MISSYTODAY (and YESTERDAY)... Yuba City, Dixon, Mendocino, and rain everywhere in between... The picture for the day is Colleen’s cat Missy. The BLOG has more pictures of Missy, some of my family, and a wild and rainy day on the Mendocino Coast.

HELEN
ALICE
COLLEEN
MARGARET
BOB
DON

LOOKING FOR A SIGN

A persimmon tree, for Pete’s sake!
Doesn’t that mean anything at all?
And a rainbow... not just one rainbow
but two, one above the other...
and close together in the dark sky...

I looked around for a dove... would
have settled for a pigeon... and
I’d have been satisfied with a twig
of any kind. It wouldn’t have had
to be olive or laurel or whatever
it was the bird brought back
to Noah, and sure enough...
there was a bird up there, and
I got a picture to prove it, but
it was just a blur, a flutter of wings
at the very top of the tree above
the clusters of persimmons... and
I don’t even know what kind of bird
it was... I’m guessing it was a crow
because there are a lot of them around.

“Not enough,” she said, “to be a sign.”

DRIVING NORTH ON INTERSTATE FIVE BETWEEN...GORMAN, LEBEC AND THE GRAPEVINE
WE GROW UP...

We grow...
...and learn to separate the need to know
from the need to please somebody...
especially somebody who claims
to explain God in terms anybody
can understand...

...give me a break!
...water and ice and steam...three forms
but nevertheless exactly the same thing...
an explanation for why God the Father, God
the Son and God the Holy Ghost can be the
same One with a capital G, so there
you have it...

No more than that!
I forgot to ask about snow when I was thirteen.

LISTEN UP!
“Well,” my friend said to me, “It works both ways. The Democrats can benefit, too, by having corporations funnel money into their campaigns. Now, thank goodness, people without money can run for office. The way it has been... only rich people can mount campaigns for public office.”

After I decided not to be lead down that road in our discussion, I said, “That’s neither the point nor the problem with the Supreme Court’s decision that companies and unions are not banned from political spending in candidate elections. The concern isn’t that corporate money can now be used to help some poor, struggling but brilliant reincarnation of Abraham Lincoln get into office and save us. The point is that the Supreme Court has exacerbated an already serious problem. Lobbyists representing wealthy clients already have tremendous access and power in Washington and in State Houses all across the country. They already hold out and withhold financial support and advertising leverage to legislators. Before this new Supreme Court decision lobbyists already had tremendous legal power to funnel money and advertising to influence legislators of both parties. Now the Supreme Court, by a 5 to 4 vote has basically left the money spigot unguarded. Lobbyists can now say to legislators, “If you don’t vote the way my client wants you to vote, my labor union, my company, or my interest group has unlimited money to spend on advertising explicitly aimed as defeating you in your re-election. Abuses, now made legal” will be rampant among both Democrats and Republicans.”

My friend said, “It levels the playing field. Both parties can take advantage.”

I said, “However level the playing field, some games shouldn’t be played at all.”

My friend isn’t a rich man. He is comfortably well off. He is a good person. He’s a man who loves his country and shows it by wearing his flag pin not just on Sunday but everyday. He doesn’t like unions and says often that unions have been the biggest problem for Americans. He likes saying, “Look at Walmart. Now there’s a successful company. Everybody knows that company will be ruined if the employees there are allowed to unionize.”

I decide I won’t go down that road either, partly because there are plenty of examples of egregious abuse and unrestrained manipulation of elections by unions, and it doesn’t do any good in this discussion to name all the benefits both he and I have enjoyed because those benefits were won for us by unions. Of course we have a problem with abuses by some union bosses who are more interested in feathering their own nests than in getting a better life for workers, but this decision by the Supreme Court makes even those problems bigger and less likely to be solved anytime soon. Instead I try to make the same point I made earlier. “Lobbyists can tell a lawmaker that his union or corporation or industry has millions it can spend on advertising for or against him/her in a re-election campaign. The legislator has only to choose. Having lived in Washington and having known many senators and representatives as neighbors, I think I know how easy it will be for many of them to justify a decision to lean in the direction of the money.”

