Waiting and Take a Guess

what is this?

   In keeping with the confusion of these times we begin with a game. Can you tell us what is the image pictured above?

   There have been no edit tricks, what you see is an unedited photo.

    As you keen your eye and wrack your brain you will receive a couple of minutes of reprieve from our contemporary absurdity.

wistful

    Spring comes to central California with color.

the o'really? factor

     Reigning Fox pompous star Bill O'reilly got some bad news as a couple of blue chip advertisers dropped him. The New York Times discovered that 5 women brought sexual harassment charges against the TV yacking head. 

     Reportedly the women received $13 million to go away. O'Reilly is not the first at the conservative propaganda mill, the founder of Fox News was thrown overboard when his sexual harassment problems became epidemic.

life imitates art?

    More than a few people have seen scruff master and  zealot/ideologue Steve Bannon in the Brett O'Keefe character in season 6 of Homeland.

    The O'Keefe character is an alt-right conspiracy wacko who holds forth in new media. O'Keef is played by character actor Jake Weber. Weber is semi famous because as an 8 year old he smuggled cocaine into Mick and Bianca Jagger's wedding. Weber's father was one of Keith Richard's and Jaggers drug suppliers. Weber does a good job with the Bannonesque slob.

    The real scene stealer this season is Rupert Friend who portrays the damaged CIA agent Peter Quinn. Friend's work as a stroke victim has been masterful and riveting. 

what about the peanut gallery?

    How is it all going to end for this looney tunes administration?

     Heaven only knows where the Russian trail may lead but it's become consuming. The Senate and FBI probes will be revealing. Rep. Devon Nunes has compromised the integrity of the House investigation. It's another sideshow.

     The Trump budget may be its own road to a larger Trump Slump. Some of those "ignored" and disaffected who voted for Trump are wising up. His budget proposal is a slap in their face. Vital programs in low income and rural areas and those hit with large job loss would lose programs and subsidies targeted to help economic recovery. The Trump White House is on the road to joining the Taj Mahal, Trump Airlines, Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Vodka and the other failed business ventures. The great deal maker huh?

      Some still hold out hope that Ivanka will be a good influence on daddy, but her security clearance and office in the White House is a flap. Is she part of the business oversight, or is she part of the government? How can she have clearance and an office and not be an employee? These related questions are yet one more distraction.

      The bozos are on the romp. 

down these trails...

faces of big sur

     Big Sur remains cut off and isolated though Cal Trans and state officials are working to repair slides, closures and to replace the Pfeiffer bridge. 
     Periodically we are accessing the archive to present scenes many await seeing in person again. Today, hiking trails.

    

       Before you click on, take a guess at what is the first frame in today's post and leave it below.  Thanks

       See you down the trail.

TO THE RESCUE

   "...these are the days of miracle and wonder, this is the long distance call..."

     Those Paul Simon lyrics meander across the mind a lot these days.

      Washington is to blame. Here we are in bucolic beauty while dream killers, planet killers and child killers conspire their ways. We'll return to that thought after first we witness a rescue. There are still plenty of good gals and guys riding this blue marble.

   One look into his eye tells you quickly this poor fellow is in deep trouble. He's miles from the colony and his mother who probably has already departed for hunting grounds. He's left on his own in the primordial drama of learning to swim, survive and orient to where he must navigate to find life sustaining food. Presently he is beached and frightened. 

   Discovered by the citizen on the left who stood guard protectively until help arrived.

   The marine mammal rescue crew traveled up from Morro Bay headquarters to the Lampton Cliff access in Cambria. 

    After consideration the experts decided the best course of action was to post a kind of "please stay away" warning while they logged his location. On this day the tide was extraordinarily low and the best hope is that when the Pacific reclaimed this rocky reef, the little fellow will be revived by the big blue and resume his seaward journey.

inhumane humanity

   The Trump toll mounts as he presses the idea the US can bomb anywhere. 

