So there I was. And am. Sunday, early evening, watching the light diminish as rain turns snow to the proverbial Sierra Cement, listening to some classic Cat Stevens. The Academy Awards are on and, quite frankly, I couldn’t care less and can’t now think of a greater waste of my time than watching with the rest of the brainless masses. I already know that Brokeback Mountain will be hailed as the new Second Coming by Hollywood. It’s a given.

Ooh baby baby, it really is a Wild World.

With all the things going on societally and in politics, my mind began to drop back to my last ocean cruise. If only things could be, I thought, as simple as they appeared during that time.

Far away, over there, away from sight and mind — and my current self attached to the railing watching reeling gulls cartwheel through the mists of the narrows we navigated. I can remember that time in place so distinctly, frozen as it is in the wrinkled cortex of whatever hemisphere controls that specific thought.

The turbulent, tremulous times whirling and cascading, for a moment, and then clearing to something so free and light and unfettered by complication. Oh, to be there again, I considered for a moment; my hands on the beautiful teak veranda railing varnish, the deep green ocean hissing, literally hissing some fifty feet below me, wind buffeting my face, blowing salt droplets into my hair and collecting on the hairs of my arm. How strange that seems, I note. This ship seems so solid, such an incredible mass overcoming, by sheer power, the primal force of the sea. Is this Man, I wonder for a moment, flaunting his position in nature against God? What have we learned since 1912, I ask myself? Are we more astute, more assured in our technology?

What have we gained, vs. what we have lost?

My mind moves to politics, shifting gears abruptly. Clunk. That was jarring. . .

And I began to think of today and tomorrow.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS TO CONSIDER:

– In about 8 months, 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats will be subject to the democratic election process.

– It is my opinion that Republicans are in Large Trouble.

– In the Senate, there are 15 Republican and 17 Democrat seats up for bid. Republicans may hold the majority here, though perhaps cut by two seats.

– In the House, (where Republicans hold a lead of 231-202), GOP insider information indicates that Republicans may lose more than 20 seats.

– Democrats need to pick up only 16 seats to take over the House.

– An “erosion of confidence” may take its toll on governors as well. Currently, there are 28 Republicans and 22 Democrats, but there are 36 gubernatorial elections this year, and Democrats will likely pick up between two and five of those seats.

WHY MIGHT THIS HAPPEN?

You likely don’t want to hear it or read it, but I can sum it up this way:

President Bush, for all the good things he has done, held the reins of Power and refused to take those reins and leave dead, burned bodies behind. He truly had a Mandate and squandered it on any number of levels — for reasons I have yet to fully comprehend. Politics, my friends, is all about leaving dead, burned bodies behind — and having the guts to do so.

He has managed to alienate his primal Conservative base — myself included. In one of my earlier Blogger BZ profiles, I listed myself as “a Conservative first and a Republican second.” That is true to this day. I have given my last donations to the RNC. No more until things change.

I can hear some of you squalling: “That is so fundamentally unfair! Can you imagine if we had Gore for a President! Where would we be now?” And a fundamentally flawed argument. We didn’t and we have Bush now. I don’t care about what could have been. I care about what is here and now. The Dems and the DEM live in the past; we cannot afford to.

All logical thinkers agree that President Bush gets high marks as Commander in Chief in the Long War against terror. Domestically, with the help of Congress, he has made good on his commitments to nominate constitutional constructionists to the Supreme Court (with one HUGE blip!) and pass modest tax cuts — but he and the Republican Congress tend to crash from there.

Conservatives like myself expected Bush to restore constitutionally-constrained limits on government, and the promotion of free enterprise and traditional American values, as outlined in The Patriot’s Statement of Principles. He has not and the Republicans have not.

Most Americans can’t distinguish Republicans from Democrats on the Big Issues.

It pains me to point out that, under Republican leadership, the size and regulatory role of the central government has expanded horrendously since President Bush took office, and his fiscal budget for 2007 reflects spending increases of almost 50 percent more than Bill Clinton’s last budget.

I am astounded and horrified. This is not what I stand for as a Conservative. Per the PatriotPost:

Republicans have so demoralized their conservative base that even the most staunchly ideological conservatives are suggesting that a Democrat-controlled House may be necessary to remind Republicans why, precisely, we voted them into office.

That is not to say that all Republicans have neglected their conservative base. Some Republicans are conservative, and chief among them is Rep. Mike Pence, who chairs a group of 100 House conservatives who, as “The Republican Study Committee,” are charting a course to maintain their majority in ’06—and beyond.

Rep. Pence and his fellow conservatives have rallied around principles that he outlined in a speech last fall, “Another Time for Choosing,” picking up the central theme of Ronald Reagan’s famous 1964 speech “A Time For Choosing.”

If only Bush could “Rally the Troops” — but he cannot. As the Post points out:

Strike one was signing the bloated highway bill, which became symbolic of Bush’s failure to contain government spending. The second strike was his perceived failure in taking charge of the Katrina catastrophe—perception being what it is. (It was probably not advisable to be on the Left Coast political circuit the day a Cat 5 hurricane is making landfall.) Strike three was his stupefying nomination of Harriet Miers.

Bush works in ways I cannot comprehend. He leaves our borders open; he apparently allows our ports to be compromised; he makes a nuke deal with India leaving too many loopholes; he spends money like water.

