"A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California" by Laura Cunningham

Click on the header above for a link to Laura Cunningham's site on the changing landscape of California.

This book should be required reading for every child in every school in California. And their parents.

Fred Korematsu Day

It was a high honor to have met Mr. Korematsu several years back at the Japanese American National Museum. Today around California --and the nation-- there are remembrances to observe the anniversary of Japanese Americans internment during WWII.

To learn more, click here for the

Korematsu Institute.

Fred Korematsu and Rosa Parks

Fred Korematsu

Executive Order 9066, Feb. 19, 1942

How many times will we say, "never again?"

1619 to 1865 - African slaves brought to North America.

1851 to Present - Native Americans placed on reservations.

1942 to 1945 - Over 120,0000 Japanese-Americans rounded up and placed in camps.

2001 to 2009 - Guantanamo Bay Naval Base opens detention facitility.

What gets me is how easily this happy girl could be in my own family. Or yours. Note that nowhere in the photograph do you see the barbed wire or the guard towers, or the soldiers with guns, ready to shoot on site. Yet they were there; Ansel Adams went to great lengths to let you know all was not as carefree as it appeared.

Photos are from Manzanar, California, by Ansel Adams

Forest fires make for beautiful, if eerie sunrises

A Beverly Center wannabee (that's the nicest way I can put it) threw her cigarette into the street, oblivious to the connection with the grey pinkish-orange skies overhead. I almost ran into the street to pick it up and chase into the Starbucks after her.

We're in some sort of 21st century Pompeii. The sky this afternoon was even worse; over 40 miles away from the fires. I can't even get to the beach to breath.... the air is sinister.

Steinbeck map of America by Molly Maguire in the collection of the Library of Congress

Not that it has anything to do with what I'm reading at the moment (The Painter of Battles, by Arturo Perez-Reverte), but it's a cool map that I hadn't seen in a while...

Not a nice (or smart) thing to do

Gov. Schwarzenegger, as threatened, signed an executive order to reduce the salaries of 200,000 employees to the Federal minimum wage as a result of the ongoing state budgest stalemate. Arnold is personally worth more than $100,000,000.

The ripple effect of his stunt could end up costing the state more money. Not to mention make him very unpopular around state employees.

Help save the last tattered shreds of your democracy

The California State Legislature is about to balance the state budget by taking funds needed to run libaries. Our education programs have yet to recover from the last time they did this kind of circumvention of the people's will with taking funds from vital programs.

The Republicans want to concurrently allow tax loopholes for the wealthy and to offer unjustified tax rebates.

Call the Governor at (916) 445-2841, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass at (916) 319-2047, Senate Pro Tem Don Perata at (916) 651-4009; and call or email your State Assemblymember or Senator ...today!

Kay Ryan, our new Poet Laureate

Photo by Alan Dep

The bad news is Cody's bit the dust; the good news is so did Jesse Helms

Not only did Cody's finally give up their long struggle to stay afloat, but two other California independent bookstores, Acres of Books (with over two million books!) in Long Beach and Libreria Martinez in Santa Ana, are in danger of shutting their doors.

If there are no more independent bookstores, don't presume you're always going to have the right to read whatever you want. That would make a fine scorched earth exit plan for the Bush administration, if independent bookstores were to disappear. Humans aren't that far behind the polar bears when it comes to treading water this summer.

Perhaps the Governor would like to reconsider not purchasing that "super scooper" airplane now

Photo from whatimseeing.com

Enjoy the view while you can; by the time you read this, it will all be smoldering ashes. As I listened to the news, the number of fires statewide grew from 800 to a thousand to 1,200.


Last night, the historic Henry Miller Library in Big Sur was threatened, as firefighters closed more of Pacific Coast Highway.

photo by Craig Wolf

It's a great place to stick an atheist for a few minutes, then ask them if they might consider that God exists. Of course, now one would have to wait another 2,000 years --as the Big Basin fire cuts a swatch to the sea.

Even a camera klutz like me could almost take a photo this beautiful of the magnificent redwoods here.


I can't help but wonder how much of what remains of California's natural beauty might have been preserved, had the Governor not spent a dime trying to save a nickel when he vetoed the purchase of the "super scooper" planes that have proven their worth many times over (it shouldn't be long now before California could have bought one, at the monthly rate that the state has paid to lease them).

