HOPE AND SOMETHING A LITTLE QUIRKY

     THE SARGE WHO MANY FORGOT

     Reflections on the life of Sargent Shriver, who died today at 95 recall his linkage to the Kennedy dynasty-he was a brother in law. There are memories of his work as Director of the Peace Corp and some recall his run for the Vice Presidency.  More recently the patrician Democrat was the father in law of the Governor of California, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, husband of Maria Shriver.

     Yet some of Shriver's greatest legacy comes from his service in the Johnson administration when he served as Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. Some historians have made much of his falling out of favor with Bobby Kennedy after the assassination of President John Kennedy.  Shriver stayed on with LBJ, as Director of the Peace Corp.  Bobby and LBJ carried on a long rumble.  In the Johnson administration, Shriver also ran the OEO and created an impact that continues now.  Head Start, the Job Corp, Community Action against Poverty, Volunteers in Service to America and Legal Services all began and flourished under his guidance. 

      Many powerful and famous live and die in Washington. Fewer leave a mark.  Shriver did.

FOR THOSE WHO ENDURE WINTER

     We spoke with friends in the Midwest.  

       "You remember.  It's one of those damp, cold, gray days.  Just dreary," he said. 

       Indeed we do remember, without a speck of fondness.

This is one bit of today's brightness.  After decades of the Midwestern midwinter

gloom, I am like a kid enjoying that special lift you get from early spring-

which comes to this part of California in January.  Incredible.

DAYBOOK

Dedicated to those of you in the land of winter

Morning fog in the valleys

A Narcissus 

Succulents flirting with the sun

A Breath of Heaven bloom

Do you know what this is?

Morning dew on arm of a deck chair.

Freshly plowed and fertile, next to a grazing field behind

Hollister Peak.  This is between the Pacific and the Pacific Coast Highway.

The moon rises, almost full as the setting sun lights the Santa Lucia Highlands.  The shadows come from our ridge-Top of the World.

NOW SOME NEW MEDIA

Where art, music and imagination dance

     

OTHER DREAMS

     Martin Luther King Jr slips more deeply into history.  Increasingly, generations know him only as a martyr, remembered with a federal day, an historical figure, one of those who dwell someplace between myth and public education history texts.
     Ignorance of history is arrogance.  We can recall a legion of poor decisions made without benefit of the knowledge of history.
     Here on the Central Coast of California, in our own area of the north county of San Luis Obispo we enjoy a rich bouillabaisse of history where diverse culture and ethnicity have cavorted and created a unique patch of this planet.
     Chumash and Salinan tribes, whalers from Cape Verde and Portugal, Chinese seaweed harvesters, Japanese abalone harvesters, Californios and heirs of Spanish aristocracy, greeted those "Americans" of European ancestry who pushed west.  In later times ranchers and fishermen, miners and lumbermen joined the stew.  Swiss, Scots, English and others came.  In the 20th Century emigres from Mexico and others from points east in California and across the US came.  Educators, artists, musicians, bohemians, aerospace engineers, carpenters, craftsmen, performers, retirees and dreamers have continued to come.
     All have come to this sun kissed coast of craggy rocks, sand, pine forest, undulating highlands and mountains with their own dreams.  This is a land where freedom has been lifted, and endowed upon thought, lifestyle, culture and sense of being.  There have been exceptions and limits, though mostly aberrations. Freedom is always about becoming.  It is never stagnant or it is not freedom.

DAYBOOK
Scenes and light on King Day

     I was grumbling earlier today, mad at myself for having an off day on the tennis court. I was struggling with keeping my backhand in the lines on long shots or out of the net.  Then later at coffee with the doubles partners, a gentlemen in his 80's, a former member of the foursome who has been forced to retire by leg and knee troubles, said
    "Is it my imagination or have you guys gotten better in the last few weeks?"  We all kind of muttered something.  I said something about "well you know somedays..."
   He just grinned and said  "Boy, you guys don't know just how lucky you are."   
    AMEN!

VOICES FROM THE VILLAGE

 TALENT ABOUNDS

BEAUTY PREVAILS

     After another painted sky, the local namesake Painted Sky Studio, opened for an evening of extraordinary performance.  Central Coast girl made good, Inga Swearingen, a frequent performer on Prairie Home Companion, packed the historic Cambria recording studio with the attentive.

     Inga's beautiful voice and styling held the audience in rapture, but it was the use of her voice, as a kind of jazz/scat instrument that simply blew people away.

