Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Thursday, December 24, 2020

The Season of Mirth


story time at lightbreezes

   We have a tale of danger, played out on this plain...


  ...and we ride the way back machine to meet our favorite of the bearded old boys.

 eye to eye with the old elf


    There he is, standing back on the left in the collection of St. Nicholas' who have taken a home in our house over the years.

    A new fellow would arrive each year, when the girls were young. But one old boy, worn, weary, battle scarred and from the old school, has a favorite spot in our heart.


     This Santa showed up in the early 1950's. We lived in a two bed room VA financed tract house on Muncie's South Ebright Street where other WWII vets settled. 
    Brother John and I shared a room. We also shared this bank, an inducement from Mutual Home and Savings Association to participate in a Christmas Club.
     Times were simpler, and being what they were, the bank was declared a Christmas decoration. That was a unilateral act of parental diplomacy, a way to effect a permanent truce about control of the bank. John and I wrestled and rumbled about most things and the Santa bank was, in our minds, an heirloom. 
    We played with the metal jolly fellow each year, until our interests turned to cowboy guns and holsters and then basketballs and boxing gloves. By the time we were interested in transistor radios and records, Santa had assumed true heirloom status and made his yearly appearances, second in importance to the angel that reigned over the family Christmas decorations from atop the tree. 
    When I came home from college, it warmed me to see the increasingly worn chubby old elf. One year while dad and I watched the Tonight Show, I remember looking it over closely and wondering how John and I had inflicted all the knicks and dings.
    One season, Santa was missing. I learned John had borrowed it since he had a new daughter. Before John died, as a young man many years ago, Santa came back home. Even in the year of John and our younger brother Jim's passing, the old Santa was put on display. After Dad died, the little bank was a kind of talisman, and a holder of memories. 
    Yes Virginia there are a lot of Santa's in this world and it rounds out a life to pick your own favorite, even if they are part of a display in a twinkle shop. We'll take a closer look in a bit.   


        Now, a story of the maternal blessing of motherly protection. We find ourselves among the Sycamores and Oaks of the California central coast. 
      If you look closely there is gold in those leaves on the ground.


    It is a kind of "gold," I clarify, the sort of gold that Lana, dedicated gardener and composter, taught me to collect many years ago.
    This season she conveys "the thrill of the hunt" to our grand daughter. The objects they seek are cow pies. Yep, nitrogen to enrich the soil.
     They carefully watch their step.




Ah, and here, entering stage right, comes the danger. Another mother, grand in her own way, protectng her progeny. 




    In fact there was a lot of maternal interest on this field on this day. 




     With a sufficient number of collections in the bucket, we were returning to the car when a rancher pulled her pick up along side. 
      "Watch out for those mothers," she said. "They're more dangerous than the bulls. They're very protective. There are lot of young out there and they are very protective. Worse than the bulls, they'll just bowl you over."
        "Thanks, we'll be careful. We're leaving now," I sheepishly replied to this keeper of the beef heard.
        "They'll bowl you over, run you right into a tree," she said before pointing her horsepower toward the west.
        As she drove away, I noticed most of the mothers watched her truck disappear around the bend. 

eye to eye with Santa 













     Santa, dude, we all are glad to see you and the gang this year. That is especially so for the knicked little Saint Nick who showed up almost 70 years ago.


  After mom passed he started making memories for daughters Kristin and Katherine and now for the grands Addie and Henry. He is still all about giving, and love!

   Whatever is your tradition, LightBreezes wishes you Merry, Happy, Good Tidings, Great Joy and Peace. 
    Thanks for spending some of this challenging year here and for giving time to the thoughts we leave at this spot.
     Wishing you all health and happiness in the new year!

        See you down the trail!









Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Changing Colors in America

Santa Rosa Creek Road, Cambria CA

challenge of change
       Trying to get a grip on the flux of political and social attitudes in the US this Christmas season, I circle back to the Ebru style of painting Lana taught her students.
        It's an aqueous technique and the mixture of mediums and water produced fascinating and unexpected results.
        We can be certain of this; the overwhelming majority of US voters are blue, but the exiting and losing reds are refusing to mix and uphold expected and time treasured traditions of our democratic republic. 

Cambria, Ca
sunset on a despot
         If insiders are to be believed, Donald J. Trump is a man in agony. He is in full rage as his circle of sycophants gets smaller, and less stable. His derangement is now fixed as the least honorable, most deceptive and disastrous in US history. 
        His behavior affirms the assessment from former high perches in government to those who simply paid attention; Trump was unqualified, unfit, lacked the character and has, as predicted, endangered the security of the US.
        His grip on power is fading, but there are considerations about a rejected Trump that are blips on the screen. 


what to make of ex-president trump
       How should media handle private citizen Trump? That discussion has begun. Do his tweets or rallies deserve attention? Or should he be ignored, like all former US presidents have been?
        The answer is simple to this journalist, but for reasons that are complex.
        Democracies can die from lies. From the beginning this man has rejected all traditions of honor and decorum that have accompanied the job. Trump has actively tried to undermine and destroy our system of government and our faith in it. His manic and desperate attempt to overturn the election has  been moved forward  by lies, fraud, and distortions. It is dangerous.
        Trump has by now effectively destroyed the Republican party of old. In its place he's created a cult of personality. The devoted sadly believe his outrageous lies and psychotic conspiracy theories. He and his followers are spreading distrust of our government and are violating important norms as well as laws.
        


        The late justice of the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg called Trump an aberration. That was without precedent. No less than conservative Chief Justice John Roberts also railed against Trump and his distortions and deceptions.
        This, most of the world knows; Trump is an unbalanced man who lies perhaps more profusely than anyone in modern civilization. His behavior in the days since he was "land-slided" out by the nation's voters should be evidence enough the sick, destructive, fraudster deserves no regular attention. When he is indicted, or when he has a stroke as he performs for his adoring unenlightened, or when he is shot by one of his paramilitary acolytes who learns that all of his legal defense funds are streaming to his own pockets, or when one of his Russian mafia bankers grow impatient for him to payback the hundreds of millions or to fork over sensitive US knowledge, then he can get news coverage. Until then, he does not deserve it and we should not risk the damage.
        I will forever hold Jeff Zucker of CNN accountable for starting the Trump landslide of attention when he became a candidate. Trump got tons more coverage than other candidate. Why? Because Zucker reasoned the crazy flamboyant hustler was unpredictable and therefore good copy. Zucker was not making a good journalistic decision, he was pandering. Soon, to their discredit, other networks followed suit and Donald Trump disrupted the Republican primary system, brought along his old TV audience, rallied racists, hustled the disenchanted and the US has suffered since. 



      We know, if he gets the oxygen he wants from the media, he will be a shadow president, trying to further delegitimize the federal government. He should be ignored. Perhaps without coverage of major news groups, his influence and bully power will diminish.
      Brandy Zadrozny who covers the internet for NBC News expects 2021 to be the year information fatigue sets in and people will stop caring. She says she sees indications that when people seek only "my community," those of like mind, people don't care about being lied to. That seems evident in the Trump republican party.
       But on January 20th, when Joe Biden takes the oath of office the majority of Americans will celebrate.

exultation at San Simeon

           There will be work to do, just to undo the carnage.
David Wilcox is the former chief economist for the Federal Reserve. He is a PhD in Economics from MIT. Summing up the challenge ahead Wilcox said, "...the Trump administration is seeking to debilitate the economic recovery as much as possible on the way out of the door."
            Then there is everything Russia, the pandemic, the trashing of international alliances, the degradation of the Justice Department, the State Department, the Pentagon, the racism, and the continuous assault on truth and honorable tradition. 
            So, with so much to do and watch, now it is time to pause and celebrate the hope this season represents.

