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*Stepping Back in TimeMarcel Proust's writings are said to have a soporofic effect on some readers. There are nights when it would be good to have a book on the bedside table that can help put me to sleep. That,however, is not what I experience when reading Proust.Proust's Remembrance of Things Past is a book that I have read more than once. Perhaps, after the first time, it was more like skimming through some parts rather than reading every page but Swann's Way never failed to give pleasure. When Alain De Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life was published in 1997, I said to myself "Hey, I know what he means". Did it really change my life? No. But it gave me hours of pleasure; made me think of times past, of people I had known -- all part of the process that makes us what we are.A week ago while browsing in Menlo Park Library, I stopped at the bin marked "free". I no longer buy books for two reasons: I cannot afford to and I don't have room for them. Nevertheless, the bin was irresistible. I searched through the pile and found a treasure. It was a 1934 edition of the first volume of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past published by Random House. C.K. Scott Moncrieff's translation is superb and volume one contains:Swann's WayWithin a Budding GroveThe Guermantes WayWho was Vida Vamegli ?Considering its age, the book is in excellent condition. 1934 was not long after I was born. The fly-leaf has an inscription "From the library of Vida Vamegli". If she owned the book in the early thirties she is not likely to be around. I drew a blank in searching for Vida Vamegli in the worldwide web. It is an Italian name. No Vamegli surfaced in the Bay area.In my imagination I think of Vida Vamegli living in the San Francisco Peninsula. Who was she? A house wife? A teacher? Good, copperplate handwriting. Would I have enjoyed meeting her in person? Could she have been a Republican. Were Republican politicians as obnoxious in 1934 as they are today? How did the book end up in "free" bin of the library? Perhaps her books were donated and there were no takers in the library's book sale. Many library goers must have looked at it without finding it worthwhile. It was waiting for me. Not a resident of Menlo Park, I rarely go to that particular library. Fate!Now, what am I going to do with the book? There will be days and nights when I will pick it up and re-read parts of it. After some time I shall probably give it back to a library with the hope that it will find a home with someone who loves Proust, or -- even better -- someone who will discover Proust for the first time."When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughtI summon up remembrance of things past......."-- William Shakespeare, Sonnet No.30

*Djerassi Resident Artists ProgramLocated in the foothills, off Skyline Road, in Woodside, California, is the Djerassi Resident Artists Program center established by Dr. Carl Djerassi.A recent visit to the center with a group of friends was a very rewarding experience. The program is an example of how funding by private individuals can promote and nurture artistic creations. Full details of the program are available at http://www.djerassi.org/A few photographs follow.Contemplator, 2004, by Yusuke Toda© MusafirMy favorite. A simple post embedded in redwood, it made me think of teachings of Zen masters. The part bound by spiral of rope, will expose red painted surface when the rope decays and distinegrates."Nothing exists: all things are becoming"--Reiho Masunaga, The Soto Approach to ZenTitle unknown - by Derek Jackson© MusafirThe Nest, 1997 by Cynthia Harper© MusafirOrpheus Coyote and friends, 1999, by William King© MusafirSkin of Dreams, 1999, by Sung-Joon Hwang© MusafirDialog, 2004, by Roland Mayer© MusafirVanishing Ship, 1989, by John Roloff© MusafirDroog, 2003, by Blane De St. Croix© MusafirSylvan Steps, 1987, by David Nash© MusafirSpirit of a Dead Father, 1996, by Tome Adzievski© MusafirFrom Palo Cagao to Palo Alto, 2001, by Liset Castillo© MusafirEl Niño, 1998, by Walter Robinson© MusafirNote: The red sphere on the ground was originally at the top of the right side of the structure.Faeries,2002, by Derek Jackson© Musafir"Art does not solve problems but makes us aware of their existence. It opens our eyes to see and our brain to imagine."--Magdalena AbakanowiczThe Old Barn© MusafirLooking out from inside the Old Barn© MusafirGorgeous setting for the artists and their creations© MusafirA beautiful Madrone tree© MusafirOn the way back, picnic at the top of Windy Hill© MusafirQuotations added by the author of this post.