You get a sense of her sweet style and her improvisational brilliance in this video.  In the last 30 seconds of this tune she breaks into the kind of performance that was the staple of her appearance at the Painted Sky.
                                  Link to Inga-click here or watch video

     Round Mountain, who is Char and Robbie Rothschild from Santa Fe opened and later joined Inga.  These are enormously talented musicians with original material and musical virtuosity.  Char alternated between guitar, trumpet, flute, bag pipes and accordion.  On several numbers he played the accordion and trumpet or flute or small bag pipe simultaneously. He also played the guitar while playing the trumpet at the same time.  You have to see it to appreciate the full power.  Robbie is an extraordinary mandolin player and vocalist.  He also plays a long stringed west African instrument.  They've traveled widely and amassed a unique quiver of talent and stylings.  They too received a standing and abundant appreciation of the Painted Sky audience.  More about these remarkable young men at this link.

                                     Round Mountain-a paper and background.

"The peace in the garden will enter your heart when you are sleeping"

Lyrics from a Round Mountain song

REEL THOUGHTS

CASINO JACK

     This is a film for those who A) like the work of Kevin Spacey, B) have an interest in the influence peddling business of lobbyists , C) would like to gain  insight into the sordid

and money loving world of Jack Abramoff.

     It is brilliant on all three counts.  Spacey is again superb and portrays a complex, conflicted Jack Abramoff.  Barry Pepper as his sleazy sidekick is terrific. The film was able to take the intricate chicanery and explain it by making it entertaining.  Tom Delay and a few other Washington notables come off as jerks.

     What Abramoff did and what Spacey plays so well, is the selling of influence.  Spacey's Jack just can't understand why what he did that was wrong, since so many beneficiaries of his money passing and influence peddling were never touched. If you see it, pay attention to the near climatic scene as Spacey is in the bathtub while his wife explodes.  She utters one of the real truths about so much of modern Washington politics "It's all bull shit."

But then another great line came from one of Abramoff's partners  "K street doesn't like the limelight."   Thanks to a fine film, the K street ethos is getting plenty.

MORE ON THE KINGS SPEECH

     I continue to hear from other that they too consider the film one of the best ever.  Many say simply it is the best film they've ever seen.

      Here are the comments from a hard nosed Washington veteran who can be a prickly critic.  

         Run don't walk to see this one....Angolophilia gone wild....Academy Award           performances abound....drama, suspense, hidden history, humor and the kind of feel good show that had the audience clapping at the end.  It will make your day!

      He asked that I not use his name.  Perhaps he prefers to keep his reputation as a hard ass in tact.  The point to be taken--this is a great film!

DAYBOOK

A sense of this weekend on the Central Coast.

Sadly, this starfish had washed ashore and was dry when Lana found it.

Weeds are also early arrivals of spring in California.

AND YET ONE MORE ZEBRA TALE

     Spotted in the old saloon, frequented by locals, were people wearing zebra striped armbands in sympathy for the three Hearst Zebras that were shot after they wandered onto the Fiscalini ranch.  But also spotted were a couple of ranchers, with zebra hide ribbons around their beer bottles.  The sentiments differed.  The stares were penetrating.

Stay tuned.

     

RANGE LAND WHISPERS AND WONDER

MORE ZEBRA TALES

INTRODUCING DAY BOOK

AND A HOOPSTER WHO WILL BLOW YOU AWAY

     I don't know how St Francis thought about Zebras, but more of the wild exotic have been dispatched here than in your average neighborhood.

     What follows is simply a recap of what some north county people have been talking about since the news broke in the San Luis Obispo Tribune that three Zebras from the Hearst Ranch were shot by local ranchers after the wild animals roamed onto their ranch.

Furtive words in the shadows at San Simeon

     The castle bathed brightly in the sun atop the mountain behind the long tables where the Zebra tales were told.  As the pacific glistened behind a nearby arch in a San Simeon home the gossip, speculation and amusement accompanied lunch.  We are sitting in Hearst Country. Their wine is poured in a tasting room behind the store/sandwich shop in the historic building they recently purchased.  It's a favorite lunch spot of locals and sometimes you'll see Steven Hearst, great grandson of William Randolph amble through.

     There are several who will tell you this latest incident is nothing new.  Some complain that with their 83 thousand acres, there are many places where the Hearst fences are untended. People say zebras have been escaping for as long they remember.  Some who claim to know say the rancher's son shot the zebras after he saw them on their land and called to ask his father if it was OK to shoot.  A long time resident says the Hearst people themselves have shot Zebras. All of this is heresay.
     There are published reports of a land easement dispute between the Hearsts and the Fiscalinis, one of the shooting parties in this last incident.  Both families have long histories here.

