What
if I / you / we made all the difference
in the world? God!
I say that as I look out at these mythic towering Clouds stretch across the
plains, it’s 7:39 PM
on Amtrak Train #4, the South West Chief, enroute from LA to Chicago. Looking
across the plains from the observation car and I imagine some 150 years ago
some pioneer wagon train looking back at this
primal landscape. In an age with no Internet, no none of that could even be
conceived of not the slightest notion (in my conception)..
Just a world of intense
life, life decisions against the backdrop of the immensity of … God! … or
the Mystery of Life.
Just like today. Just like it ever was. In the observation car. Rain has
sprinkled against the west facing windows, a little orange and yellow of the setting of the sun also in the windows, if I turn and crane my neck backwards left
about where the Amish woman who is reading a book wearing her white bonnet and
100 year old style wear. Directly behind me the party of three happy Black
women slamming down Dominos with some soul
music playing ….
And now the setting sun on my left has
come shining clear through the clouds. They moved to give room right on the
horizon and the light shining through the raindrops on the train windows and I
mention that to the Amish woman and the three woman whose game is over but they
pause to look…. 'Isn’t that beautiful!' And take pictures on their I Phone and
the Amish woman stands and stares through the golden rain drops and yes
imagine… A few lightening strikes off
to the dark right side….
And I look back and that sun send off
rays of gold and hohum just another sunset and as they say someone's sunset is
someone else’s sunrise.
Let me see what was I going to say
about the world ?.. or maybe just the beautiful events of the day.
Just another day hoping to emerge from
tired brain and innerspection… and it will have to do because I didn’t go
beyond little vignettes of cool humanity or else the desire to run from the
aforementioned humanity. As I have finally done the modern soul music sort of a
rap thing with it’s rhythmic bang … bang just too much and I retreated to the
far corner facing the still glowing post sun fading glow…
Remembering hours before... Albuquerque we had 30 minutes to stretch and
to hustle down a classic Albuquerque street scene in old town. What’s a classic
Albuquerque street scene? just old paved over America Midday in May passing
some street people with their full carts and their sad lives past large parking
lots with no cars some newish apartment complex.. probably mixed ‘affordable’
housing Hah! What do I know? I ducked into the Silver Market off of Silver
Street see if I can get some improvement on the Train Snack Bar Food…
They ran out of their Hebrew Kosher Hot
Dogs they ran out of their Sabra Hummus and Pretzels ..they being Amtrak… but
back at Silver Street I could see this was not the greatest level of gourmet
choice but a 2.99 Tuna Fish Sandwich looked like a deal… and a few other Kickory BarBQ chips .. make that Hickory but Kickory sounds good to… Anyhow
just a touch of human … in line with the checker dude short hair but tattooed
pretty strongly over his arms, maybe in his 40’s I mention “hey let me grab one
of these papers find out what is going on in Albuquerque” Newspapers. He laughs… “Ha! Nothing!” Then I
decide to tell him about the big Destroy
Fascism graffitti I saw as I was pondering the absurd mess of America with our
parking lots and wealth and consumer and loss from Nature and I laugh “Fascism?!
Hah! What a joke, take a look at our
lives. What is this Ism we Is? “
Anyways my new good friend in the Check Out moment goes yeah ‘ that’s our Millenials!’ Yup and me a
deadbeat Boomer still hoping for some kind of redemption or at least the
cojones to laugh out loud and scare my own Blues away on any old day. ( I can
do that! But a real good laugh ahh a great laugh!! That would be good.)
Thursday, May 20, 2021
Kansas Sunset ....
Monday, May 17, 2021
The Bear Came to San Anselmo
May 15, Saturday 2021
The Bear came to San Anselmo. The Bear left San Anselmo.
It is still morning as train 710 from
Emeryville to Bakersfield
rolls along. I have begun my Train ride across the country (ultimately destined for the Hudson Valley and then Maine) it is a marvelous
experience even the
the great flat Central Valley, as we head further south having passed Merced
and now paused at the station in Madera.
I can see the distant Sierras to my right (I must have been sitting facing the rear of the train as I review this post) a hazy darker blue
against the California Blue sky. Cumulus
clouds some small some maybe very big, seem to run North and South over those
distant peaks. To my left is the wide valley already getting to the more arid
southern valley. The Almond groves amply watered have passed.. I remind myself that once upon a time the Central Valley would flood every
Winter. Once upon a time many things have happened.
‘Ladies and gentlemen Fresno is next!’
I sit with my computer on a table facing the back-end of the train. There are
three unoccupied seats here and the car is perfectly filled with the right
amount of space for the masked passengers. Patiently masked passengers.
The thought of the Bear, his visit to my
small town, a small town not known to be very popular with Bears still
vibrates/echoes.. lingers. I don’t want
his memory to fade out without giving him his improbable story, his frightened
magnificence, his due.
https://www.marinij.com/2021/05/13/bear-roams-into-downtown-san-anselmo/
Bears are real but
Bears are mythic too. The previous inhabitants of California had a
powerful relationship to all the Wild
animals that were part of their natural surroundings. We, us people riding this
train of Euro/American civilization. We have only been here in California only
a relatively short time, but we are all here to learn. Interesting that the first Spanish Boat set
anchor in Richardson Bay within the SF Bay a little inlet part of a town in my
County, Marin known as Mill Valley that happened in the year 1776…
‘This is Fresno.. coming up!’