•     As many as 200 Iraqi civilians were killed in air strikes in Mosul
•     Dozens of Syrian Civilians were killed when we targeted a school in Raqqa
•     Dozens were killed when we targeted a mosque in Allepo
•     30 Yemenis were killed in the SEAL raid gone bad that also cost the life of a US combatant

    War is hell and innocents die but the toll of civilian deaths in less than two months of the new administration is appalling and worth remembering because as a candidate the President vowed to kill families of terrorists. As Commander in Chief women, children and other non combatant innocents have died, under his orders.

full speed nowhere

     the republican speedwagon

    People I know who are traditional, establishment or legacy Republicans are just sick. Their nominal party controls the House, Senate and White House and they can't spit straight.
    The embarrassment of the failure to pass health care reform exposes the bankruptcy of what has been leadership and Republican philosophy the last 6 years.
     This President didn't need Mitch McConnell's vow to put a wrench into government gears as he did to Obama. The Republican regime failed so miserably by self destruction. Do they have no capacity to govern? The failure reveals their obstructionism in the last 8 years as the betrayal of the American people it was.
    One has to wonder if the ideologues, egoists and zealots have eaten traditional and practical Republicans. 

is redemption possible?

      This is not something Democrats, liberals or progressives want to hear, nor do regressives, or that strange breed of Trump supporter-be they the angry, the betrayed, easily fooled or the true deplorable-but there is a way the Republicans can recover their decency. In fact they could do more than that, they could engineer an American power grab almost without precedent. 
     There are actually two ways forward to power. 

• Someone like James Baker could gather former Senators, Cabinet Secretaries, Senators and other Republican apparatchik, storm the Oval Office, sit the buffoon president down, kick Steve Bannon off the grounds, fumigating behind him and preform a kind of cultural/political lobotomy and soul graft onto the "first fool." Hold him for 6 months if that's what it takes to see the first evidence of competence. In all seriousness, Trump is most influenced by the last thing he saw, heard or person he talked to. Republican adults should make a policy house call.

• The other is to play the 25th Amendment clause 4 card and declare him as the deplorable incompetent bully child he is. (Read the 25th Amendment.)  Mike Pence could govern as an adult. Further, he could bench his own evangelical right wing ooga booga and he could act like a pragmatic Republican conservative. The GOP could then cobble together a mainstream, fully adult, political strategy. 

when republicans had ideas

       Democrats won't want to hear this either, but if Republicans behaved as rational politicians and statesmen, a post intervention Trump or a post-Trump Republican consensus could advance an agenda especially if they authored a jobs bill and an infrastructure repair road map. Before the current crop of self identifying Republicans get all worked up, consider these facts.

• Eisenhower built the interstate system, a huge project employing many and costing much for years. 
• The Reagan Administration fostered the Jobs Training Partnership and later a Jobs program. 
• George HW Bush Signed a Fair Labor Standards Act that raised the minimum wage, even though Democrats had pushed for more. Signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. Signed the Clean Air Act. Signed a Civil Rights Act. Extended unemployment benefits.

      That sort of Presidential mindset is in the Republican DNA, despite the Roger Ailes Fox News era republican pea brains. 
       Is it fantasy land to think Republicans and Democrats
 could:

• retool our economy, seeing it as a matter of national security?
• prepare for a future with increasing automation? 
• rebuild roads, sewers, bridges, water plants, schools and other public facilities
• streamline and modernize our military profile?
• fix a health care plan? No one might be fully satisfied but could both camps get a little of what they want, both sides leaving something on the table? It used to work that way.