George, listen: you had the power. It was in your hands. You worked it well and did what you felt needed to be done to insure our domestic security. But you won’t or can’t communicate. And in the end, this will be your greatest downfall.

Just explain it to me. Tell me.

Because, after all, you leave me hanging not just to your party’s detriment, to the Conservative detriment, but to the detriment of your entire country.

Per Dickens: “You are the best of times; you are the worst of times.”

It’s funny how sometimes one thing leads to another — a chunk of synchronicity, if you will.

Yesterday, I posted a little bit of melancholia when I caught a Union Pacific freight passing one of my local crossings in the snow. The photo was taken during a very rare break in the snowstorm we had late in the week and the colors of the units were remarkable. I panned the camera as the lead units passed and only the front was in focus, leaving the rest of the train a blur of movement. I really liked the effect, and used the photo for my post.

Today, the snow melted a bit and I went out for more photos. This time I found a train idling not far from home, waiting to be cleared by the dispatcher to enter the main track. I took some photos and got closer, then struck up a conversation with the engineer, who poked his head out the window. He invited me up into the cab and he introduced me to the conductor. The dispatcher cleared him for a move onto the main track and the engineer asked: you want to go for a ride? “Hell yes,” I said, not being stupid.

So I went for a ride up and over Donner Pass on a beautifully-blue day over snow-covered tracks and left my locked car many miles behind. We talked about unions, the state of the country, terrorism, what it was like to work for Union Pacific, what it was like to work for Southern Pacific before it was purchased by UP, politics, religion, locomotives, unions, locomotives, Union Pacific, bosses, locomotives, Union Pacific, and many more things.

The engineer let me hit the horn for a bunch of crossings and showed when when to do it — when you saw the X of the horn board. He taught me to hit the horn in the standard “long-long-short-long” horn language. The bell automatically rang after you hit the horn and he showed me how to clear the bell. I told him some secrets about my job, and he told me some secrets about his.

We stopped in Truckee and I exited there, thanking the engineer and conductor profusely for allowing me into their work lives. We had some things in common and I told a few jokes and they told a few jokes and we realized we were just three American fat guys who tried to hold the country together as best we could, who worked strange and long hours and did what we did because, the bottom line was, truthfully, we enjoyed it.

Folks, I had a helluva time; and I think they enjoyed my company as well. It wasn’t the first time I’d ever been invited into the cab for a ride — but it was the longest ride I’d ever had, and they were the friendliest crew I’d ever encountered. I’ve been given about 7 or 8 other rides in the past 10 years — look, I’m old, I’m short, I’m fat and essentially fuzzy and harmless — and I take good photographs and tell good stories. Sometimes I even bring brownies and cookies. Many UP employees already know who I am and honk at me in the mountains.

They could get in big, big trouble for doing what they did, so I promised to hold them nameless and not provide any locomotive numbers in the photos. No one is supposed to be in any cab at any time, except UP employees.

It’s still nice to see that people can occasionally still be people and appreciate one another’s job.

Even as I write this, a few hours later, it is dark; and I can still hear the plaintive horns in the twilight as more locomotives attempt to conquer Donner Pass.

______________________

“Roll on, Southern Pacific — on your silver rails — in the moonlight.”

— Neil Young

The horns are plaintive and insistent and sonorous.

Whistles have been gone for over 50 years.

Once again, the rails are being involved in a fight. And yet, if you weren’t here, you wouldn’t realize it as being so.

These, right now, are the Good Old Days.

A new edited video (this should be your first clue, folks) was somehow released to the media yesterday, and the Associated Press characterized it this way:

The footage — along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press — show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

This, too, is a DEM clue.

Former FEMA chief Michael Brown said yesterday:

“President told everyone to shut up, that he wanted to hear from me and he said, ‘Brown, quick. Give us an update.’ And my first words to him were, ‘Mr. President, it is my estimation . . . at least 90 percent of the population of New Orleans has been displaced. He was truly taken aback by that.”

Brown described the president throughout the crisis this way: “I think he was engaged, but I think there was an overconfidence that FEMA had handled Sept. 11, we had handled the California wildfires, we had handled the 2004 hurricanes right in the middle of the presidential elections. Hey, we could do this, too.”

Homeland Security officials have said the “fog of war” blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But Brown said the transcripts and footage of the daily briefings conflict with that. “I don’t buy the fog-of-war defense,” Brown said. “It was a fog of bureaucracy.”

The video in question is available here.

As we all know, this will result in a media blowout; the first results are in with Mayor Ray Nagin saying that he is “shocked.” The CYA Mode is already beginning.

For those not aware, it is not FEMA’s responsibility to be a first responder. The FR would have been the local authorities first affected; in Nagin’s case, his city administration was the First Responder. Second response authority rested with the state. Further assistance can then be provided by FEMA.

The DEM will attempt to portray Bush as the absolute Anti-Christ, and Nagin and Lousiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco will do their best to obfuscate and Teflon out of their roles of responsibility.

Given, the federal response was mediocre; the City of New Orleans and Lousiana responses were infinitely worse — and it was their responsibility to have plans in place, and executed properly, before Katrina even got close.

Everyone involved knew of the nature of the City of New Orleans and the nature of its levees and water systems. All knew this was inevitable.

(Thanks, Mark!)

An Australian sheep farmer was puzzled at the disappearance of sheep on his farm. After a few weeks of sheep disappearing, the farmer decided to put up an electric fence. This is what he found.