From Where I Sit

Bachmann says go with Reagan tax plan - raise taxes...

2011-10-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, California, USA - Someone should tell Michele Bachmann that taxes were higher under Ronald Reagan than today. (See video clip below..)

And maybe point out that he got the country out of a recession through government spending and raising the deficit.

She's making Herman Cain look like an economic genius.

Hoo-boy!

Latest outrage(s) from CSU Chancellor demand action

2011-09-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

LONG BEACH, Calif., USA - The chancellor of the California State University has made it clear for years that he doesn't have much respect for faculty and staff, or hold students in very high regard.

At least that what his actions - and most of the actions of the CSU Board of Trustees - lead any rational person to believe.

Charles Reed

In recent weeks, Chancellor Charles Reed proposed a labor contract that would in two years give him the opportunity to start pushing for (and probably getting) reductions in the salaries of faculty, if he thought it was a good idea. And he probably does think it is a good idea now, but knows he can't get away with it.

Not yet.

This same chancellor battled hard to make sure the newest of his campus presidents (at San Diego State) would get an extra $100,000 per year bump on top of the salary his predecessor made. Apparently, there are campuses all over the nation (And the world! The world!) fiercely competiting for these presidents, whose jobs, thanks to Charles Reed, gives them all the authority of a second tier manager of a Rite Aid pharmacy. A small Rite Aid pharmacy.

But today he managed to give yet another metaphorical digit to students, faculty and staff, when he convinced the CSU Trustees to approve a new policy which keeps potential campus presidents from having to visit the campus over which they will lord, should he choose them to, well, lord.

It really does sound more and more like Rite Aid management, doesn't it?

According to the San Francisco Chronicle: "The trustees eliminated the visits after Chancellor Charles Reed said some potential candidates would refuse to be considered without a guarantee of privacy."

The link to the story is here: Presidents can remain anonymous - until they show up for 'work'

It seems pretty bizarre to select a person to be the big kahuna of a CSU campus - most of which have a history of democracy and openness - by bringing them in in the dead of night and springing them on the students, faculty and staff. And the tradition of having candidates for campus president showing up to meet with campus folks goes back to the 1960s. It seems to have worked pretty well for over 50 years.

The arrogance is appalling, but that word has seemed, well, insufficient in recent years to describe the tenure of Reed and most of the trustees, who seem to consider students and faculty and staff more annoying than anything.

There is no mechanism for recalling the trustees, nor for getting Reed out of his overly compensated position - $421,500 with a $30,000-per-year retirement bonus and a mansion in a tony section of Long Beach.

But perhaps students and faculty might start doing some picketing down south, wherever the chancellor happens to be roosting at the moment, just like faculty students are doing at Humboldt. Good for you Humboldt State - maybe Long Beach State can rustle up some signs and bullhorns to get the chancellor's attention.

Make it a loud bullhorn though, he seems quite tone deaf.

"Charlie Watch" at Humboldt State

Fracking film offers a peek at g-normous traffic

2011-08-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

PINE CREEK VALLEY, PA, USA - All of the reports about the gas company-imposed disaster that is known as hydrofracking talk about traffic, but most seem more worried about potential water pollution.

And we should be worried about water pollution. If we don't have clean water, well, it's game over amigos.

The video below shows the impact of traffic in a small town. And, as noted by the narrator, this is just the beginning of a huge gas company push to put in thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of gas wells.

Fracking is going to create an industrial nightmare that made the Mad Max movies look like Disney productions.

Here's the video:

Rick Perry prays for the nation - and to be president

2011-08-06T09:17:00.000-07:00

HOUSTON, Texas, USA - That soon-to-announce GOP presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry hopes to fill a Texas stadium for a prayer-in isn't surprising, just somewhat outrageous.

If he were a minister who got lucky and scored $500,000 from the whack-job American Family Association (founded by Donald Wildmon), it would be one thing.

But this guy is within days of throwing his 10-gallon hat into the ring for the GOP nomination, joining Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann, among others.

Rick Perry

Shameless politics, no matter how much he protests.

So what's political about praying for a "nation in crisis" as he says the prayer rally is all about?

Well, the nation is in a crisis of sorts. First, the GOP manufactured a crisis out of raising the debt ceiling then used it to cudgel Democrats and the President into accepting completely unacceptable budget cuts. And there's little doubt that we should say a few prayers that politicians start thinking about what's best for the people of America and not their future political careers.

But look at Perry's stated goal:

"We're going to pray for the president of the United States, to have God's wisdom poured out over him, to have his eyes opened," Perry said.

Opened to what? Perry should be careful what he wishes for.

If he opens his eyes, maybe, just maybe, he will stop caving in to the Tea Party wing nuts who are intent on dismantling all government.

That's my prayer anyway. But I am not going to Texas to offer it up.

LINK: Rick Perry preys

'Doc Martin' TV series offers comedy and drama

2011-07-22T06:31:00.000-07:00

PORTWENN, Cornwall, England - The television series, Doc Martin, took place in this village (really Port Isaac) and after watching four seasons worth of it, I think I am ready to move there.

Move again? Madre mia!

Doc Martin

The village reminds me faintly of our place in Arroyo Seco, Jalisco, Mexico, except it's populated by, obviously, English-speaking people. The people in both places are both kind and occasionally not-so-kind in their interactions with everyone. But always interesting to watch.

Always.

And in the middle of all of it is Doc Martin, actually Dr. Martin Effingham, actually actor Martin Clunes who gives a tour-de-force performance as a former big-time surgeon, reduced to being a small town general practitioner when he suddenly couldn't stand the sight of blood.

Carolyn Catz

The people of the town like the Doc, who is about the rudest person - but still charming - I have seen as a major chararacter in a teleplay. Still, he is a great doctor, manages to fall in love, and is heading toward an escape from the small town toward the end of the series.

Doc Martin has a, well, interesting past that is revealed over the episodes. He proves to be a much more complex character that what you see in first few shows.

He even ends up with a girlfriend, sort of (actress Carolyn Catz). But you need to see those episodes to understand and what that situation evolve.

Doc Martin is highly recommended - but watch it from the very first episode.

Doc Martin on the scene of an emergency

Oh, just supersize that penicillin prescription, please

2011-06-24T07:20:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - A story in today's Sacramento Bee newspaper details out a relatively new schtick for one medical plan - providing prescription drugs to patients via a vending-type machine.

The prescription drugs are pre-packaged, apparently, and with a punch-in code and identification, voila, out comes the drugs.

Sacramento Bee photo

The story is pretty sketchy, and reads a little like an advertisement for the Molina health plan. But the implications are vast.

Here's a link to the story: Supersize my penicillin, please

Perhaps in the U.S., this system might work, because pharmacists have been pretty well stripped of any ability to offer real advice about the drugs doctors have prescribed.

I recently went to a local pharmacy (ok, it was in a Wal-Mart, but we don't have many choices in Watkins Glen, NY) and while there, had some questions about the skin meds my dermatologist had ordered. The young woman at the counter said the pharmacist would need to talk to me but after waiting a good bit - and judging from how busy he was - I opted to simply read the instructions carefully.

Probably a good thing anyway.

Mexican pharmacy

In Mexico, pharmacists are frequently medical doctors who run a drug store as an adjunct to their practices. And even if the pharmacist doesn't hold a medical degree, in most small towns they offer a lot of medical advice.

And in my experience - even with the language barrier - they seem to know what they are talking about.

With prescription drugs being dispensed by a machine, how long will it before we can do the same thing with medical office visits? Just describe your symptoms to a computer-like device and it will spit out a diagnosis and, of course, send the prescription notice over to its sister machine, which has the drugs.

I may have already seen this system in a Star Trek episode.

But one big question is not answered in the story about the drugs-by-machine: Will this automated system result in lower medical costs and lower prescription costs?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

The problems with our economy explained - and drawn - by Robert Reich

2011-06-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - The woes of the economy are evident around Central New York, but camouflaged by the beautiful scenery and the beginnings of summer.

But the number of people out of work is astounding.

And what about young people? (Anyone under 30 these days in my viewpoint.) Very few jobs for them, outside of tending bar (a prized occupation, actually) or some work in the tourist industry. If they have left the area and returned with an engineering degree or a medical degree, it's not that much better.

There's not that many jobs for engineers or doctors, even.

And at the same time, public agencies are cutting and cutting and cutting. The great schools here might have to settle for a not-so-great environment, if the cuts keep coming.

So what the %&E^*^*^ is going on?

Economist Robert Reich explains it in about 2 minutes. Two minutes. Really.

Needed, modern day Paul Revere to shout - The Climate is Changing! The Climate is Changing!

2011-06-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - Sarah Palin's off-the-cuff remark about Paul Revere (she said he rode about Boston warning the British - hoo-boy!) help spark Amy Goodman to pen a great column about climate change.

Basically, she said, we need a modern-day Paul Revere to ride around shouting about how close to the precipice we are when it comes to changes in the world's climate. Tornadoes, weird temperature swings, hurricanes over the oceans, earthquakes and on and on....

Here's the link to her column: Paul Revere shouts, the Climate is Changing, the Climate is Changing

It's a well-written piece, analytical without being too preachy. But it also reminded me of a book I read not too long ago called The Long Emergency. It's as scary as any Stephen King tome. Actually, it's more frightening because you can see where we are likely headed.

The latest news about the likelihood of famines again this year - and how many hungry people are surging towards borders of nations where there is food - well, read Amy Goodman, then The Long Emergency. Then light a candle or two - at home or church.

Or maybe both.

Here's the author of The Long Emergency on what's happening to the economy today.

LINK: Hold on tight to what you have left

'So Much For That,' is so much of a great novel

2011-05-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

PEMBA, Zanzibar, Africa - Lionel Shriver's novel So Much For That hits just about every high and low note I can bear to read.

Lionel Shriver

There's absolute joy, horror, family dysfunction, employment bullying, death, life, taxes - and a very healthy whack at health care - and health insurance - in the United States.

And in the paragraph above, I left out a lot.

The book is the tale of a fellow named Shepherd Armstrong Knacker who has sold a business (think Home Depot, but on a local scale). He has a dream and that dream is about his having a life on Pemba, an island that is part of the Zanzibar archipelago.

But there are problems, of course, with getting to that dream from New York City (where Shep lives with his wife Glynis). Shep has a job, friends, children, an aging father, a sister (who believes she is an artist) and, eventually, there is an illness.

In all of So Much For That, Shriver shows great cleverness as a novelist and uses a device I have rarely seen, but which works fabulously. At several points, she will have a character suddenly dealing with an issue, but without stating directly what that issue is. It will be many pages later when the reader discovers what the character has actually had to contend with.

It makes sense and works out, somehow. She has a magic style in her writing.

Another novel device that hits the reader from the first page are the chapter subheadings - nineteen in all - like this:

Shepherd Armstrong Knacker

Merrill Lynch Account Number 934-23F917

Dec. 1, 2004 - Dec. 31, 2004

Net Portfolio Value: $731,778.56

You can guess that the bottom number changes frequently. But how it changes, and what it means to the story makes for a compelling tale.

So Much For That, despite dark overtones, is not a dark book. It's real life with twists that suggest tears and laughter, frequently simultaneously.

If you read it, you will likely weep and laugh, too, of course - right through the last page - where the final two sentences wrap it up as nicely as any novel I have ever read.

And, no, you will not be reading those sentences here.

Gasland: Oh-My-God watch this movie, then pray

2011-05-16T06:32:00.000-07:00

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - The movie Gasland should not be listed in the documentary section of videos on Netflix or at video stores. Instead, it might better be placed alongside all those disaster movies like Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, and The Day After.

Those movies, of course, were works of fiction.

Gasland is not, which makes it sooooo much more frightening. And kind of sickening, too.

It's a tale of an out-of-control gas drilling industry, greed, corporate (and government) corruption and real suffering. The real suffering is not on the part of the corporations or gas drilling industry, of course. It's the people who live where the gas drilling - frequently referred to as 'fracking' - are having their well-water and air poisoned.

If the air you breathe and the water you drink make you sick, that's suffering.

Gasland is the work of independent filmmaker Josh Fox, who lives in the Delaware River basin near where gas drilling companies are getting ready to frack the countryside. In the process, the movie makes it obvious the ground water will be polluted with enough cancer-causing chemicals to make it unsafe to even use to wash a car. Fox had been approached by a gas company, wanting to lease his land to drill.

He had questions. And he made a movie about the answers.

The science is simple. Millions of gallons of water, laced with hundreds of nasty sounding chemicals, are injected into the ground (where shale rock formations exist) to create mini-earthquakes which release natural gas. The gas, in turn, is captured by the drilling companies, and sold as a product. The problems? Jaysus, where to begin?

The gas doesn't all go back up neatly into the collection wells, sometimes it bubbles up right through the ground, poisoning steams and water wells.

The water pumped in - under huge pressures - is toxic and remains so. It too leaches into ground water and even if most of it is recaptured, it has to be trucked away and disposed of. Check your local wastewater facilities and see if fracking water is being dumped there. If it is, try to stop it. Municipal wastewater facilities can't possibly deal with the toxic chemicals in the water. So the chemicals just come out and enter the water system. Your water system.

And what are those toxic chemicals?

Hard to say, exactly.

In 2005, President George Bush, at the urging of (wait for it, here it comes) Vice President Dick Cheney, signed a bill that exempted gas companies from the various environmental laws that would have required them to disclose what they were pumping into the ground.

It was called the Halliburton loophole, a paean to Cheney's years as CEO of that company. Halliburton is big in the gas drilling industry. Very big.

Various agencies and individuals have analyzed fracking water samples and discovered why the gas companies wanted the exemption so much. The toxic-chemical stew is soooooo awful, so ridden with cancer causing chemicals, it should never be used.

Never.

As soon as the 2005 federal law was signed, it touched off of wild rush to drill across the U.S., the results of which are documented very well in the movie.

Gasland is a must-see movie: Where else can you watch people light the water coming out of their kitchen taps on fire.

Really... check this out:

'Freedom' ponders functional dysfunction, really...

2011-05-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

SOMEWHERE IN MINNESOTA, USA - The novel Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen, had been on my list to read since it first came out in 2010.

It was one of those books I picked up in Costco three times, each time reading a few more pages before deciding I just couldn't part with the $25+ dollars Costco wanted.

Jonathan Franzen

Still, the lives of the family in the book - Walter and Patty - and children Joey and Jessica - had me fascinated from the first few pages. There's love, hate, a touch of violence and enough familial intrigue and interplay to give almost anyone gas, gasps, and very occasionally a guffaw.

Very occasionally.

It is not a book for everyone, even though the family themes and woes and joys are nearly universal.

The author's narrative voice probably drives some readers to distraction. (The librarian in Watkins Glen where I checked out the book told me she tried to read it three times and each time gave up). And it spans many years, with significant flashbacks, a device some people find maddening. It does work in this book, though.

I found that I could not wait to pick it up, and so I read it in just over a week, this in between regular life, writing assignments and adjusting to life here in upstate New York.

So why is the dateline on this review Minnesota? Well, life in that state figures prominently, as does the little blue bird on the cover.

But to find out about either, you will have to read it, or find a reviewer who doesn't mind spoiling a story.

Recommended summer reading, if that list isn't already filled.

Gas well blowout in Pennsylvania forces evacuations

2011-04-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

CANTON, Pennsylvania, USA - A blowout at a natural gas well in Bradford County sent families packing and pollution officials scrambling to figure out the dimensions of a spill of well-related chemicals.

The well started leaking highly toxic fracking fluid into nearby Towanda Creek (noted for its trout fishing) and as a precaution, families living nearby were evacuated.

The fracking system for extracting natural gas from deep in shale rock formations, so far, is being studied in New York. Currently, it is not allowed in New York State, but is in many others around the nation.

The full story from the Elmira Star-Gazette can be read here:

A frack-up in Pennsylvania

A natural gas well site owned by Chesapeake (Photo by AP)

Sac State uses riot police to evict sleeping students

2011-04-17T04:13:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, California, USA - A group of students peacefully occupying the administration on the California State University, Sacramento to protest budget cuts - and the way CSUS is cutting classes and faculty - were rousted from their sleep at 3:30 a.m. Friday and threatened with arrest by police clad in full riot gear.

The move on the part of the police came after the students spent days trying to convince university president Alexander Gonzalez to pledge - among other things - to put a hold on more salary increases for his administrators.

Police enter, ready to arrest

He declined.

The middle-of-the-night eviction is best described by the students themselves in their online blog:

"This morning on the fourth day, April 16 at 3:24 A.M. we were met with the administration’s opposition expressed through a riot taskforce...

...At 3:24 AM there was a police officer at the front doors unlocking the entrance, when asked what was happening and why, we were told that he could not answer that question. At the same time police were assembling in a militant formation with full riot gear, batons, and a large amount of zip ties. They were approaching sleeping students from multiple directions within the building. They threatened with force that if we did not leave we would face arrest. Our police liaison met with Lieutenant Christine Lofthouse that if we did not leave the peaceful demonstration that we would face arrest...

...When the police moved in to take action there were only about 4 students awake out of 27. The campus police felt that it was necessary to wear full riot gear, and act in a threatening manner to a completely non violent student movement...

Here is a link to the student's blog about the occupation and the subsequent police action: LINKSac State students speak out

The middle-of-the-night police action was, of course, designed to ensure that there would be a minimum amount of media coverage. All the TV anchors (and their cameras) were sound asleep at that hour and so there would be no opportunity for the students to get their message out.

Ready to lock the doors

A clever move on the part of the public relations staff at the university. But did the police have to show up in riot gear? Really?

What that cleverness on the part of the CSU, Sacramento administration has done is galvanize the students - and not just the 27 who were in the building. Across campus, students are likely talking about the president's unwillingness to take their demands seriously.

And they are pretty angry at the police tactics.