            Coming up next, the back story of this battered old elf. And a cautionary tale about protective mothers. It's all in good cheer, and coming in a couple of days.


     Stay well and safe.
     See you down the trail. 

Friday, December 11, 2020

Revanche of America's Soul?


 
     The once resolute American nation needs a tune up and a new MO.
      In these last weeks we've been living a Shakespearean derangement, a hell scape, tossed between a twilight of madness and a dawn, where we have bet our hopes.
       Two Presidents of divergent character, different visions and from separate worlds.
        Peter Wehner, who worked for Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, say's Donald Trump's enduring legacy is "a nihilistic political culture, one that is tribalistic, distrustful and sometimes delusional, swimming in conspiracy theories."
         We are wounded, cut to our aspirational soul.


    In the previous post we explored the founding principle of this American republic, and how far we have strayed. 
    Now we examine how it is time for telling the truth. 

the truth liberates

    President elect Joe Biden is assembling a team of experienced, competent professionals. The levers and controls of government will be handled by people of substance and knowledge.
    President Donald Trump undermines the credibility of our very system, erodes confidence in America, and proliferates his destructive lies and conspiracy. He is a despot, out of time, trapped in a bunker, and determined to destroy everything around him.

deadly delays

    Biden has been denied access to critical defense and covid information. That is dangerous and un-American.
    The transition of power is being forced upon the swindler and his behavior these last weeks will mark his legacy. 
     America's future is the first priority of Joe Biden. Donald Trump's priority is, and always was, Donald Trump.


"Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those 
who issue oppressive decrees, who deprive 
the poor of their rights and who withhold justice
from the oppressed."*

  truth and cowardice 

    What does it say about a political party and their members in the House and Senate when they are afraid of Trump? It is true they are cowards. They will not speak up for American ways. They placate a man who undermines the legitimacy of our government and seeks to overturn and invalidate the majority of US citizens. They are co-conspirators engaged in an attempt to violate us.
    We are in a war with authoritarianism. It is a rising tide.



    It will take time to fight authoritarianism. Our public knowledge base has been poisoned by unchecked deception. True believers have been brainwashed. 
    The healing required for this "experiment of a democratic republic" to survive, needs to begin immediately.


agitate against the algorithms 

     A good place to begin is on social media. It is a land of festering animosity, full of distortion, verbal war and invective.
    Individually we can avoid the trolling and comments. Division reigns there. Minds are not changed and it is fertile ground for those who seek to divide and destroy.


     As users we can demand more stringent protection against falsehoods and distortions. Imagine the impact if Facebook or Twitter users were to stage a strike, that is to stay off social media for a day, or a designated time. The algorithms would sleep and the tech billionaire overlords would see how ephemeral is their power to command data and sell it for fortunes. If no one is using the platform, it is worthless. 
    Want to end the hate and lies? Use your power as a user.  


arming with knowledge

    The path to a more tranquil America will require lots of public education.
    Knowledge of history, understanding how our system works, and simply demanding the truth will be a light that cleanses. 

            Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is 
bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the 
community. 
Andrew Carnegie

        Imagine how Koch, Bezos, Steyer, Bloomberg, and Soros money could fuel a dynamic social media, educational and entertainment blitz to awaken a distracted nation! 
    Old fashioned media taught us the danger of smoking, the wisdom of seatbelts, the folly of littering, the crime of child abuse.
     Over the last months I've been engaged in interviews with intelligence, national security, defense and diplomatic officials. While the US has been obsessed with the artful deception of flash and trash and shiny object distractions of an emotionally stunted and morally compromised would be dictator, fault lines have shifted and the world is more dangerous but we have not been paying attention.
    A major takeaway is the degradation of the US, in the eyes of the world, in leadership capacity, in the ability to be trusted and in the stability and credibility of our own belief in ourselves. 
    At this very minute, acting like a mob boss, Trump is bludgeoning a coalition of cultists from the House and a now perverted Republican claque in last stand efforts to defraud 240 years of principle and tradition.
    The nihilistic, tribal and delusional culture of the Trump reign of carnage is bound for the history books as a low point in US presidential behavior. But the people who bought into the lies, were brought to their seething anger, and hatred by his five year attempt to divide. Despite the facts, the truth, which they were told to deny, they believe Trump won. Still, they are no better off. Now they have become a shadow nation that believes in fantasy and fraud.





