Category Archives: Americana

Obama

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics

The first time I became cynical about my government was over the 1960 U2/Francis Powers incident. As we all found out later, we – we being the United States Government – had been flying planes over the – then – Soviet Union in order to take pictures of their missile facilities and other, even more – atleast in theory – dangerous, military installations. You know, a spy plane. Because the U2 flew at very high altitudes – 70,000 feet – it was thought to fly too high to shoot down.

When the plane was shot down by the Ruskies, our Government said that it was a weather plane that had strayed off course. Perhaps the pilot had passed out, or something. Whatever.It wasn’t a spy plane!

Of course it was a spy plane and the only players who didn’t know that were us. American citizens. The Russians knew, they had the U2 carcass and the the U2 pilot.Our Government knew, they had ordered the missions.

When Obama first ran for president, for the first time in maybe 40 years, I really felt hope. I thought the country, and the world, may be in so much trouble that we would wake up. And Obama – I hoped and thought – was aware of how much trouble we were in and would be part of the change that we need to get through this. Early on, I thought he was more like a Rockefeller Republican than a Liberal like Lydon Johnson or George McGovern, but he hit all my hot buttons.

Making Government transparent, rolling back the unConstitutional imperial presidency, winding down our foolish and hyper expensive wars.

When Michele and I started working on his primary campaign about 20 months ago, it seemed to us, that Obama would be a shoe-in . It was obvious, to us, that he was the change our country needed and that everybody would immediately see that. Our friends gently told us that we were being naïve and they were afraid we would be gravely disappointed when he got blown out of the water by Hillary.

Well, it turned out that Obama won. It turned out that we weren’t gravely disappointed until after he was elected.

I like Obama more than Bush; he seems like a very personable and thoughtful guy, but he is not change. He is just more of the same. He has not made the Government more transparent, he has enlarged the presidency, and we are now fighting additional, low grade, wars in Yemen and Somalia. He has continued the Bush plan of ignoring Kyoto. He has saved the banks who made shitty loans rather than the homeowners who were given the shitty loans, , and he has gone after whistle blowers with a vengeance. He has done nothing about our energy crisis, our growing water crisis, and almost nothing about our grumbling infrastructure.

Maybe the problem is that Obama came to the presidency as a true outsider. He is, after all, a mixed race kid who looks black and he was raised poor by a single mom and his grandparents. One of my favorite Obama quotes and one that I think is  revelatory is something like If you are black and don’t want to get in trouble, dress well and don’t make any sudden movements. He hasn’t made any sudden movements and it has hurt us. Like Clinton, he grew up poor and, like Clinton, he is too anxious to be liked, too anxious to get along. Like Clinton, that has stopped him from making big, risky moves like Roosevelt or Bush the Younger
It is sad. Really sad.

Pickpockets, salesmen and the actors performing
Official scenarios,
Turned a deaf ear, for they had contracted
American dreams….
All that grave weight of America
Canceled! Like Greece and Rome.
The future in ruins!
The castles, the prisons, the cathedrals
Unbuilding, and roses
Blossoming from the stones that are not there .
From Walt Whitman at Bear Mountain by Louis Simpson

 

San Francisco Pride Parade:The start and finish

Americana, Around home, Current Affairs, Politics, Psychological Musings, Uncategorized,

Like a James Bond movie, or a fireworks display, the Pride Parade starts with a bang and ends with a bang. The middle was much more prosaic; not prosaic like the Sonoma Fourth of July parade which was white bread boring prosaic, prosaic like regular people prosaic. The Pride Parade starts with Dykes on Bikes. Dykes on Bikes are famous enough so that even I, who before now – had never been to a Gay Parade – have seen dozens of pictures of Dykes on Bikes.

Still, they were a surprise. Surprise number one was that many, if not most, of them on rice-burners, less on Harleys than I had expected. Number two, there were just less of them than I expected. Number three, they soon turned into something more akin to Maidens on Mopeds. Then, rapidly, nice guys in pink shorts, holding hands. I don’t say that derogatorily, it was the most charming thing about the Parade. Just nice people saying Please accept me as I am.

There were times when the spectators were more fun than the paraders.

As an aside, it seems to me that there are two kinds of people who are here, on display. People who put together a costume or outfit to go to the parade or be in the parade and people who get out their costume. The costume, or one of the costumes, that they already had. I lived with a woman, with a spectacular body, who had what she called a cat suit; it was a very tight, black, body suit . She would get out whenever she could. Halloween? Check, wear it with rabbit ears. Costume party? Check, wear it with a white collar and black tie. San Francisco Pride Parade? I’m sure the answer would have been, Check, just wear it. End aside.