"This is only the beginning, we are committed and we will see this through. To put it in the words a fellow activist said “even though we walked away from our sit in, we have not walked away from our movement."

Gas storage on the front burner in Watkins Glen, NY

2011-04-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

WATKINS GLEN, New York, USA - A proposal to use salt caverns on the shores of Seneca Lake to store propane and natural gas is drawing a lot of attention - most of it negative.

The proposal is by a mega-corporation called Inergy (LINK:Inergy website) to use the caverns owned by its subsidary, U.S. Salt, to keep propane and natural gas - and become the transportation and distribution hub for gas for the entire Northeastern United States.

U.S. Salt (Photo by Observer-Review)

The proposal currently under discussion seems relatively modest and the company has been pedaling it hard with local government officials.

But many local residents believe that if Inergy gets the approval to do this, it will be a case of the camel getting its nose into the tent.

Increases in heavy truck traffic, noise, water and air pollution are all cited as reasons to oppose the project.

And those factors are especially important to local residents who have watched the area bloom in the past 10 years as a major tourist destination for central New York.

Watkins Glen has a gorgeous downtown area, a world-class race track, natural attactions like the Watkins Glen waterway and Seneca Lake. Added to that are more than 50 wineries around the lake that draw thousands of people ever weekend, nearly year round.

A gas-based industrial project - one that would send heavy trucks rumbling down the only highway through the center of Watkins Glen - would seem at odds with that.

Complicating the issue is the ongoing proposal to extract natural gas in the area using the 'hydrofracking' method that has been an environmental disaster in nearby Northwestern Pennsylvania.

Many local residents fear that if hydrofracking is allowed in New York (it is currently being studied), that the gas will end up being storde by Inergy on the shores of the lake.

Some believe that Inergy's project is actually counting on hydrofracking being approved as part of its business strategy for doing the project in the first place.

William Moler

An interview with Inergy's point man on the Seneca Lake project, William Moler, would seem to give pretty strong evidence that Inergy is banking on the gas from hydrofracking become part of its storage.
"The development of the Marcellus Shale has steadily increased the interest and value in its storage and transportation assets in a region that critically needs energy infrastructure to efficiently allow the Marcellus to proliferate," Moler told the Pipeline and Gas Journal last July in an interview.

The full interview and more comments about the connection between Inergy and the possibilities for hydrfracking in New York can be read here: LINK: Marcellus Shale and Inergy

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 - I asked for it...

2011-01-19T10:06:00.000-08:00

NUEVO VALLARTA, Nayarit, Mexico - I was intrigued by the reviews of the recently published Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1, largely because I found out that most of Twain's classic books were written in Elmira, New York - not exactly a locale that inspires.

But maybe it does.

As I read more and more of the reviews (and now the actual tome), I realize that flights of imagination are sometimes easier in places where you have to use your imagination.

Here at the condo where I write this, I don't need to imagine scantily clad young women around a pool, I just need to look out the sliding glass door. (Whoa, lookey there!)

And so as we live in the midst of a palm-lined paradise (here in Nuevo Vallarta and down in Arroyo Seco), I realize that for me, the writing comes easier when the foul rain of upstate New York is pounding on the roof. Ah, and summer is coming in a few months and so will be the rains of Valois and Watkins Glen, New York.

I was so intrigued by the reviews - and then by a conversation with Elmira attorney John Mustico about the book in December - that I ordered a copy once here in Mexico and had nephew Nate Schwartz pack it with him when he came down a few weeks ago to visit La Manzanilla.

Be careful what you wish for and order from Amazon.com.

Volume 1 is nearly 800 pages long - with more than 200 pages of prequel, explaining how various people, foundations, authors, organizations, committees and noted scholars put this book together. It would be interesting to see what Twain might think about how it was drafted.

But the work is all Twain - either written or dictated over many years.

At first, it was very difficult reading. His style is interesting and complicated, but 100 years after his death, readers are used to a more direct style of writing. I sure am.

Still, now that I read 10 pages or so per night, his style is catching on with me and I look forward to the time I get to spend immersed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Perhaps it might be time this summer to review Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - providing I get through the next 500 pages of the Autobiography by the time I return to New York.

'Project' - the IPad magazine - is the future arriving

2010-12-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

LOS ANGELES, Calif., USA - The Los Angeles Times today ran a story about Richard Branson's latest project - a magazine that can only be accessed via an Apple IPad. It's available at Apple stores as an IPad app.

LINK: IPad only magazine - the future has arrived

Its concept - which seems so obvious now that it has been announced and implemented - might at last be the new technology bridge between what my friend Derek Moore of Napa calls the 'dead-tree people' and the newest gizmos in electronic information technology.

And by charging $3 per issue - and no doubt hefty fees for advertising to a pretty upscale market - Branson may be able to overcome the problem of funding that is sinking newspapers and magazines quickly.

If you take away the printing bill for a magazine, you wipe out a major portion of the cost.

Maybe some of that money could go to writers, instead.

Maybe.

It's not surprising that this project comes from Branson and his company. Branson's company has an airline, makes cellphones and is going to be offering people rides in space. A electronic publication - available only on one tablet reader - might seem a gamble to most people. To Branson, it's just another day around the office of his company, Virgin.

Perhaps most important about this new magazine - and app - is that it gives me yet another reason to run out and get an IPad.

Merry Christmas, a little early, por favor.

Airline pilots, politicians won't get scanned or groped, TSA says

2010-11-19T17:10:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON, D.C., USSA - The Transportation Safety Administration - a misnomer if there ever was one - has decreed that for now, airline pilots will not have to go through the same security screenings as passengers.

After being pressured by the pilots' union, the TSA backed off on requiring them to go through the hoops that many thousands of airline passengers go through every day.

Here's the story in the San Francisco Chronicle: Pilots go through untouched

This is not an argument that pilots should have to have full body scans or get groped by poorly paid TSA gate workers who are likely as grossed out by the body searches as the searchees. (In most states, the pat down as performed by TSA agents could get them arrested for sex crimes...)

No, the argument is no one should have to go through this newest level of 'security'.

Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer, hardly my favorite columnist, had it right today when he wrote:

"The ultimate idiocy is the full-body screening of the pilot. The pilot doesn't need a bomb or box cutter to bring down a plane. All he has to do is drive it into the water, like the EgyptAir pilot who crashed his plane off Nantucket while intoning "I rely on God," killing all on board."

Exactly. Now that that particular idiocy has been resolved, why not realize that it's idiocy to do these new security measures with three-year-old children, senior citizens pushing walkers, wheelchair bound passengers and, and, and...

Krauthammer will no doubt be pilloried for this comment:

"The only reason we continue to do this is that people are too cowed to even question the absurd taboo against profiling - when the profile of the airline attacker is narrow, concrete, uniquely definable and universally known. So instead of seeking out terrorists, we seek out tubes of gel in stroller pouches."

Ah those strollers!

To paraphrase the late Art Linkletter: Kids do the darnest things.

You can add D.C. politicians to the list of people who can avoid the screenings, too: No patting the politicians

And Slate magazine asks the right question at this link: Does the TSA EVER catch terrorists?

Adios, Rick Kushman - Bee readers hope for a sequel

2010-11-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Next week Rick Kushman will walk out the door of The Sacramento Bee newspaper after a great run as a reporter and columnist.

In the last couple of years, Rick has been a real go-to guy for The Bee, a survivor of several rounds of layoffs and down-sizings brought on by a combination of incredibly bad planning on the part of the managers of The Bee and a near free-fall decline in print advertising revenues.

Rick Kushman

Rick's plans? A book for sure is in the works. Some teaching, too, probably. But who knows? He's a talented guy who started to outgrow The Bee several years ago but stayed for all the obvious reasons: a good job, loyalty, a great schedule.

Outgrew The Bee?

Yup.

Rick had a loyal following as a TV columnist for years and did an excellent job with that column. He also contributed other stories. But it was his TV commentary that drew readers - lot of readers. It was a colossal blunder to remove him from that, a blunder I wrote about more than a year ago when it happened: No more Rick the TV guy.

Now Rick is joining the talent exodus from The Bee, a talent exodus that is coming at a time when this city really needs a good daily newspaper - and writers who readers can connect to.

Rick has the kind of personality that lends itself to an emerging brand of personal journalism that is fast becoming the standard in the publishing business.

If Rick were to start an on-line TV critic blog, I would sign up right away. In fact, everyone reading this should email him and tell him that would be a good idea: rick.kushman@gmail.com.

Rick's leaving The Bee leaves another hole in the lineup of a news team whose bench is getting shallower every month it seems.

Bon voyage Rick. Fans will be watching for a blockbuster career sequel. Maybe he will write the screenplay for a film starting Paul Giamatti: Sideways Again.

A review of the book Freedom, but 'FreedomTM'

2010-11-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - A book titled Freedom by Jonathan Franzen has been grabbing headlines for months, even making Oprah swoon over it. And I have picked Freedom up several times to read (usually at Costco while avoiding grocery shopping). But for now I am waiting patiently for it to show up on the public library shelves here.

That might happen by 2012, the librarians tell me. It's a pretty popular book.

But while waiting, I just finished a book by Daniel Suarez also called Freedom (its full title is FreedomTM, as in trademark), a science fiction thriller that is all-to-close to reality. Actually close to several realities.

Daniel Suarez

It's an eco-thriller with government/corporation conspiracies mixed in with near-future high tech wonders and what we could call video games.

But the video game in this book is no game. What goes on in something called the darknet is deadly serious for all concerned.

The book is believable and frightening, both on the techno level and the idea that corporations have a tight web of conspiracy in place, essentially running everything - and caring nothing for human beings.

Does that sound at all familiar?

The first book in this series, called Daemon, is supposed to be excellent, too, and should be read before FreedomTM.

But because I have already read the second volume, I am going to wait for Suarez to do another book about the darknet.

I know it's out there, even if I don't have the technology to see it. Not yet, anyway.

TV attack ads - and campaigns - reaching new lows

2010-09-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - As political campaigns heat up, so do the television advertisements that would seem to be even more wildly misleading than in the past.

Hard to believe? Probably not.

This TV ad - in the race for California State Treasurer, for Godsakes - is a good example of ugly, deliberately misleading campaigning:

What's wrong with that ad?

Well, to start, it's beyond a stretch to blame Bill Lockyer personally for problems with pension systems, issues with government accountability, that some businesses have left the state, that unemployment is up - and state spending might be 15 times higher than it was 37 years ago. (That number is very suspect, by the way.)

But if that number is arguably true, well, could it be that the 37 million people who live in California today, (compared to 20.8 million 37 years ago) live in a world that is more complex - and expensive?

Regardless, Bill Lockyer didn't pass all the state bond issues, impose expensive federal mandates or push the state to pay for more and more services (and solve problems). Check his record. Oh, that would uncover how he has really performed as a public servant. Oops, silly thought. Sorry.

The ad, of course, is simply part of an equally simple (or is it simpleton?) nationwide strategy that says throw out anyone who has any experience in government and replace them with anyone who doesn't. (Check the results in the U.S. Senate GOP primary in Delaware for confirmation.)

And if the person running has no experience but is really wealthy (think Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina), well, that's even better.

As a journalist/witness to what has happened to the collective effectiveness of the California State Legislature since term limits have been imposed (by voters), I would suggest that this strategy of throw out the bums is simply nuts.

Just plain old nuts. No need to embellish.

Perhaps after the elections some people will be able to fling their Tea Bags in the air and feel good about this. But will it be good for the public? Good for the state? Good for democracy?

Of course not.

But then we can blame the next batch of elected officials for all our troubles.

And that is just plain old nuts again.

Sacramento art-walk shootings revive safety debates

2010-09-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The shooting death of a 24-year-old man and the injuries sustained by three other persons Saturday night - in an incident a few hours after end of the popular 2nd Saturday Art Walk - has awakened old notions that Sacramento in not a safe place after dark.

The art walk has been in good part credited with helping the revival of the neighborhood called Midtown, an area that fills most weekends with crowds of people mostly in their 20s and 30s. Complaints earlier in the summer led to an increase in police presence for the art walk Saturday when as many as 10,000 additional people swarmed the streets, visiting art galleries and creating an almost-Mardi Gras air.

Now, with a shooting that took place within a few feet of patrolling police officers, the safety question is back - and probably won't go away easily.

Already, the merchants who benefit from the art walk - and Sacramento's Mayor Kevin Johnson - have been talking bravely that people should not let a thug or two destroy this monthly event.

That's a nice sentiment, but doesn't make people feel any safer who are considering joining the thousands of people who will be wandering that area in October.

The shooting element is what makes this incident so disturbing.

Had this been a brawl in one of the local bars that spilled out onto the street, it would be easier to dismiss. Bar brawls are a common outgrowth of too much alcohol and too many people packed into a small space. And people seldom die in those.

But when bullets start flying on public streets, people are going to think more than twice about putting themselves in the line of fire.

An old friend, stationed at Mare Island Naval Base in the early 1970s (now a resident of suburban Phoenix, Arizona), wrote to say that the incident is very different from the Sacramento he remembers:

"When in Vallejo many years ago, we'd jump in the '66 Chevelle and run up to UC Davis and/or Sacramento. Sacramento would start with cruising J and K streets, and then going from there. Sounds like a different place than when it was the '70s, long hair, beer, other substances, and no fear of violence."

Sounds like the good old days.

A 2nd Saturday art walk earlier in 2010

Arthur C. Clarke's '3001' - a book to read for the future

2010-09-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - 3001, The Final Odyssey, is the last book in the late Arthur C. Clarke's series that started with 2001, A Space Odyssey, which was a hit in both book and film versions.

Arthur C. Clarke

Sadly, 3001 has never been made into a movie, but it should have been. Maybe it still will be.

It's not a new tome - it was published in 1997 - but somehow it escaped my attention at that time (I was off sailing somewhere, no doubt). So finding it on the shelves of the lending library at the Oakland Yacht Club last weekend was especially rewarding.

The book fast forwards to the third millennium using the same literary device Washington Irving did in his classic story, Rip Van Winkle. In Clarke's case, however, astronaut Frank Poole has been unconscious (some would say dead) for 1,000 years.

It is science fiction, after all.

The idea works nicely as a way to catapult the reader into the future, with the past shown in snippets as Poole learns about what changes have happened to mankind, and what is left of the Solar System since 2001.

Some of it is pretty ugly, but even then fascinating.

Apes discover the first monolith in 2001, A Space Odyssey

And for those who remember the original book and film's black monoliths, they figure prominently in this volume, too, in ways that would be a spoiler to mention here.

If nothing else, in 3001, Clarke shows that he didn't give any creedence to doomsayers who see the apocalypse coming in 2012.

But then, he didn't in his book, 2061Odyssey Three, published in 1987, either.

Revisiting the song - and topic - 'Eve of Destruction'

2010-06-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

VALOIS, New York, USA - The events of the last few years (last few years?) have been weighing heavily on me in recent weeks.

Maybe it's the relentlessly bad news from the Gulf of Mexico, where the continuing British Petroleum oil spill is wrecking economies, the lives of people and animals, and will pose a serious health risk for decades. And spill is a polite word for what happened. The company cut corners and ignored safety protocols that would likely have prevented this disaster still overwhelming the southeastern United States.

It could be the fact that so many good people are still out of work in the U.S. - and unlikely to get any job that comes close to what they had before they got caught in the economic debacle that was precipitated by greed at all levels. And even as people struggle to recover, big U.S.-based companies like Whirlpool are still shipping jobs out of the country.

Perhaps I feel the weight because so many people seem to have lost faith in almost all institutions to help solve problems. Or perhaps because they are parroting the nonsense they pick up from virulent talk radio or talking heads like Fox News' Gretchen Carlson. Carlson recently said decisions she makes daily in her job - as a news commentator - are as important as those made by the President of the United States. And she was serious.

Jaysus.

Gretchen Carlson - as important as the President?

How you unravel any problems in this tangled political and often hysterical, media-satured environment - controlled in large part by soul-less corporations whose only goal is profit and more profit - seems less like the 12 labors of Hercules and more like the fate of Sisyphus.

Still, bright spots pop up from time to time, such as this morning when I received a video clip of Barry McGuire's updated 'Eve of Destruction.' It was sent to me by my amigo, Sanders Lamont, who loves music and commented that the song is: "A reminder of the strength of music in its ability to tell the hard truth."

McGuire's Eve of Destruction - 2012 moves forward from his 1960s hit with new lyrics and stunning video images, creating a powerful piece that is simultaneously depressing and uplifting.

Uplifting?

You betcha.

It's uplifting because in watching and listening, you realize that you are not alone in your concern/depression/outrage/disgust. And there is great restorative power in that feeling. If there is one overarching emotion that can be attached to the myriad problems that fill the news, it's that feeling of being powerless to do anything about what's happening in the world.

Sociologists often say that from their perspective, individuals don't matter much. Practicing random acts of kindness, for example, will not register as even a blip in the cosmic sense.

Maybe not. (Though I think in this case, those sociologists who say that, have been educated way beyond their intelligence.)

But today, after watching the McGuire video, I've decided to start rolling that rock back up the hillside, beginning with learning to play Eve of Destruction - 2012 on my ukulele. Then later this afternoon, I'll be back at the keyboard to write another screed.

And you can bet it will not be a random act of kindness aimed at British Petroleum.

Sisyphus at work

In rural New York, people are saying: What the frack?

2010-05-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

VALOIS, New York, USA - When I arrived in Central New York two weeks ago, I saw signs all over the place that say 'No Fracking.'

Being relatively attuned to the language, I thought, 'What the frack is that all about?'

Fracking indeed.

It turns out that fracking is short for hydrofracking, a method to extract gas from the ground by cracking shale deposits in a fairly complicated process that also produces huge volumes of toxic waste water. And it also seems to be polluting ground water, driving some people out of their homes and, in Pennsylvia, caused at least one well 'explosion.'

