Everything changes after dark. Streets have a different rhythm. Life takes on a night beat. Mystery looms.
stocking stuffers for melania
a new fillet knife
the lorena bobbit story
a get out of jail card
stocking stuffer for donald
a muzzle
life moves
Summer and fall were devoted to organizing decades of work and preparing them for curation at the Indiana Historical Society and the Digital Repository at Bracken Library at Ball State University.
Digital tapes of now historic episodes of life that were the substance of a life in broadcast journalism. Journalism is called the first draft of history. Melancholy is a companion of sorting through the stuff of a life.
Now collections management experts and archivists will handle a body of work and I trust historians, researchers and writers will find trailings of a time and culture and moments that once were important, or so they seemed. History rules when it comes to perspective.
The bulk of the work has been sent. I have a few files, copy, research, clippings that I tarry over now and soon they too will take wing to find a home with other old stuff, for use again, in the future.
California grieves. The accounts and images of the hell of the Camp Fire in Northern California hit with such force as to knock the joy of life out of its fulcrum in our hearts. Our tears, depression, and abject sadness, as deeply as they are felt, are meager human echoes to the horrendous reality of those who lived and lost in Paradise and the surrounding area.
The emotional toll conspires to knock this beautiful state out of its natural orbit of nature, light, creativity and a zest for life full speed ahead. The Woolsey Fire complex north of LA has destroyed iconic sets, scenes, famous homes and dreamy enclaves. Hundreds of thousands are upended and live on the edge of uncertainty. Those who survive shudder to think of the loss of life and they way they died.
Somehow the sun shines less brightly. There is something that can and must be done-bury power lines. Trouble with lines are again the suspect in these fires. In a corporate calculus a board may reason it is too expensive. That is wrong. Talk has begun in California legislative circles that a private energy company, a monopoly, is no longer the model that works. Time for evolution, for safety's sake, for the people's sake. My friend Bob who writes the blog You've Got A Lot To Learn, found in the column to the right of this post, has written of his experience with the Ventura County fire.
a place away
Not far from here, tucked into a hidden cove, stands an old fishing hut dating to the early 20th century. The images are offered as metaphor for retreat, a place away from the complexity of these days.
but there is an accounting
the bill comes due
At this juncture I can't help but think of the Dylan lyrics "and it's a hard rains a gonna fall."
Add together these clips:
The US was horribly and embarrassingly "misrepresented" at the Armistice Day ceremonies in France.* The missed commemorative appearances will go down as some of the most offensive and despicable Presidential behavior in history, underscoring his unfitness.
The repudiation of this rogue administration is about to escalate. It is telling when the Fox News organization, a right wing propaganda voice for most of its broadcast day, has joined in the legal action against the dictator-like banning of CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Fox joins ABC, NBC, Associated Press, Bloomberg News, New York Times, Politico, EW Scripps, USA, Washington Post, First Look and others in trying to block this usurpation of press freedom.
This White House is also being sued for the appointment of a former shill of a fraudulent company and who is opposed to the Mueller probe, to be the Attorney General. Just contemplate that for a moment.
No administration in history has had so many guilty pleas and indictments of high ranking staff and cronies and more are on the way. Now the First Lady is making a list of staff who should be fired. All of this is preparatory to what will happen when the subpoenas and investigations begin when the Democrats take leadership of the House. It may feel like a swarm of hornets.
After watching and covering Presidents since 1965 I wonder if this man can hold up to the pressure of the onslaught. He is bloated, overweight, does not work out, has questionable sleeping habits and a furious temper. A major publication is out with an inquiry into his recent behavior and asking if there is something wrong with him.
Now that something is in place to challenge him, now that voters have tossed over some of the acquiescing sycophants, Donald Trump's life will be tougher than ever before. If he's got a breaking point, emotionally, politically or physically we may see it. The bill comes due sometime. And overarching all of this is the Mueller report, also due.
dollars but no sense
At a time when this White House and the Republican party is driving the national deficit to all time highs and busting the budget, one must note Trump is blowing as much as $220 Million on sending troops to the border, even though the experts, the Generals, the Pentagon tell him they don't see the "caravan" as a risk. He's sent 6000 troops and says he may raise it to 15,000. This President calls the caravan an "invasion." In fact his irrational behavior is a diversion, an attempt to work up his base, an appeal to his racist and xenophobic supporters. But it is racism and he undertakes it at a huge economic loss to the nation. It's almost like going bankrupt when you own a casino.
how much is too much?
Here's a money story that may blow your mind. Thanks to Bloomberg, Time Magazine, and Democracy Now we know that Amazon's Jeff Bezos was worth on May 1st $132 Billion. In January his worth was $99 Billion, so he's continuing to earn.
