettuce, micro greens, artichokes and our beloved favas, that our grand daughter is developing proficiency at "shucking." 
     The shot is a few weeks old, because the fava's have been harvested and we are now watching the tomato experiments.  Stay tuned.

between sea and sky 

with a large marine bank looming

    Boats are rare, close in, on this stretch of the central coast's notoriously dangerous waters. As I watched the little craft work north on the big water, pictured in the frame below, I was brought back again to our national ship of state. 

      

s o s

     It certainly must be obvious to even his base and the disgusting Republican Senate that Donnie the Dope, as other Republicans call him in advertising, is insane and incompetent.

      But he is dangerous too. His attempt to divert hospital virus data from the CDC is a naked exposure of his strongman tendencies. It is a page from a banana republic dictator or Russian ruler playbook. He wants to control and manipulate vital information. 
      He must know he is a cornered rat and that makes him more unpredictable. 
       We may be fatigued by the virus, and certainly by Trump world, but now is when the resistance and our resilience must be in high gear.  Some 100 days until the election and who knows what the mad king is fevering in his sick and perverted mind.
        The homestretch approaches and only diligence and participation can extract us from a netherworld of betrayal, failure, traitorous actions, lies, racism, fraud, perversion, ego, insanity and death woven by Donnie the Dope!

a good guy

Here is the guy who gives orange a good name.

       It is almost as if Hemingway's gaze says, get rid of that rat or I will. 

       Resolve is the implement of war against what has become an unimaginable perversion of American life. We cannot lose the will to expunge all things Trump Republican.

           Stay safe and stay well. Take care of each other. Remember, pay attention to life.

       See you down the trail.