What the frack?

Anti-fracking demonstration

If my reading of various reports about this procedure are accurate, fracking might be the best argument for nuclear power. Nuclear power seems less problematic.

Just the amount of water it takes - water that is injected into the shale to basically make it explode to let the gas loose - is incredible, even here in water-rich New York.

The companies involved say that being allowed to use this procedure could provide lots of gas for home heating, industry, etc... And it would create lots of jobs. Unfortunately, many of those jobs will be in the toxic waste cleanup industry.

Here's a quote from the director of a clean-water program:

"Hydrofracking injects large volumes of water (up to six million gallons of water per gas well) mixed with sand and toxic chemical additives at high pressures to release the gas. Most of the water is then returned to the surface as polluted wastewater – that must be treated by wastewater treatment plants already overburdened and not necessarily designed to remove these chemicals. Industry analysts predict it will cost $3 billion to treat the industrial wastewater associated with Marcellus shale development."

And here is the link to that January article:

The problems of hydrofracking

Later today, I will be heading out to a local pond, to do some fishing. I hope that I don't get overcome by the smell of methane gas, or have to worry that the fish in the pond (should I actually catch one) have been sucking in toxic waste.

What the frack, indeed.

Other hydrofracking links:

From Governing.com

Fox News say hydrofracking is fine

Scientists disagree on impacts

Comedy video tells the truth about California education cuts

2010-04-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - This video, produced at the request of parents fighting cuts to the education budget in California - is hilarious, and, unfortunately, right on target.

What a mess the schools are in, trying to deal with budget cuts, teacher layoffs and a never-ending string of new administrative solutions (read: ways to save the bureaucracy at the expense of every one else).

The portions about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are, well, you have to watch for yourself.

Hot for Teachers w/ Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green from Megan Fox

Save California State University! Set campuses free

2010-03-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, California, USA - The idea is simple, perhaps too simple.

Disband the California State University system and set the 23 campuses that make it up, free.

Let's say it again: Disband the California State University system and set the 23 campuses that make it up free.

At this point the question probably being asked is: Are you nuts?

No.

But the State of California - more specifically the state Legislature, the CSU administration and CSU Board of Trustees- clearly are nuts if they believe the current arrangement is acceptable to anyone (except perhaps them...).

There have been so many egregious things happen because of the hapless (and occasionally malevolent) central administration of the CSU (the Chancellor's Office and the Trustees) they are hard to even catalog.

No need here to rehash the Common Management System, the subject of a blistering report by the California State Auditor a few years ago. Or recently, the CSU's stated position that it will not put any limits on lodging costs for any of its world-traveling (and well-paid) executives. (This while student fees soar, enrollments are cut, faculty are taking pay reductions - and teaching more students in their classes.)

The Chancellor's Office needs to be shutdown, shuttered and perhaps its Long Beach building fumigated - or an exorcism performed - to banish the corruption, the bureaucratic thinking (and the anti-student & anti-faculty attitudes) to let ideas (and higher education) flourish again in the state.

Each of the 23 campuses should be set free to pursue their own destiny, freed from the bureaucracy of the central administration and the CSU Trustees.

What would that pursuit of destiny look like?

I don't know.

There are 23 campuses in 23 different geographic areas of the state with 23 different faculty, staff and students invested in the success of their campuses. And all 23 have spent years under the heel of an administration that treats all 23 campuses almost exactly the same, when they are clearly different.

And in that difference, in those 23 campuses filled with people who have a real stake in providing quality education (as opposed to simply protecting a bureaucracy) there are likely 23 models waiting to be revealed. Twenty-three!

It would be a beautiful thing to watch - and in which to participate.

But the idea is simple, perhaps too simple.

Romans had lead pipes, we have cell phones

2010-02-23T07:49:00.000-08:00

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - The studies about how much lead in water pipes might have helped the Roman Empire collapse are mixed at best. Some scholars point to the fact that winemakers boiled wine in lead urns as part of the wine-making process.

And every high school student knows that lead melts easily. Not as low as 212 degrees Farenheit, but still.

That's history, of course, and is debated mostly by historians working with very sketchy evidence, though modern chemical companies keep up on such debates as they face lawsuits over the effects of their wares. No records of citizen lawsuits in Rome against water companies survived the ages.

Lead in more than pencils

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, scientists are more and more worried about a non-chemical problem that might be as potent as any cup of wine slugged by a Roman Senator: cell phones.

Personally, I hate the damn things, even though like most people, I would never leave home without mine, in Mexico or the U.S.

But the studies about electromagnetic waves on the brain are chilling.

We are all lab rats, it seems

New, tiny cell phone

For years, as university politics got more and more ugly and nonsensical, I joked that there had to something bad lurking in the university's water fountains (and departmental coffee urns) that was driving faculty and staff (and students) to the brink of madness.

Perhaps it's was not the water after all. It might have been accumulated use of cell phones, Blackberrys, ITouchs and God-knows-what-else doing the trick.

It could explain how Arnold Schwarzenegger got elected governor of California. And maybe the popularity of Glenn Beck (and Sarah Palin)

OK. And Barbara Boxer...

Glenn Beck

Damn, I have to run and end this now. Sorry.

Yup, the Siren of the cell phone is calling me and I can't resist.

Siren of the cell phone

'Wicked' - new view of Wizard of Oz - and the wicked

2009-11-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., USA - The stage show/musical Wicked is fabulous for a dozen reasons. Ironically the music might not be among them.

True, there are some catchy tunes, but except for Defying Gravity, none seems to have latched onto the collective musical consciousness like tunes from some musicals or the latest Susan Boyle CD. Maybe that's a good thing. How many tunes like Over the Rainbow (from the 1939 movie) can there be?

But musical likes aside, the tale told in Wicked is actually incredibly uplifting - in a different way from the movie starring Judy Garland. In that film, one lesson is 'there's no place like home.' Another, perhaps, is check to see if you are wearing magic shoes.

But the lesson in Wicked is, well, hold on just a minute ...

Right here I have to offer a disclaimer that this is a spoiler review. If you believe you are going to see Wicked in the theatre, read no further. Read no further because the punchline to the whole movie, is, well, a punchline and shocker/surprise. And I would hate to spoil it. So stop here.

Stop!

Still reading? Okay, proceed at your own risk through this enchanted forest, er, review.

Teal Wicks - as the 'Wicked' Witch of the West

Wicked is the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West from birth until the time Dorothy tosses a bucket of water on her, mistakenly believing she was putting out a fire, when in fact, she was melting the witch down to nothingness.

Or so you have thought ever since seeing Judy Garland and her little dog Toto taking on Margaret Hamilton (in the role of the witch) in that film.

In Wicked, the witch has a name - Elphaba - and a family, including a younger sister, a father and mother. And in Wicked, Elphaba grows up and goes away to school, where she has a roommate named Glinda - who is destined to be a good witch.

In Wicked, it becomes clear early in the play that distinguishing between good and evil can be complicated.

But complications aside, what was uncomplicated was a stunning singing and acting performance by Teal Wicks as Elphaba, who even though painted green - and wearing odd-looking glasses - was still drop-dead gorgeous from 20 rows back. Perhaps that shade of green might become the new tan for young women of the non-Oz set.

Elphaba at school

We are getting really close to the major spoiler part, so if you ignored earlier warnings, stop now.

Still there? Okay. This really is the point to turn back.

In the 1939 film, the climatic scene in the movie is when Margaret Hamilton gets hit full-on with a bucket of water and melts right down in front of Dorothy's eyes. "I'm melting, I'm melting," Hamilton shrieks. How many times when someone says they don't want to get wet, do people shoot off the rejoinder: Afraid you will melt? Har, Har!

Indeed, my pretty, indeed.

But in Wicked, it turns out the Wicked Witch of the West isn't wicked at all. In fact, she and her boyfriend (A witch with a boyfriend? What kind of play is this?), turn out to be the most virtuous people in the whole show, with the possible exception of Glinda, who learns late about honesty after getting caught up in some evil machinations. A good deal of those evil machinations were the work of the Wizard of Oz himself. In Wicked, he is not always the lovable, bumbling fellow from the 1939 film.

And the Wizard of Oz has a press secretary. Do I need to elaborate on that?

Patty Duke playing the Wizard's press secretary

Wicked Witch Elphaba, who as noted is really not wicked at all, gets labeled wicked as part of a Oz-style political plot. A fall guy - in this case, fall-witch - was needed and Elphaba was convenient. And being green, well, you just can't trust those people can you?

Fear and fear of 'the other,' was played convincingly enough that from the audience some parts were as painful to watch as the 6 o'clock news on any television station.

And yes, at the very end of the play, Dorothy makes a cameo guest appearance complete with water, and Elphaba appears to melt away after being doused.

But wait! She doesn't melt at all. It was trick. Witches don't melt when hit with water. That just an old witches' tale to make people feel less threatened.

Instead, Elphaba reappears and reunites with her boyfriend/love to head off, away from Oz, presumably to live happily ever after.

And the Wizard and his press secretary?

Well, it turns out Glinda the Good Witch could be good - but also mete out some good justice.

Glinda the good witch

Wicked is a stage play that I might want to see again - even knowing the punchline and how the story progresses over two music-filled acts.

It's like watching the 1942 film Casablanca (with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman) over and over and over.

In Casablanca, I keep waiting for a different ending. (I want Rick to get on the plane with Ilsa and run away.)

In Wicked, the ending - watching Elphaba head off to somewhere over the rainbow - is arguably the best part of the entire experience.

Elphaba sans
green makeup

Sometimes it takes Jimmy Buffett to get things done

2009-11-20T16:15:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Writing inspiration for me comes from lots of different places. And for most of my adult life, I have been what pros in the writing bizz call a 'facile' writer.

The short definition is, if I want to write, I generally just starting banging away on the keyboard.

Just like this.

Generally.

But this fall, the writing hasn't been coming just like this much of the time. In fact, for the last two months, I thought I was afflicted by the dreaded writer's block, a syndrome most professional writers will tell you is, well, total crap. They also are the same writers who have never faced it.

Even though for months I have been outraged at the lunacy of ideologues like Glenn Beck, the lack of caring (and arrogance) of the people entrusted with running the two public university systems in California, and the seeming inability of Americans to have rational discourse, writing about these issues (and corollary matters) has seemed, well, sooooo daunting.

Daunting and frankly just plain old depressing.

Enter Jimmy Buffett.

Jimmy Buffett on stage

It wasn't actually Jimmy Buffett himself who got mixed up in my writing, it was a book by Buffett, A Salty Piece of Land, mailed to me by my nephew Tony Fitzgerald.

Tony had read the book, and while he admitted the prose wasn't exactly 'Homer,' he said it had certain style to it and that he thought I would enjoy it.

If it had been Homer, I doubt it would have been as effective.

The tale is about a cowboy/sailor from Wyoming who ends up in the tropics tending to the rebuilding of a lighthouse. That's about all I'll reveal today, because I am about halfway through reading the book and suspect that I will be recommending it later on in a longer review.

But even if I didn't read another page, A Salty Piece of Land, has helped me crack the formation of a writer's block.

While reading about the odyssey of Tully Mars (the main character), I suddenly envisioned myself writing about (and living in) sub-tropical Mexico - the very place Admiral Fox and I will be as soon as the fall semester at the university ends. And the thought of that writing - as opposed to spilling words about the idiocies of a Glenn Beck, for example - made my fingers positively twitch to get to a keyboard.

Is the writer's block gone? Will I never write again about loons like Glenn Beck or the trustees of the California State University system?

No to the first, and probably no to the second, too.

But thanks to Jimmy Buffett and Tully Mars, I think I understand what was blocking the words, and keeping the blood pressure up.

Get the lighthouse back on line Tully, please. I have things to write.

A Salty Piece of Land

George Orwell would love these security cameras

2009-11-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

TIBURON, Calif., USA - The City of Tiburon is getting ready to install surveillance cameras so that every car, truck, motorcycle and horse going in - or out - will be photographed.

Yup, every single one.

At this point, the city says it will be taking photos of license plates, just to keep track of possible felons, and perhaps to grab pix of stolen vehicles. The cameras will be tied to a data base that will flag cars - and, of course, their drivers.

LINK: Orwell would be proud

Perhaps.

But suppose this system gets used for other purposes? Suppose the system gets used by the city's merchants to figure out who is driving in and out of town and uses it to target them for some sales pitches.

A good hacker might use the system to figure out when people are not home.

All the ramblings of a paranoid, one might suppose.

And considering all the data that grocery stores, banks, credit card companies and universities collect, perhaps one more intrusion into what passes for privacy in 2009 isn't that great.

But this time - these cameras - seem to be such an obvious affront, it's amazing that the city is willing to sell itself out so cheaply.

And what city will be next?

So what is it about revolutions?

2009-11-11T14:59:00.000-08:00

(NOTE: This entry was originally written and posted at a website called The Red Room, a website for writers and editor.)

There is a song making the rounds of many places in California these days called 'Union Maid,' a rousing tune that was written by Woody Guthrie in 1940.

There once was a union maid, she never was afraid
Of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid.
She went to the union hall when a meeting it was called,
And when the Legion boys come 'round
She always stood her ground.

It's the kind of song that gets people stomping their feet and clapping their hands and the kind of song that sociologists like to point to as beacons that bring people together and cement social units - units that will promote social activism and change.

Well, that may be true, to a degree. I've even learned to play the tune on the ukulele at meetings and gatherings to get the crowd fired up when some of that social activism and change is called for as the U.S. economy continues to melt quicker than an iceberg off the coast of Greenland.(Economic recovery my ass...)

But it has been my experience - as a journalist and a university professor - that real change, Revolutions, occur not because of group think, but because someone steps up to the plate and takes a solid swing. And those people I have always thought of as champions, champions in the sense that they were willing to stand up for what they believed was right, and take the hits for doing so.

It's not a popular way of looking at leadership and social change. My sociologist amigos tell me I am naive. They tell others (out of my earshot) that I am romantic and don't understand the research and data on the topic about revolutions.

I may be romantic and naive - and, OK, sociologist-collected data doesn't impress me that much. Champions and heroes do.

My sociologist friends might be averse to the theory because, frankly it's hard to ever be that champion, hard to stand up alone and hard to take the hits. I have been called Don Quixote more than once by journalism and academic colleagues.

There are worse sobriquets.

Perhaps the hardest thing about all this, is that all-too-frequently when a champion steps aside, (having won whatever victory was sought) the ground gained is lost, perhaps completely.

Still, two feet forward, one foot back is a better way to live than studying the data, I believe.

Today we often seek champions and at the same time immediately try to discount their courage (or claim self-interest or any number of sins). We can blame media for this, but media in many ways is as reflective of us as it is a force itself.

You say you want a revolution? Look for a champion to arise. Better yet, play Don Quixote yourself and grab a lance.

Without a champion, you might get some good harmonies, but you won't get change.

Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union, I'm sticking to the union.
Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union,
I'm sticking to the union 'til the day I die.

Taking a trip to Ireland - via the book 'Shannon'

2009-11-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - As a sucker for most books about Ireland, it was a no-brainer to pick up a copy of Shannon, a book by Frank Delany.

But this book is no travelogue, though the river Shannon is one device that Delany uses to move along the main character in the book - a shell-shocked Catholic priest named Robert Shannon.

And the book is set in 1922, the countryside roiling in a civil war.

The novel, Shannon

Without giving away the whole plot, Shannon travels from the U.S. to Ireland and travels the length of the river looking for his family roots. But he has a lot stalking him, real and spiritual.

The book is also revealing about the politics of the Catholic Church at that time.

Catholic priests, bishops, cardinals, a civil war, and the aftermath of World War I. A great palette for an excellent book.

And, at least in my opinion, a book worth picking up.

'A Night at the Roxbury' with the Butabi Brothers

2009-11-06T13:01:00.001-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - So what if disco is dead and the movie is a lampoon? And an old lampoon at that. Watching A Night at the Roxbury with Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell is funny - and oddly compelling.

No, I am not on any medications right now. And cocktails don't start until 6 p.m. (Four hours and two minutes, but who is counting?)

The 'oddly compelling' aspects are why I got a copy from Netflix and laughed my way through the movie one night this week. The Admiral, however, is not amused at my movie-induced dance moves around the house, wearing my IPod on my belt.

If you have been living in Tibet for the last 20 years or so and missed this 1998 gem of a film, it's worth picking up. And if the story of Doug and Steve Butabi doesn't really float your boat, the music should. In fact, the music is probably be the best part of the film.

Naw, the jokes are great, too.

Doug and Steve Butabi, brothers idiotus

Would be dates

The whole movie is topical in its satire, not surprising because the characters are based on what had been a running gag and skit on Saturday Night Live at the time.

Cell phones, parent grown-child squabbles, business, the night club scene and relationships between the sexes all take plenty of heat in this comedy.

And at the end, there is a scene stolen almost directly from The Graduate, sans Dustin Hoffman and Katherine Ross, of course.

The Butabi Brothers - they would be a lot of fun to go out clubbing with, if I ever went clubbing, of course.

But, first, I would have to get one of those wild-color suits to wear.

Here's a trailer for the movie:

At the club entrance, yes, we are brothers...

Is website 'Christwire' serious? Kee-rist, who knows?

2009-10-31T17:40:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Many novelists have commented in the last 20 years or so that writing novels has become really hard.

Really hard?

It's become really hard because real life has become so incredibly bizarre, it's hard to write fiction that isn't topped by that day's headlines.

And so it was today, I was forwarded a link to a website called Christwire that reinforced the idea..

• Link to Christwire

The link was to a reportedly serious column that makes the claim that the late 1980s and early 1990s sitcom, The Golden Girls turned many American male viewers gay.

See? How can a novelist compete with that?

But after doing some research into the site, it's still unclear if the site is a spoof (I lean in that direction) or one that is arguably real.