Here are the stats. He makes $275 Million a day, that is $11.5 Million an hour, $191 thousand a minute or $3,182 every second. The median salary for an Amazon employee is $28,000 a YEAR. Bezos makes as much in 3 seconds as he pays his employees for a year of work.
the asterisk footnote
*After watching his petulant appearances in Paris and hearing of his refusal to go to honor the fallen in Belleau Wood, or to take part in the multi nation march I thought a few Marines should grab him and give him a thrashing. Those 50 plus Republicans who served in previous Republican White Houses and who published the ad saying he was unfit and unqualified should have been listened to by their fellow party voters.
At this moment let's leave red and blue out of the picture and think about something that is in the best interests of everyone. There is a visitor to this nation that threatens us with a brain and heart killing disease, despite what is our politics, personal belief, color, ethnicity, identity or dream. What threatens us all is the lack of reasoning.
Emotion has become our operating system and it is to our detriment. The evidence is everywhere; in the way people "talk" to each other either in social media or face to face, political advertising plays to emotion, our tone is inflammatory and emotional, objectivity and analysis is drowned out by volume and emotion. And of course we are divided by just about everything and we are very poor at being civil in our disagreements.
The history of the US is the history of disagreement and competing forces, ideas, beliefs and philosophy but we've always held together at the center, found compromise and accord with that one tragic exception.
a house divided
For the next 726 days of your life and mine we find ourselves caged in the reality of the 2020 Presidential election. Count them off if you wish, but it will be an enormous challenge to tune them out. For our well being, for our survival, we need to change the tone and begin thinking.
Objectivity and analysis need to override emotion but that too will be a challenge.
hacking the human heart and mind
Ponder this briefly-James Bridle is a British writer/artist/thinker who wrote THE NEW DARK AGE-Technology And The End Of The Future. I heard him interviewed recently where he makes the case the digital and networked world is increasingly influencing human behavior and especially in advertising and media. Algorithms impact almost every aspect of our social interaction and consumer behavior now. Bridle asks what happens when technology knows your likes and dislikes to such a degree that it can purposely hack your emotions-to the extent it can affect your pulse rate, your sense of well being, by controlling the information you see and hear.
His concern is that an artificial intelligence, an algorithm will "reason" the best way to get you to do or like something is to manipulate you, relentlessly.
We humans are and have been doing that to and with each other, maybe forever. But now we've become so emotional, so overloaded by loud and divisive voices, with so few places for retreat and sanctuary that we are a bundle of frayed nerves and trigger fingers and tongues. Add the sophistication of AI and we've just upped the chances of disaster. And that is made even more sinister when adversaries, like enemy powers or rogue agents try to intrude like perhaps in our election cycles.
our hearts at the mid term
A few tea leaves to read here-if a state is 2/3 white, Democrats lose, Republicans win. Educated women vote Democrat. White women without a college degree vote Republican.
Florida restores the right to vote to 1.4 million felons, most of whom are black. This in a state where the governors race was decided by some 74 thousand votes.
In voting for House and Senate seats Democrats pulled 13 million votes more than Republicans.
Suburbs and urban areas are consistently Democrat. Rural areas are consistently Republican. Educated professionals vote Democrat. What was once considered "blue collar" seem to be voting Trump Republican. The less education one has the more likely they are to vote Republican. That is almost a direct reversal of the way it was just a few years ago.
There are of course other divides and the analysis will continue. Some things are certain-the government is divided.
The House is under control of Democrats who will now have subpoena power. There are public matters they will push and that could include seeing this President's tax returns, exploring his families business ties and entanglement with the business of government, the Russian meddling inquiry, Jared Kushner's business interests, what and how did the White House limit the investigation into sexual assault allegations against Judge and now Justice Kavanaugh, the sexual assault allegations against the President.
The Mueller investigation also hangs over both the White House and the US Capitol.
How will we behave for the next 726 days? The President's news conference Wednesday morning didn't bode well. Do citizens still expect something called "Presidential behavior?" Do we still believe that a man or woman should "rise" to the office? Do we think that a free press asking hard questions still has a place in a free society? Do we still believe that all people regardless of color, ethnicity, gender and identity should be free? Do we still believe the confederacy was wrong? Do we still believe the Nazi ideology is outside the bounds of accepted human behavior? Do we still believe the conviction of Nazi war criminals outlawed that belief for all time? Do we still believe the KKK and other white supremacists have no place in a civil society? Do we believe that pandering to the basest among us is wrong? Do we believe that a politics of ridicule, division and hate is wrong? Do we believe we should govern toward the center? Do we believe we should listen to each other? Do we believe we can find a middle ground and compromise? What do we believe is American?
But first a note about this world we boogeymen are creating for the innocents.
words matter
In 2017 there was a 90% percent increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in US schools, K-12.