But the paraders were plenty entertaining even if they were sometimes a little hard to understand.

 

And then came the finale: the horsey set and the leather crowd . Both gay and straight and, to my eye at high noon, not all that appealing. But they seemed to be enjoying themselves. It reminded me of the joke; What did the sadist say to the masochist?….. Nooo!

That was pretty much the end of the parade, but it is not where I want to end the post. What moved me most about the parade, what brought me close to tears a couple of times was not the wild and wicked; it was the quiet and nice. The normal. I think that explains what is happening right now with gay marriage and the mainstreaming of gays in general. As long as they were in the closet, in the popular imagination, they could be anything. And past the popular imagination, they could be and do the unimaginable. As they came out of the closet, they began to just be other people. With problems and worries just like anybody else.

So the couple above just becomes another older, sort of overweight couple and not a couple of wackos or, maybe, not yet. The people below just become neighbors, some of who want to get married.

 

 

 

 

Power corrupts department

Americana, Obama, Politics, Psychological Musings, Uncategorized, War

 

Maybe I invested too much in Obama changing Washington, maybe it can not be done, maybe nobody can do it, and, maybe, Obama just isn’t even trying. When he was a candidate, he ran on Change, he ran on Transparency, he ran on the Rule of Law.When asked about Bush and Iraq, he said

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

Now, in regards to Libya, where we spent a shit-load of money sending cruise missiles – 110 on the first day – and where we sent actual, piloted, A-10 ground attack aircraft to attack Khadafi’s forces, and where we are still involved; the Obama Administration says

The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of ‘hostilities’ contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision. U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition….

This sounds like one of the Bush Administration’s convoluted justifications and, if they had said it, we liberals would have gone nuts. Now we just sit quietly. It is sad. The Imperial Presidency just keep getting more Imperial. Sometime in 2008 I am not sure where, maybe on the PBS News Hour, Brooks and somebody, probably Shields, were discussing Obama. Brooks talked about Obama and Reinhold Niebuhr and Niebuhr’s theory on power and how it corrupts. Brooks quoted Obama as saying something along the line of  Power corrupts and the hope was that he would get a lot of good done before he got corrupted. Apparently not.

 

 

A trip to the Exploratorium

Americana, Bay Area Walks, California, Travel, Uncategorized

Located at the Palace of Fine Arts on the site of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the Exploratorium is one of San Francisco’s best entertainments. It has the added benifit of being in a building designed by architect Bernard Maybeck.  The Exploratorium  bills itself as a museum of science, art, and human perception but it is much more. It is a giant, interactive, toy for anybody who is even a little curious about the world we live in.

A couple of weeks ago, I went there with my grandkids.

When I was in the Army, in Korea, I read Herb Caen, a gossip columnists in the San Francisco Chrony that everybody read. Every time I got a letter, it would have several Caen columns. During that year, one of the things that he was promoting was the restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts which, by then, was the only building left from the world’s fair built to show San Francisco’s Phoenix-like comeback from the 1906 earthquake. Then, like now, I was interested in architecture, and then, like now, I loved Bernard Maybeck. I loved his take on classical architecture at the Palace of Fine Art and sent a couple of bucks to my mom to contribute to the cause. She thought that my contribution was mis-placed and sent the money somewhere else. I have blocked out where.

So I was very happy to see that the restoration took place without my money and, eventually, became the home of the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium, itself, was the brain child of Frank Oppenheimer. Frank was the brother of Robert Oppenheimer, considered the father of the Atomic bomb. In my book, Frank has left the better legacy.

I fell in love with the Exploratorium when I went there as a childless adult, then later, with my daughter Samantha, then my “little brother”, Edwin Peña, and, now, with my grandchildren. Charlotte and August.

 

Any kid, every kid, can find hundreds of fascinating experiments. So can any adult.

 

 

Northwestern Nevada: day three, bailing out

Americana, Camping, Travel, Uncategorized

On our last day, we woke with frost free sleeping bags. The wind was there, the flat light was there, but it was clearing down south and the sun was almost coming out from behind the clouds. That is how the post started and then after about two more hours of work, I hit Save Draft and everything but the pictures disappeared. Shit! I can’t believe it.

Here is the summery: We got up and the weather was bad with wind and clouds. We went for a walk and the weather got worse.  It even rained a few big drops. With the wind, the flat light, and, maybe, rain; we decided to go home early. I was still worried about the car so I took the highway south past the remains of Lake Winnemucka which had been drained in the early 20th century, stopping to take a picture of its old shoreline. I got home in time to watch the sun set over San Bruno Mountain. It was a fun trip and enjoyable to hang out with Peter. Check out Peter’s take on the trip here.

 

 

We bailed out.