If the people who are posting things on it are, well, serious, I am going to have to find a new term. Wing nut doesn't even come close. In fact, it would be an insult to wing nuts everywhere to be linked to what is posted on the site.

Check it out, but not this moment. The site seems to be crashing a lot.

Amen to that.

Golden Girls - gay magnets?

Columnist Dan Weintraub leaves The Sacramento Bee

2009-10-18T20:28:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub published his farewell column in today's newspaper, ending a nine-year run as a writer and most recently as the interim editor of the editorial pages since the departure of editorial pages editor David Holwerk.

In his farewell remarks, he mentions columns upcoming with the New York Times and plans for a website where his work will be featured.

• LINK: Weintraub says adios to The Bee

Dan will be missed by many of his faithful readers. He was known for doing a tremendous amount of reporting before ever touching the keyboard to write his column. And most of his columns were well thought out and analytical. High-pitched emotions were not a part of his regular repertoire. If anything, his critics complained that they wanted him to inject more opinion and/or outrage into his writing.

Dan Weintraub

I met Dan Weintraub on the day he came to work for The Sacramento Bee. He took over the office of the late Bee writer John Jacobs, his job to write about politics and policy matters. At the time, I was working as fill-in editor for Bill Moore, then editor of the Bee's Forum section.

Over the years, when I was filling in at various times for Bill Moore or Jewel Reilly (editor of the op-ed pages), Dan and I talked a lot. On occasion, I edited Dan's column before it went to press.

We didn't always agree on political matters. And our discussions about the politics of universities and university education - and university professors - were a lot of fun. Probably more for me than Dan.

Dan's role at the newspaper changed in the last year or so, as the Bee management struggled with the financial free fall that has affected most media companies. His columns became rare as he took over other duties and the number of staff members in the editorial section of the newspaper kept shrinking.

And for a brief time, he found himself at the helm of the newspaper's editorial section, a duty he just relinquished in the last few weeks, when Stuart Leavenworth was promoted to the editor's position.

Dan Weintraub's departure adds his name to a long list of talented writers and editors who have left The Bee in the last few years, some voluntarily, some taking a buyout, some laid off (or pushed not-too-gently out the door): Bill Moore, John Hughes, Dorothy Korber, Mike Dunne, Lisa Heyamoto and Rachel Leibrock, to name just a few.

It will be interesting to see if The Bee opts to replace Dan, or absorb his position (and salary) into the bottom line of the corporation.

Either way, it will more interesting to follow the next adventures of Dan Weintraub as he becomes an 'independent journalist.'

CSUS rally draws a small - but enthusiastic crowd

2009-10-13T12:52:00.001-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - A crowd of approximately 150 students, faculty and staff came into the Library Quad Monday afternoon at CSU, Sacramento for a hastily called rally over budget cuts to the CSU and a bill that would tax oil companies - with the tax proceeds going to higher education.

The rally was sponsored by the California Faculty Association and Associated Students, Inc. to also talk about AB 656, a measure by state Assemblyman Alberto Torrico (D-Newark) that would tax oil companies on the oil that extract out of the state's oilfields.

And the lion's share of that funding would go to the CSU.

Alberto Torrico (right) with ASI President Roberto Torres

A firebrand speech by ASI President Torres led off the event. Torres exhorted students to get involved and support the bill.

Later, Assemblyman Torrico told the rally that oil companies have been posting incredible profits year after year and that California is the only state in the union that doesn't have a tax on oil as it is pulled from the ground.

"The governor is going around the state selling off state property but giving away the oil," Torrico said. "Even Sarah Palin has a tax in Alaska."

CSU, Sacramento Professor Joseph Palermo

Also speaking was CSU, Sacramento Professor Joe Palermo who told the students that they are not being served well by the trustees of the CSU - or by the university system's chancellor, Charles Reed.

Reed and the trustees have said they are not supporting AB 656. But Palermo pointed out they haven't suggested how to solve the university's budget woes.

"AB 656 is the only game in town," he said. "What is Reed doing for his salary?"

San Francisco Chronicle story on AB 656

Audience at Monday's rally

CSUS officials confer with student handing out literature

'Rocky Balboa' gets another viewing, and another

2009-08-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

VALOIS, New York, USA - It's hard to say exactly why the saga of Rocky Balboa seems soooo compelling to me. I suppose it's because I saw the original film one summer night in 1977, just before I started my job as news editor at The Union newspaper in Grass Valley - a job I took full well knowing it was so far over my head, I couldn't even see the surface.

But, like Rocky, I had trained hard (at another newspaper) and was as ready as I ever would be.

We both survived our respective tests, though not without different sorts of cuts and bruises.

Fast-forwarding to 2009, I decided to watch the 2006 film, Rocky Balboa, for a second time, a film that is really not about boxing, but about relationships and how an aging man decides that he needs to not retire into himself and the past, but move forward. It's a great capstone movie to the entire Rocky series of films and in some ways, I think the best of all the Rocky films.

Not all the critics agree, but let them wallow in their myopia.

Rocky with his son

Rocky and Little Marie

In Rocky's words in the film, he still has 'some stuff in the basement,' bothering him, haunting him, as he is no-longer a prize fighter, but now a widowed restaurant owner. He's years out of the ring and his son is an adult, though with issues of his own, living in what he calls 'a big shadow,' cast by his larger-than-life father.

Earlier this summer, somewhere between cutting a tree down with a chainsaw, digging a posthole and fixing the dock down at the lake, I realized that I still have some 'stuff in the basement' - not stuff that compels me to climb into a boxing ring, but stuff that seems compel me to get back at writing.

Isn't this writing?

Sure. And writing about adventures on several of my other blogs, or ranting here about a variety of topics, seems to deal with that stuff in the basement, but only to a degree.

It's not the same as writing about a terrorism trial (as I did for Reuters), the corruption and nonsense in education (as I did for Education Beat) or even the byzantine world of health care regulation (Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.).

Stuff in the basement. What to do about it?

Maybe the answer is somewhere in a flickering screening of Rocky Balboa. Maybe I'll view it one more time, before I send it back to Netflix.

No more stuff in the basement

Faculty approve furlough idea; Perfect Storm brewing

2009-07-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Members of the California Faculty Association approved the notion of furloughs (and a concomitant 9.75 percent pay reduction) in voting last week.

They also voted that they have about as much confidence in CSU Chancellor Charles Reed as England did in the late Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister whose policy of appeasement with Adolph Hitler managed to make World War II more complicated. (Somewhat of an understatement, but keep reading, please...)

But stop trying to see if Neville Chamberlain is an anagram for Charles Reed. It isn't, even if the appeasement parallels are very interesting.

Neville Chamberlain

Charles Reed

The details of how the 2 days per month faculty furloughs will work have to be negotiated between the California Faculty Association and Reed. But if earlier negotiations this summer are any indication, he won't negotiate anything.

What he has is cash to get through the fall semester, and now enough time to begin the process of faculty layoffs. I suspect he would have liked to have started the layoffs at the beginning of the summer, but figured it wouldn't fly politically.

Word of advice to young, untenured faculty: Tune up your resume quick - and consider what else you might do besides teach in the CSU.

Faculty reactions should be very interesting. Because a traditional furlough won't work (the result of having teaching schedules that are all over the place, timewise.), it could be that faculty will just figure out how to do 9.75 percent less work.

One formula might be easy: Faculty teaching four classes - and who also have three office hours per week - could reduce their class time (12 hours per week) and office hours (3 hours per week) and their prep time (as much as one hour of prep per class hour) by 9.75 percent.

In a 15-week semester, that would mean cutting out about 40 hours of work (class time, office hours and prep time) during the semester. (Trust me on the math, please.)

Will faculty consider something like this? Some will, some won't.

Regardless, with students paying 30 percent more in tuition this semester and faculty getting paid nearly 10 percent less, we have a near perfect storm in the California State University brewing and ready to hit.

California furlough sign

California public employees and the 'envy' factor

2009-07-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - It's a tough time to be a state worker in California. In addition to being forced to take three days off per month without pay (a 15 percent pay cut), public respect seems to have slipped even lower than it was before the current budget crisis.

And to read The Sacramento Bee newspaper, it seems as if the pensions paid to most state employees (through the California Public Employees Retirement System) represent an evil as least as threatening as global warming, or perhaps a temper tantrum by Korea's Kim Jong-Il.

At the heart of all this is a tremendous shift in thinking, resulting in an envy that is devouring some people. Certainly more than a few people at The Sacramento Bee newspaper, a likely candidate for bankruptcy later this year.

McClatchy Heads for the Cliff

Just a few years ago, friends of mine who were heavily invested in the stock market and/or 401K plans crowed about their early retirement plans, how wealthy they were (or would be) and what chumps those of us sticking it out in the public sector were with our defined-benefit retirement plans.

Fast forward to this year, and those same people are scrambling to cover the costs of their health care (doubled and tripled in some cases). They are also trying to get back into the workforce because their earnings from the stock market and/or 401K plans have tanked so incredibly they can't get by on what they are paid out. (Not a good time to be 60-plus and looking for a job by the way.)

And who are these folks mad at? Their financial advisors who said everything would be fine, leave the money in the market? The folks who helped create the house-price crash through shaky mortgages? The U.S. corporations who have been sending jobs offshore for years?

Nope. The problem is public workers and their damned pensions.

In The Sacramento Bee, the favorite adjective lately when public employee pensions are mentioned is 'lavish.' Public pensions are always portrayed as lavish, though The Bee doesn't bother to publish any numbers supporting the contention.

What is published is usually dollar figures for a high-profile case, where it can be argued a person has gamed the system and gotten a public pension that seems extreme. What The Bee always fails to mention is that the employee had been contributing significantly to that retirement while working. What The Bee does is give the impression that every dime some fire captain gets in retirement is stealing money from current taxpayers' pockets.

Envy is such an ugly thing.

It's certainly an arguable point that public monies have been mismanaged in recent years (as have the monies of the McClatchy Corporation), but to keep trying to make out public employee pensions as the root of all evil - without bothering to prove it with numbers - is unconscionable.

State workers stick around despite the public's abuse (and now a pay cut) because there is some security and a relatively secure pension at the end of their employment.

Take that away, and what's left of deteriorating public service in the state is likely to start getting even worse.

But in the meantime, if you have to visit a Department of Motor Vehicles office (or the offices of another state agency), leave a little extra time. Between the furlough/pay cut, the public's incessant hammering and most recently all the talk about going after pensions, the workers just might be a little touchy.

With good reason.

CSU faculty vote on pay cut proposal a lose-lose proposition

2009-07-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Members of the California Faculty Association will start voting Monday (July 13) on a proposal from the California State University Chancellor to take two-day per month furloughs, beginning with the fall semester.

The two-days-per-month furloughs have been suggested/recommended/demanded (pick your verb) by the chancellor as a way to lessen the impact of the $583.8 million budget cut Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is saying the 23-campuses of the system must take this year. The $583.8 million represents the university system's share of the current state-budget meltdown with a savings of about $147 million if faculty agree to the furloughs.

And the idea of CSU faculty furlough falls ever-so-neatly in line with the governor's furloughs of state workers. The governor has ordered three furlough days per month for almost all state workers and would really like to implement a fourth as the legislature and he debate how to deal with the $27 billion state budget deficit.

In the CSU, perhaps the major problem is although the chancellor is calling his suggested/recommended/demanded furlough, a furlough, these furloughs will simply result in open-ended pay reductions of nearly 10 percent, with no guarantees about, well, anything, including how many years they might continue.

To date, the chancellor - and the trustees of the California State University - have declined to say if these proposed furloughs could result in a concomitant reduction in workload (which furloughs do for state workers who are given days off). And perhaps more disingenuously, the chancellor and trustees have also declined - some would say obstinately refused - to say what the effects of the furlough will likely be.

They will not say how many faculty jobs will be saved (if any), how many faculty might still be laid off, and how the furlough/pay cut will impact how many classes can be offered.

In California politics, as a general rule of thumb, if voters are unsure what a ballot measure means, they simply vote no.

And that is a highly likely outcome of the faculty vote on the chancellor's suggested/recommended/demanded furloughs, because he and the trustees have opted to keep whatever data they have amassed secret, sowing only confusion, anger, and more than a touch of resentment at all levels of faculty.

On campuses around the system, faculty are debating what the two-day-per-month furlough will mean if faculty vote to approve it.

Optimists spout that it is obvious that the chancellor will use the saved monies so he doesn't have to order faculty layoffs on campuses.

The less-optimistic think he will use the money to lessen the blow, but that there will still be a significant number of layoffs, perhaps gnawing almost into the ranks of tenured professors.

And the truly pessimistic wonder if the chancellor is using the budget problem as a wedge to get senior and junior faculty at each other's throats as they debate his vague furlough proposal. The truly pessimistic are also fearful that the chancellor doesn't really have any plan at all, but is throwing out the furlough proposal like a Hail Mary pass in a high school football game.

Hail Marys may be in order for everyone before this budget crisis is passed.

How easy it would have been for the chancellor and trustees to do the right thing here.

What right thing?

The right approach would have been to ask faculty to consider a pay reduction. A pay reduction, perhaps on a sliding scale, could help ensure that junior faculty could keep their teaching posts, that classes could be maintained, that the entire system could pull together to survive this latest crisis.

If faculty were voting on that question - with supporting data about what a yes vote would actually mean in numbers of jobs saved - CSU faculty could have an above-board discussion about the future of the institution.

And most senior faculty would probably suck it up and vote yes, even if reluctantly. (Who wants their salary reduced?)

Instead, faculty are confronted with a muddle of confusion, anger, and more than a touch of resentment as they begin voting in what looks like a lose-lose election.

Of course, the chancellor and trustees could unveil any grand plans they have this week (sooner rather than later) to help faculty in the decision-making process as they vote on the chancellor's proposal for a furlough/pay cut.

It's not too late to get back in the game Chancellor Reed, even if it is to throw a Hail Mary pass.

A lot of questions about university furloughs

2009-07-04T06:51:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The downward spiral of the finances of the state of California have come to the California State University in the form of a $583.8 million cut to the overall 23- campus system budget for the coming year.

After years of cutting the budgets of these 23 campuses over and over, this one has pushed the university administration to jump on the furlough bandwagon, made popular by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) as he struggles with a struggling state legislature and a whopping $26 billion state budget problem.

Schwarzenegger just added a third monthly furlough day for state workers, giving them an effective 15-percent pay cut in total.

In the CSU, a sketchy proposal has been floated by the central administration for two furlough days per month - about a 10.78 pay cut for all CSU employees. But because the CSU has binding agreements with the three unions representing the employees, each unit must vote to accept the furlough idea.

Two unions have voted to accept the idea of tw0-day per month furloughs, but the faculty - and its bargaining unit The California Faculty Association - have questions. A lot of questions.

The furlough proposal would reduce the proposed deficit, but leave as much as $309 million yet to be cut. That's $309 million out of a $583.8 reduction in funds. And at this point, Chancellor Charles Reed and the CSU Trustees are not saying how they would cut the budget sufficiently to cover this $309 million. In fact, through spokesmen, they have given the definite impression they haven't pondered it fully yet.

Uh-oh...

And when faculty have asked if agreeing to the furloughs would guarantee there would be no faculty layoffs - just for this academic year - the response has been that the administration won't guarantee anything.

Uh-oh, redux...

With $309 million not accounted for, it's easy to see why the administration wants to keep its options open. This total $583.8 million cut is unprecedented and will likely damage the university system in ways hard to imagine.

Still, before faculty vote to voluntarily reduce their salaries, the CSU Trustees should come clean about how they are planning to deal with the balance of the $309 million budget reduction.

If it is layoffs - in addition to the furloughs - the trustees need to say so. And they should be honest and put some numbers with the announcement.

If it is massive student fee hikes (30-percent fee hikes and higher are reportedly under discussion), those numbers should announced sooner rather than later.

And if the CSU Trustees and administration are planning both? Well, school starts in just seven weeks.

Whatever you do, don't throw a kiss to your mother...

2009-06-17T04:54:00.000-07:00

VALOIS, New York, USSA - While everyone in the U.S. has been so concerned about swine flu, up in a metropolis called Standish, Maine, a different kind of illness has taken over school authorities: adultus ridiculosos.

There is some evidence that this maturity induced dementia is related to a more serious malady, seen largely in authoritarian societies.

But that discussion can wait for another day.

Here is the story, filed by the Associated Press:

=====================================
Maine student who blew kiss to mom denied diploma

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

(06-16) 21:26 PDT Portland, Maine (AP) --

A Maine high school senior says he was denied his diploma because he bowed during graduation and blew a kiss to his mother.

Justin Denney was about to receive his Bonny Eagle High School diploma Friday when he pointed at friends and relatives.

Schools Superintendent Suzanne Lukas ordered him back to his seat. She tells the Portland Press Herald newspaper she was enforcing behavior rules.

Justin's mother, Mary Denney, says her son's showboating didn't break any rules. She tells WMTW-TV "a kiss to your mom is not misbehavior." She wants an apology — and a diploma for her son.

The commencement at the Cumberland County Civic Center also was disrupted when a giant inflatable rubber duck and beach balls were thrown. One student was ejected.

Some parents want a review of commencement policies.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/16/national/a212114D06.DTL

Justin Denney

====================

Without putting too fine a point on it, What the hell?

I suppose that it is important for school authorities to control these about-to-be adults. After all, that's what all those years of loud bells, arbitrary time periods for study (called classes), whistles (and rules) were all about, right? Had this graduating class been at a Catholic high school, one click from a clacker wielded by a 4-foot-tall nun would have dropped that kiss in its tracks.

I've attended more graduations than I like to even think about. And yes, there is a modicum of rowdy behavior, a few beach balls, and a lot of shouting. A lot of shouting. But it's joyous activity, activity that comes after years of study and effort and following those damned loud bells and arbitrary time periods for study, whistles and rules.