     Some will tell you it is too costly to get a helicopter and harness to gather the wild animal back to the Hearst Ranch.  Others say the Zebras could have been tranquilized.

     I asked, and there was a split opinion, about who owns the hides?  Three zebras are now being tanned by one of the few tanners around.  This continues to remind me of a variation of an old western. But this a new western tale and instead of cattle rustling and water wars, wild zebras are at it's center.  Yep, it is California!

DAYBOOK

     Now something we hope to do frequently.  A Daybook of scenes, capturing the mood, light and sense of a day.

THIS MAY BRING TEARS TO FRANK'S EYES

AND THOSE OF OTHER OLD HOOPSTERS

     Frank is my long time friend and fellow round ball fanatic.  He plays regularly still and is also still working on a jump shot.  

     I've spent a lot of my life on a basketball court.  I loved it from the time my dad gave me a ball and showed me how to dribble.  He was a star.  He played for a powerhouse team as high school boy and before and after WWII he played traveling AAU and what is now semi pro basketball.

    I never achieved acclaim but I love the game and still like to rumble.  I've played with professional and college stars in media leagues and have seen great talent but this is extraordinary.  Frank, this may be  more than you take.

Click here for access to a KOMO Seattle story that will amaze you

A MATTER OF MOUNTAINS

FROM THE COAST TO THE HIGH SIERRA

     It is probably a product of many winters in the mid-west, but this is the time of year we begin to think of spring.  In fact, here on the Central coast, we begin to see early evidence of spring's rebirth. The Pacific moderates the temperatures in the Santa Lucia coastal range, so even in early January, when most of the nation suffers winter's wrath, we get greening of the grasses

and the first blooms

as the exotics provide a comical touch.

HOW ABOUT A LIVING SNOW CONE?

      Three and half hours from here, in Yosemite, spring comes with a different force.

Each spring Yosemite experiences an act of nature which is extraordinary.  I've endured blizzards, ice storms, and heavy snow cover, but the early spring Frazil Ice is new to me. Take a look, courtesy of Boing Boing and Yosemite National Park.  

And the Zebra shooting controversy continues-
STAY TUNED

SHADES OF THE OLD WEST

ZEBRA SHOOTING SPURS ANGER

CBS Photo-Zebras on Hearst Ranch

   The shooting of three stray Hearst Ranch Zebras by a neighboring rancher has provoked a cloud of bitterness that has settled over the cattle country of the Santa Lucia range.

     I've been fascinated by the story, first that it even happened.  Now the reaction stirs images of an old cowboy movie where contesting ranchers square off in a saloon. Today most of the jawboning is done by blog posts.  Here's a sampling from the Pelican Network.

"

"...after shooting the animals, he took them to a 

taxidermist to have their hides tanned..."

---------------------------------------------------

"If an elephant showed up, they'd kill it

and hang the head over their mantle."

-------------------------------------------------

"Unless it has a $ branded on it, it is worthless in

their microscopic view.  These fools won't be satisfied until

every animal that can't be eaten, skinned and laid on their

floors as rugs or their heads cut off and hung on their walls

is destroyed.  Little, little men in every sense of the word."

------------------------------------------------- I grew up on a ranch in Eastern Washington.  No excuses for this behavior.  His livestock being at risk is just an excuse to shoot rare, valuable animals.  His livestock were never in any serious danger.  

--------------------------------------------------Isn't there anything we or the owner of the zebras can do other than rant privately in this forum about the shooter? I'd like to see him at least publicly embarrassed or chastised for what he did.

Publicly.
--------------------------------------------------

The story has also drawn the interest of the LA Times.

Southern California views the Zebra killing controversy

     The ranchers I've met tend to be direct and plain spoken. Those are admirable qualities and they have been in evidence on this matter.  Stay tuned. The sun has not set on this feud.

NOTES FROM THE WILD WEST

     An odd and sad story exclusive to this area of the west.

Wild Zebras threaten a ranch and are shot. Click here.

TAKING NOTICE & TAKING CARE

NO ECONOMIC SIGNIFICANCE?

     I've been a fan of Wendell Berry since reading Jayber Crow.  He writes with a special appreciation for the land and nature and the power it exerts on human life.  A passage from his The News from the Land article in the current THE PROGRESSIVE is stunning.  Berry is writing from his "obligation as an elder" and making note of things that have disappeared in his Kentucky; grasses, birds, willow trees, black rattle snakes, elms, even some worms and the list grows.

     He's made it a point to examine why things have disappeared and the affect it has, subtle and profound.  He writes of another important disappearance, the dung beetle or "tumblebug."

