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The Monster in the Attic

      We are in the midst of a national conversation regarding what are the responsibilities of a nation of wealth to provide for its population. Assumptions as to what are the personal responsibilities of individuals to care and provide for their own welfare have eroded on a steady basis over the last 40 years, to the point where societies are being asked to support not only those who can’t provide for themselves, but also for those that can. For this nation, born on principles of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, this burden is beginning to project to ominous moments in the near future in the form of unfunded mandates. An unfunded mandate has an obvious definition: a government’s promise to underwrite a future personal liability, with no identifiable mechanism for funding it.

     Unfunded mandates are becoming a federal, state, and local nightmare,  with governmental pensions exploding budgets and entitlements to the population creating dangerous scenarios for budgetary collapse in the near future for massive programs such as Medicare and Social Security, to the point where the very precepts of each are being questioned as to their viability.  The health care “reform” of 2010 recently added, only adds to the worst components of the previous system, adds millions to the census of “receivers”, and like its elder brothers, provides no viable means for adequate funding.  

     We can no longer assume the bottomless resources of a nation of wealth, as obviously the productivity of the population that supplies its wealth is progressively  becoming ensnared in its promises to an intolerable level.  An ageing society naturally reduces the roles of “producers” to ” receivers”, with the ratio of productive workers to pensioners in the 1960’s of 8:1, soon to fall below the insupportable level of 2:1.   Its is strangling our capacity to grow and prosper, poisoning the relationships between generations, and potentially forever changing the implied promise of this nation as one of limitless opportunity to those who seek opportunity.

     We can no longer push these issues down the road if we wish to be a viable society our children will be content to live in.  Review the U.S. Debt Clock below, and when politicians present their credentials for review for their election as our representatives, ask them what they plan to do about the Monster in the Attic.  Vote for the ones who want to kill monsters, not live and ultimately be devoured by them.

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The Eagle Has Landed

     July 16th is the 41st anniversary of the liftoff of three brave explorer astronauts from Cape Kennedy (now Cape Canaveral)  in the greatest adventure of our modern times.  It is hard to recall through the distant mirror of time the extent of the world’s focused attention, hopes, and unstated fears the crew of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins carried on their shoulders.  I was young, but can still recall my own rapture and profound pride over the incredible exploits over an 8 day journey.    To put its miraculous voyage in perspective, the challenge of putting astronauts on the moon  and returning them safely to earth had been articulated by President John F. Kennedy only eight years earlier, at a time when the concept of a man travelling on a rocket was less than a year old and the idea of converting from a brief near earth flight to the intricacies and equipment required for planetary travel bordered on ridiculous.  In the space of eight years, the United States developed three completely revolutionary space travel systems, learned to orbit, dock and walk in space, devised landing and take off systems for extraterrestrial travel, and survived crushing timetables and the disaster of first Apollo spacecraft with its launchpad fire and horrific deaths of three astronauts a mere 18 months before the successful culmination of President Kennedy’s dream in Apollo 11.   The extraordinary accomplishments in so short a period of time compares uncomfortably to our current fixation on a twenty five year old launch system in the shuttle without a single advanced concept of flight leaving the drawing board over that interval, nor,  with the scrubbing of the Constellation system, one in the identifiable future.

     The mission required lifting payload on a rocket behemoth called Saturn 5, a three stage rocket 363 feet tall  (36 stories!) filled with huge amounts of explosive fuel delivering 7.8 million pounds of propulsion thrust to escape the earth’s gravitational pull.  No machine compared with its combination of height, weight, thrust and payload., or has been built since.  No one whoever saw a Saturn launch failed to be forever changed by its immense beauty and power.

     The journey to the moon, the landing, and the trip back to safe splashdown on July 24th was filled with so many never before firsts in flight it awed the mind – and the “perfect” landing on the moon assumed by all proved in later historical accounts to have been a near catastrophe, with Armstrong manually flying a landing craft due to failure of the onboard computer ( a computer with a computer containing the hard drive computing power and memory of a hand held calculator),  Aldrin rapidly making navigation assumptions and  residual fuel estimates with a slide rule, the original “safe” landing zone missed approaching instead a field of house sized boulders as the inevitable landing target, and a landing decision past the point of feasible safe landing abort – a touchdown with only 13 seconds of fuel left to fly. We who were watching heard only  the mission control statement “you have a bunch of guys ready to turn blue here”, a understated description of the true emotions attached to the avoided catastrophe by those in the know.

     Many have remarked that the rush to the moon ultimately did little to change lives here on earth and spent too much money better used for other services.  I beg to differ;  programs such as Apollo are critical to the human experience and promote its deepest aspirations and creative instincts.  In a nation that has turned its back on the sky above it, a whole new adventure to bind us, thrill us, and renew us is worth every penny.


