Category Archives: News

Notes from 2017 – Infrastructure

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Infrastructure: in·fra·struc·ture – ˈinfrəˌstrək(t)SHər/ French noun
the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.

This phrase comes dramatically to mind with the spillway failure at the Oroville dam, 100 miles north of here, which resulted yesterday in the evacuation of almost 200,000 downstream residents.

I lived near the dam in the ’80’s, so I followed #OrovilleDam on social media. Most of the messages were touching offers of places to stay for evacuees, tweets about open gas stations, and so on. As you would expect in today’s climate, some tried to politicize the event. A few moron messages blamed the crisis on illegal immigrants and were not worth reading, but one message caught my attention.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that in 2005, environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, warned federal and state officials that the emergency spillway was “fragile,” needed to be reinforced. That sounded like negligence, but putting this news in perspective on a PBS Newshour report, is Jeffery Mount, senior fellow with the California Public Policy Institute.

According to Mount, the request was reviewed, but finally rejected in a cost vs. probabilities decision. The benefit of coating the hillside in concrete seemed too costly for an event that was not expected to happen, and in fact happened this year for the first time in the 50 year history of the dam.

The issue now will be for reservoir engineers to review what we know of climate studies, which suggest that future storms will be more frequent and more intense than in the past.

Which brings us to the issue of infrastructure…

The Oroville dam, the tallest in California, was built in 1968, in a decade that saw America build it’s interstate highway system, open dozens of affordable public colleges, build dams, and bridges throughout the country, and put a man on the moon.

One of the ways we did this was with a 70% tax rate on the wealthiest 1%.  Nowadays, 70% is the percentage of US bridges with serious structural flaws. Since 2001 we’ve cut taxes on the wealthy and waged constant unfunded wars.  This is what our national infrastructure looks like:

Broken concrete, which makes the main spillway unusable.

Broken concrete, which makes the main spillway unusable.

If we continue down this same road, the Oroville dam and evacuations will be our future.

The new president backed off his campaign promise for an infrastructure program after learning how much it would actually cost. So much that it would behoove his fans to ask him to pay his taxes again. And forget about the Mexican wall PR stunt.

A few people, modeling their communication style on the new president tweeted that the damn failure at least would “wash the liberals away.” Aside from the blatantly cruel sentiment when thousands of people could loose their homes when the rains return on Wednesday, these morons failed to realize that the counties affected were red – they voted for Trump.

Look at the broken dam – it’s not a party issue. Is there’s an aged dam or bridge or a risky overpass near you? Wouldn’t you like it addressed? Wouldn’t you for once like to see leaders of both parties consider what is truly good for “the American people?”

Might be time to let them know how you feel…

oroville-dam

Notes from 2017 – The Day of the Dove

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The Day of the Dove, Star Trek, season 3, episode 7

The Day of the Dove, Star Trek, season 3, episode 7

A 1968 Star Trek episode, “The Day of the Dove,” is an apt metaphor for one of the perils confronting our nation 22 days into the new administration. The episode aired in November, 1968.

An alien entity traps Klingons and the Federation crew aboard the Enterprise, and incites them to anger and violence. It isolates individuals in different parts of the ship. It implants false memories of past harms to feed the anger. It materializes weapons as tempers build.

After recognizing the danger, Kirk and Spock convince the Klingon commander and their respective crews to lay down their weapons. They laugh, joke, and generally act like they’re having fun. The entity fades and disappears.

As David Brooks observed Friday night on The PBS Newshour, the new administration had ample opportunity to move toward “bringing the nation together,” the stated goal of every other victorious president I can remember. Instead they go out of their way to foment discord

Why? Continue reading →

Notes from 2017 – What is your innermost truth?

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truth-2

I  started this post several days ago – in what now seems like a galaxy far away – with something different in mind. My title is paraphrases a question asked by Zen priest, Edward Espe Brown, at a retreat in 2011: “What is your innermost request?”

In the context of the retreat, I took his question to mean, “What is the deepest desire at the deepest core of your being?”  The word, “request,” implies not just desire, need, want, but something akin to prayer. What do we want our lives to be about? What would it take , when our time comes to leave this world, to exit with a sense of peace, victory, satisfaction?

I mean the same kind of thing with, “innermost truth.”  Not just beliefs, ideas, concepts, deductions, or any of the contents of consciousness, for they inevitably change. How many beliefs, ideas, concepts, and so on do you hold from this time a year ago, let alone 10 years ago, 20, or from childhood? What do you know more deeply than emotion and reason both?  Jack Kornfield, in A Path With Heart described this as something you know so deeply that if Buddha and Jesus both said, “You’re wrong,” you would answer, “I am not!”

It’s not an easy question, and there is no simple answer, but it has never been more essential to look to our truths, try to clarify and hold them close over time.

Knowing what we truly believe is an anchor, a center, a “know thyself” tactic at a time when the new president and his minions are trying to normalize lies as “alternate facts.”

The day will come when telling “a Spicer” is a synonym for “telling a whopper,” but until that happens, we need to guard our sense of right and wrong, true and false, as the greatest safeguards we have against the fascist administration that now occupies the White House.

voltaire

Notes from 2017: Who doesn’t love a hero?

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Woody Guthrie, 1943. Library of Congress.

Woody Guthrie, 1943. Library of Congress.

On January 16, The Times of London posed a question to Donald Trump:  “Do you have any models – are there heroes that you steer by – people you look up to from the past.”

In reply Mr. Trump said,: “Well, I don’t like heroes, I don’t like the concept of heroes, the concept of heroes is never great.” He then described his admiration for his father, from whom he learned “a lot about negotiation,” but then he gave himself final credit, saying that negotiation is “natural trait,” which “you either have or you don’t.”