The Bear and encounters with a Bear were a big deal back in this culture that
existed here before us.
I do not know the name of what we term ‘indigenous’ peoples who lived in this
area of the Central Valley around Fresno. California had a remarkable diversity
of tribal peoples. Where San Anselmo people live now lived the people called
Miwoks or sometimes Coastal Miwoks and there was another
branch of this tribal linguistic culture called Mountain Miwoks that seemed to
be separated by other
different people with different languages…. Now as I look out at modern
California right now I see piles of Concrete Rubble and now Parking Lots of
Trucks and now a passing BNSF freight train carrying more trucks…. And on and
on in our amazing civilization. But still a visit of a Bear is a big Deal to a
little town that I sometimes call San An’slo-mo’ … We are all fundamentally just People and
though we know nothing of (most of us) what life would be like to be one of the
these historic residents who had not the technology nor even perhaps the desire to control or live outside of nature. We
are all just people and we all have the power to take in any experience
particularly an encounter with a major Predator
on the food chain ( as this poor be’wild’ered, outsider up in a tree on
a small street in San Anselmo is .. <identified as adolescent.. thought to
be about 200 lbs.>) make of it what we will, to get a dose of inspiration, a
dose of wild connection, even spirit connection.
Today is Saturday, the Bear was found in
the tree two days past, Thursday …
More Almond Trees.. now grape vineyards..
and now a golf course off on the right…
‘Hanford is your stop!’
The Bear. You might then bear with me.. (Yess Guy. Good one!) You might bare
with me as I share some of my spirit connection with the Bear. As you might have noticed this blog, web log, (I prefer. Bears love a good log,) you know is
titled California Times as is my famous TV show (someday soon) and this show
has a beautiful logos which is of course thee California Bear.
On Wednesday I had a Zoom interview with a guest as part of this series
regarding housing in CA it did not go as well as I wanted. Thursday I was due
for another one. I seem to have a great
deal of self-consciousness issues that do not necessarily make it easy for
someone who decides to put oneself in the eye of the public. I won’t bother you
with any thing deep here except that sometimes I just get up in the middle of
the night after not being able to sleep and I go for a walk. This can be
anywhere from 1 AM to 5 AM… sometimes it works and I fall asleep fairly easily
afterwards.
At about 3AM or so Thursday I went for a walk. I live on Tamalpais Street a
block from downtown just a few houses down from the corner of Cedar and
Tamalpais where I always head and turn left end up with about a 30 minute walk
past the Post Office, a loop. I turned the corner at Cedar as I always do, a
corner that has a particularly beautiful Live Oak tree, as this variety of Oak
is called. It is very tall, and very graceful and it took many walks past it
before I stopped and appreciated it (there are so many trees in SA you take
them for granted)… I walked past it I am not quite sure how far past I was but
I heard something. ‘What’s that!’ I told myself as the sound of something from
behind me triggered this ! exclamation point in my brain. I don’t know what I
heard.
I kept walking.
I got back home.
Anyways Insomnia did not let up I took a melatonin tab which does not always
work… I roused myself that AM feeling terribly sleep deprived and sub-human. I
wanted to postpone the PM interview, my producer wouldn’t let me! I had a rendezvous
with a female friend at Robson Park, I can’t reveal much of the details of this
friendship but…. In a tight schedule where I could have been studying a script
which I am always have been a stranger.. I texted my friend and used the words
‘pain and suffering’ to describe my plight… Guy get to the Bear!
Under the Redwoods at 11 AM in Robson Park we did some meditation
breathing thing… seemed to work. Felt strength! Even peace.
Somehow later that day. Surrendered to the Redwoods and Nature and then
mid-afternoon to the wisdom and discipline of a script and a Producer I think
we had a great interview.
‘Wasco will be a very brief stop, ladies and gentlemen Wasco is next!’
So I got back at the end of that day PG& E had Tamalpais closed off all day
for electrical work replacing a pole down at the town end of the block. I
didn’t notice much but they PG&E people said electricity is back on. I went
home oblivious to PG&E and whatever else. All I could do was lie down and
sleep. An hour later got up.. internet Gmail .. Headlines Bear in San Anselmo.. ! What??
What??? What??!!
On Tamalpais Street!!
Walk out What! Police Cars up to the Cedar Street intersection, Police Caution tape… I walk up to it! A woman police officer says
sorry you must go inside your house and shut the door and windows! What! Well I
go back to my yard… that much I can do.
She described the situation briefly…
police cars lined up to barricade Tam Street, up in the Tree I could not see
the Bear but could see the Tree… (turned out I was looking at the wrong tree)
Bakersfield in a few minutes..
transfer to an Amtrak bus to take me to Union Station LA. Looks like Almond
Trees to my left and right and another BNSF freight passing on the right.
So I decided to go back in and comment
on the Bear on the Marin IJ post … be the local reporter,
the local gossiper, the local internet wiseguy.