In Standish, Maine, school authorities might take a lesson from their students on this one and lighten up.

Whether they do or not, these same school officials are definitely getting a lesson on what it feels like to look ridiculous in a national spotlight. The joke writers for Letterman and O'Brien and a huge cadre of comedians are busy at work, making Standish, Maine the new punchboard for humor.

Plus, what a great advertisement for home-school advocates. A few kisses tossed in the direction of moms there is normal behavior.

For another take on what happened in Standish, here is a longer story, with a second link to a video. The video of the actual incident, is revealing.

Diploma denied for a kiss

Video of grad incident

One of the good guys passes away - Bill Kearney

2009-06-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

HEWLETT, New York, USA - My brother-in-law Bill Kearney died Monday, after a valiant battle with cancer. I'm not sure I would have the courage to handle all the treatments, procedures, chemicals and various indignities that went along with that fight.

When I saw Bill last summer, he was still in good spirits, despite pain, and was fun to be with in a short visit. At a restaurant, while perusing the healthy side of the menu, he finally opted for a seafood dish that would make a cardiologist weak in the knees.

"I'm a cancer patient," he said. "I think I get to eat what I want."

Bill Kearney, summer 2008

There are brother-in-laws and there are brother-in-laws, but Bill was the best. When I was in college at Villanova in the mid-60s, he put up with my unannounced, drop-in visits to visit with he and my sister Anne (and escape my dorm room). It was during one of those visits that he offered up a nugget about education that set me on a course I stayed with, the course that made my life what it is.

I was on the verge of dropping out of Villanova University and while he understood why I wanted to leave, he told me - as only a older brother-in-law can do - that whatever I did, I had to get a four-year college degree. Where it was from, what major I took were irrelevant.

"Get the degree. It's what you need to open the door for a job."

And five or six years later, when I was in California, married with one child and struggling to get my four-year college degree, out of the blue he and Anne sent me a check for $100 for books. At the time, $100 was more than I could make in two weeks of working part time at the Napa Register newspaper. It kept our fragile home economy going - and gave an incredible boost to my resolve to finish up at Sonoma State University.

With Anne and Bill last summer

The memories of all the years - all the visits - are like a flood today.

Just last week, I was telling my amigo Chon (in Arroyo Seco Mexico), about Bill. Chon was marveling at how tightly I was able to pack my bodega (garage) with surfboards, stoves, tools, and everything else. I relayed to Chon (as best I could in Spanish) that my brother-in-law Bill had taught me how to pack 40 years ago, when I arrived in his driveway in a old VW van, a wife, baby and black cat, all stuffed in. We were headed for California and barely had room to sit in the van.

By the time Bill got done, we could sleep inside comfortably.

So many memories. But only one regret comes to mind this morning, thought doubtless others are likely to surface.

I have always loved to go to the ocean, and as a young teen, whenever I visited in the summer, it frequently fell to Bill to be my chauffeur and companion to head to Rockaway Beach or one of the other spots near Hewlett. On one visit, Bill had made some arrangements to go out fishing on a tour boat, but he said I had my choice: we could go fishing or swimming at the beach.

Like any indulged young teenage child, I chose the beach and to this day, I can remember that I knew Bill really wanted to go fishing and that the crowds and sand and salt were a distant second choice, for him.

But he did not let on at all that he was disappointed. Instead, we had a rollicking day in the surf. I remember the sunburn from that day, too.

Bill died with much of his family around him and I think will be remembered fondly by all who ever knew him.

And there's no doubt he zipped straight to heaven, where with any luck there is great fishing, golf, and he can watch major league baseball and NY Giants football, while eating all the seafood he wants, without concern.

RIP Bill Kearney, you are missed already.

Chico State colleague Richard Ek dies

2009-05-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

CHICO, Calif., USA - I received word today that a colleague of mine from my teaching days at Chico State, Richard Ek, died of a gunshot wound yesterday. The story was published in the Chico Enterprise-Record and is a little sketchy (read: incomplete). Perhaps more details will be forthcoming.

Story from Chico Enterprise Record

Richard Ek

I taught with Dick Ek for four years at Chico State in the 1980s, where he was a senior professor and I was as junior a professor as a junior could be. We both came from strong journalism practitioner backgrounds and so had a lot in common.

We were never really close, Dick was too much of a curmudgeon for me. And I was too busy advising the campus newspaper, The Orion, and trying to figure out university politics enough to get a tenured professor's slot.

But Dick was a big help at those times when The Orion, would put its foot into it - which it did with amazing frequency. He once came into my office after the newspaper had skewered then-university president Robin Wilson for, oh, probably the fourth or fifth week in a row. He offered that if the newspaper kept giving Wilson hell, that I would not be much of a candidate for tenure - or even getting a position leading to tenure.

I still remember the look on his face when I told him that after my 10 years in the newspaper business - where tenure is basically two-weeks-severance pay and a kick in the ass - the rumblings of university presidents really didn't scare me.

Dick played a lot of tennis and stayed in good physical shape most of his life. I heard from a friend that his health was slipping and that might have been a contributing factor to what happened.

Whatever the case, thousands of journalism students across the U.S. owe Richard Ek a debt of gratitude for holding their feet to the fire in various journalism classes.

And I'll lift a glass to him tonight, wishing him Godspeed to some tennis match in heaven. With luck, he's already there, beating the snot out of former Chico State unversity president Robin Wilson with drives to the baseline.

California's public universities go to the deep pocket

2009-05-08T16:05:00.001-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif. USA - That California's two major university systems have voted in recent weeks to raise student tuition for next year at all of their campuses should not be a surprise to the public or students or university faculty. Especially university faculty.

While both systems have been dealing with declining revenues from the state year after year, neither has made any secret that they would be looking to the students to keep the funds flowing, and budgets nicely topped off.

In the CSU, its trustees have adopted long term plans to raise fees - and also raise administrative salaries so as to be competitive. Those plans started back in the mid 1990s with former Chancellor Barry Munitz, who in 1997 went on to fame with the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Barry Munitz

It might be more accurate to refer to Munitz's time with the Getty as infamous, as the link below explains.

What happened, Barry?

I won't bother to revisit all the baloney thrown out by both university systems about the need to hike administrative salaries so they systems can be competitive. I'm not sure even the CSU Trustees or the UC Regents really believe that hogwash.

But students ! Ah, the students are ideal onto which to push the burden. They are not organized politically. They have relatively short time at each institution. And for the most part they are busy doing what they went to college for - racking up units to get a degree.

And those few students who do decide to ask questions and get vocal either find themselves in hot water (politically) on their campuses - or get co-opted by their respective administrations. Watch most student government meetings and you get the eerie sense that the students have been coached - and not by a faculty member.

But non-university critics of the two systems, who routinely argue that the universities are profligate in their spending, miss one major point.

The systems do spend waaaaaay too much on administration. (And also love to create new administrative positions to fill with overpaid staff.) But as a percentage of their total budgets, it's not as startling as it might seem on the surface. Much more important is that the two systems are slowly killing their academic programs through starvation.

And the regents and trustees don't really care.

It much more fun to encourage the universities to divert funds to things like marketing and public relations (and maybe sports). Finding funds for more classes for students is infinitely less amusing.

The major objective of CSU Trustees - and UC Regents - would seem to be to ensure well-paid administrations and to be obnoxiously supportive of their campus presidents, chancellors and top staff.

"Students? Who are students?" they might ask, if ever pressed.

When CSU Sacramento faculty held a vote of no-confidence in the leadership abilities of CSU, Sacramento President Alexander Gonzalez several years ago (which was a landslide against him) the CSU Trustees went out of their way to ignore all the fiscal issues raised.

Alexander Gonzalez

But the trustees have continued to keep raising students fees at about 10 percent per year- and will continue to do so.

How else will they have the money to keep their 23-campus administrations happy?

Oops! I meant to say competitive.

Watching the swine flu circus from Mexico

2009-04-28T09:02:00.001-07:00

ARROYO SECO, Jalisco, Mexico - The day the story broke about the outbreak of swine flu in Mexico City, news media immediately began using the word 'pandemic.'

It is a powerful word, laden with frightening implications, especially as it is usually pronounced in television broadcasts with the same gravity as saying 'nuclear war.' In this case, certainly four days ago, it was also a wild overstatement. I trust it is still an overstatement as you read this. But it did keep people glued to television sets - and advertisers smiling.

Here on the west coast of Mexico, in the very southern portion of the subtropical state of Jalisco, children are out of school and playing in the streets (part of the nationwide alert and school closures). People who have coughs are seeking doctors, when they might not have otherwise. Pigs are eyed somewhat suspiciously, though not avoided. But because there are very few televisions in the village, life simply continues without CNN's Wolf Blitzer's bulletins reporting, well, not that much.

I'm innocent, I tell you! I'm innocent!

This is not to diminish the genuine concerns people have about their health, and the health of their families and friends. But the hammering away on 24-hour news channels by hyperventilating newscasters (with non-news flu updates) isn't helping.

Washing your hands more often might, especially after handling money.

The swine flu presents a health threat, certainly. So do a plethora of other communicable diseases all over the globe, currently dormant. Read Richard Preston's book The Hot Zone for a terrifying look at how close the world came to have a major outbreak of ebola nearly 30 years ago. (You can watch the movie based on his book titled Outbreak, though the film is not as compelling.)

The Hot Zone excerpt

But there is another threat to be aware of in all this, the threat posed by fearful people. How many cases of swine flu will it take before some zealots carrying highpowered rifles on the U.S. Mexico border decide that anyone trying to cross in the U.S. poses a clear and present danger to them - and their families?

In Sacramento, Calif., three school-aged children have been diagnosed with the flu, though their cases appear to be, well, simply a flu and not in any way life threatening. But there is likely a lot of free-floating anxiety around St. Mel's school and it's hard to say whether the first child diagnosed will become a pariah to his classmates when he recovers and school reopens.

Let's hope not.

Let's also hope that this swine flu burns itself out quickly - as many viruses do - and that we don't have hear the word pandemic mispronounced again for a long time.

Now please go wash you hands. Who knows who might have been using your computer keyboard?

Asking tough questions is part of journalism

2009-04-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The shooting in Folsom, Calif a few days ago - the shooting in which a 23-year-old man with a knife was shot and killed by three Folsom police officers - is a good example of a kind of journalism to which readers should object.

Shooting story

While The Sacramento Bee is congratulating itself on its investigative work on a Child Protective Services' story - and the resignation of the CPS chief - it is letting lesser stories slip through without forcing issues, asking the tough questions.

What's wrong with the shooting story?

From the outset, the story takes on a clearly subservient tone to the Folsom Police.
"Folsom police have released few details..." And later, " Beattie did not name the three officers involved in the shooting."

Well, that may be so. Police departments are usually quite secretive about their actions and inner workings.

But please! Three police officers apparently blasted a 23-year-old man with a knife, after unsuccessfully using a taser on him. Is it too much to know who the three officers are?

Credit should be given to The Bee for following up on the sketchy story that was originally published.

But now it's time to turn up the heat on the Folsom Police and let readers know what happened. Perhaps instead of saying, "Folsom police have released few details..." The Bee could say that the Folsom Police are REFUSING to release details, REFUSING to say what police were involved in the shooting.

And maybe the reporters and editors who did the tough work on the CPS story can put those investigative skills back to work before the three unnamed Folsom Police officers have trouble getting their tasers to work properly again - and shoot another resident with their service weapons.

Another Sacramento Bee column bites the dust

2009-04-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Although I kicked my television addiction some years back, thanks to a 12-step program I found out about by watching late-night TV, I have always enjoyed Rick Kushman's sometimes annoying, but always interesting, columns on television shows, trends in television, and entertainment.

His coverage of what was coming up was the closest thing to must-read stuff in The Sacramento Bee, right after the editorials of course. The editorials were/are must read because...well, let's make this a nice column, ok?

Rick speaking at a convention

I used Rick's columns as a way to keep track of things, to see if new programs were, well, worth watching. I trusted/trust his judgment on a lot of such matters.

Most of all, I observed over the years that in his writing he was always brutally honest, even at times when maybe it wasn't easy to be. That's hard when you get paid to write for a living - and have corporate bosses who are worried about advertisers and advertising dollars.

Now Rick Kushman has been quantum shifted, like many Bee staff members who have survived the latest round of layoffs and cutbacks. I'm sure there is some logic in cutting out the TV column, but I don't understand it. A local take on television, from a local guy who was/is well-known in the community, was a draw for many readers.

This one, for sure.

And The Good Life column? Well, it may have its devotees, but it doesn't hold my attention the same way Rick's analysis of The Sopranos did.

The Sopranos

I have invited Rick to speak in my classes at CSU, Sacramento on many occasions. And he has almost always been able to squeeze my students in, despite a schedule that defies description. He has an open invite for this fall to tell us about The Good Life - and maybe all those insider tidbits about television he doesn't get to write about anymore.

Crash with a wild pig nets motorcyclist $8.6 million

2009-03-31T08:26:00.000-07:00

MONTEREY, Calif., USA - This story is one of those that late night comedians will likely have some fun with, for some time.

Wild pig crash

But it isn't really funny, for any of the injured parties. (The motorcyclist, the wild pig and the taxpayers of the State of California.)

I have a great deal of sympathy for the motorcyclist who was hurt in the crash. He is in a wheelchair and is unlikely to walk again.

But how the state of California came to be found responsible for the accident is beyond me.

Wild pig, acting pretty tame

It's true, state highway officials were (and are) aware that wild pigs - as well as other creatures like humans, pheasants, rabbits, raccoons, snakes and the occasional coastal deer - sometimes wander across that stretch of state Highway 1.

They still do. (The animals, not the state officials, though they are free to do so...)

But what exactly should state officials do to ensure the safety of people riding motorcycles at night along dark stretches of rural highways? Close highways after dark? Shepherd all wild animals to special animal crossings with guards wearing bright yellow uniforms to hold up traffic?

A few years ago, a good friend of mine had to swerve to miss a deer on a highway in Northern California. In the process of dumping his bike on the road, he racked his ankle sufficiently to put him in a wheelchair for months, then more months on crutches and finally some physical therapy. He also has several metal pins holding his ankle together.

He didn't file a lawsuit against the deer - or the state of California for not issuing enough hunting licenses to keep those dangerous does off the highways. He spent a lot of time recovering, paid his medical bills (with the limited assistance of his insurance company) and rode on, making him luckier than the motorcyclist who hit the wild pig.

Perhaps I need to read the transcripts of the trial to see how the jury came to its conclusion in awarding the $8.6 million in this cyclist vs. pig case.

Might make fascinating - and/or disturbing - reading.

Living in 'The Long Emergency' - horrible at best

2009-03-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

PUERTO VALLARTA, Jalisco, Mexico - A friend of mine - familiar with what we are doing in Mexico - recommended a book to me called The Long Emergency, by James Howard Kunstler.

Thanks a lot, Randy... As if I needed more material for nightmares.

It's not a novel, or a work of fiction. But it is more frightening than anything Stephen King or Dean Koontz has pumped out. And it's unlikely they will be able to top it, unless they spin off what Kunstler has written.

Why? Well, because much of what he predicted is already happening, just a few years after the book was published.

Cover of The Long Emergency

The book's major premise is that we are running out of oil (no duh...) and that as that happens, most of what we know will either completely disappear or have to be transformed in ways that are not pretty. I've read some of this before, but not with such dramatic, clear analysis and portraits of what life is likely to be like for the balance of the century.

(Good luck my children and grandchildren.)

Take the suburbs. If there isn't enough oil to make gasoline - and gasoline for cars - how will people commute to work? Or shop. Or get to the doctor? Or? (Forget trains and buses, at least in the U.S. Our systems can't handle the few people who want to use they now.)

Kunstler's grim world is one in which we all will end up going back to the basics of agriculture and subsistence living. The job openings - maybe in just 20 or 30 years - will be for farm hands, not public relations practitioners.

American Gothic - in 2030?

More to the point, he also talks in detail about the entire house of cards built by most of the world in which we have been depleting resources at a rate so fast it makes you dizzy. He also talks about the U.S. housing situation that tipped the scale so neatly, catapulting the U.S. into its current downward spiral and recession.

Before you dismiss all of this with a wave of that magic wand that says 'alternative energy and new technologies will save us,' read his analysis of why that magic wand won't be nearly enough to save billions of people in the world from starving to death.

And for anyone who thinks government - that of the U.S. or any nation - will be able to keep life as we know it afloat, perhaps a listen to the short interview might convince you otherwise.

In case the book seems, well, a little too much to chew on, Kunstler also wrote a sort piece for Rolling Stone that sums up most of the themes of his book.

Sweet dreams, y'all

Here's the link to Rolling Stone:

Rolling Stone article

NY Times puts Mexico's troubles into perspective

2009-03-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

Just a few days ago, I wrote about CSU, Sacramento and UC Davis telling students to avoid Mexico for spring break, out of fear that the violence in some border towns somehow threatened their vacations in places a thousand miles south of the border.

A New York Times article published Monday, puts much of hysteria about Mexico and safety into perspective.

I won't repeat it here, but it well worth reading to get some balance to the hyperbole being pumped out by media outlets - and apparently even California universities who should know better.

Here is the link:

NY Times on Mexico

Puzzling out how dangerous Mexico travel might be

2009-03-18T08:08:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - I wondered how long it would be before fears about safety in Mexico would reach Central California.

Sacramento is almost always somewhat behind the curve on this stuff.

But in response to some U.S. State Department travel advisories about dangers in border towns, CSU Sacramento and UC Davis have jumped on the fear bandwagon, urging students to skip spring break in Mexico because of the situation in some of the border towns.

The border towns.

One more time?

The border towns.

Downtown Nogales border fence

Now I don't mean to suggest that these students - or me either - should go hang out on a street corner in Ciudad Juarez or Nogales, or even Tijuana. Maybe especially Tijuana.