My friend asked, “What can be wrong with letting voters choose for themselves among many voices and ideas when they go to the polls. Isn’t it undemocratic to take away the voice of anybody, even collective voices that come out of organized interest groups and corporations?”

Of course, freedom of speech and individual rights must be protected. I enjoy the freedom to say anything I want to say in this BLOG. So I say to my friend, “I don’t like to see organized interest groups, even those to which I subscribe, have unlimited advertising power to influence candidates and political parties. Imagine what the attack advertisements will be like in future elections... and candidates themselves won’t have to take the criticism for dirty campaigning. A torrent of money and outrageous attacks can be financed by a union or a corporation or any interest group with deep pockets... without a candidate having to seem to be playing dirty. Democrats have been successful at getting big money from sympathetic billionaires and Hollywood money, and Republicans are traditional allies of big corporations and Wall Street; so I’m afraid both sides are likely to get much dirtier.”

President Obama called it “a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics.” My friend is never surprised when I say I like the President’s point of view.

Confined mostly to the apartment on this rainy day in San Diego, I settled on this wooden figural comb for my photograph. I have owned the piece for so long I don’t remember exactly where I got it. I’m old enough now to begin to wish I had kept a record of all these things Margaret and I have accumulated from all over the world. After a search on Google and in a couple of books on African art, I’ve come to the conclusion that it was probably made by the Bamana people of Mali in West Africa. It is 22 inches tall and 8 1/2 inches wide. I’m also guessing it is not very old, probably from the second half of the 20th century. Whoever made it, I am grateful to have it hanging on my wall...

In the early evening the storm cleared for a little while, and I went out to see if I could get a picture of downtown San Diego from the Laurel Street Bridge.

AGAIN TODAY, my journal writing has little to do with the photograph(s); except, of course, my friends who met for lunch are indeed Americans who are being affected by what's going on in Washington.

Good Luck with That, America

Massachusetts has elected Republican Newbie politician Scott Brown to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of veteran senator, Edward Kennedy. Wow! It’s time to pay attention! First Sarah Palin, acknowledged “hot,” perhaps rising star in the Republican Party; and now Cosmopolitan centerfold Scottie has burst onto the American political scene with dazzling smile blazing. The situation begs the question: What's going on here? Barack Obama isn’t exactly chopped liver, and Michelle Obama is easy on the eye as she graces the covers of America’s fashion magazines with arms daringly exposed. Most people agree that Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mary Matlin, and her husband James Carville do more for their parties when they are heard and not seen. Media savvy strategists for both parties know that Americans are suckers for a pretty face... and other attractive body parts. To a certain extent, pretty people have always had the edge in all aspects of American life; how else do we explain the trophy-wives-for-rich-old-geezers phenomenon and Ronald Reagan? And do you remember how tall and, yes, handsome George Washington was before he lost his teeth, which wouldn’t even be a problem today? Most strategists agree that Honest Abe Lincoln wouldn’t stand a chance of becoming a media darling today. And strategists in both parties would probably turn thumbs down on FDR because he couldn’t hide his wheel chair or Eleanor as easily today. I don’t know how to explain Richard Nixon and Joe Lieberman... and even Arni Schwarzenegger is something of a puzzle. His cute little accent is endearing, and people forget his face when he takes his shirt off.

Now, back to Sarah Palin: that move was a mistake for the Republican Party... maybe. On second thought, who cares if she can’t come up with the name of a founding father in under two minutes or that she had thought all those years that the little island off the coast of Alaska was Russia. She’s got it straight now and she’s still hot and that’s what matters. And she reads and writes: all national news papers and magazines and she writes book(s?)... sort of, with a little help. Besides, she’s a bonafide born-again-Christian, and that counts for a lot with many, many, many American voters... and Fox had hired her on as a news analyst... O.K., O.K., so I was probably wrong to characterize her as a bimbo. Maybe she does represent the Party the way the Party wants to be represented.