the "dangerous class"

     University of Texas professor Clyde Barrow is out with a new book that is getting deserved attention. The DANGEROUS CLASS is a take on what is called the Lumpenproletariat. 
    Barrow and other analysts say Trump was good at reaching them, promising them the sky. He has failed to deliver and those angry, hurting, discontented folks continue in their spiral. Since they do not read widely, do not view much more than Fox News propaganda or right wing media, they are stuck in a vortex of fantasy and anger. 
    These people need our help and understanding, as contemptible as they may appear when they begin their frequently camo and weapon bedecked rage, insane Q assertions or support of fraudulent Trump claims. 
    Barrow says the Lumpenproletariat are victims of an economy that passed them by. They are among the populace for which there are no jobs. Too many people, not enough work. At best they try to make it in a gig economy, hard work, low pay and no benefits. They see the rich get richer. They are the poor than gets poorer. They live day to day. They build resentment. That resentment was harnessed by Trump and directed toward others, those with education, people of different origin or race. They find themselves in league with racists, and the poorly educated in a movement of grievances. Anger is the outlet. Trump chums them, stirs their discontent and seems to offer them a way to fight back. Increasingly they are detached from the rest of the culture and they are a danger, to themselves and to everyone else. 
    The nation must find a way to feed them the truth. Strategies are needed to counter the lunacy of conspiracy theories Trump has fostered. 
    Joe Biden must find a way to reach them, to communicate his understanding of their plight, and to explain how they were used and abused.


   we are in this together
    
    As we look for a way back to a functioning nation it would be good to remember not all republicans have become lock stop members of the Trump party. Secretaries of state, and state officials around the nation have stood toe to toe with the Trump Gestapo. America matters more than loyalty to Trump.
    Some of the most bitter attacks on Trump have come from now former Republicans, who look to someday reclaim their party from insanity and cowardice.
    As citizens, all of us, even the Trump nation, worry about the grade drops and devaluation of education the pandemic has produced. We all have a better understanding of how important are teachers and professional educators.
    We are amazed by the vast advance in medical science and the historic research and break throughs that will impact all of our lives and well being. 
    We've begun to gain a new appreciation of friends, family and our church, or temple, or mosque. 
    We miss social contact, dinner parties, family gatherings, travel, theatre, movies, being able to hug or shake hands. 
    All Americans have been victims, even those poor sad souls who still deny the virus is real. They've been victimized twice.
    We've always had "flat-earthers," gullible,  ill informed and easily manipulated folks. Racists and haters have always been with us. It has been over a century since they had a leader. 
    We have to wonder that as this whiny, despicable, fraudster and liar no longer has power if some of those who supported him will not begin to see the truth and the light? Some, not all.
    As we watch an administration of professionals, veterans and competent people wrestle with the staggering issues before us, might we not settle into a level of confidence that will be undeniable to even the most strident?
    Seeing a President, act Presidential, with dignity and honor certainly must be a welcome change.  
    It will good for this nation to see the Republican party return to their traditional form, if they can. That will be a fight.
    What influence might Trump try to parlay? Or will he be enjoined by legal battles that will bury him?
    
   Despite what may come, the majority of this nation must commit to fight against the vestige of authoritarianism. 
    The Trump departure and the Biden arrival is important, but it is only the first step of reviving America's soul.

*   I would bet Joe Biden and a vast majority of his 81 million voters not only know the source of this passage, but believe it.
    I would bet Donald Trump does not. I can't think many of his supporters know or understand it.