I would also advise these same students to stay out of parts of Oakland, Calif. at any time of day, thank you very much. Ditto for New York, Boston, Washington D.C. and most other U.S. metropolitan cities, all with their own safety issues - at least at certain times of the night.

But, please! Mexico is a huge nation, full of interesting places to visit. Many safe places, I might add. I've been to many and expect to go to many more.

In the meantime, in addition to Sacramento-area colleges urging students to avoid heading south, one area church was highlighted in a Sacramento Bee article published today. Its leaders are pulling the plug on a 13-year-old help project for a Mexican city in which about 700 young people - young people who annually have helped build houses and do various good-will projects in Guadalupe Victoria, Mexico. Instead, a contingent will travel to Fresno to help the needy there.

Good for them for donating their spring break time to do good works.

But, as they say in Mexico: Cuidado! (Watch out!)

There are parts of Fresno that might have their own drug cartels and wars going on.

Downtown Fresno by day

Labor union releases names of staff let go from Bee

2009-03-11T15:27:00.001-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - While I haven't heard back from the editor of the Sacramento Bee about my request for the release of the names of the persons most recently laid off, I did discovered that the Guild, the labor union representing most of the people, has published a list.

It's available at:
Guild Website

Many of the names on the list are familiar to me, but one hit particularly hard, a woman named Debbie Meredith.

Debbie and I worked together when I was a consultant at the Bee, working as fill-in editor of the Forum section, taking over from Bill Moore.

Bill Moore left last year, just ahead of the tsunami in the first wave of buyouts and layoff. He is having a ball writing and working as a freelancer.

Debbie kept a lot of wheels spinning smoothly in the editorial pages section, and no doubt will be missed. I hope the next chapter of her professional life turns out as well as Bill's has.

My first official post to The Sacramento Bee's 'Street Talk'

2009-03-11T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Sacramento Bee started a new feature - today - in which it has asked some readers to comment on what's going on in the community.

I used my first posting to ask Sacramento Bee editor Melanie Sill to release the names of the people who have been laid off by the newspaper - a list she has refused to let loose, citing privacy concerns of the people involved.

I have sympathy. But for those folks whose names have appeared on the front page of the newspaper (in their bylines), I think readers have the right to know.

But that's what I said below:

==================================

This new Sacramento Bee feature called Street Talk – the one you are reading – is supposed to help prompt dialogue about the city.

So I apologize - in advance - for making my first comments about The Sacramento Bee itself, and for publicly asking editor Melanie Sill for a favor, on behalf of the community.

No, I am not going to go off on the newspaper for being either liberal or conservative. (I would not characterize it as either.) And really, The Sacramento Bee is a huge part of the community, in good part because it helps define the city and its people.

That’s why the travails of the plummeting advertising revenues – which has now translated into layoffs and buyouts of longtime news employees - is such a tragedy. The reporters and editors of the newspaper represent a collective historical record that is immediately lost when they head out the door.

In my years as a journalist in Northern California, whenever I moved to a new newspaper in a new town (which I did frequently, much to the chagrin of my children and wife) the first person I sought out was the police reporter. I wanted to know what areas of the city or town were safest.

Since last summer, the Bee has been hemorrhaging staff, including news reporters and editors who are taking valuable knowledge with them. More to the point, these are people who regular readers of the newspaper have come to know through their bylines in the newspaper and come to trust (mostly).

And though editor Melanie Sill has done a fair job of reporting about changes in the newspaper, the only way readers know that a staff member has left (either voluntarily or through a layoff) is their name disappears.

In my case, I usually figure it out when I ship off an email and bounces back, telling me the person does not exist.

So, in this first Street Talk posting, I want to send a message directly to editor Melanie Sill: please tell us who is leaving. These staff are more than just employees of your newspaper and the corporation. They are our neighbors, often friends, and certainly people about whom we are as curious as the endless doings of the state legislature.

======================
I did receive one comment from Dan Weintraub, who is the editor/controller of this feature.

FROM DAN WEINTRAUB:

Mike--Melanie has her hands full this week so I am not sure she is going to respond here. In case she does not, let me tell you what she has said both publicly and privately about this issue: Some people who are laid off want their names to be public, and some don't. Some think it will help them get new jobs, others don't care about that or simply don't want their job status to be broadcast in public. Also, many of the people who have lost their jobs are not public figures at all. They work in circulation or production or advertising. Would you suggest we post their names as well? Finally, being a resourceful journalist yourself, I bet if you googled long enough you just might come up with the list you are looking for.

MIKE'S RESPONSE:

News staff whose bylines have been published in recent years, certainly. Why deny the Legislators - who have been skewered - the knowledge that their most vigilant observers are headed to the unemployment lines? Ditto for photographers...

The Sacramento Bee's bad news just keeps on coming

2009-03-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - These are sad times for journalists and journalism in general, even more so for The Sacramento Bee.

After so many years of being a company that took care of its employees like they were family, it has had to resort to cannibalism to patch a ship that is sinking so fast, most industry observers believe the McClatchy Company will go bankrupt by the end of the year.

Those people are the optimists.

In one of Dan Weintraub's 'conversations' the whole issue of the future of newspapers is being kicked around, most often with the focus on content. The contributors routinely gripe that The Bee's news coverage is biased (liberal or conservative). They have a point. News stories have become so laden with writers' opinions and biases, it's impossible to ignore.

But forget content.

Newspapers - like The Bee - are in a death spiral because their advertising revenues have been seriously depleted, thanks to the same economy that is savaging housing and everyone else.
If there were still advertising revenues, The Bee would not be getting ready for another astounding round of layoffs, furloughs - and even pay reductions.

After so many years of having a virtual monopoly - and rolling in advertising cash - the whole concept of pulling back has been foreign to The Bee management.

But The Bee needs to be more open about what's happening inside 21st and Q Streets. Certainly if it were any other major organization in Sacramento (public or private) reporters would be swarming over the debris to tell the stories.

For a look at what The Bee management has offered its employees, this url tells the story:

Bee union news

Amigo retires from The Sacramento Bee, just ahead of the tsunami

2008-12-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - A friend of mine is about to retire from The Sacramento Bee newspaper, not too far ahead of the tsunami that has been slowly swamping the print industry for the last couple of years.

Howard Weaver

Howard Weaver, 58, who has been the top news executive for the entire McClatchy chain since 2001, has opted to pull the plug by the end of the year, a reaction he says more because of losing a younger brother last year - and understanding that life is getting short - than a bailing out on the industry.

Weaver had the fortune - and misfortune - to be part of the newspaper group that went out and bought up newspapers all over the country in the last couple of years, at precisely the moment that the future of the newspaper industry starting looking its most bleak. And just a few days ago, a group that rates the futures of newspapers says its likely that Weaver's home newspaper - The Sacramento Bee - is likely to go into the tank, very soon.

Goodbye Bee?

Howard was the editor of the editorial pages of The Sacramento Bee in the 1990s when I worked as a fill-in editor at the newspaper, doing the Sunday Forum section, Op-Ed and occasionally the letters to the editor.

Every day I would have to walk my page proofs by Howard's desk for an ok, which he gave quite perfunctorily.

Until one day. That day he said, "The only reason I look at these pages is to make sure you don't say 'fuck' in a headline."

I never did use any epithets in headlines and he never complained about a single page header, page design or editing job I had done in the years I worked with him.

Howard was a great editor and I missed him when he moved up to the corporate offices.

I suspect he will be greatly missed by all, now that he has moved on.

'Henry Poole is here' - a movie full of miracles

2008-11-21T08:55:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The film 'Henry Poole is here' is one of those sad-funny-happy-tragic pieces that come along all-too rarely.

Of course, if all movies were as good as this one, all I would ever do is watch movies.

But this film is not to be missed.

Luke Wilson plays the title role and does a fabulous job as a man with a serious problem. He is rarely off screen during the whole movie, but never tiring.

His interactions with his many neighbors, the local Catholic priest - even a young incredibly myopic young woman in a grocery store - are fun and sad, simultaneously.

Definitely a movie that requires a box of Kleenex nearby. Maybe two.

Here are several photos - plus the official trailer at the bottom. Like all movie trailers, it gives away a little too much of the key scenes - which I tried not to do here. But it does not give away the real punch line of the movie, which surprised me.

Henry Poole with his neighbors

With neighbor Esperanza

A lighter moment in the movie

CSU administrative greed makes life tough for novelists

2008-11-19T08:20:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - A novelist writing a tome of fiction would be hard pressed to pen a more unbelievable story than the one that appeared in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

In the midst of a huge state budget meltdown (not to mention that little problem with the rest of the nation, Wall Street, the Big Three Automakers, et al), the California State University has been handing out pay raises to many of its top administrators like party favors - and adding more administrators, too.

At the center of this is one very familiar character, Chancellor Charles Reed, who has never met an administrator he didn't want to hire - or pay more.

A smiling Reed - and why not?

Here is a link to the full story:

Let Them Eat Cake

The pay raises themselves are not that big of a surprise for people who have the gastrointestinal fortitude to follow the mishaps (and greed) of this university system.

The corruption in the CSU has been evident for years, though the arrogance seems to be growing faster than the national debt. When the faculty at the CSU, Sacramento campus held a vote of no-confidence in campus President Alexander Gonzalez two years ago, the CSU Board of Trustees yawned, despite clear evidence the president took money from the academic budget for public relations.

Only weeks ago, the same smiling the CSU chancellor voluntarily gave $31 million back to the state without a whimper while simultaneously telling faculty that contracted pay raises were not coming.

Reed gives up the cash

Ironically, a group formed last year to fight budget cuts - the Alliance for the CSU - is sponsoring a massive rally on CSU, Sacramento campus today to collect sad stories about how the lack of funds is going to impact the quality of education.

Too bad Chancellor Charles Reed and the rest of the Board of Trustees are so hard of hearing.

Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla - from the NY Times

2008-11-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The New York Times has eclipsed The Los Angeles Times as my must-read newspaper of the day, in good part because of the guest columnists they pick up.

A few days ago, they had a great piece by Dick Cavett, (the former talk show host), about the mangled syntax of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin

This link will take you to the full original posting:

Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla

But here are some excerpts:
-----
"Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn’t ailing. Three out of these five implements — answering machine, fax machine, printer, phone and electric can-opener — all dropped dead on me in the past few days

Now something has gone wrong with all three television sets. They will only get Sarah Palin."

-----

"What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”"

"My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars."

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

(A cynic might wonder if Wasilla High School’s English and geography departments are draped in black.)

Dick Cavett

Exactly why did California recall Gray Davis?

2008-11-06T14:22:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - It was only five years ago that then-Governor Gray Davis was booted out of office because of looming budget deficits.

And it was the same five years ago that Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped up to the plate and became governor on a platform of reform, fiscal prudence and, ahem, balancing the budget.

It's a lot easier to do things in the movies when the script is written your way, right governor?

Today, Schwarzenegger stepped in front of the television cameras to outline how he thinks the state should deal with an $11 billion problem, a problem that seems to grow every time someone decides to run the deficit numbers again. Maybe they should lock up all the calculators at the Department of Finance and just keep printing state checks. It seems to work for the federal government.

The deficit and the tax hike

Governor Schwarzenegger shows the depth of the problem

The governor is proposing a 1.5 percent hike in the state sales tax - a tax hike which GOP members of the legislature will not approve, even with Schwarzenegger's massive biceps twisting their arms. On the other side, he says it's also time to take another whack out of all education budgets, including $132 million from the University of California and the California State University.

As mentioned here last week, the Chancellor of the CSU, Charles Reed, already came up with $31.3 million when the governor asked for voluntary contributions to solve the fiscal crisis.

Reed hands over the cash

Doubtful that the CSU will get much credit for that appeasement payment by Chancellor Chamberlain, er, I mean Chancellor Reed.

The state is in an ever-tightening fiscal corner, a result of voters approving so many bonds and initiatives over the last 30 years - all of which require special payments here and there. The state legislature and governor really don't have much maneuvering room, except to go after school budgets which represent about half of the state's general fund.

And schools have their own legal mandate (Proposition 98) for how much money they are supposed to receive from state coffers, a mandate that is in the process of being suspended and/or simply ignored as the legislature and governor watch the budget deficit growing.

So what's to be done?

The sales tax hike - the one that GOP leaders are going to oppose and block - is absolutely required. Not that any member of the Republican party will agree and vote for it. Republican Assemblyman Jeff Denham's email to journalists hit my mailbox before the ink was dry on the governor's proposal.

Denham memo to the press

But what about reducing spending?

Can the CSU and the UC take a $132 million reduction? Probably, though there will be plenty of squealing and a dozens of high level administrative conferences (with concomitant travel expenses) on how to handle it.

Can K-12 (and community colleges) really take a $2.5 billion reduction?

Doubtful, not if the public expects things to run as they are.

Run as they are? Hmmm... Maybe it's time for a more radical approach.

Perhaps we should considering shutting virtually all school-house doors, until, oh, say April 1, 2009 - or how about next September? Turn off the lights, the heat, disconnect the telephones and furlough everybody on half-pay, except for administrators and school librarians.

The administrators should get a full-time, unpaid furlough. If there's nobody working, then there are no teachers to administer. The teachers on half-pay can catch up on all the papers they haven't been able to grade and hire themselves out as tutors to students whose parents really want their kids to learn.

And the librarians? Keep the school libraries open and keep the librarians at it on full salary, or maybe with a bonus. If the students still have access to the old technology of books and the not-that-new-technology of computers - and other neat stuff - they will still learn, plenty. Ask any parent of a home-schooled child.

The students might learn enough, perhaps, to offer suggestions to the Legislature on how to deal with the budget deficit and how to avoid the same problem in the future.

Maybe they will learn about Gray Davis, too, and why his recall was mostly about politics, not money.

Sarah Palin says 2012 run for presidency unlikely

2008-11-05T17:27:00.000-08:00

PHOENIX, AZ., USA - Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told CNN that she thinks its pretty unlikely that she will enter the presidential sweepstakes in 2012.

In a video interview (included in the link listed below) she talks about that, as well as working with Obama on energy issues.

This is the same Obama who she said was a pal with terrorists.

Maybe he'll forget what she said when they are working on those energy issues.

Here's the link:

Sarah says no bid for prez in 2012

John McCain was a star on Tuesday, with Obama

2008-11-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

CHICAGO, Ill, USA - The star Tuesday night was not only Barack Obama - though his historic win is the stuff of legend.

The star was John McCain for giving a concession speech that was so good, most people who watched it wondered why McCain hadn't spoken that way during the campaign.

If he had (and not had Sarah Palin as a running mate) he might have done sooo much better.

But that is all history now.

I have to stand totally corrected. I said in March that I did not believe the nation was ready to elect either a woman or a black man as president.

Gawd, it's nice to be wrong in this case.

How much the right-wing nut jobs will let go of their conspiracy theories and other madness remains an issue. But for tonight, let's rejoice.

We have the first black president in the history of the nation. And we have a president about whom the rest of the world already thinks highly.

Yes, we can.

Election fatigue - and the semester - taking a toll

2008-11-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Election day dawned sunny here in California, which predictably means even more people will flood to the polls today, arguably a good thing.

But even with that sunny-day beginning, the long drag of this election - coupled with the semester running short already, in terms of what needs to be covered in classes - has induced kind of early week ennui, as the French would say.

Isn't it nice to be about mention the French again and not be accused of being unpatriotic? I think I will have some Freedom Fries, er, I mean French Fries, with lunch today to celebrate that.

The election fatigue is in good part because teaching journalism requires very close attention to what is going on in the media (No kidding!) and in this case, trying to analyze how the media has behaved (or not) and how politicians and others have manipulated things.

This clip of a Minnesota Congresswoman - who seems to suggest we need to root out people she says are anti-American - is the kind of thinking (or lack thereof) that has me reaching for serious caffeine most mornings and room-temperature merlot in the evenings.

Here in California, the heaviest political action has been over Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage.

Until recently, it appeared that the measure would be easily defeated. But in these final weeks, the campaign in favor has stepped up the rhetoric - and advertising dollars - to the point where it looks like it might pass. The proponents started using a familiar fear-based bogeyman - that the gay lifestyle will now be taught in schools unless the measure passes.

Numerous school authorities across the state have branded that as complete bullshit, but, well, the political advertising just keeps coming.

Over the weekend, I received four phone calls - on my cell phone - from people urging me to vote yes. And it appears that the pro-Prop. 8 forces also made a major buy of internet advertising. My web pages have been flooded with Prop. 8 ads.

For the record, I have no control over the Google ads that show up on those pages.

My students are exhausted by the political chatter, too - and frightened by the economic meltdown. While I worry about retirement income, they worry on the other end of the telescope about their ability to get a job when they graduate.

After today, perhaps we all can get some rest.

I am reminded of that old chestnut I've heard since the 70s:

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Amen to that.

And then there is the old adage from Chicago:

Vote early, vote often.

'The Visitor' - a dramatic tale about immigration

2008-11-02T21:07:00.001-08:00

NEW YORK, New York, USA - The film "The Visitor," starring Richards Jenkins, at first looks like its a simple tale about a depressed college professor who is having trouble getting excited about anything, which predictably would lead to his getting, well, interested in something.

And he does. But it turns out to be way different from what you imagine at the beginning of the movie. And it is anything but simple in Jenkins' performance.

The Visitor turns out to be a stinging indictment of U.S. immigration policies, with enough carefully understated - and damning - scenes to make almost any American's blood boil at the mindless police-state tactics that the film shows the U.S. government employing.

Richard Jenkins takes up the drums

The acting in the movie is superb and I won't spoil the intrigue of what happens by giving away the plot twists and turns.

Suffice it to say that after seeing it, my original idea for a literary journalism piece about immigration has moved way up on the story list. I've heard stories that mirror what the film shows.