As for Scott Brown, he’s not yet dry behind... the ears or whatever. Let’s hope he’s not a bimbo. He said three sentences in his acknowledgment speech. The third phrase made me a little uneasy. He shouted, “...and I drive a truck!” He didn’t say anything about a gun rack. It would be a shame to waste that killer smile, so he's already being mentioned as a potential candidate for the presidency. He’s been discovered by America now. He can always get help writing a how-to tea party book or maybe even get into the movies if the thing in Washington doesn’t work out. Guys his age are “in.” And I’d bet good money that he wouldn’t have trouble getting back on the cover of Cosmopolitan... this time for real money, especially for the photo spread if he’d move his hands just a couple of inches in any direction. And there’ll always be a spot for him on “Dancing With the Stars.”

MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE, DON WOOD, IS MY PHOTOGRAPH FOR THE DAY. He had nothing to do with my BLOG writing. As a matter of fact, when he called and asked if I could meet him for coffee, I knew a good conversation with one of the best teachers I have ever known was just the tonic I needed to get rid of the gloom I had injected into my day by thinking and writing about what Pat Robertson had to say about the earthquake disaster in Haiti...

THE WRITING:

Here’s the situation:

The average annual cost of keeping an inmate incarcerated in a California State Prison has risen to more than $50,000. The cost of providing health care to inmates in California prisons is more than $2 billion dollars a year. In California, where a majority of voting citizens continue to insist that the state keep the death penalty, the annual cost of keeping an inmate on death row is $90,000. The average inmate stay on death row is 25 years.

I WANT TO KNOW! How are the people of California better served by paying more for the incarceration of one of their criminals for a year by a factor of ten to one than what it costs to educate one of their children for one year? What sense does it make to decline to provide health care for ordinary, law-abiding citizens when we provide complete health care for people in prison? What sense does it make to continue the travesty of serving justice by sentencing people to die... and then keeping them in the most expensive prison situation for up to a quarter of a century... before they are killed?

----------------------

Here’s another situation:

Eleven thousand gay married couples live legally in the State of California. Gay couples are no longer allowed to marry, but those who married in the four-month window when it was legal in California to do so may stay legally married. California’s population is just under thirty-seven million people. The divorce rate in the state is high, some statistics show that as many as half of all marriages end in divorce in the state. There were no legal gay marriages before 2009.

I WANT TO KNOW! With no evidence whatsoever that the presence of 11,000 gay married couples living among heterosexual marriages has adversely affected any heterosexual marriages, why are so many people still worked up about the issue. What’s the problem?

One of the arguments being presented in the San Francisco court hearing a case that seeks to overturn Proposition 8 attempts to show that since gay couples have been allowed to marry in the Netherlands, the number of heterosexual marriages has declined. Many Americans, like our former President George W. Bush who had never been to Europe before he became president, don’t have a clue what life is like in Europe nor why it is as it is, and they mostly don't care... and I suspect that most of those who say the institution of marriage in Holland has suffered because there are legally married gays living among them don’t know that in the Netherlands NOBODY who gets married can be legally married unless he/she, he/he, she/she participates also in a civil ceremony. The problems with comparing marriage in California with marriage in the Netherlands is that in order to be fully recognized as married under Dutch law, EVERYONE must have a civil marriage ceremony (at a courthouse or a city hall). You cannot get married in The Netherlands by participating solely in a religious ceremony in a church or synagogue or mosque... Even the crown-prince and princess had two ceremonies, one at Amsterdam City Hall and the other in a protestant church.

------------------------

Here’s another situation:

The earth shook in Haiti and it is estimated that two hundred thousand people were killed and thousands more were left in more pain and misery than I have ever experienced in my life. We now know that plate tectonics as the cause of earthquakes is no longer just a theory. We know for sure that an outer layer of the Earth, the lithosphere, is cool enough to behave most of the time like a rigid shell; but there are cracks, and the pieces separated by the cracks are known as plates. The boundaries between the plates grind against each other, producing most earthquakes. It is very clear that something like that happened to cause the earthquake in Haiti.

