Warm Nights, Beach Bonfires

It's the start of our summer here in San Francisco, when the fog holds back, and the heat lasts far into the evening.



Today was also the start of soccer season. In our family, however, far more important than soccer heroics is that our precious red-headed terror on the pitch is turning 14 tomorrow.



Ocean Beach was lighted by many such celebrations tonight. But the most special one, IMHO, was for our very special Aidan (here, on the left).

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Through Grandpa's Eyes

These photos, of my lovely older daughters with their infant sons, captures for me the essence of parental love. As all parents know, there is an unconditional element in the love you feel for your children. This is hard for non-parents to understand. I always feel honored when I get to meet someone's parents or someone's kids. The bonds between them, even when tattered, convey an intimacy that no other type of relationship can approach.

Love for another adult, for example, is a passing emotion. Hate can last longer, but it shouldn't, because it is so destructive.

But when everything else grows blurry, and you sense your own physical form is transforming back into the dust from which it came, the fact that you reproduced, bringing new humans into this world, replaces all other thoughts and feelings. Money? No emotional resonance. Possessions? Ridiculous. Politics? Not even worth mentioning. Your career? Fine, but forgettable. Even, if you are an artist, your art. You cannot take it with you, so you realize that all you've created is only for others.

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Wow! Here in San Francisco, old-timers always warn that warm weather is earthquake weather. We just experienced a temblor here, as I was writing this post. It was sharp but short. I'm gonna guess it was about a 4.4...

Let's face it. Twice that strong and these would have been my final words.

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Warm Nights' Writing

It is HOT in San Francisco lately. I've had a few reasons to drive into the City earlier than usual this week -- a dental crown and a board meeting -- and I'll admit my head turned a number of times. Those who never visit here don't know it, but this is a city filled with beautiful women. (For those who bend that way, it is also a city filled with beautiful men.)

Whatever. So many tiny shorts, tank tops, and light cotton dresses! So many women in great shape, shaking their long hair in the night breezes, talking happily with their companions in person or on their cell phones.

My windows are open, the fans are on, the kids are enjoying Pizza Friday Night at Dad's and I'm enjoying a baseball game on TV plus this relaxation they call blogging. Writing for me is what exercise or play is for others. There are so many words, so many stories waiting to pour out of my tortured mind, that posting to 3 or 4 blogs a day, even while holding down a full-time job, barely burns off my excess, much like the flames above a natural gas well.

I don't know that anyone appreciates this kind of writing. As I've often said here, writers are those who have to write. I have to write. If not, my mind becomes -- how can I explain this -- horny. It becomes frustrated, pent-up, tense, needing a release.

I hope for some my words are sweet-tasting, as they pour out of me. I always write not only for me but for you, my precious readers. This blog is not, so far as I know, any kind of success. I can no longer afford Statcounter, so I don't know how many people visit this space. I've stopped checking Google AdSense, since that obviously is a scam for a small-timer like me.

That leaves a rather intimate feeling -- just you and me. Thank you for showing up!

How to Spot Corrupt Politicians

I get a kick out of the way politicians try to portray themselves as "public servants" who "serve" the rest of us. There is a degree of honor in working for government agencies, especially when young, idealistic people sign up hoping to help improve the lives of others.

Three decades ago, I recall interviewing a young official in the Environmental Protection Agency, which had been formed in 1972 in response to the growing environmental consciousness sweeping the nation. His name was Steven Johnson, and his area of expertise was pesticides. He seemed all right, but what struck me most of all was how cautious he was. Unlike most of my EPA sources, and I had a lot of them, he seemed overly concerned with covering his own back than in helping solve problems.

Over the past year, this same Johnson has been in the news a lot, but not for a good reason. He has been exposed as the Bush administration's hatchet man in a regulatory scandal involving -- you guessed it -- pesticides.

Power corrupts. Holding a position in a bureaucracy too long corrupts grossly.

Most politicians I've interviewed are among the most ambitious people I've ever met -- second only perhaps to certain CEOs. Mayors, in particular, specialize in various kinds of corruption, involving misusing their power to punish enemies and reward friends.

Those who are the most corrupt (and arrogant) continue acting like local power brokers as they move up the political food chain in the state or federal government. Sometimes they become Governor, or even Vice-President. The Republican Party suffered a huge embarrassment during the Nixon administration when it came out that Vice-President Spiro Agnew was still taking bribes from construction patrons from his power broker days in nearby Maryland.

"Abuse of power" -- a phrase that covers many sins, is almost always a serious danger sign in a rising politician. Once allegations surface, reporters will run down every detail. The higher the office; the harder they will fall. It's worth paying attention to this fact of life this fall.

Agnew, like most corrupt power brokers, blamed the press. He built most of his standing among Republicans by relentlessly attacking those of us who were trying to do our jobs and report the truths as we uncovered them.

This past week, I found it hypocritical in the extreme for the right-wing extremists to blame the press for the Palin pregnant daughter brouhaha...no one in the press broke that story, although plenty of reporters knew about it. Rather it was the Palin family that broke the story, in the process loudly blaming the Left and the press with one broad stroke.

There is zero evidence to back up the charge that the Obama campaign was in any way involved in spreading rumors about the Palins -- nada. If you have some, show it to us. Otherwise, back off!

