And Now More Disconnect and What They See

disconnect

     Someplace near the Cupertino and Mountain View exit signs an idea began to emerge. As I routed through what the world knows as Silicon Valley it took shape. The United States is not. Not only are we not united, but this behemoth nation straddles a couple of centuries. The divide is obvious  as we look to federal Washington.

     Research and development, business, investment and the attendant cultural vibrations in this part of California are about the future. The current US electoral mania is a symbolic foil. The morass in which most government grinds to near irrelevancy is a further proof of the disconnect. 

     On the modern campuses arrayed between southern San Francisco and San Jose new horizons are being mounted. Apple, Facebook, Google, Stanford University, NASA's Ames Research Centers along with a web of smaller tech and communication companies are striding with systems, applications, models and advances that disrupt old ways of business, living, doing and being. 

     Data, sensors, nano architecture, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, space exploration, transportation revolutions and more cascade in a fountain of discovery and advance in this area oblivious to whatever moribund and retrograde shards of society that seem to fill our media. (IBM, New York based, is apart of this historic arc with its AI program Watson.)

     Whether it is in perhaps the most unpopular and unwanted presidential candidates in history, or the obsession with celebrity, racism, more guns and violence than any nation on the planet, crumbling cities, poisoned seas, waters, land and air, lowered expectations, failing schools and climate changes, it is as if a deadly inertia spread shroud like over the nation. There are pockets of bio technology and advanced research elsewhere, but it's not in the air, rippling like an energy force as it is here.

     It is easy to despair how this nation seems committed to getting more stupid and uninspired, until we ponder the extraordinary things that are happening out here.Government  is not sought for solution, inspiration or leadership. California watches tech genius, innovators, visionaries work through modern and future matters. Culture, ways of business, expectations and attitude are being changed.

     I may be working too hard to make a point, but so much of what has shaped our way of living in the last 25 years-data-communication-technology is new. They are amazing things sprung from creativity, imagination and invention. Washington on the other hand and by extension politics everywhere, is about money, power and the desire for it. Yes, there is money, big money in the Silicon Valley axis, but it comes from making something new. Politics is a business and so is government. It is increasingly bought and sold, has lost direction and is venal. Principals of public service have been subverted. It is harder for good people to do good because politics is now inhabited by so many losers without a hint of an original idea or the desire to make something better, let alone new. There is a breed of politician and their beltway bandit allies who think they are pulling something over on us.

     It is a time for vision and visionaries. Time for those who are in it for themselves to join the scrap heap. Until then, the disconnect continues. Government and politics could become irrelevant. 

     

natural agin

   Driftwood on Moonstone beach offers a never ending visual treat.
   People say the image below reminds them of a local sea otter, on its back. Does your imagination get you there?

a debate post

     Martha Raddatz and Anderson Cooper expended energy to maintain control, focus and observance of time restraints. They did an excellent job and did not allow themselves to be bullied nor did they let the candidates get away with avoiding the question.

      Bob Schieffer of CBS had what I thought was the best summary and he asked "How have we come to this?"

        See you down the trail.

Give the moderators a whistle

no nonsense 

   It was another era and some of us miss it.

   The lad with the earphones looking over the shoulder of the men at the table is me. I was a political reporter covering a mid 70's state convention. The Africa American with his back to the camera was in the midst of an appeal and protest about being cheated out of his vote by political bosses who opposed the candidate for governor that he supported. That is the credentials committee at work. He was trying to be seated as he was elected. In those days a diligent journalist would not let a closed door keep his curiosity at bay. I was on the air live at the time.

     no way to run a debate

   That anecdote is by way of building credential. In those days and for a couple of decades to follow I moderated political debates. General election and primary debates.  Governor, US Senate, Mayor, Congress. I enjoyed the challenge.

     I watch political debates these days and feel sorry for the moderator.

     There was a time when on my cue the booth director could cut the microphone of any candidate who blathered on longer than the allotted time. 

     In one debate I had a coaches whistle and told the candidates that should they not stop when their time is up, I would blow the whistle. No one smiled.