I WANT TO KNOW! Why would Pat Robertson say, and I quote, “They (the Haitians) were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal [...] ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other.” ...the gospel according to Pat Robertson.

How could anyone actually believe this televangelist has anything useful to say about anything going on anywhere in the world... but then why should we be surprised?

-----------------------

Here’s the situation:

A Christian Education program (with “complete” elementary, middle, and secondary school programs) advertises itself as being “rooted in the historic Christian tenants: that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, that God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and that personal salvation is dependent upon personal acceptance, through faith, of Jesus Christ as Savior... We believe in the existence of a personal, malignant being called Satan who acts as a tempter and accuser, for whom the place of eternal punishment was prepared, where all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity.”

WHAT I WANT TO KNOW! Where does the God who is Love fit into the picture? The Calvary Academy takes little kids into it’s spiritual bosom at age five and keeps them there, if their parents pay the tuition, until they are finished with their junior college program. Why would people want to scare the hell of little kids (and big kids, for that matter) by asking them to believe a personal, malignant tempter called Satan is loose in the world, and presumably doing what the Reverend Pat Robertson says he has just done to Haiti... Oh, wait a minute... was it the loving God pissed over the deal with the Satan who did it to Haiti? I guess I just don't understand. Isn't it enough already that they’ve got things like earthquakes and hurricanes to worry about. I also want to know what kinds of adults these children grow up to be.

Oh, yeah. I think I know. They become the folks who hold the line and insist that gay people shouldn’t have the same rights and privileges of citizenship that “straight” citizens enjoy. Never mind that many gay people say they are Christians. Maybe some gays even believe in the personal, malignant tempter called Satan and the “place of eternal punishment, prepared for all who die outside of Christ, confined in conscious, (don’t overlook the emphasis on the word conscious...) torment for eternity. The god the Calvary folks want their children to “accept” apparently doesn’t want the outsiders, "whose who die outside," to escape even into sleep during their confinement in hell for eternity. Oh, yeah. It really doesn’t matter if gays believe any of the other stuff. If they’re gay and have the audacity to love somebody who is also gay and want to marry and settle with them into something called a shared home, Pat Robertson and his group believe they’re out of luck. It wouldn’t solve the “conscious torment for eternity” problem, but I guess they could always move to Amsterdam... Is that spelled “Amsterdamn”?

COWABUNGA DUDE! PEACE AND LOVE (You've got to click this collage to see it larger)MARGARET AND I ARE FORTUNATE... My Mother would have said “Blessed.” It is our good fortune to have wonderful neighbors and friends. We were reminded today just how blessed we are. At the All Peoples’ Breakfast honoring the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this morning, I sat with Margaret, Jim, Irene, Ben, Grover, Bill, Judy, Bill and Ruth. Everyone at the table truly believes “all” means all in “liberty and justice for all” language of documents and pledges relating to civil rights in American culture and government. Among the friends at our table, there is no one who is mean spirited enough to want less for anyone else than she or he wants for herself/himself and for our own children. Our friends believe, for example, that it is the right thing to do to work for adequate health care for everyone, not just the people who, like us, are fortunate enough to be able to pay the premiums for health insurance. Everyone at the table agrees that we are still striving in our nation for equality and justice for all people, that we are not “there yet.”

We sat at Table 59 in Golden Hall, at the community center in downtown San Diego, a venue that belongs to ALL people. Signs numbering the tables were made by elementary school children in San Diego. Ours was made by Ricky who obviously likes the Mutant Ninja Turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Rafael, and Michaelangelo. Ricky had drawn their pictures and printed the greeting, “Cowabunga Dude! Peace and Love.” He also found room for Dr. King’s Mantra, “Respect, Justice, Peace, Love...” and the theme of the breakfast, “Live the Dream.”