       "Why did they disappear?  Though I had a sort of theory, I wanted scientific authority, and so I presented my question to an entomologist in the College of Agriculture at the University of Kentucky.  I have been pondering his answer for the last thirty or so years:

        "I don't know anything about them.  But I can tell you this-they have no economic significance."

        Berry warns how "submissive science can be to economic significance."

     Being aware is a first process of responding.  In journalism we used to talk of "arming the public with knowledge."  In knowing we can begin to take care, if we choose to.

IS BIG MEDIA FADING AND ARE WE GETTING OUR INFORMATION FROM LESSER LIGHTS?

WELL, IT DEPENDS...

     Smaller news organizations, personal journalism, like that of Wendell Berry can and does have an impact.  But big or small, all media is transforming.  Some great insight came  via the Internet, from a dear friend, a Wesleyan graduate, who shared this information.

Click here for Alberto Ibarguen on Journalism and New Media

HAVE YOU HAD YOUR NAP YET?

     The late Dick Yoakum, an NBC newsman and later an IU professor told his retirement party that he had read taking naps was good for you.  He said being a skeptical journalist he thought that idea should be tested.  So he told his friends and colleagues not to call him between 1:00 and 3:00 PM, because he would be "in the laboratory, doing research."

AND IT LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE MAY BE READY FOR THEIR NAP

 Naps have their own piece of this riddle of economic significance.  In fact a recent piece published by AARP reports that naps increase efficiency and productivity.

So take a nap, you don't want to end up like the Kentucky dung beetle.

AFTERMATH AND A DIVERSION

HARD QUESTIONS, THEN WE GET SUBLIME

SEEKING ORDER

TRYING TO FIND BALANCE

     The aftermath of the violence in Arizona forces us to ask difficult questions, where the lines of right and wrong are not easily drawn.  There is no clean edge, though the issues are sharp.

      FOR EXAMPLE:

      People question why a young man with a history of his sort is permitted to buy a gun. One would reason that a person in the grips of mental illness should not have a weapon.  But what of stigmatizing those who suffer, or who have suffered, a mental disease?  If  a patient, past or present, is automatically denied the right, does that not establish a second class status?  Is that not anathema to our sense of liberty and freedom?  How will those who are adamant about the right to bear arms respond to limiting such freedom?

Does a person who has been treated for depression, or bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia deserve a lesser sense of citizenship?  Should they be considered in a class with criminals?

     Hard questions, and exceedingly sensitive now.

     More important than the posing of these questions is how will we respond?

There are easy victims of our anger- those to whom we might ascribe a debt of guilt.  Easy to get gun laws, the hyperbolic gas merchants, those who inflame emotion for pay or political gain, those who ignore what is happening to a nation where polarization, short attention spans, an even shorter sense of history are rampant, political mechanics who would rather use a crisis than to honestly feel a sense of pain or suffering or try to plumb the depths of despair. Add to that list all who have taken the gift of a democratic republic for granted.

     Making our form of self governance work requires that we pay attention, be aware of the fault lines that can shake stability and be willing to work for the greater common good.  This last elements forces us into an act of civility, being willing to listen to even those with whom we disagree and being willing to win only while also letting the other side win.  Leaving something on the table is not a bad thing.

      A winner take all attitude works in in sport, but in living in modern America, that mindset will undermine our bedrock values.  Everyone has a seat at the table, everyone has a voice, everyone deserves respect as long as they act respectfully. 

     It is a hard trail, it requires vigilance, it forces us to surmount obstacles, it demands intelligence in larger quantity, and may ask of us to leave emotion behind.  Facing hard questions is for the brave, but it can keep us free.

NOW HERE IS HAPPY, MAYBE EVEN BLISS

    The happy man is Michael T. John Griffin-veteran broadcaster, personality and racing team player.  Grif defines mellow. He is a world class "super person."  He is also a great friend, as the Monarch butterfly on his shoulder will attest.

     Most of the 17 to 50 thousand Monarchs who populate the famed Pismo Beach Grove each year are content to stay in the trees and draw the attention of long lenses and telescopes.

     But of all of the thousands of beautiful winged creatures, one independent thinker chose to leave the trees and instead of fluttering like his or her cousins in the California sunshine, he or she decided to land on the shoulder of one of the crowd in the grove.

Left to his or her own design, it chose probably the nicest guy in the grove, and made a friend and created an event that became a mini paparazzi drama.  Let's hear it for independence and good choice.  And maybe you saw this one coming BUTTERFLIES ARE FREE!

      

    ONE MORE DROP OF NICENESS BEFORE WE PART....

    Thanks to our music director Moto Groove, here is something sweet and light--

click here for a departure to something nice-