     Politicians have become masters of answering by avoiding the question and cutting directly to one of their well rehearsed ad libs or talking points. I would interrupt and remind the candidate they were prevaricating, obfuscating, or dodging the question. I would even challenge them and ask "are you afraid to answer? am I speaking over your head?" A couple of times I asked the candidates to respect both the audience, who had tuned in, and the process and "simply answer the question."

     I don't know what kind of restrictions may be placed on the moderators in these recent cycles, but they and all of us would be better served if they could simply tell the candidates to cut the bull shit!

     By the time of my last moderating job I was a known commodity, for better or worse. I was fortunate to have two intelligent candidates with whom I had history through years of coverage. I knew them and they knew me. It was October 14, 2008 and was a contest between then incumbent Governor Mitch Daniels and the Democratic challenger former US Representative Jill Long Thompson. It was staged by the Indiana Debate Commission before a full house in the Indiana University Auditorium and was broadcast statewide and into the Louisville Kentucky and Chicago Illinois television and radio markets. Being a debate moderator is not a popularity contest. Done properly it can bring understanding. I think we should give them whistles.

     See you down the trail.

     

Down The Path and Reel Stuff

 life altering experience

the tree once had more lofty goals and heights to reach. it adapts

reel stuff

   As the negative commercials and political bombast continue, the big screen offers a couple of great diversions.

    Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger is an enduring American hero, someone to celebrate and who lifts our spirit with the knowledge of our ability to be great. Tom Hanks is a great and timeless actor and Clint Eastwood is in a rare supreme category in film directing. Obviously Sully is worth your time. Everyone should see how our NTSB system functions and how the US Air landing on the Hudson was handled, where blame spreading and butt covering was an intent. Hero judgment and response saves the day, again.

   

    Some of us were so caught up in the Beatles mania we were not thinking about the impact they had on touring and what touring did to them. 

     They were the first to do arena and stadium rock-long before the mega equipment and rock tour entourages.

      The Beatles-Eight Days a Week-the Touring Years is a Ron Howard handling of archival film and recent interviews with Paul and Ringo and others. 

       Those earlier boys were bright, entertaining and capable of conquering the world. We revisit those days with annotations from now. The music, footage and infectious joy and mania are like a sip from a time machined brew. It leaves you high with a dose of the expansive and youthful feelings of the sixties and seventies. It feels good to channel those years. Howard does a brilliant weave of moments so that one feels part of the tour. It is an intimate look at the real boys to men.

missed opportunity?

some see a bloom

others see an old choke

perhaps you see a missed side dish

 down the path

  don't you think pathways are one of our better ideas? they can be inviting, especially so at sunset

 an ice cream truck awaits

   The arrangement behind the wine barrel, the stack of "spears" is the business end of an old hay rake. A ranch tool.

the shadows lengthen and a party awaits 

   See you down the trail.

Throwback-Tres Amigos-Deuce

buddy time

     These three buddies represent a time and attitude that we could use a massive insurgence of.

     Taken in 1952 or 53 we see Henry Shricker, Indiana's first two time Governor, President Harry Truman and newsman/editor Bob Hoover.

      Hoover taught me the ropes and introduced me to his "grapevine" when he broke me in on the police beat in Indianapolis.

       At the time of the photo above Bob was the editor of Outdoor Indiana, a post he held from 1952 to 1956. Previously he had been a reporter/photographer for the Indianapolis News, a job he took in 1919.

    Photo from Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame

     In 1956 he was hired by the 50 thousand Watt WIBC radio where he became America's first "mobile news chief."  A car was rigged with an early two way radio system and Bob reported from the scene of all manner of story and incident. 

   Think about this for a moment. Bob started in newspaper work in 1919 and worked through the heyday of the Front Page era. He broke me in starting in 1969. You can begin to imagine the stories he had. 

    In his early days when a reporter's salary was not enough to get by, Bob played drums in bands, including his own that toured a bit. He hung out with Hoagy Carmichael and played for Dick Powell. If you've seen the play or film Front Page, you'll have a sense of his time and place. Those guys knew how to have fun.

