While it began well enough with the Founding Fathers no one now can see Congress being the result of Intelligent Design.

Of the many things that changed right after WWII was the appearance of plastic “toys.” Among these were kits for model airplanes with ready formed parts that merely required a kid to glue them together, and presto! Near instant model airplane. And these molded plastic parts were so precise as to even have the individual rivets embossed. But we felt cheated by these plastic “toys!” They were not the real thing! And children in their wisdom know when grownups are cheating them, and these plastic model kits were a cheat!

And just so with politicians. What We the People are offered is a plastic representation complete with embossed rivets molded right into them, exact in detail but wholly lacking anything of real Intelligent Design, wholly lacking in a “soul.” They may as well be the product of a plastic injection mold churning out identical parts.

In the film “Flight of the Phoenix” the hero was a designer and builder of model airplanes. His expertise made it possible for the survivors to put together a flyable aircraft from the crashed plane, the Phoenix arising from the ashes as it were. But my generation of building models with a “soul” is fast passing away, and to use an allegory those in power do not possess the soul whereby they can provide us a Phoenix to save America from what is fast becoming a wreck in the desert.

But forget the politicians; when I first learned of it my concern was for the White House Duck, and I thought to myself at the time if the Secret Service allows anything to happen to that momma Mallard and her baby ducklings I’m sending strong words to those responsible!

Here in the Kern River Valley, we are truly blessed with an abundance of wildlife. As a Butterfly Mecca, as habitat to such a marvelous variety of birds and other wildlife this confluence of bioregions is quite unique and offers many opportunities for us to not only observe, but to be the custodians of this marvelous abundance of wildlife as well as the habitat we share in common.

Along with Henry Thoreau, I “keep appointments” with certain trees and rocks, but it is the critters like the squirrels, the variety of birds and other wildlife here in the valley that charm me even as they did Henry.

Watching a TV segment where a momma duck’s babies are rescued from a storm drain, and gently placed on the sidewalk where she is anxiously waiting, then to see momma duck with her rescued duckling’s right behind her waddling off is precious. Rescuing animals seems to bring out the best in people, and the best in us responds even as spectators. This concern for critters among the majority of us reflects this better quality of humankind, a quality that makes it “a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

What I would like to see on TV are more bunnies, baby ducks, chicks, and kittens, puppies, birdies, squirrels and chipmunks. One local news channel was featuring animals for adoption, and a kitten perched on her shoulder became tangled in the lovely young newscaster’s long blonde hair. Fortunately, the young lady was smiling and laughing as she struggled with the kitten with one hand while holding her microphone in the other and it was a thoroughly entrancing scene.

It was apparent the young woman genuinely liked the kitten, and her attention was given to the kitten rather than the camera. She was having fun with the kitten, and as a result the effect was one of those warm and fuzzy moments where the newscaster’s real humanity came through rather than the plastic representations of human beings that seems too characteristic as with politicians of the genre as a whole. Sometimes it takes a critter like a kitten to bring out the best in us as human beings.

However, I just don’t see us responding in like manner to “synthetic” animals. The resident cat, and Garfield I assume, is unimpressed with Robo-cat or other synthetic “pets.” But there is no denying synthetic pets are on a roll approaching android status, and with the technology becoming increasingly sophisticated Robo-cat will be clawing furniture, shredding curtains and catching birds in no time at all.

Having never been cursed with allergies the “real thing” has never bothered me, and the resident cat and I discussing Robo-cat agreed nothing is likely to take the place of the real thing. The obvious advantages of synthetics aside, what fun is there having a cat that doesn’t respond to “Scat!” An imposter that isn’t wary of rocking chairs and small children, and doesn’t have the innate whims characteristic of a real pussycat? Can you imagine Sylvester or Garfield as robots? Where’s the fun in that? It really comes down to “life-like” is not the same as alive cartoons notwithstanding.

But as we learn of what scientists are doing in their laboratories with genes and cloning, even mixing the genetic material of humans and animals, the specter of Dr. Frankenstein strongly suggests itself. Now an android woman… but like cats, I wouldn’t trade for the real thing. However, that’s a subject better left alone or to science fiction

Many of us privileged to live here in the glorious Kern River Valley take delight in sharing our space with the various critters and providing bird feeders for our feathered friends, and after all these years I still enjoy Mark Trail. One cannot but feel sorry for city-dwellers who often have to make do with films, television or screensavers of flora and fauna on their computers. For my part, I don’t even mind sharing my space with the occasional “Pepe le Pew.”

No matter the technological advances, in my opinion “Virtual reality” will never take the place of the real thing. For example, I used to do a lot of ballroom dancing and the recent example of Japanese robots attempting this seemed a travesty. One cannot help applauding the inventiveness of us humans, but once you have held a lovely woman in your arms, warm, soft and sweet-scented moving together in graceful unison to the beautiful music of a waltz or tango you aren’t going to settle for a robot.

The beauty of our valley is reflective of something Emerson wrote: “That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.”

For renewal of purpose I will still watch Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald films, I still play the LPs of their music and continue to thrill to the operatic grandeur of love and romance of a simpler time that held so much hope of the future. Of such are the “gods” I harbor that sustain me, and while politicians ignore the grandeur to be found in ordinary people faithfully going about doing the menial tasks required to raise families where would America be without such ordinary people?

Having spent many years in various occupations such as machinist and construction earning a living with my hands and back, punching a clock and getting dirt and grease under my fingernails for a paycheck I am duly appreciative of the lives of the ordinary people politicians publicly applaud and privately disdain. For this reason alone we have justification to wonder what gods, if any, politicians meet or harbor? Perhaps this explains why Congress and state legislatures are not noted for the arts that sustain and advance truly civilized people.

Of this I am certain: if I had not spent those years working with hands and back my university education, the years I spent in academia would be utterly lacking in knowledge of the “grandeur in porters and sweeps,” of the real world in which the gods dwell and are met resulting in the best of the arts that sustain and advance the truly civilized, the appreciation on the part of the civilized for the art to be found in Nature that wastes nothing on superfluities, but even the various hues and scents of flowers have a distinct purpose.