    Stay well. Take care of each other.
    See you down the trail.

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

A Nation Endowed...


              As the United States seeks to repair a sense of nation, bridging division, and return to living into our aspirations we must examine what has happened to our Creator?
        From the first bloom of the republic we've walked with our progenitor, our parent. 
        What has this nation done to God? Where have we put her/him/them? This is a question for those of you with a faith or spiritual life and for those of you who choose to think otherwise. 

            We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  Preamble to the Declaration of Independence.


            An observation-the men who signed the declaration were certainly not feminists and some of them were lukewarm to God, personally, though there She/He is, in the first sentence of the first act to declare a free nation.

            From the beginning this nation has abided people of faith and those who eschew it. Isn't that how it should be? Tolerant. Though in our more enlightened self, we've come to recognize the sins of our founding. 

            We would be more free, more just, and better in all ways if we would have started differently with native citizens and their beliefs, and if we had not permitted Africans to be made slaves. 

            At a time, and in a world that was cruel and classist, imperfect though we were, we sought a more perfect union.

     


  birth of a notion

    

            No one is required to practice a faith, but the freedom to exercise a belief is essential to a free society. It is a principle this nation was built upon. 

            A droll and dear friend, a retired Judge, who presided over the process of American justice and who is a student of philosophy, tells people he is a Frisbeterian. He says when a Frisbeterian passes, their soul goes into a frisbee stuck on a roof some place.  

            From the beginning we've had divisions but despite the differences, our Providential parent was put at the foundation.

            The constitution, the very bones of our republic,  is signed under the sentence 

            “...the 17th of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred eighty seven….”


            This is not an exposition on belief, faith or religion. This is to serve as an understanding that an active allegiance to a Divine power is a keystone to our system of government and it has implications as to how we are as a nation. 

        My use of the word God in this post is code for the sacred beliefs of all, however it is said or left unspoken, imagined, known, practiced or worshipped. It is the human equivalence of an understanding of the Divine intelligence to which humans have fidelity and devotion. 

There is, nor ever was, a unanimity. While Europeans came to these shores for religious freedom, they had different ideas. 

Puritans who made Massachusetts Bay their home set up religious communities based on their view of the Bible. They were, however, not friendly to anyone who had a different view.

At the same time Rhode Island was established for the very purpose of religious freedom. In fact Rhode Island welcomed everyone, faith or no faith and it didn’t matter. Quakers and Jews, who had a hard time elsewhere, were free to practice faith as they wished. People with my judge friend's sense of whimsey would not have burned at a stake in Rhode Island. 

Coexistence, cooperation, and mutual respect, work.


 Just to make sure there was no doubt that our Divine parent was in the midst of everything, the first amendment to the new constitution came just four years later and established that congress could make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” it also gurantees freedom of speech, the press, the right of the people to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances-that is to protest peacefully.

            Bringing this back to the premise, the nation has been built by diversity of people and beliefs, indeed! But always there was a central principle; what we do, how we live, how we treat each other is based on the idea we live in accordance with how God would expect. “…one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” We swear to tell the truth, “so help us God.” The oath of office is sworn on a Bible. 


a kind of secular sacredness


          Over the centuries, the common center of our experiment in democratic republic has been the power we know by many names, according to varied faiths and beliefs. 

          We have become more diverse, multi-cultural and our understanding has more flavor and a diversity of accents.

        While people have been free not to practice a faith, we all have lived according to our constitutional belief in the source of faith, and the even more ancient texts that are at the core of the belief of the major religious groups. 

        Jews, Christians and Muslims share the Ten Commandments that are the foundation of law and principles of behavior. Freedom, justice, equality, divinely ordained if you will, for believers and those who are not. Everyone is to be treated the same.


            So how are we doing? What happened to our Divine guardian in the last four years or so?  Or in the last 50 years? Did someone mug him/her? Did God get fed up with us? 