Here's to hoping he fasts until he's as blue as a smurf

Pastor Jim Garlow of the Skyline Church in San Diego is organizing up to a thousand ministers from around the country to help pass the constitutional amendment against gay marriage on the November ballot.

Among the stunts proposed is a 40 day fast. Frankly, I think he might improve California if he should go without eating (or breathing) from now until after the election.*

Why can't they get it through their heads that if you're against gay marriage, then don't marry one!

*Would this still qualify as a non-violent response? I'm more than a tad suspicious that these creeps trying to foist their agenda are banking on us being too damn polite for our own good. Any crazy ideas I might come up with I'm blaming on the paint and plaster dust and fumes filling my apartment during the renovations.

Just another perfect cloudless June day with CNN, Telemundo and every other network's truck up and down the street filming the first gay weddings

Some civil servants in California don't want to do their job

County clerks in Butte, Kern and Merced counties have tried to get around performing same-sex marriages--by ceasing to officiate any weddings --gay or straight-- when the upcoming June 17th date set by the State Supreme Court rolls around. That's defending traditional marriage alright.

In Merced, at least, the County Clerk's office retracted their statement once they heard from county officials.

The typical excuse has been a lack of financial recources, space or staff. At first I thought, to myself, if that's the way you want it, then perhaps the state of California might not have the resources to give you any water from the California Aqueduct, or power from the state grid. And for certain, GLBT folk will know where not to spend their money on vacation (especially since more Californians are vacationing in-state with the high price of gas and plane tickets).

Yet in Kern County, one of the two remaining counties trying to not officiate same-sex marriages, a coalition of straight churches have pledged to stand by and have a minister on hand to perform weddings at all times to anyone who may need them*. With the November constitutional amendment on the ballot, it would be counterintuitive to hurt our allies by calling for a complete and outright boycott of those counties, in the very portions of California where support and goodwill are crucial. At the least, we won't honeymoon there.

Perhaps the best revenge would be for those County Clerks that don't want to follow the law just get the privilege of sitting back and watching the rest of California's counties reap the financial windfall expected to follow the legalization of same-sex marriages.

And maybe, too, getting to see how stupid they'll look to the rest of the state. The SF Chronicle noted that Contra Costa County Clerk Stephen Weir called officiating same-sex couple's weddings a no-brainer, noting that his County clerk's office makes $72,000 a year already in officiating weddings. The Californian reported that Kern County has recouped a tidy profit by providing marriages over the last two months, at $30 a pop. They also mentioned that County Clerk Barnett has cancelled 25 heterosexual marriages that had been already scheduled for after her June 13th deadline (does that mean that, technically, Barnett is against all marriage?) throwing the nuptials of those couples into limbo. Let's see how those county officials that drag their feet try to come hat in hand in Sacramento for more funding for schools and roads and other services when they turned their nose up at easy, legal money. If you know anyone who lives in Kern County, you might let them know how Barnett's decision has cost the county thousands of dollars in potential income --and be sure to remember that come election day.

It isn't like anyone was asking them to produce pollution-emitting cars, or sell guns that would be used in robberies or anything heinous that would actually affect the quality of life of other Californians.

*It might not be a bad idea to turn a positive spin on this, and send notes of thank you to the Rev. Byrd Tetzlaff, of the Unitarian Universalist church, who has pledged to be on hand at the County clerk's office, all day, every day through November 4, to perform weddings for free to any couple who shows up. You can e-mail her at minister@uufkc.org or drop her a note (and maybe a donation) at:

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Kern County

POB 296

Bakersfield, CA 93302-0296

Which came first: the heat or the egg on the face?

The LA Times reported a clarification by Acting Registrar/County Clerk Dean C. Logan that no civil service employees have actually indicated any reticence in fulfilling their duties (before or after District Attorney Rocky Delgadillo sent a stern warning that civil service employees are bound under the law to provide assistance without prejudice); supervisors had merely requested contingency plans should the situation have come up. Similar rumors appear to be floating all around the state.

Come June 16, when the paperwork from the state Supreme Court has been finished, the county clerk's office is preparing for an onslaught of applications. The SF Chronicle noted that weddings officiated in Canada are already legal.