republican house cleaning 

     Republicans could do this. They are sitting the edge of chance to control government for a long run. But they probably won't because they "souled out." How else do you explain Trump/Bannon and the nut squeezing power of the so called Freedom Caucus of politically brain dead or Paul Ryan trying to sell his Randian approach to politics. 
     Does Ryan not realize Ayn Rand, really Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum was a fiction writer of moderate talents. Her Objectivism is not a sacred text, it was the stuff of a novelist's creative mind. It is no more valid nor sacred than Sci-fi writer L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics that followers turned into Scientology. Maybe his own party sent Speaker Ryan a loud message about the validity of his stingy political assumptions based on his allegiance to a fictional fabrication of a worthless "pseudo philosophy."
      There is more, any Republican quoting Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Alex Jones should be drummed out of the party and into the corner where they await deportation to Syria. These guys are not political gurus, they are bull shit artists who got rich pretending they know something, loudly. 
      In the meantime we've moved from the gridlock and partisan warfare of the last several years to Republican intra party warfare, ideological thuggery and knife fights, while the Democrats look for a compass and a soul.

       
       Staccato signals of constant information
       A loose affiliation of millionaires
       And billionaires and baby
       These are the days of miracle and wonder
       This is the long distance call
       The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
       The way we look to us all, oh yea
                  The Boy In The Bubble--Paul Simon

            
        Yep kids, the good old days happen this way.
     

     See you down the trail.
     

     

Springing Up

       Even as spring glories around us we find ourselves between "The Winters of our Discontent." Winters because Shakespeare's opening in Richard III and Steinbeck's 1961 The Winter of Our Discontent are the pole stars in our current fate.

       We'll unpack what I'm getting at after we pause to regard beauty that can make us forget, even if only for a moment. But for this moment enjoy early spring on California's central coast, curated in this case by Lana and her mentor mother nature.

     I am ever sorry for this bottle brush tree that still imbibes life but seems forever shamed by a brutal haircut. That brings me again to the blooming idiots of the swamp and our discontent.

the winter of our discontent

      And so to the Winter of our Discontent-in Richard III it was the sun (son) of York, Edward IV who brought an end to discontent-the rein of Richard III. The first two lines;
     Now is the winter of our discontent/made glorious by this son (sun) of York. 
     A story of a rise to power by manipulation.
   
    John Steinbeck's novel The Winter of our Discontent, is a morality tale of a man who tosses away integrity to gain wealth and status by cheating, lying and betrayal. By whichever pole you navigate this discontent, there are messages for our time. 

circus trumpus

or

government by mayhem

    The White House should be renamed Bedlam. 

    After the predator President's twitter storm about being phone tapped, Mike Pence should have called together that stellar cabinet and asked them seriously, "do you think we have a problem with the President?"

    What ever did we do to deserve the insanity that has become this administration? It was clear to most Americans  Donald Trump was unfit, unqualified and unprepared, so we should not be surprised but even those who despise this slimy character are embarrassed by how sleazy and adolescent-stupidly things are playing out. 

time to use the 25th Amendment

     

      Trump should be slapped silly for the rude and childish manner in how he treated the German Chancellor Merkel. He embarrassed this Republic, despite your party affiliation or political views. Childish, brutish, rank amateur.
      Pence should have called the cabinet together again and re-read the 25th Amendment paying attention to clause 4.4.

      I know you can't impeach a President for lying, but this man lies so frequently as to perhaps qualify him for insanity.
      
     How can we trust him to make critical decisions with our military forces when he is so untethered from reality?

     Donald Trump may be a billionaire but he is liar, cheat, sexual predator, bully and a phony. By my logic that alone crosses the threshold to invoke the 25th-4.4. It is bad already but now the real stuff begins. 

art of the russian deal

      It is hard to believe but it may end there is no smoking gun or finger prints in the Russian investigation but still the Trump Presidency is crashing and burning and the gas on the fire is the federal investigations. 
      Charles Schumer may be playing to the hometown crowd when he raises the question as to whether to proceed with the Gorsuch nomination, but there is a shred of Washington wisdom at work.
      Trump is on the ropes, his administration is floundering horribly and it will be tied up with details of the federal probe. Remember Clinton with impeachment, Reagan with Iran Contra, Carter with the hostages, Nixon with Watergate. It becomes the obsession and everything else stalls.
      If there is a finding of collusion there will be criminal prosecutions. If Trump had contact with Russians-and that is still only an if-he could go to prison. 
      Speculation on outcome is iffy, but the fact an administration is being investigated for conspiring with a foreign power who tried to rig an election is mind blowingly historic. It is also very Trumpish. The investigation will do damage to this swamp creature regime.

trump=ruin

      His war with the Republican party is real. His approval rating drop is staggering and for a narcissist like Trump it could cause his brain or heart to explode.