     He remained a dapper gentleman to the end. When he could no longer drive and his health began to fail, he'd get up every morning, put on his suit and tie, make calls to his vast network of contacts and sources and sit by the phone.

     Bob and I remained close and I visited with him frequently, and we spoke every day. When the end neared he was hospitalized. Each day he begged me to get his overcoat and help him slip out of "this place."

      I look at the photos above and realize what a sad decline we have witnessed in journalism and politics. There are simply too few men and women with the stature and class of of those amigos.

a transitional trio

    Though certainly of lesser luminescence, these three amigos came up at a time when we had mentors like the senior men above. This was "back in the day" when we were aiming for our prime.

      Tim Dietz on the right is one of the nations leading television news executives. He's been with a Colorado station for many years, but has served NBC, and his corporate group in a variety of capacities including running Olympic news feed operations and transitioning to the digital era. There was a time when Tim was a crack photo journalist and colleague of the "superman" in the middle.

      Frequent readers may recognize the middle man as Bruce Taylor, aka the Catalyst of Oddball Observations. Bruce and I worked together in Indianapolis where he too was a colleague of Bob Hoover.  Yours truly, in a skinnier incarnation, is on the left.  These three found themselves together at political conventions and a number of social mixes over the years.  Not sure of the age of this photo but I'm guessing a 1970's vintage.

        Bruce and I are retired and Tim is still a dynamo recently winning yet another prestigious award. I got a birthday note from him as he and his beloved took a post Rio Olympics R&R in the Turks and Caicos. 

        Tim is still fighting the good fight. Bruce and I are a couple of old boys lamenting what has happened to our political and journalistic culture.

        Time's change.  Thank heavens for old photos and our memories.

         See you down the trail.

SHIFTING SANDS and WHAT AMERICA DO YOU SEE?

    Just another day at the office for the Curlews, not mindful of the seasonal shift of sand.

    Where are the steps? "Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives...." Remember that old soap opera opening line?

    It will take seasonal tides to reveal the missing steps, but of no consequence to our Curlews.

   Here we see a gull considering grand larceny. Slowly it tracks toward a fisherman's rigs and kit.

united we stand
...don't think so...

    Campaigns have always been divisive, after all a choice is rendered, deciding for one and against another. But it's a new world and rifts under gird everything.

    Trump and Clinton present two vastly different visions of America and thus paths forward. Who do you believe?

    Media has become entirely too parochial or partisan to ideology or party. What happened to non-partisan or at least bi-partisan?

     We've crossed the Rubicon. This election, like so much else in daily living has devolved to "feeling" "emotion" "personal belief" and attitude. Where is critical analysis  intellectual work, truly weighing pros and cons, or thinking about it?

     Do facts matter? To whom? For what reason?

     Why are so many Americans fed up? Why is there so much anger?

      I fear this election will settle nothing. The rifts will continue to run beneath our feet. Old democracies and republics have problems, some are lethal.

      This is the Boomers last stand. In another 4 years most of our parents, the greatest generation, will be gone. Boomers are now dropping off the actuarial tables increasingly and in 4 years the once large "census bubble" will be faded and diminished. 

      Gen X and or Y or whatever will be aging and the largest group that matters will be the millennials. They will inherit a government and electoral system that is presently bought and sold where all too many who labor in it are in it for themselves.

      Some men and women who work as prostitutes are forced into it. All too many of our "electoral industry" and "government business" workers are in it because they want to be. They do it for the money and they like it.  How does that square with the historical intent of elections and governance?

      How will the millennials change things? Watch how they vote, or do not. Some things are a given. Race, gender, sexual identity will be passe to all but a few cretins, sons and daughters of skin heads. 

     Millennials have grown up where disruption is the norm and where the old norms of family, career, attitude are as out of date as the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. We will be a relevant as the Civil War, WWI, the telegraph, or horse and buggies were to us.

      Grouse and belly ache, worry and shout all you want.

Our relevance, our attitudes, our way of doing is getting wrapped with the garbage in the newspapers and headed for the trash. I wonder how much of our ways are even worth recycling.

