A LION GOES DOWN

A LOSS OF EXCELLENCE

    All political careers end eventually and rarely does the last act play out in grandeur, but I am saddened by the defeat of Richard Lugar. 

    Indiana voters did a shabby disservice to America. A small turn out in a strident and nasty campaign ended the reelection hopes of one of America's longest serving senators. He is also one of the most capable to grace the US Capitol's upper chamber.

     I first covered Lugar when I was assigned to city-county government.  The Mayor's office was part of my beat and I learned rapidly this young mayor meant to serve with intelligence and a sense of vision. 

Tom Cochrun and Richard Lugar in May 1979 at Fitness Fest

I was producing a documentary. Senator Lugar was an active runner and fitness advocate

     David Halberstam called the John Kennedy team The Best and the Brightest, though the highest meaning of that phrase could apply to the Lugar administration in the Indianapolis City County building.  Dedicated and imaginative people helped turn Indianapolis from a decaying rust belt city toward the dynamic and exciting urban success America saw most recently in the saturation coverage of the Super Bowl. Lugar planted the vision and started the renaissance.

     For the better part of the next 4 decades I covered Lugar.

His 36 years in the Senate is worthy of study and will no doubt be the subject of historians and political scientists. He continued to be a visionary, a consensus builder, he chided presidents, of even his own party, he was a conscience and remains one of the world's wisest on matters of national security, foreign policy, nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction.  

      He and Sam Nunn did more to save the world from harm, after the fall of the Soviet Union, than people can imagine.

He has also advocated farm and agriculture reform and continues to campaign on issues of nutrition. 

     Some of my favorite memories are of those nights when I was president of the Press Club and when Senator Lugar 

and Representative Lee Hamilton, another foreign policy stalwart, joined us for dinners and debriefs. It was the end of the cold war, the wall was coming down, the USSR was breaking up, the world was changing and on long winter nights Lugar and his friend Hamilton analyzed and gave us

insights they gave to Presidents.

      Pundits, fellow politicians and journalists have all said

Lugar would have been a great President, but was too bright to be a good candidate.   

      Presidents, current and past, admire and respect him.  World leaders have sought his wisdom. Members of both parties acknowledge he is one of the smartest.  But even that does not make one immune from the voice of the voter.

      In this time when a tea party mind set exerts power, when reason gives way to anger, when invective and right wing money have sway, Lugar's time for departure came in a sad little primary vote.  Eventually the clock would have run on his time of service, but when reason and skill are in such short supply, it is unfortunate his service is being checked now.  America will be the poorer because of it.

DAY BOOK

SPRING SCENES

See you down the trail.

STILL VALID

 FROM THE ARCHIVE

As we dive more deeply into campaign season,

and as the talk turns to economics as it surely will

I wonder how we will hear it framed.

One part of this post puts it in a context 

that it should be put in.  

The first part of this post deals with

the fascination of what is possible.

Including a replay.

GOOD AND BAD

from root to branch

Do you find it difficult to hold opposites in your mind

at the same time?

Before you answer, here's a little ditty from

Lewis Carroll.

Alice is speaking with the queen

"There's no use trying," she said "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice." said the Queen. "When I was your

age I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many

as six impossible things before breakfast."

 Frame this in your own sense of possible.

Stanford University has offered a free online course that has

has attracted 58,000 students. That's four times the size

of the school's enrollment.

I find this exciting and perhaps even a dawning.

 Consider this from the New York Times

The class on artificial intelligence is one of three being offered by Stanford’s computer science department and will be taught by two leading AI experts, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig.

Thrun led an effort at Stanford to build a robotic car that drove 132 miles over unpaved roads in a California desert. Lately, he has spearheaded a Google project to develop self-driving cars, many of which have already been tested successfully on American roads.

Norvig is Google's director of research and a former NASA scientist. He has also written a widely read textbook on artificial intelligence.

The online students will not get grades or credit for participation, but they will be ranked in comparison to their online classmates.

Thurn explained that the course was part of an effort to increase the accessibility of once cost-prohibitive higher-education. “The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” he told the Times.

What amazing advances might emerge. What creative solutions could occur.

AND THEN

There is the Pentagon Budget process, another place that can't be reached or the embodiment of thinking the impossible not only before breakfast, but constantly.

McClatchy Newspapers reports it is practically impossible to get an accurate and thorough account of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 

 Impossible to know how much we are spending.  

One estimate puts it at $3.7 Trillion or as McClatchy reports "$12,000 per American."

As we suffer a budget and economic crisis we don't even possess the tools to understand how and where to cut where we should.

These wars are THE economic crisis.

I guess our President and Congressional leaders can't hold two opposing ideas in mind.

Nor do they seem to recall the words of the highest ranking US Military leader ever. 

He was also our Commander in Chief.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

— Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961 Presidential Farewell Address

See you down the trail.

TAKE THE TIME....

ENJOY THE GIFTS

    My partner Art and I were simply outplayed today.  We 

both struggled with control, but we forced a tie breaker in the second match. Still neither of us were satisfied with our play, but we came off the court winners anyway. 

