Podcast 357

Wyoming Breakout. Back home from Road Trip II, 2015. The story of the ‘breakout from Wyoming’, going up and down a big mountain in the middle of the spring snow storm, and outrunning the weather heading east. The objective? Don’t stop until warmer weather and or sunshine, whichever occurs first. In this case, it happened to be Sidney, Nebraska. Then, a day’s drive in the pouring rain through the Cornhusker State, onto Iowa for the final leg home from Des Moines to the Twin Cities. The Mobile Podcast Command Unit 8 performed brilliantly under varying conditions. Email from a listener introduced to us through a knock on the window of Unit 8 at midnight, behind a Casino. Plus some thoughts about the 2016 political cycle in the superb setting of the famous Nepenthe, located in the mountains of Big Sur, California, as we wait for a table, through the magic of audio podcasts. One of the things that kept coming up throughout the trip is this question of whether anyone who isn’t a political operative, or junkie, is paying attention to the cattle call of republican candidates, and the farce of democrat presidential candidates in the current time frame. Farmers let their fields lay fallow, so the soil isn’t fatigued. Creatives know sometimes you need to take a break in order to avoid burn out, writer’s block, and to get to the good stuff, creatively speaking. The media knows nothing of this, and continues to sift, and report and sift, and grind until there’s nothing left. What’s important right now isn’t personalities, the outrage of the day, or some expose. People need time to take a break from all the politics so they can actually do some internal thinking about the things that matter most to them. What are the overarching themes? Has any party developed an overall narrative that motivates real people to work and vote for the candidates? Does the candidate him or herself even matter? We’re not hearing those themes. We’re hearing what this one said about that one and how this one is getting more contributions, and the other one looks good or bad. The most divisive institution in American politics is not Congress, it’s the media. Can people tune it out? Sitting in the beautiful sunshine of Big Sur, staring out at the Pacific makes one think it is possible. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. (Image from California Travels)