       A democratic republic is by nature a messy business but the point is to find a center, a meeting in the middle. That seems to have disappeared as a skill or goal. Maybe a new generation's take on our noble experiment of a United States will do what we have failed.

    See you down the trail.

     

     

KINDS OF BLUE and AMERICANADA?

     The surf fisherman is braced against a Pacific that shows off its facets of color.

   Shades of blue, into the horizon.

     Blue riding the horizon.

AMERICANADA?

    Bill Seavey is a big thinker and probably a bit of a visionary. Full disclosure here-Bill is a friend, fellow tennis player and a Cambria author.

     He asks -What do Americans know about Canadians?

Answer-Very Little.

     What do Canadians know about Americans?

Answer-Plenty.

      Seavey says "Most of us view Canadians as quasi-Americans."  He unpacks the idea in a new book about how Americans and Canadians can "understand each other-and work together-better."

       In his newest book he explores the combined potential of the two nations as a real North American superpower. Seavey says  we "have cultural and historical differences that aren't easily reconciled or fully understood."

       Seavey notes a CBS poll that indicated nearly a fifth of Americans would consider moving to Canada if either Trump or Clinton were elected.

        He says an economic union is not likely soon.  He interviews a number of Canadians who help him paint a portrait of the US as seen from north of the border. 

         It is a fascinating look at American-Canadian ties and he posits interesting considerations.  

         Bill Seavey is a journalist and does a great job of posing questions, exploring avenues and engaging thought.

         Americandada? will be published in February 2017.  A Kindle edition will be available in November.

        You can learn more about Bill and the book by linking to

americanada.us   

         See you down the trail.

THE ORACLE

oracle speaks

     

      We return to the other side of the mirror where the great hoot and toot Tumble continues. 

      They've gone to seek the words of the oracle.

      The oracle regards the principal combatants in the Tumble, the Shelion and the Cheeto Vulgarian.

      She reads the scene.

       What will come is from the past. Who you are shapes who you will be. This is what I see.

      Some would rather support an insensitive, serial liar, who ridicules and demeans, who has uttered racist, sexist, bigoted remarks, who completes a full sentence or complex thought when it is written for him, who has no government experience, who is a full blown egoist and a practitioner of egoism, accused of cheating employees and former partners, who has taken advantage of bankruptcy law for a profit and who brags about it, who's businesses have been charged with fraud, who exports jobs to low paying foreign markets, who has no foreign policy experience, who does business with Russian interests, who celebrates strongman and king of the oligarchs Vladimir Putin, who also is known to encourage violence, who is a hustler and deal maker, and other such credential

       than

      an unpopular education and child welfare advocate, first lady, Senator, Secretary of State, who has been hounded  for decades by right wing pressure, alleged to be an opportunist, accused of scurrilous judgement by those who think differently, who's motivations are so frequently second guessed she is closed, guarded and has trouble with being authentic, who was subjected to a multi million dollar, multi year investigation by a special prosecutor that brought not even a whiff of a charge, FBI investigated and passed, who wants to make history, is a Methodist grandmother who's husband is a former president and an historic philanderer

     These are strange alternatives, how did this come to be?

      "It is complicated" the chorus replied. "But there is much anger among us."

       This is obvious. Trying to compare these two is like comparing apples and pizza rats.
        Look at what the cosmic tea leaves show you. See who these people are. What you see is what you get.
       It appears those who are angry and who will vote for the Cheeto Vulgarian betray the principles of decency in exchange for a change. The change that follows a motivation of such anger will bring about more anger, and on itself too. 
       You release dark forces when you celebrate such self idolatry, dishonesty, insensitivity and hatred. When you give power to the most base of instincts and use such inappropriate behavior you lower your worth and value and make the horrible possible. History shows that, time and time again. 

       Disliking the Shelion is not a reason to vote for the Cheeto Vulgarian. No dislike or distrust can be worth going back on the values a nation professes. 

           "Oh, we are worried. There seems to be so much lunacy here," the chorus said in parting.

      When they left,the oracle ordered a drink,  "make that a double!"

       And all of this just on the other side of the mirror.

       See you down the trail.