I went back and forth to inside desk
and outside look a few times. Gratified to see a MMWD Park ranger show up.
Definitely worried afraid of the potential for a bad outcome no jokes about BLM
please. Bear Lives Matter!
Heard a loud Beep Breaahh (?) !! of a Police Car and dashed out again… He’s down
someone says.. The police cars start moving off towards Robson Park. Nothing
left to do… but talk to the neighbors… Dude with young daughter walks by on
phone what did I overhear?!
'My wife just called to say a Bear just
ran through Robson Park… !'
Go Bear Go!
All passengers going to LA bus number
1!
Tuesday, May 11, 2021
Matt Taibbi May 11
Reporters Once Challenged the Spy State. Now, They're Agents of ItNews companies are pioneering a new brand of vigilante reporting, partnering with the spy agencies they once oversaw
What a difference a decade makes. Just over ten years ago, on July 25, 2010, Wikileaks released 75,000 secret U.S. military reports involving the war in Afghanistan. The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel helped release the documents, which were devastating to America’s intelligence community and military, revealing systemic abuses that included civilian massacres and an assassination squad, TF 373, whose existence the United States kept “protected” even from its allies. The Afghan War logs came out at the beginning of a historic stretch of true oppositional journalism, when outlets like Le Monde, El Pais, Der Spiegel, The Guardian, The New York Times, and others partnered with sites like Wikileaks. Official secrets were exposed on a scale not seen since the Church Committee hearings of the seventies, as reporters pored through 250,000 American diplomatic cables, secret files about every detainee at Guantanamo Bay, and hundreds of thousands of additional documents about everything from the Iraq war to coverups of environmental catastrophes, among other things helping trigger the “Arab Spring.” There was an attempt at a response — companies like Amazon, Master Card, Visa, and Paypal shut Wikileaks off, and the Pentagon flooded the site with a “denial of service” attack — but leaks continued. One person inspired by the revelations was former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who came forward to unveil an illegal domestic surveillance program, a story that won an Oscar and a Pulitzer Prize for documentarian Laura Poitras and reporters Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill. By 2014, members of Congress in both parties were calling for the resignations of CIA chief John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, both of whom had been caught lying to congress. The culmination of this period came when billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar launched The Intercept in February 2014. The outlet was devoted to sifting through Snowden’s archive of leaked secrets, and its first story described how the NSA and CIA frequently made errors using geolocation to identify and assassinate drone targets. A few months later, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden admitted, “We kill people based on metadata.” Fast forward seven years. Julian Assange is behind bars, and may die there. Snowden is in exile in Russia. Brennan, Clapper, and Hayden have been rehabilitated and are all paid contributors to either MSNBC or CNN, part of a wave of intelligence officers who’ve flooded the airwaves and op-ed pages in recent years, including the FBI’s Asha Rangappa, Clint Watts, Josh Campbell, former counterintelligence chief Frank Figliuzzi and former deputy director Andrew McCabe, the CIA’s John Sipher, Phil Mudd, Ned Price, and many others. Once again, Internet platforms, credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard, and payment processors like PayPal are working to help track down and/or block the activities of “extremists.” This time, they’re on the same side as the onetime press allies of Wikileaks and Snowden, who began a course reversal after the election of Donald Trump. Those outlets first began steering attention away from intelligence abuses and toward bugbears like Trumpism, misinformation, and Russian meddling, then entered into partnerships with Langley-approved facsimiles of leak sites like Hamilton 68 , New Knowledge, and especially Bellingcat, a kind of reverse Wikileaks devoted to exposing the misdeeds of regimes in Russia, Syria, and Iran — less so the United States and its allies. The CIA’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia, Marc Polymeropolous, said of the group’s work, “I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love this.” After the Capitol riots of January 6th, the War on Terror came home, and “domestic extremists” stepped into the role enemy combatants played before. George Bush once launched an all-out campaign to pacify any safe haven for trrrsts, promising to “smoke ‘em out of their holes.” The new campaign is aimed at stamping out areas for surveillance-proof communication, which CNN security analyst and former DHS official Juliette Kayyem described as any online network “that lets [domestic extremists] talk amongst themselves.” Reporters pledged assistance, snooping for evidence of wrongness in digital rather than geographical “hidey holes.” We’ve seen The Guardian warning about the perils of podcasts, ProPublica arguing that Apple’s lax speech environment contributed to the January 6th riot, and reporters from The Verge and Vice and The New York Times listening in to Clubhouse chats in search of evidence of dangerous thought. In an inspired homage to the lunacy of the War on Terror years, a GQ writer even went on Twitter last week to chat with the author of George Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech about imploring the “authorities” to use the “Fire in a Crowded Theater” argument to shut down Fox News. Multiple outlets announced plans to track “extremists” ............... |
We Shall Overcome .....
Got caught up in reading this post. Even more fear. I wonder if this is almost strictly a phenomenon
of urban existence. Is this going on in the suburbs?
Marin Independent Journal Story on Asian American Fear and Hate..
To which I wrote a response under the name Wheeler in the comment section...