     He is irrational. He's mixed family and government-business and policy. We see him lie and demonstrate he really doesn't know reality. He's turned Sean Spicer, who people say used to be a nice guy, into a lying whore and embarrassment to all press secretaries. (I apologize to whores because they don't pretend to be anything else.) Trump means ruin.

use the 25th

     Someone in the Republican party needs to grab Pence by the collar and force him to read the 25th Amendment and to consider the long arc of history. 

      This goes beyond politics and policy-I defy anyone to  describe what are Trump's politics or his policies. He's a hustler and he's perverting politics, not a simple feat given the state of things, but he's a scum even by swamp standards. He's so out of touch with reality as to present a danger. 

     In the Reagan years there was talk about his mental slippage, early dementia and his fitness to serve. So it's time for the nation to begin looking for a way to get Trump out of office before he does the damage that is inevitable.

     See you down the trail.

      

     

THE SHIFTS

   While we seem be damned by current political attitudes,  profound changes are right behind us. We ponder views and the attitudes that drive them, after we first fog it up.

 Going over the Santa Lucia pass toward Paso Robles I was struck by how Morro Rock, Mt. Hollister and a couple of other volcanic peaks seem to be adrift in a sea of clouds.

 Fog moves quickly this time of year, one of the wonders of living along the Pacific.

big sur tribute

    As Big Sur remains isolated and inaccessible we are mining the archive to help those of us with a Big Sur jones.

     Fog and Big Sur are like Coffee and sugar-

We feel sorry for visitors who pick a day to drive Highway 1 when fog rules

      It moves quickly, literally before your eyes.

    

   Future posts will feature more of the Big Sur file as we lament its current status of being off limits.

  the political fog

   We should all be troubled by Secretary of State Tillerson's comment he is "not a big media access guy."
     The secretary needs to understand he is no longer a private CEO/Chairman of the Board dealing in a corporate world. He is a public employee, an official appointed by the President but responsible to the American tax payer for whom he works. This job is bigger than him and requires process and transparency.
     Tillerson's refusal to travel with at least a press pool instead of hand picking one journalist is unacceptable. It is wrong and dangerous, even more so given the pronouncements of the irrational liar and lunatic who appointed him.

here comes heart burn for non progressives

    The much maligned millennials are about to have their way. Those who are 19-35, the largest component of the Bernie Sander supporters now number some 75.5 million.

    They are a generation raised on disruption, new ways of working, living and a decidedly socialist cultural and political lean. The same goes for their younger siblings Generation Z who total some 77.9 million-they are 18 and younger but in the next two election cycles will become a force as well. Add them to the 65.9 million Gen X'ers, 36-51, and the tables have not only changed, but it is a new game. 

     Millennials and Gen Z bring such profound change to the political landscape that Boomers and the generation immediately preceding may not recognize the social landscape.

      They are decidedly more egalitarian, color blind, accepting of sexual and gender identity selections and differences, ethnic diversity, in favor of economic equality, globalism, defenders of the environment, suspicious of corporations and to such a degree as to render much of traditional political practice irrelevant. 

      One of them just sold his business to CNN for $20 Million. He has a daily vlog (video blog) with 6 million subscribers and more than 1.3 billion views. He's also been hired to be the front man for a multi billion dollar global corporation's advertising.  Here is a look at  the kind of style, cultural and political attitude that may decide the next presidential election.
      Hear what Casey Neistat has to say to "haters and doubters" and pay attention to the Titanic and Iceberg analogy. Listen to the attitude...and consider their massive numbers. Bye bye trump land..

         See you down the trail.

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.