Real people here - and outside the U.S. - are caught up in a weird web that is so Kafkaesque, few people want to believe it is real.

Danai Jekesai Gurira and Hiam Abbass

Hiam Abbass

The Visitor - destined to be an American classic?

Maybe.

Education - and the CSU - are bullseye in budget wars

2008-10-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The budgets of all the segments of public education are squarely in the sights of the state government finance people as the state of California attempts to grapple with a state budget that is badly out of balance and getting more so by the day.

Among the many time bombs ticking are the ever-lowering estimates of what homes are worth (which translates into lower taxes - if tax assessors do their jobs) and the race-to-the-bottom spiral of sales tax revenues as state residents hunker down, spend less and thus cut the tax revenues that have already been counted by the state - but not collected.

In the California State University, there is the additional problem of a university chancellor who is all-too-willing to rollover on his own 23-campuses to curry favor with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed

Reed this week agreed voluntarily to give up $31.3 million dollars when the governor asked for various state-funded agencies to chip in to put sandbags in front of the budget-deficit flood.

That seems so reasonable, until you consider that the CSU has already taken a $288 million reduction this year. Originally, the governor said the CSU would have to reduce its budget by $386 million, later relenting and restoring the difference.

And now the governor has gone after a portion of that restoration money, with the likelihood he will come back and ask for more of what he "restored."

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R)

The California Faculty Association - the labor union representing the faculty - is furious that Reed simply agreed to give up the money, indicating in a letter to the governor that cutting the additional $31 million (about $1.3 million per campus) will not hurt the instructional program.

That's bad enough - and arguably untrue - but the union is doubly furious because last year, when budget cuts were looming, the CFA, students, Reed and the CSU Board of Trustees all linked arms and sang a political kumbaya, forming the Alliance for the CSU to show the governor and legislators a united front, spending huge sums of money on public relations in the process, though they didn't gain any real traction with Schwarzenegger, apparently.

Part of that united front meant that the CFA would keep its criticism muted of administrative goings on, including earlier this year when the chancellor got called out for handing out a no-bid contract for more than $2.45 million several years back - a contract that he engaged in specifically to fight the union over its demands for higher wages for faculty.

In early October the university system and Reed got slapped with a $7.7 million lawsuit by the whistleblower in that case (fired by Reed in March) who had publicly raised questions about the propriety of the $4,000-per -day, no-bid contract with C. Richard Barnes & Associates, LLC, of Lawrenceville, Ga. for consulting services.

Whistleblower story

If anyone was surprised by the chancellor's actions this week, they haven't been paying attention.

Practically since the day he took over his job from outgoing Chancellor Barry Munitz (who annoited Reed and convinced the board of trustees to select Reed without a competitive search), Reed has kowtowed to the administrative branch of government while generally thumbing his nose at the legislature.

That thumbing this week has now grown to include the faculty and students who set aside their many earlier differences with Reed to form the "alliance."

And it was only a few years ago that Reed required nearly all the campuses of the CSU to install and operate a complicated computer system called the Common Management System, a software and hardware package that promised miracles but mostly delivered nightmares: cost overruns, technical glitches and conflicts of interest in the bidding process. It even got blistered - along with Reed and many of his staff - in a state audit and was the subject of legislative hearings.

The software in the system remains such a mess, that most campuses refer to it as a full-employment-for-consultants scheme.

The other portions of the Alliance for the CSU - the faculty and students - are regrouping, trying to see they can get back the $31.3 million that Reed turned over without a fuss.

But to do that, they need Reed to agree and tell governor that he has changed his mind and won't turn over the money so easily.

They might as well start singing kumbaya right now and put their energies into figuring out what to do when Reed says (sometime soon) that the CSU can turn over the rest of the 'restored' money without hurting the education of the university students.

8-year-old kills himself - while test firing an Uzi

2008-10-27T20:57:00.001-07:00

WESTFIELD, Mass., USA - It was the kind of headline that makes your stomach do a flip-flop.

An 8-year-old boy at a gun show test fired an Uzi today and had it kick up, with a 9mm bullet going into the boy's head, killing him.

According to the news reports, the boy was at a gun show with his sixth-grader brother and his father to check the place out. Free firing of all kinds of weapons was available to anyone who walked in and paid the entry fees. The father and two boys were familiar with handling guns, though 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj had never fired an automatic weapon before, police said.

All Second Amendment arguments aside, what the hell was anyone thinking, allowing a third grade kid to shoot a weapon like that? Or even letting someone that young in?

Ah, thinking! Yes, thinking. Not much was going on with anyone running the show, or parents who took their children to it for the thrill of blasting a few rounds.

Uzi machine gun

The website that was posted for the gun show has been shut down - no doubt to avoid the hate mail or to serve as possible evidence in a lawsuit.

Here's a link to the San Francisco Chronicle story:

8-year-old dies

Christopher Buckley interview on Daily Show - must see

2008-10-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Christopher Buckley (son of the late William F. Buckley) was a great guest on the Daily Show this week, doing an interview with Jon Stewart that was hilarious at times, and revealing throughout.

Buckley gave up his column with the conservative National Review magazine after he posted a blog entry - on a publication edited by former New Yorker editor Tina Brown - endorsing Barack Obama.

Buckley's best line in the interview actually is a paraphrase of something Ronald Reagan said.

It's worth listening for.

Sarah Palin goes on Saturday Night Live - and is funny

2008-10-19T20:06:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK, New York, USA - The governor of Alaska, GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin, made an expanded cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live this week, showing that she can make a joke.

Alex Baldwin only winced slightly when he got whacked pretty good with a carefully scripted retort from the governor.

Tina Fey's sketch - which precedes Palin's appearance - is priceless, as usual.

Here's the Fey-Palin portion of the show:

Sarah Palin videos are flooding the YouTube charts

2008-10-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The YouTube videos about GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin are flooding the bandwidth of YouTube.

Every day some new video pops up; some are clever, some not so.

And every day, in addition to my scanning of news wires and YouTube and Google Video, I usually get emailed a few links.

The link to the video below was in my email box this morning and made me spray my Earl Grey tea on the computer screen when it got to the chorus.

Interestingly, I felt the same way during the McGovern-Nixon campaign in 1972.

Look how that turned out.

More on the Willie Hortonization of Barack Obama

2008-10-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., USA - The San Francisco Chronicle's Joe Garofoli has been following the presidential race closely and has started writing about the not-so-subtle racism that is creeping in as the GOP forces find themselves behind in the polls.

And getting farther behind by the minute, attack by attack, it seems.

Here's what Garofoli posted today:

Another column, by conservative columnist Kathleen Parker took a look at what she calls GOP code, and how fluent GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin is at speaking in it.

Here's the link to that column:

GOP code and Sarah Palin

Joe Six Pack(s) debate the merits of Sarah Palin as VP

2008-10-07T15:27:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The columnists of the world - and would-be film makers - as well as, I suppose, everybody else with a political ax, are writing and blogging and posting videos about the upcoming presidential election.

This YouTube entry - a couple of guys in a bar debating Sarah Palin's candidacy - should make most people (well, most Democrats anyway) laugh aloud.

It is long, but worth watching until the end.

The Sarah Palin wink - what are we to make of it?

2008-10-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The San Francisco Chronicle is running a guest commentary that suggests that Sarah Palin is actually trying to seduce Americans into voting for her.

No, it doesn't really suggest it - it comes out and says it for the most part.

Sarah Palin gives U.S. the 'wink'

The column does explain a lot about how Palin behaved in her debate with Joe Biden, and behaves on the campaign trail.

The nation's top cheerleader? Gosh. Maybe we should be voting on that.

Here'a a link to the column:

Wink if you like Sarah

Saturday Night Live 'coverage' of the Biden-Palin debate

2008-10-05T09:29:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK, New York, USA - The crew of Saturday Night Live nailed it again in its political coverage of the presidential campaign.

I listened to the debate on the radio, but the areas that were lampooned were ones I heard and chuckled even as the real candidates were saying them.

And having Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifill!

They have geniuses writing those scripts.

Here's the video clip:

Saturday night live skit with Couric and Palin

2008-09-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - In case you missed the most recent Saturday Night Live skit with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin:

Anti-Palin signs from Alaska show real creativity

2008-09-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, USA - The Daily Kos ran an article - with great photos - about the recent Sarah Palin rally, that was quite entertaining.

The signs were really the highlight of the whole piece. If you don't snort a few times and spray some coffee at your computer screen, well, you probably aren't drinking coffee.

Daily Kos link

In the same vein, I received the cartoon below from amiga Marcia Carlson Hein who lives in England.

What were the Founding Fathers thinking?

Humor in politics or is it the politics of humor?

2008-09-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif,. USA - I have to confess that I get a lot of my political news from Jon Stewart, at least the serious stuff.

No, seriously.

I can barely watch any television news anymore, except for Jim Lehrer on PBS. I occasionally get trapped watching the Fox Nut Network when I am at the Capital Athletic Club, soaking in the jacuzzi after swimming laps. Mercifully, the club has the television set up so that the sound is always turned off and the close-captioning turned on.

I can just sit with my back to the TV, which I try to.

But this election has brought out a lot of great humor, a good portion at the expense of the presidential and vice presidential candidates. Of McCain and Palin and Obama and Biden, Joe Biden seems to be getting the least comedic flak. Wait until he debates Governor Palin. Or maybe she'll call that debate off like John McCain did today with Obama.

Palin has been the butt of some pretty interesting stuff ever since being nominated. The 'lipstick-on-a-pig' controversy had cartoonists going wild. But the governor's love of hunting, particularly her desire to drop every Alaskan moose she sees to the ground, prompted the cartoon below, which I saw for the first time today, courtesy of sailing amigo Rennie Waxlax.

Bullwinkle has been shot

Now I have a real affection for that moose. When I reach into my mailbox at the university and someone asks me if I received anything, I frequently respond with a Bullwinkle quote:

"Just fan mail from some flounder."

For those who are musically inclined, here is the Ballad of Sarah Palin on YouTube, which you might have missed in your web surfing.

The line in there about Sarah Palin trying marijuana - but not liking it - will stick in my mind along with Bill Clinton's quote about 'not inhaling.'

Right.

Even the financial crisis has started generating some humor, too. Earlier today I received this cartoon from Pat Lamont, one of the members of The Four Headlamps.

Unfortunately, that's kind sums up the way I feel about the massive bailout of the banks and other financial institutions. Even General Motors is getting ready to ask for a handout.

Check out this link:

Save General Motors?

But I'm sure everything will be just fine.

But if the McDonald's Corporation ever even starts showing signs of financial trouble, we'll need to stop making jokes and start worrying.

Fries with that?

Thomas Friedman's 'Hot, Flat and Crowded' scarier than anything by Stephen King

2008-09-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - Forget the scary movies on the circuit and whatever the latest Stephen King novel offers up to give you a fright.

Instead, have some real life terror. Read Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas Friedman, a book that chronicles a future that is, well, terrifying.

The New York Times columnist has spent years traveling the globe, observing the economies of the world and now has come to the conclusion that global warming, the exponential growth of the earth's population and the flattening of the world are combining to deliver a catastrophe.

No, make that a series of catastrophes.

Book jacket

I am only half-way through the book and already I am convinced we made a mistake by not paying more attention to Paul Ehlich's The Population Bomb, written decades ago. His predictions of famine and other problems were averted thanks to a green revolution and advances in technology.

It won't happened again, he says.

Friedman's contention isn't just that the world is already overpopulated and headed to more crowding. He says that the biggest problem we face is that most of the world is working towards - and well on its way - to becoming just like Americans, in energy consumption and in attitudes about the environment.

Polar bear on his personal ice floe

Friedman's scariest passages relate to global warming, and, as the movie The Day After Tomorrow predicted, climate change is happening faster than even the most gloomy of doomsters predicted just a few years ago.

Let's hope it doesn't happen as fast as it did in that film.

Hot, Flat and Crowded is recommended reading.

At least I think so.

Scene from The Day After Tomorrow

Hunter S. Thompson movie has all the 'right stuff'

2008-09-12T09:23:00.000-07:00

WOODY CREEK, Colorado, USA - The new movie about Hunter S. Thompson is as good - maybe better - than the reviewers have said it is. If you blinked and missed it in the theaters, check it out on DVD in a few months.

A young Hunter S. Thompson

The Admiral and I watched it at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento last night with a crowd of, well, maybe 10 people, all of who seemed to be afficionados of the writer, laughing at all the right spots, crying at others.

For non-HST fans, the movie might not be too charming and it certainly would be somewhat confusing in spots.

But it focuses on Hunter's early career and answers one big question: What the heck happened to him?

It turns out (at least according to the film) that after he totally blew his assignment to write about the fight between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali in Zaire, he lost his ability to write and create for years afterward. It wasn't necessarily that he missed the assignment, the film hints, he might have burned out right about that time.

His ex-wife, who is prominent in the film talking about Hunter, gives a pretty straightforward assessment of what happened then as well as insights into his personality and how he may have ended up trapped in the caricature he created for himself and of himself.

One of the highlights of the film is getting to hear Ralph Steadman, the British artist who accompanied HST on many of his adventures, talking about what it was like to be out on assignment with him.

Total Gonzo, of course.

Ralph Steadman portrait of Hunter S. Thompson

Story with a happy ending - for now, anyway

2008-09-10T20:16:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - The saga of Corti Brothers being forced out of its Folsom Boulevard location ended happily in early September when the people trying to force him out by taking over the store withdrew their offer.

So for now, at least, it seems like the store will remain.

The Sacramento Bee's account is here:

Victory for Corti's

I dropped in to Corti's just twice since being back and the mood in the store is so positive, the already very attentive staff has gotten even more attentive.

Bravo...

When 'just business' isn't a good enough answer

2008-07-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, Calif., USA - A small neighborhood grocery store and deli operation is suddenly being forced to move out of a building it has occupied for 38 years, bumped with just a couple of months notice to make way for - another small neighborhood grocery story and deli operation.

The full story about it is detailed out in The Sacramento Bee here:

Corti's gets the boot

All of this is distressing for several reasons, not the least of which is that I have shopped at that market for years, as it offers some of the best food in the entire Sacramento area. Its staff are/were professionals and treated customers with a kindness and genuine helpfulness that you rarely find anywhere, anymore.

Corti's brothers prepared foods were a staple in my household's diet.

But more distressing is that the store is being forced out in what appears to be a predatory business strategy, the kindest description I can give to it.

The mouthpiece for the new store that will go in - called Good Eats - just a few months ago touted how he was going to remodel a restaurant called Andiamo's just 20 blocks away. He got lot of free advertising and was played up as being a really 'good guy' because he was going to remodel and renovate the site. Another company, Whole Foods, said if it could get the land, it would level it and build a new modern building.

Column on Good Eats

But suddenly that renovation seems to be forgotten and instead, Mike Teel has engineered the unceremonious ouster of the one store that would have provided a level of competition, one could deduce.

'Just business,' I suspect Mike Teel would say.

Teel is the presumptive heir to the Raley's Grocery Store fortune, news accounts always say, though his rather unceremonious departure as CEO of that chain of stores a few years back has many people wondering if the family would prefer to give all the money to the Hare Krishnas, rather than him.

Smiling at the demise of Corti Brothers?

But if anyone was surprised by this, they didn't watch what this same man did at Prosper Magazine last year, the magazine of which he was the major owner/publisher.

In that unsavory debacle, Teel shocked the staff of the magazine - a very solid group of people - by suddenly announcing last November that it was folding. The staff had no indication that he was about to dump the project. And why would they? It wasn't many months before that Teel stood center stage at one of the most extravagant and well-staged downtown parties I have ever seen in the state capital to announce a redesign of Prosper. And a lot of those comments were about what great future the magazine had, how much faith he had in the staff... and, and, and...

A great future predicted

The good news out of all this, I suppose, is that the customers loyal to the Corti Brothers store will seek out the place, no matter where it moves. The good people who have worked there - some their entire working lives - deserve to land on their feet. And I think they will.

And Good Eats? Well, it would be bad karma to wish Mike Teel and his associates in this business any ill. Or to wish that bad things befall Nancy Cleavinger, the landlord who grabbed at getting a higher rent payment, even it meant slapping the community (and a tenant of 38 years) in the face. I think both Mr. Teel and Ms. Cleavinger are about to come under the microscope for all their business dealings.

Too bad Prosper Magazine isn't still in business. This is just the kind of juicy story the editors like to get ahold of.

Oh, maybe that's why the magazine was closed down.

And so it begins - the non-race 'race' for President

2008-07-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., USA - There have probably been other such stories in recent days, but the one in today's San Francisco Chronicle was the first I had seen of its type.

Here's the link:

McCain can smile now

So what's the big deal?

Well, a month ago, when all the polls showed that Obama was running away with the election, I opined to a group of skeptics that there is no way that the mass media of the U.S. could let that happen. It's just not, well, competitive and fun.

A nation that believes the Super Bowl is more important, than, well, whatever happens in the rest of the world, is unlikely to allow any political contest to be soooo one sided that there is essentially no contest.

Thus we are about to start reading stories that say McCain is moving up, creeping up, slowly making progress, showing surprising strength.

And so on.

McCain stands toe-to-toe to Obama

Essentially, what is about to happen, is a huge surge for McCain, not a real surge, not a voter-generated surge, but a media-interprets-the-polls surge that will ensure that the pundits keep punditing that McCain is still in the race and that readers and viewers should keep their eyes glued to the race.

Oh, and glued to the advertisements. The advertisements!

A cynical view you say? Perhaps.

But track the last dozen presidential elections and watch what happened as the months before the actual balloting happened. It looked from the outside as if there were see-saw battles. In truth, that's not what was going on at all.

I have to digress here, however, to point out that Al Gore probably did win the election against George Bush. The Bush 'victory' was due to voter fraud and manipulation of voting machines.