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Beautiful Cinema

     Hollywood used to be about glamour. Its black and white films had a special translucence from the films’ unique sheen and soft focus, to the use of light and shadow to magnify underlying emotions or intimacy. The actor’s  film persona became especially tied to the cinematographer’s skill. Is there any doubt to the smoky allure Ingrid Bergman possessed in Casablanca or the innate goodness projected by Henry Fonda in Young Mr. Lincoln – no small measure contributed to by the skill of the cinematography.  Long after we forget the storyline details we remember their faces, and, in living through the cinema artist’s ability to evoke beauty and fantasy, briefly projecting ourselves into their glamorous world.

     A special thanks to the wizards at www.glumbert.com for capturing in a very unforgettable fashion , the magnificent gift of cinema through its beautiful leading ladies:

glumbert – Women in Film

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Understanding The Surge

     History is a fascinating subject, intrepreted progressively by the relative distance from the event, the collected evidence, and the participants’ memories.  One of the provisos in learning from history is that history is written by the winners, and that the processes that shaped the outcome before the outcome was known is biased by projection of the winner’s view, not the loser’s.   The passionate feelings about states’ rights that built the momentum for the civil war are subjugated to  the victor’s view of the conflict for the preservation of the union and the liberation of an enslaved people.  The acknowledged brilliance of the arguments for separation from Great Britain in colonial times dominate our memory, forgetting that about 30% of the colonists, the so-called Tories, found the arguments uncompelling and hoped for the revolutionists’ defeat.

     The recent events in Iraq encompassed under the moniker of the Iraq War, are an interesting projection of this proviso of history.  Already few remember that almost uniform acceptance of the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power was a bipartisan supported concept, and the formal policy of three American administrations.  The initial military success was overwhelmingly popular, despite the initial surprise of apparent lack of one of the most inciting provisions of the need for invasion, that of the potential presence of weapons of mass distruction in the hands of the dictator, who had a proven record of using them. 

     History is written by the victors, however, and by 2006, the potential victors were the increasingly powerful voices who had opposed the war, and the politicians who saw weakness in the American position and a potential avenue for achieving political power.  General Richard Sanchez, commanding general in Iraq for 2003-2004, followed by General John Abizaid 2005-2006 both followed a policy of a light American military footprint with engagements to be handled progressively by Iraq forces, stabilized by hoped for parallel progression in Iraqi governmental development.  By 2006, with violence spiraling out of control, defeat and withdrawal was felt to be inevitable by both civilians and military advisers of the president.  General Sanchez himself is quoted by Jeff Schogol  in Stars and Stripes on October 13th, 2007 as having ‘slammed the handling of the war and gave a bleak assessment of the current situation in Iraq’ saying,

“There is no question that america is living a nightmare with no end in sight.”

    History, however, is the study of transpired events, not the prediction of them, and General Sanchez proved not to be a prognosticator – the story of the devised strategy described as The Surge, is compelling, unexpected, brilliant, and heroic, snatching a singular victory out of chaos and defeat – and deserves to be told along side all other stories of the victories in the pantheon of American history.  History is the story of the victors, and the story of Iraq will continue to be written and understood, in the voices of the victors who shaped the outcome.   Watch the fascinating story…..

    
 
 

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    • http://www.understandingthesurge.org/

 
 
 

 

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Every Picture Tells A Story

     The narrative regarding our current economic doldrums has been reflexively blamed on the previous administration by the current administration  – along with the lack of consensus for two wars, climate change, border problems, poor international relations, callus views on the social safety net, immature energy policy, etc,etc.  The storyline has been underwritten by a compliant media, to whom a particular animus was reserved for the previous president, and whom the overarching theme of devotion prevents rational critique of the current one.

         Although the rhetoric leans partisan, the objective dismantling of the myth that we needed to be saved from the past foibles by the brilliant new economic strategy undertaken by the current occupants of Washington bears a second look.  Read and review the link -its an eye-opener.  Now, about those other narratives…perhaps some other time.
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The Perfect Meal

   The elements of a great meal are different for everybody, but for me, the cornerstone is the perfect confluence of food, wine, and location.  Tuscany, Italy makes it very easy to have any number of great experiences with its magnificent wines, food traditions, and locales.  I would like to reflect upon a recent journey to put together a Sunday meal to savour.

     The meal starts and ends with a great wine.  A Boscarelli 2006 Vino Nobile di Montepulciano shows off the delicious Sangiovese varietal, with its ruby red color and supple flavors of spice, cherries, anise, and raspbery.  It grows to grand maturity in the unique limestone calcium carbonate  and clay soils of the Crete and uplands of Tuscany.

