At least Two Americas

Today is the seventh day after the election, and I've got to stop thinking the day will come when I will think there is a clear way to handle the election of a clearly inadequate person to the office of President of the United States. The day hasn’t come when I rise in my thinking to a level that I’ve been able to achieve in the other elections of my adult lifetime when other weak persons have been elected to the high office.  I keep looking at Donald Trump in his public appearances since his election thinking I will be able to see the humility in him that some of my friends say they find hope in him.  It hasn’t happened to me.  I am hoping for 

more, but I admit that I am expecting his performance to be almost totally inadequate.  His appointments of the people who will be his closest advisors seem to be unable to break out of their partisan ways of seeing the world, especially the people of the United States.  Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff isn’t a surprise, and he is likely to attempt to see America as the divided nation that it is, and he is likely to attempt to try to avoid offending grossly the people whose political positions are different from his own.  The appointment of Stephen Bannon as Strategist to and for the President is alarming.  Bannon has shown himself to be a white supremacist and bigot. There is nothing in his history that gives an indication that he may change.  According to The New York Times, the short list of people being considered for his cabinet includes only three women, Kelly Ayotte, Jan Brewer and Sarah Palin. 

Take a look at Spurs coach Gregg Popovich’s response to Trump’s election:

http://enewspaper.sandiegouniontribune.com/infinity/article_popover_share.aspx?guid=eab845d9-b335-4b2d-a6d8-4832ea91164a 

I'm trying to find the exact place in the sky for seeing the special moon tomorrow morning.  The local papers say it will look 14% larger than it usually seems.  It will be closest to earth than it has been in a long time and than it will be again for a long time.  I like looking out toward the West from our house.  I've taken pictures on other days and included them, but I've been thinking all day about this special moon, and I'm going to wake up early to see it set into the sea.  It will set, I think, in the area to the West shown in the next picture, but I didn't set the alarm so I could see it this morning to know where it would be tomorrow.  Clouds and early morning marine layer can be a problem, but I'll see.

Today I'm throwing in a picture of the downtown area, but I think the moon won't be in that direction.  The third picture is typical of the area, an essay all by itself.

I was thinking of skipping today... Blog writing and photography three days after a major, earth-shaking election has left me without anything to say that isn't political... and I went to the mail box and found this week's New Yorker.  I decided to use a picture of that for the day and to let the writing on the magazine speak for me.

Just down Interstate 805 a couple of miles Margaret and I discovered a "new to us" shopping mall, I think it's called Bonita Mall.  It has everything including the biggest Target store I've ever seen.  Finding a parking place close to the entrance of the mall was a challenge, but we finally got inside and everybody in all the stores treated us as if we were long lost friends or family.  When we left after buying a container of milk and a loaf of bread at the Target, I wondered if Mr. Trump has ever been to  this mall.  Oh, I almost forgot.  I was going to get through the day without a political thought.

Thursday Afternoon... I came out of MOPA where I did my weekly volunteer afternoon, and although I've taken photographs of the House of Botany and used them many times before today as pictures for the day, I found the building to be especially beautiful on the afternoon.  The Datura plant in the corner in front of the palms is typical of San Diego's fall greenness.  The lighter colored palms at the far end of the building are stunning at any time of the year... They were especially beautiful today.

Several times during the day today I made a special attempt to try to feel as if my country will be handled with care by the President Elect, but I have a hard time getting out of my thinking his meanness and the harshness of his words.  Of course, he is trying to make the effort to be different, and all of us Americans must give him a chance to be softer and gentler.  It is a difficult task for ordinary citizens to forget and forgive his pre-election rhetoric... but we must try and we must succeed in our effort to forget the old Donald Trump. I am proud of President Obama.  He is doing exactly what he should do with the man who will come into his office. He says the appropriate words.  He avoids reminding the man he welcomed into his office today of the meanness of his pre-election rhetoric. Tomorrow I will think and write about something else.

                                                           

            Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh………

Margaret and I drove back down to Imperial Beach after lunch.  I wanted to get another picture of the Pier and to drive back to places where I once rode my bike.  Although the beaches north of San Diego are better known, I believe the Imperial Beach area, only a stone’s throw from the Mexican border, is in many ways more beautiful and is a more typical beach community than the northern ones.  There is something about the town closest to the beaches that invites kicking back and letting happen whatever comes.  The surfer statue set in the middle of a couple of other figures seems completely appropriate.  This afternoon there were not many people on the beach or on the pier, but instead of a mood of loneliness over it all, there seemed to be a naturalness and everydayness settling over the place.  The surf was higher here, yet there were no surfers in the water.  A solitary runner made his way up the beach.  A walker whom I saw up near the statues sauntered along under the pier and along the southern section of beach.  We drove across the Tijuana River to Border Field State Park and marveled at the quietness of everything there.  We went down to Imperial Beach on Interstate 5 and back home again from San Ysidro on Interstate 805.  I was pleased to learn that the border with Mexico is exactly ten miles down the road from our apartment. 