*Obama and the Middle EastJonathan Marcus in BBC News wrote:Something has changed in Washington. This new US President, Barack Obama, is unlike any that an Israeli leader has faced before.President Obama has backed off from his stated positions on various issues. He is not the first president to cave in to expediency. Some call it pragmatism. It would be interesting to see if he holds firm on this very thorny one.Would the hard-liners in Israel allow Netanyahu to accept the new American policy? We can expect Israel to crank up the threat from Iran. And we must not forget about fanatics in Hamas. Would they try to sabotage the negotiations in which Mahmoud Abbas is engaged? What the new American position demonstrates is that the powerful AIPAC failed to have its way, and that is something to cheer about.Regardless of how it plays out, Obama Administration's position has been clearly and unequivocally announced about one of the primary points of dispute -- construction of settlements in the West Bank.BBC NewsThe US wants a halt to settlement building. Now.Mr Netanyahu seems to have at least half got the message.He is trying to devise some sort of compromise whereby Israel will remove outposts seen as illegal even under Israeli law, but will continue to build in existing settlements to cope with what Israeli spokesmen call their "natural growth".But this "natural growth" argument is not getting any traction in Washington.The message has been repeated again and again; no settlement building - period.

*Morels * Wild Flowers 25 days away from summer solstice, and sweaters still needed in the evening. Meadows in the foothills still show patches of green, and wild flowers are in bloom in many of the preserves that dot the San Francisco Bay area.Morels are rarely found here. Foragers head for fire-ravaged areas in the Sierras where one can find a lot if the timing is right. A few weeks back a friend and I joined a group of foragers led by a man who knows all about wild mushrooms. The location where he took us was in the vicinity of South Fork of Yuba River.Two good specimens© Arani SinhaAnd another© MusafirArani found one© MusafirHappy Forager © MusafirBack at home© MusafirThe morels were not in the best of condition -- many of them beginning to get dry -- and there were many other foragers trudging up and down the hills. But we didn't return empty handed.Wild Flowers, and a BirdRedwing Blackbird, Arastradero Preserve© MusafirWhite Coat Mallow, Arastradero Preserve© MusafirClose up of Mariposa Lily, Sierra Azul© MusafirCrimson Columbine, Sierra Azul© MusafirIthuriel's Spear, Sierra Azul© MusafirFairy Lantern, Sierra Azul© MusafirVenus Thistle surrounded by droplets from mist, Purisima Creek© Sarbajit GhosalCalifornia Hedge Nettle, Purisima Creek© MusafirIt felt wintry when we hiked at Purisima Creek on Sunday, May 24th.Yellow Lupine, Purisima Creek© MusafirWild Iris, Purisima Creek© MusafirLunch break under redwood trees, Purisima Creek© DMTrudging up Harkins Ridge, Purisima Creek© DMOn Harkins Ridge Trail, Purisima Creek© Sarbajit Ghosal

Brace for Reinstatement of Annual Fees * The Coburn AmendmentFaced with legislation that would severely restrict them from abusive practices, the same wonderful people who had been ripping off consumers for years with sky high interest rates, penalties and late fees, are huddling to come up with plans to make up for lost revenue.Reports indicate that credit card users who do not carry a balance but pay off their monthly bills on time might be hit with annual fees!Are consumers going to roll over and accept the fees? Some would. At one time such fees were common. But in today's America the climate is different. Americans are aware that one of the primary factors for the current economic crisis was lack of oversight by our government that permitted the financial industry to run amok. There is very little good feeling about the large banks that issue credit cards. Fight back. One way -- the preferred solution -- for those who can afford it and do not carry balance on their credit cards would be to use debit cards. And look for credit cards issued by small, regional banks. Of course, when the small banks are gobbled up by large ones then you will have to start all over again. Still, don't passively accept the fees that might soon be foisted on you by the major issuers of credit cards.Nancy Trejos in The Washington PostTreasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the bill "will help create a more fair, transparent and simple consumer credit market."Card executives said the changes will force them to charge higher rates and annual fees to delinquent customers and those in good standing. Have Gun, Will Visit National ParksTrust a Republican, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, to attach an amendment to the credit card legislation to permit carrying loaded guns at national parks. The NRA is happy. It would be interesting to see whether the amendment would be in the final version that President Obama signs.

*Slaughter of Tamil Refugees among Coconut PalmsAlthough foreign journalists are barred from reporting the military operations against Tamil Tigers, the scant details coming out leave no doubt about brutal attacks against refugees fleeing from the combat zone.The beautiful, green island nation has now earned a place among other countries which carried out mass slaughter of a section of their population to achieve political and/or military objective.Guardian UKThe last hospital inside the so-called no-fire zone in north-eastern Sri Lanka was shelled today for the second day in a row, killing at least 50 civilians, a government health official said.The shelling came the day after 49 people were killed when a shell struck the admissions ward of the same hospital, where casualties of the country's brutal civil war are being treated.Oxford Analytica: "SIGNIFICANCE: The humanitarian crisis triggered in recent weeks both reflects past ethnic grievances underlying the protracted conflict and is fuelling new ones. More than 1 million Tamil people have now been displaced, with many thousands reportedly killed in high-intensity fighting this year."And the world remains a bystander.