Love makes a family... and the human race, too

There is a presumption --even among heterosexual supporters of same-sex marriage-- that marriage has had but one exclusive definition that never evolved throughout history.

For some twenty thousand years or so, relationships among indigenous peoples in California did not require a license from the county clerk's office (nor did divorce). Some groups of peoples allowed for various forms of same-sex couples, others did not. It's the same basic history in Africa and much of the rest of the world. Until relatively recently, men and women weren't even allowed to marry who they wanted to; that was up to the tribal elders or parents. Actually, arranged marriages are still the rule for several billion human beings worldwide today.

If anything, this notion of societal recognized relationships consisting of state-sanctioned marriage between one man and one woman is quite a recent development in human history.

There wouldn't even be an Anglican Church if the Pope would've granted Henry VIII the right to divorce he wanted --and a few women could have kept their heads. Slaves in America weren't allowed to marry in some states, nor freedmen and slaves in others; until the 1967 Supreme Court ruling on miscegenation there was a patchwork quilt of state laws as to who could marry who. And don't get me started on cousins. It is still illegal in some communities for any unmarried people to co-habitate: whether they be caregivers, friends or roommates just splitting the rent. It was not so long ago that the Nazis (and the Americans) would put couples of different religions or races into concentration camps, irrespective of whether they were opposite sex or same-sex couples.

One could even argue that the world has pretty much started to slide to ruin since people codified the only recognized relationships as those sanctioned by the state between one man and one woman.

In the LA Times on Friday, after the historic California Supreme Court ruling, acting LA County Registrar-Recorder Dean C. Logan stated that plans were underway to accommodate county employees uncomfortable with officiating same-sex marriages. There might be a conflict with non-discrimination statutes there. Even if not covered specifically, it opens a nasty bucket of worms. with many of the world's organized religions not recognizing each other, as well as those who still harbor antipathy for people of certain races, ethnicities nationalities body size-- this could cause chaos in government if civil service workers could chose who they would or or wouldn't assist. Would county lifeguards let people drown? Would the fire department respond only to the fires they desired?

What of those not in any kind of committed relationship? Over a thousand statutes favor state-recognized marriages while penalizing single persons --not just at tax time, either. A married person who survives their spouse gets screwed over, too. ln some cultures, the wife is obligated to be thrown onto her husband's funeral pyre. This is the established custom for more people than live in all of Europe --scarcely a radical fringe.

Nobody wins by continuing to maintain a prime meridian oriented on the one-man-one-woman nuclear family axis, even if we ourselves are pledged (or resigned to) not follow it. Even the staunchest, shrillest proponents of this conviction as the fundamental keystone upon which civilization is built, or worship as some golden calf at the heart of all humankind, fail to account for all of the insurmountable evidence that disproves their dogma. They themselves have shown --despite their recent claims to the contrary-- that they themselves aren't as devoted heart and soul to this myopic construct. After all this time, no society has succeeded at permanently stamping out the "world's oldest profession," have they?

Everyone belongs to the human race, all people in all the relationships that we live our lives, whether we live them as we would have it by design or by default. We all contribute and draw from the whole. Every breath of every human helps provide the oxygen which sustains life --even those full of hot air.

A lot of good it does me, since I don't have anyone (yet) in mind to marry

Someone really ought to let CSU Fullerton know that the USSR doesn't exist anymore

Another day, another loyalty oath scandal. It would appear that California is hellbent on ensuring that their universities are churning out graduates unable to function in the 21st century.

The latest loyalty oath mess suggests that CSU Fullerton isn't keeping up on what is happening around the rest of the state.

One wonders how recent their textbooks must be. Are they still using rotary phones?

Woodies on the Waterfront

Photo: Surfer Magazine

May 17th, from 9 am to 4 pm, at Ports O' Call Village in San Pedro. Enjoy a full day of classic Southern California beach cars, food, surf music and more.




Just don't say, "Cowabunga!"

Please.

The first Spring book releases of the season

Absolution by Susan Fleet, set in New Orleans; and Blind Fall, by New Orleans native Christopher Rice have just been released!

Click on the header at top for a link to Susan's website; Christopher's site may be found under the literary links at left.