I haven’t been back home long enough to check election returns, but I’m hoping Mr. Trump is not going to win.  If he loses the race I will be eager to see if he protests still that the “system” is rigged or if he will concede gracefully.  I will also be eager to see if both he and Mrs. Clinton commit to pulling the country together.

Yesterday Coronado... Today the jungle Mural.  I didn't get far from home with my camera today.  The murals in the passageways between our apartment and the administration building are worth the good look that a photograph allows.

I think I'll go sit for some of the election day at the jungle mural tomorrow.  Let the healing begin.

It's Sunday... Daylight Saving time is over again for another year... which leaves me wondering why we have it anyway.  The state next door to California, Arizona, doesn't slip into a new time zone for the summer and half of the autumn every year.  Anyway, I've never heard a reasonable explanation for Daylight Saving time.  The old school starting time and closing time isn't persuasive.  Even though the majority of the nation's food comes from California, farming isn't a good reason for the time change. Well... I've got the election coming up in a couple of days to worry about, so I'll let the minor problem of time change slip away.  The photographs today are taken at a mural between two buildings in the place where I live.  I like walking between them and hearing the planes roaring by on the way to the Navy's air field on Coronado Island.

I was out today... forgot to take a picture until l was back at home, so I aimed my camera at the bookcase because I've decided to reread some of the books I taught once-upon-a-time.  I was thinking about the lessons, and I decided that I learned more from the students than they could have learned from me. There is never a time when I regret having been a teacher.  I admit I don't regret the opportunity for administration of good schools, but I don't look back on those years with the fondness and admitted longing that I feel when I look back on the years when I was a teacher.

The Life and Times of Einstein is a good read anytime, but this weekend as we face an election that shows many Americans voting for Donald Trump, I find myself wondering how people can vote for someone who is so clearly not prepared to be the president of the strongest nation on earth.  Where is the logic?  What are people thinking?  I am worried about the United States of America, the Republic, the Nation.  Clearly the Republican establishment, the people in congress who want an American Republican to be President, are choosing to vote for someone whom they consider inadequate for the job. They choose a man who is clearly inadequate, but the most important factor in the election for some people it that this inadequate man is a Republican.  What this close election shows is that our nation is definitely in trouble.  I believe Hillary Clinton will be elected to be the next President of the U.S.A., but the narrowness of the election is troubling.  We are a divided country.  After the election is an event of the past, we must find a way to bring people together.

Enigma…  The pipes and tubes that exist around the place where I live are probably situated where they are for a reason, and there are surely people in the world who know immediately the purpose they serve and why they are located where they are.  When I am headed for the gym or to the reception area or to the mailboxes, I sometimes take the stairs instead of the elevators between the fourth and third floors of our building.  Standing on the landing between the floors is a pipe contraction that obviously was put exactly where it is located for a purpose.  I don’t know why it is there.  Today I walked around the campus and another pipe, a different kind of pipe from the one in the stairwell, pokes out of the wall outside the building. It expels odorless, colorless air, and I haven’t a clue what purpose it serves.

The flag and flowers are part of the landscape.  I know why they exist where they are.  

It must be winter somewhere, but in National City and San Diego it is springtime.  A Cactus is blooming and word has gone out to the bees in the area.  They are swarming the plant.  It's a miracle to behold.  Dodging bees to get the pictures is much less stressful than watching TV election coverage.  

I was sorting through some photographs today trying to decide which of the thousands of images to throw away, and I came across this one I took in Salem, Massachusetts, a long time ago... at least 35 years ago.  I was driving in the place very near where it is believed now that at least one of the incidents happened that led to accusations of witchcraft and ultimately to the executions by hanging of a couple of people. I remember stopping and getting out of my car to take the picture of a street sign with a "DEAD END" sign attached to it.  Today I took a picture of the picture because what happened in Salem Town in 1692 and 1693 almost a century before the Revolution which led to the founding of our nation reminds me of the scary patch of rhetoric and just as scary visual stuff that is beamed to us in news telecasts about the election that will happen next week.

The Salem witch trials remind us that ordinary people get caught up in madness that people later find unbelievable.  In Salem Town area not far from Boston in what is now the State of Massachusetts twenty people, six of them men and fourteen of them women, were accused of witchcraft and executed in a period of madness.

As this week passes, I am determined to be optimistic about the election results. Stay tuned...