*A Few Ragheads here, a Few Ragheads thereAn area (there are many) where there has been no change in tactics followed by the Obama administration is the deaths of Afghan civilians in attacks against militants. Just as they took place under President Bush, civilian casualties continue under President Obama. The Taliban could be benefiting in recruiting every time innocent civilians die. But that is not going to stop the killings. Somehow deaths of villagers in far away Afghanistan do not have any impact on American military strategy. They are expendable in our war against terror.In expressing her regret, Secretary of State Clinton sounded no different than Ms Rice when she held that position.Voice of America.com reported:Red Cross officials are backing local reports that U.S.-led airstrikes in western Afghanistan earlier this week killed dozens of civilians. The U.S. military is sending investigators to the scene and President Hamid Karzai has pledged to take up the issue in meetings with President Obama.Local Afghan officials say the incident occurred during a battle Monday and Tuesday in Farah province, when Afghan troops aided by U.S. soldiers were battling Taliban insurgents.Local officials said bombing raids on the suspected Taliban positions killed as many as 100 civilians and residents are still digging through rubble looking for more bodies. A Red Cross team sent to the region backed up the claims of dozens of civilian deaths, including women and children.Yes, no doubt the issue would be discussed during visits to the White House by Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Asif Zardari of Pakistan. One can be certain that despite public statements -- sound bites -- nothing would change.U.S. Casualties in IraqAfter declining for a few months, the number of U.S. casualties spiked up in April. 19 soldiers died in Iraq.What did they die for? Saddam Hussein is no longer there. The Iraqis now have an elected government that we approve of. The internecine violence between the Shias and the Sunnis is not going to end anytime soon.

*Bush-Cheney Torture Team in His SightsSpanish Judge Baltasar Garzón who, in 2002, issued arrest warrant for the late General Augusto Pinochet of Chile, and wanted our former secretary of state Henry Kissinger questioned by British court, is now conducting a hearing to consider torture case against Bush officials. More power to him.Whether or not Judge Garzón succeeds in establishing a case against them, his action is laudable. It is obvious that for political and other reasons, after making the torture memos public, President Obama would rather bury the issue. But the memos supporting torture prepared by members of legal staff of the Bush administration prove that laws were broken and twisted to serve the needs of a few megalomaniacs. And to move forward without conducting a full inquiry would be the wrong thing to do. Politics, however, is full of instances when decisions are not based on what is right but what is expedient.In the meantime, don't expect to see Bush-Cheney and the amoral members of their staff traveling in Europe. They are not going to place themselves at risk of being arrested.Excerpts from The Guardian UK.Criminal proceedings have begun in Spain against six senior officials in the Bush administration for the use of torture against detainees in Guantánamo Bay. Baltasar Garzón, the counter-terrorism judge whose prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet led to his arrest in Britain in 1998, has referred the case to the chief prosecutor before deciding whether to proceed.The case is bound to threaten Spain's relations with the new administration in Washington, but Gonzalo Boyé, one of the four lawyers who wrote the lawsuit, said the prosecutor would have little choice under Spanish law but to approve the prosecution.The officials named in the case include the most senior legal minds in the Bush administration. They are: Alberto Gonzales, a former White House counsel and attorney general; David Addington, former vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff; Douglas Feith, who was under-secretary of defence; William Haynes, formerly the Pentagon's general counsel; and John Yoo and Jay Bybee, who were both senior justice department legal advisers.In a now notorious legal opinion signed in August 2002, Yoo and Bybee argued that torture occurred only when pain was inflicted "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death".