Father and son may share additional traits. In 1950, Woody Guthrie leased an apartment from Fred Trump, and soon came to despise the president-elect’s father for his racism. In his song, “Old Man Trump,” he wrote:

Beach Haven ain’t my home!
No, I just can’t pay this rent!
My money’s down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain’t my home!

In the 1970’s, the Justice Department sued Fred and Donald Trump for racial discrimination, under the 1968 Fair Housing Act, which Rep. John Lewis helped pass. The Trumps settled, “without an admission of guilt.

*****

Heroism begins with a concern for someone or something greater than oneself, so of course Mr. Trump is unacquainted with the concept. Polls show his approval rating has slipped since the election, but a core group of supporters apparently still hope that inauguration will somehow awaken a concern with their wellbeing and that of the nation.

I’m betting in six months – a year at the outside – the denial will wear off, and most of his remaining supporters will realize they’ve been conned as badly but effectively as those who enrolled at Trump University.

We will not find any heroes in the White House after Friday.

Notes from 2017 – Predictions and Prophecies

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I’ve never been big on New Year’s predictions. Even if accurate, they’re like signs on a mountain road saying, “Watch out for falling rocks.” What do you do if you see one barreling at you?

Prophecies are even worse! In all the old stories, those who attempt to escape an evil fate choose the precise actions that bring it about. They do it every time!

Oedipus is probably the best known example. Told by the Delphic Oracle – an ironclad source – that his fate was to kill his father and marry his mother, what does he do? He quarrels with the first old guy he meets on the road and kills him! That’s when we know it can’t turn out well!

The following video is Keith Olbermann’s take on what we, as a nation, have done. Recognizing that our political and economic systems were broken, we went to the polls and made a choice that most of us now know can’t possibly turn out well…

See what you think. I’ll make a few predictions of my own in future posts, but most of them follow on this one.

Notes from 2017 – Remember moral courage?

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On New Year’s day, Wall Street Journal editor, Gerard Baker sparked a social media storm after saying on Meet the Press that he has instructed his paper’s journalists not to report Donald Trump’s lies as lies, but as “questionable,” or “challengeable” statements (1) (2).

The word “lie,” he said, implies a moral judgement, and opens the Journal to claims of bias. He cited Mr. Trump’s claim that “thousands” of Muslims celebrated 9/11 on New Jersey rooftops. To call that a “lie,” Baker claimed, would imply an intent to deceive, so the Journal reported instead that there was “no evidence” to support the allegations.

There are many obvious problems with this approach. No one with a pulse believes that Trump made an inadvertent mistake – his intent with this lie was to win the support of xenophobes, in one of the classic moves of would-be tyrants. Trump learned in his earlier “birther” rants that if you repeat a lie often enough, those who want to believe you will, and will rally to support your cause.

I our midterm election in 2018, we’ll have new voters who were a year old on 9/11, with no clear memory of the event. “No evidence” is too weak a rebuttal to our would-be dictator-in-chief, who unfortunately, is an expert on manipulating the news, and in a classic strategy tyrants before him continues his efforts to discredit legitimate news outlets (3) (4) (5).

The journalists had gathered on Meet the Press to discuss Mr. Trump’s attempts to discredit news he doesn’t approve of. You can read a full transcript of the session here (6) Not being sufficiently versed in history, Mr. Baker doesn’t realize that capitulation will not save him or his paper if Trump can manage to gain the power over news outlets, like “stronger libel laws,” that he craves.

Therefore, I’m awarding Gerard Baker of the Wall Street Journal, my first Wormtongue Award of 2017. This is the first, but I’m sure not the last, such award I’ll hand out…

The First Gates "Wormtongue Award" goes to Gerard Baker, of the "Wall Street Journal"

The First Gates “Wormtongue Award” goes to Gerard Baker, of the “Wall Street Journal”

Notes from 2017, part 1

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Petroglyphs, Saguaro National Park, Arizona

Petroglyphs, Saguaro National Park, Arizona

This morning, at 2:44 am local time, the still point of the turning world became even more still. Like the gap between the end of an outbreath and the next inbreath, the earth paused.  From the depth of our longest night, her axis tilted back toward summer.

Darkness is metaphorical as well as physical. By many measures, our nation is in its darkest hour since the civil war. The inspiration for what will become a series of posts through the coming year was an article by Summer Brennan, called Notes From the Resistance: A Column on Language and Power. Ms Brennan begins by saying:

“In George Orwell’s 1984, the first act of rebellion undertaken by Winston, the protagonist, is to acquire a blank book and begin to write down his thoughts and memories.”

As Big Brother watches, Winston begins to reclaim words and celebrate truth. Big Brother is not yet as pervasive here, although security experts warn I should put a piece of tape over the camera on my laptop – just in case. In my estimation, I’m hiding in plain sight, betting that no one much cares about pics of an unshaven man in his 60’s, sitting in his bathrobe before dawn, swilling coffee and searching for words.

Although if Ken Bones could go viral…

But I digress. A minority of those Americans who voted chose a petty tyrant and reality TV star to become the most powerful man on earth. Lies are his currency. I will not repeat the lies here, but rather, use these posts to document my reality, and as much as I can sense it, the national reality, over the coming year.

Rather adding my saliva to the spitting contest between supporters and detractors, I will use this space, through the coming year, to ask the Dr. Phil question: “How’s this working for you?”

Here we will celebrate truth and truth-tellers.

Here I begin by celebrating Pope Francis, who so follows so beautifully in the footsteps of the apostle of peace for whom he is named. Yesterday, he declared that evolution and the Big Bang theory are correct. That God is not a magician who pulled the universe out of a hat 5000 years ago. That science can be a mode of truly appreciating the handiwork of the Creator.

Happy Solstice to all!