Again, it is often an indication of personal corruption when a politician tries to shove blame off on the press. We're such an easy target -- have been ever since Plato's Cave.

If anyone thinks reporters will back off examining all the evidence under this kind attack machine, think again. I've always told my employees and students if they come under this unwarranted attack, redouble your effort. "(S)he doth protest too much."

Remember, we've been around this block too many times. Get ready for some explosive developments, ye who cast the first stone...

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Failure

John McCain gave a disappointing speech tonight. He seemed to lack energy, vitality, and even a commitment to the words slipping from his lips. A very wise, observant (if young) witness to his speech reviewed it for me before I actually saw it, because I was at a launch party for my company in Redwood City.

Once I saw a rerun, on CNN, I realized my advisor had nailed it -- John McCain blew his big chance to convince the American people he has anything to offer beyond the corrupt Bush program that has bankrupted this nation, destroyed our reputation worldwide, and left the least among us standing on their roofs in a flooded city, abandoned, ignored, even despised by the likes of Sarah Palin and the other evangelical Christian rightists who once again have hijacked the Republican Party.

What a shameful performance!

Assuming the common people of this nation still possess any sense of decency and a commitment to democracy, Barack Obama has a lock on the Presidency. If not, I shudder to think what our nation would be like should President McCain die, leaving a small-town attack dog as President.

Her hand on the nuclear button? That is the most frightening prospect in my lifetime. Honestly, if Palin becomes President, I will have to leave my country, as much as I love it. She is the scariest political figure in modern American history. A monster hiding in a mother's uniform.

Luckily, according to all the initial polls, most Americans have already recognized what a terrible leader she would make. All the polls are moving to Obama, and given McCain's awful performance tonight, within a week or so, both the projected electoral and popular votes will indicate a massive Democratic victory in November.

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Firing Up the Base

Sarah Palin energized conservatives and reactionaries with her vicious personal attacks on Barack Obama last night.

She also energized the much larger Democratic grassroots movement. Most people in this country do not support Palin's political positions -- anti-abortion, anti-environment, anti sex-ed, anti-intellectual, pro-drilling, pro-guns, pro-pork barrel politics, and that's only the beginning.

Most importantly, she is fiercely pro-American and anti-global.

The problem is not that Palin isn't charming, articulate, or tough -- she may well be all those things and more. It's that none of that matters one whit. She is an extremist, which is why McCain picked her. McCain himself has chosen to discard his long record as a maverick to pander to the marginalized right.

Why don't these neo-Reaganites get it? They're lost in the swirl of history. They are facing backward. This is no time for nationalistic demagoguery. This is a time to rebuild our shattered links throughout the interlocked global economy.

Thank God we have an alternative. Obama has clearly outlined an intelligent foreign policy to replace the belligerence of the Bush administration. And you know, at the end of the day, this country is in awful shape.

Our national economy is staggering. Our home mortgage market is wrecked. Inflation is growing. Our national debt -- the essential measure of national security -- is soaring to record levels. We are so indebted to China that it would be out of the question to have any serious confrontation with them. The dollar is at record lows. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are again headed for bankruptcy. Government spending, under Bush, is profligate. Illegal spying on citizens, secrecy, political corruption at the highest levels of the Bush administration all stand in stark contrast to the clean government run by Bill Clinton.

Then, under a Democrat, we were a prosperous country, without serious enemies at the nation-state level, respected and even loved around the world. When 9/11 happened, I like most Americans supported my government to go after the perpetrators. As I've stated many times, I continue to support the military actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But the war on Iraq was folly. That it is possibly winding down is a blessing, except that the winner is not the U.S., but Iran, which now emerges as the power broker in the region.

This type of "toughness" we no longer need. John Wayne is dead, and everything he stood for is dead with him. The macho, jingoistic, racist right wing still can make noise: witness the crap show they are staging in Minneapolis, but their days are numbered.

At least I hope so. Otherwise, our days as a nation worthy of anyone's respect are numbered, and the U.S. will fall as all empires fall -- rotting from the head. Good people, sincere people, fall for the type of attack rhetoric Palin specializes in. Suddenly they feel good about themselves. Why? Because, secretly, they don't feel good about an eloquent black guy who speaks the truth. They don't want to be told to cut back on their gas-guzzling vehicles. They don't want to admit that the chant "We are Number One" is morally wrong and utterly inaccurate. They don't want to accept that the world has changed, and Grandma's values are so outed as to be laughable.

We are a nation of minorities. Unless we build a coalition of the thoughtful, demagogues like Sarah Palin will rise to do their dirty work, much as happened in Italy and Germany in the '30s. Right-wing extremism has always been the greatest threat facing Americans -- not the phony anti-Communist red herring.

Republicans always govern on the basis of fear and hate. This year's ticket is no different. Yuck. It turns my stomach. For once in history, ordinary Americans have an opportunity to leave our ugly collective past behind and really embrace the future. Do we as a people have the courage to do so -- that is the question.

The one piece of great news today is that Palin's speech so enraged Democrats that Obama raised over $10 million in immediate donations. That surge of support will continue, which means he will at least have the tools to try and counteract her smear propaganda.

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