There was a 60% rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the adult world.
The FBI says in 2016 there were 6,121 criminal incidents motivated by bias against race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender. That was a huge rise since the Obama and Bush years.
This year, after two years of Trump there has been another dramatic increase in hate crimes, anti Semitic violence and mass shootings.
We'll return to these matters after a softer target-Megyn Kelly.
the megyn kelly paradox
Megyn Kelly is an intelligent, educated, experienced person. I presume when she made her comment about the appropriateness of wearing black face at Halloween she was operating on the assumption that she was speaking in concert with high principle. In fact she may have thought she was intoning the principle of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that color of skin is not as important as character. Again I assume she thought white people wearing black face, or black people wearing white face was fine, acceptable and a sign of how "evolved" we have become. I don't think she thought she was being racially insensitive, however.....
The fact that a multi million dollar television personality was so dead wrong is a snap shot of how racially insensitive and perhaps even ignorant this culture is. That her pretty little head could not, or would not grasp the grave insensitivity and callousness of her remarks is a loud and ugly confirmation of the racism that exists in this culture.
We fail miserably at beginning to understand the meaning and significance of something like black face to people of color. Though someone might not think a comment or action is hurtful or disrespectful, it underscores how little we think about people who are not like us or who derive from a different life experience. We fail to learn to appreciate or be sensitive to the cultural and life history of other races, ethnicity, gender and orientation.
Frankly I was stunned that a woman at the center of a 23 million dollar contract, on a major network could be so mindless as to not know more about the cultural dynamite of black face. And that is only one famous example of how little we know, or care. I don't think Megyn Kelly is a vicious racist, but her inability to perceive the hurtfulness of what she said to fellow citizens, or the desire to even contemplate the impact of her words was wrong and pretty much explains why and how we are in such a divisive time.
where does the buck stop
Right or wrong, US citizens look to the Presidency to set a tone, to be a moral arbiter, to be a kind of surrogate parent figure.
"The phenomena we're seeing post-2016 hasn't been seen in modern political history, which is once the election was over, people - ordinary people - Americans who voted for Trump continued to demonize and hate Hillary voters and vice versa. And that's still going on today two years later. "
The comment is from Carolyn Lukensmeyer, executive director of the National Institute for Civil Discourse in a conversation with Lulu Garcia Navarro. She calls the rhetoric of the Trump years a very different phenomena, a "virus."
Ariela Schachter a sociologist at Washington University says people become more measurably negative after being exposed to Trump's negative messages about immigrants. And it gets worse after it is magnified by media.
Trump's tweets and his performance at his frequent rallies enforce negativity, incite the extreme right and racists.
Schachter says Trump's tone, style and message is pernicious.
"I do think, though, that we have to consider the power dynamics. So the president of the United States has a uniquely powerful position to amplify the messages that he's sending out in ways that the rest of us don't. I also think we need to think about the impact of this rhetoric on immigrant communities in the United States"
Lukensmeyer says probably 10-12 percent on the far right and 8-10 percent on the far left have "no interest" in ending the hostility or "closing the divide." But she says that leaves a full 75-80% of the rest of us who what to cool it down. Trump's tone has been nothing but divisive. His father was an accused racist doing illegal real estate practices. The Trump presidential campaign began with a racist attack on Obama (the birth certificate) and Mexican emigres, followed by the Muslim travel ban and continues to this day as he amps up fear and hatred. His most recent lies about the "caravan" being a case in point. His base and supporters refuse to address these issues of blatant deceit and divisiveness. Fox betrayed their real motivation when they tried to plant the idea the pipe bomber was a "false flag," ruse by liberals and democrats. That is typical of the way the right and the regressives distort and divert. It is a danger sign for the republic when so many ignore the authoritarian and anti American behavior of the thug president.
for the record
US intelligence agencies report Chinese and Russian spies listen to Trump calls on his iPhones. Trump lied when he said he uses only government phones. He speaks with friends and tweets and even discusses sensitive information on non secure phones. Remember how much heat a particular candidate received for using a non government server for e-mails?
Remember when Republicans pretended to be fiscal hawks and screamed about the deficit? For the record, the deficit is up 17% under this President. Where's the indignation now? The zombie apocalypse may well be the Republican party under Trump.
a pivot
from the obscene to the joyful
The Morro Bay United Methodist Children's Center sponsors a safe alternative to Trick or Treat outings for the little ones.
It's called a Trunk or Treat Spooktacular. Parents decorate trunks and hand out sweets as the kids in costume collect goodies in the parking lot.
The guys in the two following frames added live "creatures" for the kids to see and touch, if they wanted to.
Before the trunk treating there is a costume parade around the Children's Center playground.
Safe fun.
Good times and candy. Adult life should be so sweet.