    The temperature was in the 70's, the sky was blue, the surrounding highlands were green, a gentle breeze blew and a pal had come to watch and then join us for coffee at Lily's.

It doesn't get any better than that, even with a winning score.

    It's a matter of perspective and as a boomer I still need to remind myself of that.  The days of task orientation have been replaced by days like this and the score of a tennis match is secondary to being on the court, in the game and 

engaged in a joyful celebration of right now.

DAY BOOK

THE RUTH CAMBRIA ROSE

 Lana calls this Ruth Cambria Rose named

for our friend who gave us a clip of a 

rose that grew on her fence.

 This is a season for it.

A WORLD CLASS VIEW

We were fortunate this weekend to attend

a gathering on a coastal highland with

an extraordinary view.  The view deserves

better optics than mine, but here's

a sample of California at its most magnificent.

See you down the trail.

WATCHING THE COWBOYS & THE WEEKENDER :)

COWBOYS, ADVENTURE, GRAPES,

MACHINES & SCENES

      Today we go "behind the scenes" of this far and still

some what wild west area of San Luis Obispo County California.  Cowboys to Wine makers with stunning beauty and a few things that go round in between.

      This is the 50th year for the Paso Robles Agri Business tour, which takes you far from the tourist track.

  WARNING

THIS IS THE REAL DEAL

As we used to say on television

these scenes may not be suitable for all viewers

ROPING AND BRANDING 

AT THE CRESTON RODEO GROUNDS

A two minute primer on a classic skill

FOR THE MORE GENTEEL,

WINE IS A BIG BUSINESS

      The seventh generation is working the Ernst Steinbeck vineyards, home of the Steinbeck Winery.

      The first grapes were planted here by the Ernst brothers in the 1880's.  This shows the rare 4 stem arrangement of the vine.

 Cindy Steinbeck tells how her son Ryan always wanted to 
work with his Grandfather, and now he does.  This is a family face to Agri Business.

 HIGH DRAMA

THE CAMBRIA BUS CATCHES FIRE

     The lavender color at Union Road and Highway 46 is 
courtesy of the fire repellent used to douse the engine fire that temporary halted the Cambria Bus on the tour.

    Just outside the Tobin James winery, there was much discussion that perhaps here is where our leg of the journey would end.

    Undaunted we transferred to a temporary bus that included 3 surprised riders, two of whom had been napping and another who was in the restroom when the bus was rapidly diverted from the stop ahead, back to pick up the waylaid Cambrians.  Consequently, a few of us "aisle surfed" on the way to the next stop.

 The ranch, vineyard and farmland was spectacular.

    There was a stop at the White Ranch. This family has been raising barley and cattle since the mid 1800's. 

   I learned that much of this area was planted in Almonds, and was known as the Almond capitol until WWII when barley was planted as part of the war food effort.  Later of course some of the area was converted to Vineyards or grazing land.

     The message at the Avenales ranch was sustainability,
in all aspects of water use, crop rotation and grazing

    Then it was on to one of the most beautiful settings I've seen.  The Vaquero Water Ranch is a 40 thousand acre spread
that used to be part of the historic Sacramento Ranch.  

  Historically the Vaquero cattle drives would cross this land because of the presence of water.  Running streams made this a place where the cattle would be "watered up" before 
they headed south or over toward the coast.

    It's a long drive from a public road, over rolling mountains back into a spectacular valley.  The home also dates from the 1840's and commands a magnificent view of some of 
California's most beautiful cattle country.

 Because of the grazing patterns used here, native grasses
are making a return. I thought the shot below captured the
the modes of cowboy transport.  Horses are still preferred.

 THEN THERE IS THE LAZY ARROW ADVENTURE

AT THE CAMMATTA RANCH

The historic 32 thousand acre ranch is now a 

kind of dude ranch, camp ground, exotic animal

collection and well, a collection of lots of things

that go round.  

This 1935 Lincoln V-12, is still in running condition.

 The lazy Arrow could be the only ranch with a genuine 
circus wagon.

 Everywhere you look there are old machines, parts and those things that go around they talk about.

      Mark is a collector of old treadle devices, often rebuilding or converting once electrical applications, back to the old 
foot powered way.

   The ranch is also a place for hunters and there a full
field dressing kitchen.

 AND THERE WERE MACHINES AS WELL

What is an Agri Business tour without the technology?

This is one of the harvesters at the White Ranch.

  And this is a mechanical Grape picker used by the Steinbecks.

 FOR THOSE OF YOU WITH REAL CURIOSITY

HERE'S A QUICK VIDEO OF THE PICKER

AND WE ARE BACK TO THE COWBOYS

These are guys who were probably the first

"agri businessmen" in the area.  Fascinating

that despite all the changes in farming, grape growing 

and wine making, some skills remain timeless. 

A "by-product" of the roping, branding and cutting

are Rocky Mountain Oysters

I'd never had them before.  I figured these would be about as fresh as they can get. 

See you down the trail.