            Or, have we abandoned the nexus of our nation? Do we merely purport the faith? Do we walk the talk or merely talk it?

            Even those who are agnostic or who claim to be atheist are free to think as such, thanks to our faith in government and the founding document that propounds the importance of living a good life by the measure of a higher standard than merely the doings of we human bipeds.

            As a nation do we put those values first? Or have we turned "God" into an ideological or political tool? 

            I heard a good preacher say, "God is not swayed by our rhetoric or political speechifying?" The principle of strength upon which we premise our right to be a nation, and the guide for the manner in which we will live, has to do with a higher order of things, a power that is just and that knows our intentions. 



        This is not an exercise in esoterica. The last four years have been brutal. The minority president used every opportunity to divide and to destabilize. That most who voted for him believe his lies of election fraud not only marks that we are tribes who draw our succor and knowledge from different places, it demonstrates we have lost our ability to draw to the center. It is evidence of different standards for fact, truth and reality.


        We've always had differences of opinion, but until recently we were able to agree on fact. Donald Trump has spent his life using deception about almost everything. Today millions, most victimized by the distortions of his and their favorite network, believe those lies. That presents a dangerous problem.

        In the early days of the republic James Madison had an idea of public support of churches so a government under the sway of a populist or a mass movement would not be able to restrict or control religious practices and churches. George Washington, a president vastly different from Donald Trump wrote:

“No man’s sentiments are more opposed to any kind of restraint upon religious principles than mine are; yet I must confess, that I am not amongst the number of those who are so much alarmed at the thoughts of making people pay towards the support of that which they profess, if of the denominations of Christians; or declare themselves Jews, Mahomitans or otherwise, & thereby obtain proper relief.” 1784

        We have been able to work it out, to compromise, to act with honor and most of all in the interest of everyone, even with those who hold different personal beliefs. 
    The last 4 years have fanned division, disputed fact, distorted or ignored truth, seen an attempt to discredit the press, despite the provisions of the first amendment. Families, friends, even religions have been victimized, disunited and set at odds. It was intentional, deliberate and unAmerican.


implications 

       The competence and mature assurance of the Biden transition has begun to restore and polish our democratic republic, but sabotage, landmines, and carnage left by the irrational and demented Trump years present implications. This is especially so for those who take seriously the bedrock fealty to Divine Providence found in our constitution and governance.
  •       What is a nation with a Divine heritage to make of people who do not believe the Covid virus is real?
  •        Or who flaunt precautions that protect others, including those most at risk?
  •         Or who do not believe the election results?
  •         What does a Godly people think of children pulled away from parents, and forced to sleep on aluminum blankets in cages?
  •         Or of those who approve of political behavior that causes harm, fosters division and hate?
  •        How can a government vested in a Holy Creator fail to legislate assistance to millions who are unemployed, or the 1 in 4 American children who are food insecure, or people who must decide between food, or rent, or medicine?
  •         How is a nation under God to react to a man who desecrates honor, tradition, peaceful transfer of power, undermines belief in our system, perpetuates credibility destroying mass lies? And what are to do about those adore him and believe those lies?

a nation endowed


       A people who call down a God of the ages, who invoke that divine claim, who swear allegiance, and who promise to navigate by virtues of a holy benefaction must answer true- how are we going to rehabilitate? How are we going to bridge the divide? How do we find a truth or settle on fact?

        Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation is a start.

 He suggested Americans do "humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience...and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union."


      Healing the wounds of the nation will be hard and challenging, but it is noble and honorable work. It is something every citizen can and should do. 

      In future posts we'll take a closer look.


        In our previous age of division, Lincoln drew strength from the hymn Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. There are lines in the second verse that push us to be honest about our commitment to truth and justice

       "God has sounded for the trumpet that shall never call retreat and is sifting out all human hearts before the judgement seat..."

        Truth matters. Justice will prevail. It is in the nations DNA.We are the agents.  


      Stay well. See you down the trail.