*Bit of Good News in a Plethora of BadSurfing the web, it was almost by accident I came across Tracey Taylor's article in New York Times. Reading A Label of Pride That Pays made me feel good. These days, logging on to the computer is fraught with risk. One can never be sure that some new unpleasant things have not surfaced during the night -- more job cuts, another Madoff-like scam, mounting damage from toxic assets of banks; and the never ending violence in some parts of the world. Shias killing Sunnis; Sunnis killing Shias; a bloodbath in the island of Sri Lanka as government forces mop up the Tamil Tigers' last stronghold and refugees seek safe havens; our drones killing a lot of civilians and some terrorists. Politicians blathering. It goes on and on.Then there is the feeling that we are getting buried in an avalanche of shoddily manufactured imported goods -- from houseware to wearing apparel. They are cheap, yes. They look cheap and often don't last. Not all American manufacturers can claim credit for high quality products. For years, the automobile manufacturers produced ugly, gas hogging vehicles that required frequent repairs....and they were not cheap. It was competition from Japanese car makers that finally woke up Detroit. That, however, is not what this post is about.Tracey Taylor wrote about the success of two small companies in Northern California -- one in Sausalito, and the other in Berkeley. The complete article can be accessed in New York Times.Excerpts:In a timeworn factory in Sausalito, Calif., 67 workers turn out Heath ceramics, doing everything from mixing the clay to applying the finishing glazes. Twenty miles away, a Japanese robot called Ziggy works day and night in a converted brass foundry in Berkeley, making precision-cut office furniture. * Still, there still seems to be an appetite for products from high-end, craft-based manufacturers in America. That proved to be the major reason that Robin Petravic and his wife, Catherine Bailey, bought Heath Ceramics six years ago even though competition from abroad had forced most artisanal potteries across the country to shut down.They said that when they first walked into Heath’s factory in one of Sausalito’s former shipyards, they decided that Heath’s idiosyncratic way of doing things and its geographical roots could prove to be its salvation. They said they were struck by the fact that every part of the manufacturing process was under one roof. “Many of the employees had worked there for decades and knew everything, including how to fix the machines if they broke down,” Ms. Bailey said.The company was founded in the mid-1940s by Edith Heath, a ceramicist and creative spirit, and her husband, Brian, an inventor. The company quickly earned a reputation for durable, finely crafted tableware and tile whose clean, modernist lines signaled a break from the more fussy designs of the past.Michael Goldin, an architect and industrial designer, has also tied his company’s fate to that trend. For the last 14 years, Mr. Goldin has been contributing to the rejuvenation of a light-industrial district in Berkeley. He transformed an abandoned model airplane motor factory into his office and has designed and outfitted streamlined, open-plan office spaces for lawyers, architects and dotcom start-ups in Berkeley and neighboring Emeryville.Mr. Goldin’s company, Swerve, has also been making furniture, seeking out the technology required to produce precision-cut aluminum taper joints and machine-tooled, eco-friendly work surfaces for the desks, workstations and shelving systems.For Mr. Goldin, outsourcing was never an option. “Ever since I was at grad school I have felt very strongly about having my hands in what I am making — actually feeling materials and how they work,” he said. “It all started with my desire to make things and to have a shop where I could do that.”* Comments Anonymous — 2009-04-29 Found this wonderful story on Heath on another blog, check it out: http://www.flypmedia.com/issues/28/#9/1 `m — 2009-05-05 Dear R - I hadn't visited your blog or written to you in SO long. Sorry for the disappearance. School work and life in general get in the way of other things :) I dropped by your blog today and saw the picture of the flowers in the vase i sent you - it made my day! :) I'm glad you're putting it to good use. -m

*A month into spring, the days are finally showing a warming trend. Last Tuesday (the 14th) a blustery wind blew throughout the peninsula, and it felt wintry. Now, we can say "Spring is here". New leaves on the trees and abundance of flowers are sights to lift the spirits.Come summer, shortage of water could cause some problems. But we have survived droughts in the past and no doubt we'll survive this summer.A mixed bag of pictures, mostly wild flowers at various preserves.Indian Warriors, Coal Mine Creek, Portola Valley, CA.©MusafirVetch, Fremont-Older Open Space Preserve©MusafirHikers, Easter Sunday 2009©MusafirStar Lily, Fremont-Older Open Space Preserve©MusafirOak tree with new leaves, Fremont-Older Open Space Preserve©MusafirMeadow full of miniature lupines, Los Trancos Trail, Foothills Park©MusafirBlue Myrtle (Periwinkle), Los Trancos Trail, Foothills Park©MusafirPink Trillium, Rancho San Antonio©MusafirWild turkey at Rancho San Antonio©MusafirMule's Ears, Rancho San Antonio©MusafirWild California Poppy, Russian Ridge©MusafirOwl's Clover, Russian Ridge©MusafirA Clouded Sulfur Butterfly and Buttercups, Fremont-Older Open Space Preserve©MusafirWhat is all this juice and all this joy ?A strain of earth's sweet being in the beginning... --Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring