LA Chinatown's 70th Anniversary Party

"Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes" --Maggie Kuhn

Since I can't sleep, I'm going to tell you about last Thursday, when we went to the LA Convention Center with Massimo to his naturalization swearing-in ceremony becoming an American citizen. A record 18,000 people were all sworn in on one day --a record!

We laughed, we cried, we laughed
some more....

That's not why I can't get to sleep, though. It's because I can't erase the images from my mind of what could and would happen to people like me if I wasn't an American.

Most of you (not all) who were born here don't get it
quite the same way that those of us who weren't feel how it means to be an American.

I can't ever erase the images of faces like Jesse Helms or the Rev. Fred Phelps, that do their damndest
to make sure that people like me would end up like this.

It isn't enough just to be an American citizen to be safe, either. Even here, it's possible to lay in bed at night unable to sleep, gripped with the knowledge that there are those who are persecuted, intimidated and threatened with the consequenses that even Steven King never writes about. After all, he's a straight white male, born in the United States of America.

No matter how much he might try to imagine it, that isn't the same as knowing that it could happen, that it does happen.

Yet, on Harvey Milk's birthday, of all days, there we were, thousands and thousands of us all deeply wrapped up in the moment, assured that this is the home of the free; our home. Our country.

With the knowledge that we possess the right, the priviledge, the responsibility to ensure that the world is as safe as I can --with everyone else-- make it to be.

Any moment, the first light of day will appear over the Atlantic coast. In Miami, it will already be warm as the sun slices through between the sea and sky, and slowly begins too rise up on its daily trek across the continent.

Right now, in this moment, I can rest assured that I am safe; that others have watched over me as I will in turn do my part to assure the well being of others.

And with that, I can turn off the lamp, and sleep, perchance to dream.



The swearing-in photo is from the Associated Press. The Harvey Milk vigil photo by Daniel Nicoletta. The sunrise is by J. H. Riley.

Skank of the year: Bill Cunningham

IF you missed Bill Cunningham of WLW-AM's racist, un-American, anti-Muslim, intolerant tirade at the McCain rally in Ohio that was replayed over and over on the news last night, count yourself lucky.

I'd like to think I have a pretty high threshold before I get angry (and it shows), so I'm glad he's 2,000 miles away from me and I don't have to listen to him everyday. Or hopefully, ever again. The FCC has been working doubletime documenting every little snippet broadcast over the last few years to impose an arbitrary, insipid standard of decency, but scum of the Earth like Cunnigham somehow get a free pass.

Okay; nice easy breaths. Think of puppies and kittens. Watch the breeze rustling through the palm trees. Feel the warm sun on my face. Count my lucky stars that I'm in beautiful Southern California, and it's a beach day, to boot. And no more caffeine for the rest of the day.

Historic Filipinotown

I spent a pleasant afternoon touring Histoic Filipinotown, sponsored by the Filipino American Library. It was as non-Academy Awards as you could get in this town, this weekend. But then, Wolfgang Puck never made lumpia, either (it was delicious, as was the pancit).

Remember the people in charge of your security are the same ones who run FEMA

Take the Cosco Busan to the Olympics! Just don't check your e-mail while you're in China, or you may find yourself a guest of the Chinese government in a manner you hadn't planned ---better wear a hazmat suit, and bring any food or drink you want to consume with you as well...

Another Santa Ana is whipping across Southern California. Without the fires, the air is much cleaner, but the views of the mountainsides are more than a little disheartening.

It has been good for the strikers (if a tad hot) though.... Want to bring Hollywood to its knees? (Do snakes have knees?) Why not forge an alliance between the striking writers and the gardeners, housekeepers and nannies. If the immigrant workforce in LA joined forces with the WGA even Rupert Murdoch would be freaking out.

At least the LAPD has come to their senses and decided against "mapping" (or whatever their spin doctors are calling it this minute) Muslim communities in Los Angeles.

On January 28, 1982, the Turkish Consul General was assassinated in Los Angeles by Armenian extremists, who have never been low key when it comes to their feelings about the Turks; if other people get caught in the crossfire, they're considered merely acceptable collateral damage. Yet the LAPD has never mentioned "mapping" the Armenian communities in the city, nor the Turks, "for their protection" (I believe that was part of the official rationale for rounding up the Americans of Japanese descent during World War II).

When it comes down to it, the LAPD probably backed off due to the sheer logistics. LA has had their fair share of radical sympathizers and supporters from Northern Ireland (ask anyone whose been in London over the past 25 years about how serious that is!), and a lot of Irish people. There is a substantial Spanish population (those radical Basques), and LA is home to the largest Ethiopian community in the United States. Less visible than in Miami or New York are the Colombian and Venezualan communities. And if the Chinese Consulate had their way, the LAPD would be keeping close tabs on the Chinese American community (who are protesting the float from China in the New Years Day Rose Parade). There's a huge Indonesian comunity here, too, although the American news doesn't seem to have much time to report on the ongoing civil war there.

And there isn't enough time or space to recount the reasons that they should be mapping the English communities. There are still enough gay folk around who remember how the LAPD used to operate when it came to the gay community, too. From long before Stonewall (read Stuart Timmons and Lillian Faderman's "Gay LA") through the AIDS activism of the 80s and 90s, there was a lot of bumping heads, to put it mildly. Now that I think about it, I remember when the LAPD was caught with illegal files on minority teenagers that they had been ordered by the courts to destroy. And I couldn't not mention those pesky Americans, while I'm at it, who are causing mayhem all over the planet.

The only solution would be for the LAPD to keep close tabs on everybody. Not that Cheney and his gang haven't tried. The LAPD has long been known to have the most sophisticated intelligence system of any police force in the United States since the days of the Communist witch hunts.

Enough so, in fact, that I would take any official announcement that they are reconsidering their "mapping" of Muslim communities with a grain of salt. Very bitter salt.

What's next... War is Peace?

Now that the dust is starting to settle and at least one head is rolling following the phony FEMA press conference, I'm thinking that the Bush administration probably provided an invaluable service to journalism instructors everywhere. Of course, one hopes that it will always fall under the category of what not to do.

The news item that slipped by most of the English language media that most concerns me is the report that US Border Patrol agents were at the evacuation centers in Southern California looking for people without documents.

For those of you not in California, remember that a million people at one time or another had to flee the fires --at times leaving with no more than the shirts on their backs, sometimes in the dead of night. lf you were to turn your pockets inside out at this very moment, how would you be able to prove that you were in the country legally?