     The secondary characteristic required of great dining is with fine company at a bustling Siena  establishment where service, knowledge , food and wine expertise and traditional atmosphere make the pairing of a  white bean and veal ragu Tuscan pasta with this wine especially memorable.

The final glass of perfection is topped off by the magnificience of a Tuscan sunset.
 

Now I am really hungry.

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Their Finest Hour

     On July 10th, 1940, an armada of planes lifted off from German air bases to begin the epic clash of wills between the forces of liberty and totalitarianism, in what soon would be referred to as the Battle of Britain.   A little known secret weapon, radar, allowed the British air force to have early warning and engage the armada over the English Channel.  The New York Times of July 11, 1940 described that battle in tense and lucid fashion:

        

 “One of the most spectacular air battles of the war thus far, with a hundred or more planes engaged, raged off the Channel coast yesterday. Big formations  of  British and German planes came to the death grip after Nazi airmen had attempted to attack a convoy. “

“The fierce fight over the Channel was overshadowed during the day by intense air activity in which the Germans raided parts of Scotland, England and Wales, killing and wounding civilians here and there and damaging private property. The authorities did not state whether any military targets were hit.”

“In the first phase fifteen German bombers overtook the convoy. Escort vessels sent up an intense barrage of anti-aircraft fire, but the German planes dived through it, showering down numerous high explosive bombs among the ships. A spectator on the cliff said that not a hit appeared to have been scored.

Fighters Join Action

The R. A. F. fighters immediately roared up to intercept the raiders, darting through the haze of gunfire smoke overhanging the Channel with their machine guns rattling bull blast. Soon afterward the first group of raiders was chased off.

The second phase developed ten minutes later. Thirty or more German bombers, protected by fighting planes, droned over the Channel at the 10,000-foot altitude.

Quickly they dropped salvo after salvo of bombs, which were seen bursting near the ships in the convoy while the anti-aircraft guns roared and British Fighters again closed in to attack. At the approach of the R. A. F. planes, more German fighters dived down through the clouds above which they had been hiding and the fight was on with a vengeance.

Three German bombers were shot down in less than three minutes, all hurtling brokenly in vertical dives into the sea. Another had its tail shot off. One bomber and one fighter collided in midair killing each other. Still another German fighter plunged into the sea after a British pilot had poured a stream of machine-gun bullets into its tail. One by one, in rapid succession ,other German planes were sent to a swift end.

Finally the German squadrons broke off the engagement and made for home. Some of them were so badly damaged that it was considered probable that they did not reach the French side of the Channel, according to London reports.

While the battle was going on, ‘the sky was black with planes,’ the skipper of one ship in the convoy related. He added that hundreds of bombs splashed into the sea.”   new york times frontpage 07.11.40

  

   The colorful writing classic for the press in 1940 makes no attempt to hide newspaper’s desire to inform the reading public as to which side was righteous in its actions.  How different is today’s press where equivalence of virtue is the norm and the struggle always required to protect individual liberties is considered gauche and reactionary.  We forget how fragile liberty is, and how vulnerable at times it has been to annihilation.  We expect our current economic and military might to be sufficient to discourage those who would seek to return the world to subservience and darkness.  Hopefully, the remembrance of epic struggles for freedom like the Battle of Britain, where the outcome was so unsure, the dangers so acute, will steel us for what continues to lurk in humanity’s darker nature.

  

 

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The Troubadour

      France in the 17th century had a special definition for the poet-musicians who could emote the intense internal feelings of courtly love in lyrical fashion – the troubadour.  The tradition of poet-musician transformed in the 20th century to the concept of singer-songwriter, with the quality bar established by Bob Dylan.  Prior to Dylan, the talented singer-musician tended to interpret the expressions of  lyricists and composers such as Gershwin, Cole-Porter, and Irving Berlin, and reflected the personality of the song. not the internal workings of the performer.  Dylan brought poetry to performance and changed the way the performer’s talents were considered.  As one might imagine, with success and adulation came copy cats, and the pressure to achieve something with more depth than, say, “you love me, I love you, no matter what happens I will always be true,” seemed woefully insufficient.  Performers like Van Morrison, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Gram Parsons, and other notables held up the troubadour standard, and with it, the concept of timeless music, true sound pictures not bound by their time or culture.

     David Ryan Adams is a modern troubadour who carries the tradition onward, with intimate musical structure, themes of lost love and human struggle, and melodies of timeless beauty.  With solo work of prodigious expanse, and group stylings with Whiskeytown and the Cardinals, he has elevated the song again to the forefront of the western musical expression in a fashion that would make the Tin Pan Alley songmeisters proud.