That aside, look for McCain to begin a slow climb up to parity with Obama in the next few months so the media can have a healthy (and lucrative) horse race as we approach November.

It's the American way, at least for the media.

Living in - and with nature - well worth pondering

2008-07-09T08:39:00.001-07:00

VALOIS, New York, USA - First it was Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, then it was a flurry of stories about the food shortages worldwide, then the revelation that one of the major demands on the oil supply is to ship food from one place in the world to another - even though it makes more sense to buy locally.

My thinking on all this is definitely in process, but in the meantime, I have a small garden planted in the yard (quite popular with the rabbits), our vegetables and fruits are purchased from local growers and as much as is feasible, we are buying things made locally, even if we pay a slight premium.

Results of 1-minute's worth of berry picking

This all was brought to mind when I read a review of a book called The Future of Nature, a collection of essays on human ecology selected and introduced by Barry Lopez. The book looks at how it it that so many people live so sequestered from the outdoors. In one essay, one writer laments that our public schools have cut out natural history for the most part. And instead of first-hand experiences with nature, most things are second-hand - computer models, simulations or videos of other people have the experience.

I'm not suggesting that anyone should be required to have the experience of having a nest of angry yellow jackets right on your ass as you run across the yard to get away. But seeing a video of that fury - and living in it - are very different experiences.

(I think that's why those videos those they show in driver's education classes are generally ineffective with young drivers.)

I remember that several years ago, when a comet was passing by at about 4 a.m. one morning (and Admiral Fox rousted the family to watch it), both of our then-teenage sons said you could see it much better on their computer screens, through a livecam from NASA.

Good grief.

Another writer, (cited in an excellent review of the book written by Tom Murphy of Mansfield University and published in Mountain Home Magazine), says that what we call the environmental crisis is largely a result of us giving up control. With corporations and governments almost always being the ones taking care of our needs, they go for the cheapest way or product, where they will either save money for taxpayers (government) or be able to reap the biggest profit for shareholders (corporations).

Not to rag too much on the nation of China or the corporation of Wal-Mart, but I have been very disappointed - over and over - in the quality of most of the things I have been purchasing this summer, sold by Wal-Mart and made in China.

Tools fall apart after a couple of uses, electrical devices short out, and clothes only make it through the washing machine a couple of times.

Yes, the tools, electrical devices and clothes were very cheap to buy. Like Captain Ron says in the movie of the same name, "It shows."

A friend who owns a local auto dealership told us a few days ago he had found a garden rake for sale at Wal-Mart that was Made in the USA. He snatched it up quickly and has been showing it to all his friends, along with the three he had already purchased this summer that broke the first time he tried to put some muscle behind the handle. The USA model is still keeping his yard clean, he says.

The book is on my reading list for the summer, the perfect time to read it because the whole idea of eating, growing and buying locally is a lot easier to digest (sorry about the pun) in the summer. But even at that, the quarts of berries picked this morning will make their way into jars of jam to be enjoyed long after the winter snow has started flying here.

Perhaps I'll take The Future of Nature up in the woods and read it by the creek behind our house.

That will also force me to get off this computer and get out there in nature.

A great read place to sit and read

Gonzo journalism might be newspapers' last hope

2008-06-29T11:54:00.000-07:00

WOODY CREEK, Colorado, USA - It was here just three years ago that Hunter S. Thompson blew his brains out, unable to face, well, we'll never really know, except that he was afraid of advancing age, worried that his best years were so far behind him in the rear view mirror that he could barely glance at them.

And then there was the drugs and the booze, of course. There was always the drugs and the booze.

Thompson haunts many journalists because he broke every rule ever taught and in doing so produced some incredibly brilliant writing, brilliant enough that his work flew off the shelves in the late 1960s and through the mid-1970s when the world suddenly became as strange as anything Hunter could imagine.

It was almost as if what many novelists said in the 80s and 90s - real life was so bizarre, who needed fiction?

But a San Francisco Chronicle review of a documentary "Gonzo" - plus the forced 'retirement' of an amigo at the Sacramento Bee - made me wish Thompson were alive to comment on the sad state of journalism in the U.S., and how those in charge of 'saving' it are so unlikely to do so.

Gonzo review

Hunter S. Thompson

Thompson had something nearly every journalist/writer today lacks - a voice. You could read a piece of his and know it was him without glancing at the bylines or any of the illustrations Ralph Steadman frequently published with Hunter's scribblings. He had many imitators, but they were just that, imitators.

Today's journalist/writer - with few exceptions - are mostly worried about mortgage payments, alimony, how their mug shot looks with their column - and simply ensuring that their corporate masters don't get angry and outsource their job to some conglomerate in Bhopal.

Not that it will make any difference, because in the world of corporate journalism, the emphasis is on corporate, not journalism - profitable corporate, profitable at an overall rate that oil companies envy.

And so readers are left with such predictable journalistic Pablum that it seems almost like an insult to that bland breakfast cereal.

Which brings me to my amigo, Bill Moore, who a few days ago left the Sacramento Bee newspaper, a bit of collateral damage to the colossal blunder of that corporation to go into deeply into debt by buying a newspaper chain, then suddenly realizing it was grossly overextended and starting selling assets like at a desperation garage sale.

It's stock went down so fast after that purchase it made Rite Aid look like a winner.

So, as it is with corporations, the people making the biggest salaries find a way to cut the jobs of the people way down the food chain, hoping the stockholders will think that these tiny economies - coupled with redesigns, re-packagings and more public relations - God yes, more and more public relations - will somehow fool readers and the public into thinking that less news, written by more timid (and usually largely uninformed) writers into smaller news pages will be worth looking at.

Yeah, right.

Hunter S. Thompson would probably admire the balls of these people to sell less for more, even though he would hate what they are doing.

So what about this fellow named Bill Moore? Who the hell is he?

Bill Moore had a long career with the newspaper, spending some time out on the news desk before making a gaffe one Sunday many years ago in story choice and placement, a gaffe that eventually pushed him out of news and into the editorial department where he eventually took over as editor of a Sunday section that looked at the world - Forum it was called.

And, as the expression goes, when it was good, it was very, very good. And when it was bad, it was awful.

But Bill had a quirky creative mind and it scared a lot of corporate journalistic types. He fell from grace again a few years ago in change of editors and ending up shuffling letters to the editor in the editorial section of the newspaper, keeping his head down, doing his job, working hard.

And now he is retired, but really just shoved out the door - just when the newspaper needs him the most.

Needs him the most?

This morning, as I was reading the latest batch of 'save-the-newspaper's-ass' columns from various editors:

The new Forum

From The Editor

I was struck by how at the exact moment they were turning Bill Moore loose, he is exactly the kind of creative lunatic the Sacramento Bee needs to get them off their collective, smug asses and start publishing stories and photos and information that people would really want to read.

Could he produce, edit, suggest true Gonzo journalism to make the Sacramento Bee readable? I don't know for sure. But I think so.

But now that that the newspaper has sent him to the unemployment office, it won't either.

Too many deaths of too many good people

2008-05-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

PUERTO VALLARTA, Jalisco, Mexico - The last few weeks I noted the passing of two people who influenced me greatly in my life: Norman Mailer and Robert Mondavi.

Mailer influenced me by his writing and his overpowering intellect. I believe that he was one of the smartest people in the nation. Certainly among the top one-tenth of one percent. I will be using some of his books this fall when I teach a class called Literary Journalism. (No, it is not an oxymoron.)

I read almost all of his books and magazine articles, with his 1965 novel, An American Dream, being my favorite. I read it while at Villanova and parts of it still haunt me.

I met Mailer once in the early 1970s after he had given a great speech at the College of Marin in California about the dangers to democracy posed by the Republican party and the lunatic right wing. I took my well dog-eared copy of An American Dream to him for an autograph and in one of those moments, he and I locked eyes in full battle mode. If you read much Mailer, you will understand that we disliked each other instantly. We had a psychic punchout.

And this was after my years of admiring his writing. Later, I still read every word he published and came to see his true genius was as a social commentator, not as a novelist. Had we shared a few cocktails together, we might have become friends - or duked it out in the parking lot.

Norman Mailer

The death of Robert Mondavi, the grand old man of vinters was sad, too, because I admired his empire and his dedication to the craft of winemaking.

I met Robert at a his Christmas party at his winery in 1972. I walked up to the open bar and ordered my favorite drink at the time, a Tom Collins - an act that almost caused the bartender to faint.

The bartender told me they had probably 25 different varieties of wines, and that I could have all I wanted of any of them. But never, he said, never, mention hard liquor again inside the winery walls.

An hour later, I told this same story to friendly white-haired fellow sitting next to me at the dinner table who laughed very loud. He later stood and offered a Christmas toast for the health of everyone - a toast that included a funny story about the young newspaper reporter sitting next to him who had asked for a Tom Collins at the Robert Mondavi Winery Christmas party.

Yes, it was Robert Mondavi.

And yes, he really did think it was funny.

To this day, I drink Mondavi wines from time to time and think about that even and how gracious he was then, and until the day he died.

Robert Mondavi

Rest in peace, Robert. Have a sip of some celestial wine - or break down and have a snort of hard liquor. Tequila is worth the change.

And rest in peace, Norman. Perhaps now you understand how important that copy of An American Dream was to me so many years ago, and why I still keep it locked in safe place.

As Time Goes By: Actress from 'Casablanca' dies

2008-04-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

CASABLANCA, Hollywood, USA - The woman who played a young refugee in trouble in the 1943 film Casablanca has died, prompting me to watch Casablanca again last night.

It is still my favorite movie, by a loooooong shot.

Joy Page

Her part in the film wasn't huge, but pivotal, because it prompted Humphrey Bogart to get out of his slump and do the right thing, kind of the theme of the entire movie. More on that in a moment.

From reading most of the obituaries of Page (I read five), you would think she peaked at 17 when she was cast in Casablanca and didn't do much else as an actress. Not true. She had a pretty good career through the 1940s and 1950s. A quick Google search shows she was very successful.

Here's the story about her from the Los Angeles Times:

LA Times story about Joy Page

I wouldn't hazard a guess of how many times I have viewed Casablanca, but at least annually for, maybe, 30 years. I saw it the first time on the recommendation of my amigo John Norton, now a newspaper editor in Pueblo, Colorado. For years we have exchanged letters and emails using various bits of dialogue from the film. We own books that contain the complete dialogue with photos from most of the scenes.

Yes, it's a little nuts. But so is collecting Hummel figurines. And golf! Don't get me started on golf!

Bogart at the piano with Sam

Unless you have been living in Tibet for most of your life, you probably have seen the movie and/or know the plot details. In the photo above, Bogart has just hid the 'letters of transit' he obtained from Peter Lorre early in the film. When John Norton and I would get new jobs, or have signficant changes in our lives, our letters (and later emails) would refer to 'getting our letters of transit.'

I felt like I got mine when I left the university in December to move to Mexico.

Ultimately, Casablanca is a romance and a lesson about how important it is to do the right thing. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman separate at the end of the movie, Bergman going with her husband, Bogart to fight the Nazis.

Although it is the right thing, I practically shout at the screen every time I watch the film: Get on the plane with her! Run, Run!

You're getting on that plane with Victor, if you don't you'll regret it...

Most of the actors and actresses, major and minor, who started in Casablanca have passed away, but thanks to modern technology, the film will be with us for a long time. I'm thinking of watching it again tonight.

Rest in peace, Joy Page, you have your 'letter of transit.'

Who is the hardest worker - and who wants work?

2008-03-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

LA MANZANILLA, Jalisco, Mexico - Since coming to Mexico in December (and during other forays south of the border), I've observed that Mexican workers on the job here are incredibly hard-working.

These people (men and women) seem to go at it steady, take very few breaks, and have great attitudes.

After all "We have work," I've been told by many workmen.

It is such a contrast to the stereotype most Americans have of Mexicans.

Regardless, here's a pretty funny video, sort of related.

Movie 'Stardust' made for the hopelessly romantic

2008-03-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

MOVIELAND, Earth - I watched the movie Stardust tonight, featuring Clare Danes, Charlie Cox, Robert DeNiro and a raft of other excellent actors.

Michelle Pfeiffer is, well, unbelievably good - as a witch.

My recommendation?

If you have an ounce of the romantic in you, watch it... The plot is pretty straightforward, the acting excellent, and the humor? Well it's dry and exceedingly funny at times. It's not science fiction, it's fairy-tale style fantasy. But the action moves so fast it won't let you step away without hitting the pause button for fear of missing some detail.

In a world so full of despair, this movie should make you forget it all for awhile. Maybe even give you a little hope. Magic and all that. I'll be looking at the stars in a new way from now on.

Here's a couple of photos from the film and a Youtube music video that gives quite a few film highlights. Of course, like all trailers, it gives away waaaay too much of what's in the movie. But the song is worth hearing.

Clare Danes, Robert DeNiro and Charlie Cox

Charlie & Clare

Oklahoma's Sally Kern puts her foot in it - deep

2008-03-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

CYBERSPACE, PLANET EARTH - A few days ago I ran across an item posted on Googlevideo.com (a great video site, excellent quality and good choices, generally) about an Oklahoma representative (Sally Kern) who was recorded giving a pretty ignorant, pretty hateful speech condemning homosexuality.

I'm deliberately understating what she said.

It sounded a little like the rants you used to hear in the 1950s and 1960s: Godless Communists are trying to take over our nation. Watch out, Watch out!

Here's a direct link to the clip:

Gay-bashing speech

I forwarded it to a few folks, but today her speech was being covered in all the major media. Oklahoma - a state that already gets a black eye generally for being backward - got whacked again for having a wacko legislator. (I did like the musical Oklahoma, but that's another story.)

San Francisco Chronicle story

I am amazed, not so much that a legislator from Oklahoma gave an anti-gay speech, but at how powerful the internet is that major media could not ignore this relatively small incident. It also raises an interesting specter regarding free speech.

Sally Kern will now become much more careful about what she says in public. Ok, maybe not Sally - she will now hit the talk show circuit - but certainly her like-minded legislators will.

So the question is: Is it better to have her position known? Or better to have her keeping it hidden?

Perhaps that intellectual giant Bill O'Reilly can ask her directly.

Bill O'Reilly

Getting your news from the Fox Nut Network

2008-03-04T06:36:00.000-08:00

LA MANZANILLA, Jalisco, Mexico - It's a been such a nice time in Mexico, never seeing a television screen, but instead reading the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Sacramento Bee, the New York Times.

You get the idea. No soundbites.

My last exposure to television was in the states, watching a moment - thank God it was just a moment - of the Fox Nut Network, er, I mean Fox News Network.

Fox News personalities

But today in my perusing of various video sites I ran across the piece below about Barack Obama and how he is in the sights of the conservative network.

Fox News: Fair and balanced ... Uh-huh.

I hope this presidential election the ballot you cast actually gets counted for the candidate you vote for.

Getting Obama

Actor Roy Scheider passes away

2008-02-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

AMITYVILLE, New York, USA - Actor Roy Scheider has died, leaving a legacy of great films and performances.

My favorite Scheider film is Jaws, a movie I still watch occasionally.

The story, more about people than the giant shark that terrorizes the village, always reminds me of the Henrik Ibsen play, The Enemy of the People, must reading to understand how people can confuse economic well-being with what's best for a town.

A good story about Scheider's life is here:

From SF Gate

Roy Scheider (center)

I don't have a copy of the movie Jaws in my video library - though I do have the music and play it occasionally, or add it to a rockumentary.

R.I.P. Roy...

Trolling for Jaws

Another missed opportunity for the CSU

2008-01-21T07:35:00.000-08:00

HUMBOLDT STATE UNIVERSITY, Arcata, USA - The budget of the California State University - with 23 campuses and a dozen or more satellite operations - is in jeopardy, like all of public education, because of the budget problems of the state of California.

No surprise there.

And the CSU top-dog's response? Shut off applications at all campuses and centers early, so there are fewer students who can actually enroll.

Not a bad move on the surface. Every student costs $$. But when you realize that what money the CSU does get from the state is tied quite neatly to the number of students enrolled across all the campuses, well, it's not a very smart strategy.

To save space, I will not dwell on how many times the California State University Trustees have shot themselves in the foot. Even the Internet has its limitations. Instead, I would point out that this 'crisis' could be (or could have been) used a way to help save a CSU campus that's in trouble. (Oh, is that why the dateline on this article is from Humboldt State?)

Humboldt State - a jewel of small university, but geographically challenged in the far north Redwoods - has had a serious enrollment slump for the past few years, giving its administration the chance to go in and whack academic programs to downsize the university. Its adminstration, however, seems to soldier on, well-paid and secure. Most of the eventual cuts will probably smack more of political payback than real economies designed to make for a better Humboldt State education.

But no matter what, the Trustees - and Chancellor Charles Reed - missed a huge opportunity here to boost that enrollment back to better levels - and avoid turning away at least some of the people who will now miss out on getting enrolled at a CSU campus this year.

Why is Charles Reed smiling?

Instead of shutting off applications at all CSU campuses, the CSU should have left the door open at Humboldt (and perhaps Stanislaus and Dominguez Hills).

The 10,000 students that Charles Reed says the CSU will not have space for this year could potentially solve the enrollment problem at all three campuses. Certainly leaving Humboldt as the one campus taking applications until, say, April 1, would help it from having to terminate entire majors, lay off faculty, and push the school further on a downward spiral.

Of course all 10,000 potential students are not going to flock to Humboldt - but even a thousand would tip the scale and revitalize their numbers.

Because I have been a consistent critic of the CSU administration (with good reason), it's doubtful that anything I say would be taken seriously.

But anyone reading this blog - who thinks this notion could help keep Humboldt State University afloat - should consider contacting Reed and members of the board of trustees, including Robert Achtenberg, who as chair last year led the university in strategic planning effort called "Access to Excellence."

Let's see how serious she - and the rest of the board of trustees - really are.

Robera Achtenburg