We are all remarkable in our own way... take, for instance, my neighbor Dave. The short bit of writing below
was done before I got the portrait of him as my photo du jour... I didn't have Dave in mind when I was writing
the short piece, but it fits... It fits him or me or you or anybody else I've ever met. We are all chameleons...
we change...

WHAT GREEN IS

It takes a blue sky
to know what green is really.
That's why the eucalyptus over there
won't be the same tomorrow
when rain clouds turn the sky an ashen gray.
Trees are like people in that regard.
You never know exactly what they are
when the background keeps changing.

BEAUTIFUL SISTER AND HANDSOME BROTHER: Elaine Gasser Lanoiselee and John Gasser...
One of the wonderful things about being alive on this earth was being there on the day each of them was born... and still
being there to take these pictures today. Life Is Good!

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY!

For as long as I have known it, Mission Valley where I live has been a collection of freeways, hotels, shopping centers, condominium communities, and a golf course. A narrow strip of green splits the valley in half where the San Diego River meanders out to the sea. When I ride east on Friar’s Road past the dismal, scarred-earth rock crushing operation that will soon become another large residential community, I often think about the 1939 novel by Richard Llewellyn, How Green Was My Valley. It’s the story of a family and a region in Wales radically changed by a mining operation that strips away freshness from hard-working, honest people and green from a valley that was once productive farmland. Mission Valley has been strip mined for years to provide building materials for San Diego County. The photographs posted on the BLOG today tell a story of a final phase of urbanization that has been transforming the valley into an extension of the city. Soon even the scarred earth will be covered with houses and apartments. In the branch library at Fenton Marketplace you can see old black and white pictures of the valley when it was green.


Many years before I arrived in San Diego in 1987, Mission Valley had been mostly dairy farms. The first settlement of Europeans (from Spanish Mexico) build a presidio and a small town (Old Town San Diego) far enough away from the river to be above flood plane. Kumeyaay aboriginal tribal people had lived in the green valley for at least ten to twelve thousand years before they were eliminated or pushed out by Spanish and Mexican settlers. How long will it be before there are no people left who can remember how green was our valley.

I WENT TO OCEAN BEACH this morning to see and photograph the big surf that rolled in as a result of storms far out in the Pacific. ...I asked myself why we think of nature as female and the power of the sea as masculine...Mother Nature or Father Neptune?You may want to click on individual pictures to make them bigger.

YESTERDAY as I followed the steady stream of news reports from Haiti, devastated by the earthquake on Tuesday, I recalled something I had written a few years ago... went searching for it and found it in my journal for Tuesday, April 3, 1990. I had forgotten that I called the poem “Mother Nature...” Why do we say mother nature, I wonder; and why didn’t characterizing nature as female bother me when I wrote the poem? I’m going to give some thought to it... Anyway, here is the poem. You can see why it came to mind yesterday.

MOTHER NATURE

Some people say it isn’t a comfortable way to live,
but if you want to avoid being overwhelmed
by too much or too little of something
you didn’t ask for in the first place,
you’d better always be prepared for Mother Nature
to show up on your doorstep
with her bottomless bag of tricks
demanding to be let in.

There she stands one day when you least expect it
with mud, or is it blood, all over her boots
after having wiped out your cornfield
to say nothing of your herd of cows
that you haven’t paid for yet;
but what can you do
when, at best, you’re just a sharecropper anyway
hoping to make a buck off the land you lease from Her.

Just about the time you convince yourself
that there isn’t any way you can clean up the mess
She slips back into your yard if not your heart
with the sunniest day you’ve seen since November,
and you find yourself swearing
there isn’t anyplace in the universe
where life is better than here.


Tuesday, April 3, 1990To appreciate the wildness of the surf today, you should know that the platform of the Ocean Beach Pier is normally high above the water. Today the Pier was closed to people because waves were crashing across it.