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Don Pedro de Peralta’s city is 400 years old

     At the base of the majestic Sangre de Cristo mountains lies a small town with a history as big as the vistas of the ancient inland sea that lies before it.  The Spanish explorer Coronado was searching for the mystical Seven Cities of Gold in the vast southwest corner of the North American continent, but stumbled instead upon small collections of humanity the Spanish referred to as pueblos. These aboriginal people traced their scattered lines of ancestry back to the Anasazi, the great nomads that had inhabited the area with the retraction of the great glacier mass at the end of the last ice age.   The humble adobe dwellings did nothing to reduce the Spanairds’ interest in territory, however, and this area among others was incorporated into a massive New World empire formed by the Iberians with its capitol the former home of the Aztec race, Tenochtitla’n, renamed by the conquerors Ciudad de Mexico. Before long the value of lines of communication with the northern outposts brought the development of the Camino de Real, with a spoke of the trade road brought to the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, to the front door of the Tewa Pueblo.

     In 1610, the royal governor, Don Pedro de Peralta based his territorial capital proximant to the Tewa Pueblo, and renamed the new city, Villa Real de la Santa Fe’ de San Francisco de Asis, soon known as Santa Fe.  His Palace of the Governors still stands and is a working building to this day.  The heavy hand of the Spanish proved too much to bear, and a violent uprising by the Pueblo people led to the abandonment of the city by the Spanish from 1680 until 1692. Don Diego de Vargas brought the Spaniards back in 1692 in a “peaceful” rapprochement with the natives, which led to 130 years of quiet but uneasy co-existence.  This would prove undisturbed until a new competitor nation with an aggressive President Jefferson, bought the Louisiana Purchase from France and turned its young eyes to the great western expanse of the continent.

     It did not take the new American nation long to discover the strategic value of the little hamlet of Santa Fe.  The explorer Zebulon Pike in 1806, along with defining the southern extension of the Louisiana Purchase, managed to find the northern extension of the New Spain, and spent a little time in a jail in Santa Fe for his efforts.  Upon release, he reported a bustling commerce at Santa Fe that possibly would provide a trade door for American goods. It would take until 1821, when a trader named William Becknell, established a feasible trade route to Santa Fe and established what would become known as the Santa Fe Trail.  From 1821 until 1880, when the railroads finally overtook the capacity of the oxcart, a caravan of wagons annually travelled from Franklin, Missouri (modern Kansas City)  along a difficult six week journey across the inland ocean of plainsgrass to Santa Fe. The hazards and romance of this voyage are beautifully described in the diaries of Susan Shelby Magoffin, who travelled the route at its height in 1846-47.

  SANTA FE TRAIL   (wikipedia)

     The expansionist pull of the American nation to the Pacific shore and the Rio Grande inevitably led to the tensions with Mexico that led to war, and in 1846, General Stephen Kearny lead American troops permanently into the New Mexico territory and established the territorial capital in Santa Fe.  With the trains in the 1880’s came growth, and the new American state of New Mexico joined the union in 1912, with Santa Fe its capital. 

     I have visited this little city many times in my life, and have never failed to feel its history as much as anywhere I have stood in this great nation.  Happy 400th Birthday, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

                                                                                 

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Words and Deeds

     Former President Clinton, eulogizing Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia at Senator Byrd’s funeral last week said the following:

      “He once had a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it means. He was a country boy from  the hills and hollows from West Virginia. He was trying to get elected. And maybe he did something he shouldn’t have done come and he spent the rest of his life making it up. And that’s what a good person does. There are no perfect people. There are certainly no perfect politicians.”

     We live in fascinating times where heroic imaging is more important than heroism, where perceived principles however illusory are more important than being principled, where the narrative has become more important than the objective fact.

     Senator Byrd had more than a fleeting association with the Ku Klux Klan, actively joining a racist organization notorious at the time he joined for vigilante lynchings on the basis of race, became a local leader of the organization, and espoused its principles for as much as ten years after joining. 

     Is it remotely conceivable that there is a benign explanation for wanting to be part of a racist organization? Is it feasible to formulate an image for the single purpose of securing an election, than deny it once safely elected?  Obviously- it happens all the time.  Yet the sanitation of terribly improper acts by the later performance of “acceptable” acts is what gets us into the position of doubting anything our leaders say.  This is, at the least,  the fundamental definition of a hypocrite.  When is the last time we had a leader who defined specific principles that ruled their life direction and performance, and by which we could use to predict their future actions?  I think the power of deeds and actions provide us with more insight regarding a leader than any set of politically correct opinions ever can.  What did they do, when they had a chance to act; how did they act, before they had a chance to know how their actions would effect the outcome?

    Upon stating the above remarks, Mr. Clinton was interrupted with applause by the assembled.  Enough with the applause for such twisted thinking.  Its time we, the Assembled, support leaders that live their lives like their ideals, and stop supporting those who think, the joke’s on us.