I Want To Hear From Her!

The hot “Breaking News” of the day is the accusation that Brett Kavanaugh was guilty of sexual assault when he was 17 years old.  Predictably, the accusation has become secondary to the politics surrounding Kavanaugh’s path to the Supreme Court.

So we’re inundated with endless opinionating on what Dr. Ford and her attorney are saying, what the senators on both sides of the political divide are conjuring up to further their cause, how this is or is not a repeat of the Anita Hill accusations in 1991, etc., etc., etc.  All this helps fill the 24/7 news cycle vacuum, but does little to get to the point.

I want to hear from her!  I don’t care what the forum or format or risks are.  What I don’t want is for the demands on both sides to derail the accusation.  What will happen if we don’t hear from her is that the nomination will be approved with some sound and fury from the dissenters that will signify nothing and that will be that.

I can disagree with how this process has unfolded.  It should have been raised as an issue months ago.  But it wasn’t, and we are nearly out of time.  So rather than letting partisan politics rule the day, we should hear from both Kavanaugh and Ford.  While it promises to be good theater, it is also good democracy.

Thoughts!

Latest to fall:  Moonves and Fager.  A double hit for CBS.  Stay tuned – more to come.

Feel sorry for Bruce Bochy:  Needs to come out and face the cameras after every loss – now 10 in a row.  If the Giants win 13 of their last 16 they will be .500.  Wanna bet?

Watch the new PBS offering, “Amanpour & Co.”  First thoughtful interview show since Charley Rose bit the dust.

Watch “The Rider,” an incredible film available from Netflix.

It’s September and blue skies are replacing fog in San Francisco.

Will there come a day when we won’t hear about bombs and other violent acts killing innocent people?  Afghanistan – Iraq – Syria – Florida?  Maybe someday, but don’t hold your breath.

Conjecture about how Kavanaugh will change the court is a waste of time.  Expect the worst.

Predictors say there is a 76% chance of a 7.0 earthquake in the Bay Area sometime in the next 30 years.  I don’t like the odds, but I’m not leaving.

Maybe I should be more upbeat.  OK, I’ll take it under advisement.

Summer!

Officially summer doesn’t end until Sept. 21, but practically the end is today, Labor Day.  Kids are back in school, vacations have come to an end and people are back at work, the days are shorter, the weather is cooler.  Bye, bye summer – we hardly got to know ye.

Every year it is the same.  I cheer on Memorial Day because now summer is here.  Then, in a blink of an eye, it is Labor Day and summer is gone.  June-July-August – the shortest three months of the year.

Here in San Francisco we buck the tide.  For sure, June is summery.  But then July and August are the fog months and it is cool or downright cold.  And then summer comes again in September and October, and we fool ourselves into thinking maybe it will last.  But it doesn’t – and winter is here.

So like it or not or trying to trick ourselves into believing that this year may be different, it won’t, and we’re stuck with the fact that summer is over today – on Labor Day.  Twas ever thus.

Is there a bright side?  Absolutely!  Summer or winter, hot or cold, each day is a gift, a blessed event for which to be grateful.  Have a great day!

A Good Week!

Lots of good news this week:

Manafort – Guilty

Cohen – Guilty

Pecker – Immunity

Weisselberg – Immunity

Sessions – The favorite piñata talked back

Yosemite reopened

The Washington Post called the liar a liar

The market reached record territory

Some Koreans were united with long-lost relatives

No new fires in California

Indian Independence Day!

On August 15, 1947, seventy-one years ago today, India became independent.  I arrived in India for the first time in August 1962, as it celebrated its 15^th Independence Day.  That was a long time ago, when freedom was relatively new and most Indians could still remember when they were under the colonial yoke of England.

I’ve always been moved by Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” speech on that first Independence Day.  He said:

Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

These days, when political rhetoric comes more from the gutter than from inspiring and uplifting dreams, it would serve us well to remember that it doesn’t have to be this way.

Jai Hind!