I hate to follow good news with bad

The final day of business for Acres of Books (and that is no exaggeration) will be October 18th.

After the compromise wrought from the hollywood CRA in their classic David vs. Goliath struggle, one would think the Long Beach CRA could find a way to keep this icon as part their redevelopment schemes, which have not --to be kind-- always worked out for the best, unless you're with a demolition firm or like fug-uttly buildings replacing classic early 20th century facades such as Acres of Books, shown above. The imitation streamline-moderne of the downtown Long Beach shopping center is a poor replacement for the original.

But I guess what I think about it doesn't matter.

George Takei and Brad Altman

Live Long and Prosper

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...

What a difference (during hurricane season) a day makes

As recently as Memorial Day, the water levels of Lake Okeechobee were at a record low; now authorities are draining the lake to prevent the possibility of flooding South Florida.

As any student of Florida history knows, the storm surge from the lake poses a threat to life and property almost as severe as if it were the coast. Turn your back on the lake in a wet season at your peril; of course, if humans weren't building in places where they have no business being in the first place, maybe Nature knows what's it's doing.

Unfortunately, humans aren't going to go away any time soon, so Nature will take it's course, and if they have any intelligence, the humans in the path of its fury will learn to get out of the way.



Even if none of the storms this season make a direct hit on the Florida peninsula, eventually one -or two, or three-- will. And you thought Katrina (or Andrew) was something, well, just hold on to your hats...

Actually, to look at the projected landfall of the next few storms, finding a dry place in Florida will be like trying to find an honest politician in Miami.

This is what America looks like now

I thought that the Dems were going to have to get Zhang Yimou to get any decent buzz for the convention. Well, he can save his plane ticket.

From Palestine to Soweto to Sadr City, there are people who will now have faith that this is not a man who will bust down their door and destroy their lives. Once again, people will be able to say, "Thank God! The Americans are here!"

To say nothing of what could happen from Neah Bay, Washington to Key West, Florida; and Imperial Beach, California to Van Buren, Maine.

Who's dismayed more? The Borg Queen or John McCain?

Teachers with guns? That'll liven up those faculty meetings!*

And I betcha that the art and music departments will get all their funding, now, too... or else!





*The Texas state legislature votes to let teachers bear arms. Who's next? Hotel maids and garment workers? Yee haw!

How I spent my weekend; no, I didn't talk like a pirate ...yet!

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.

Obamatopia

It is hard not to to listen to the whole of Sen. Obama's speech in Berlin and feel almost a little disoriented, in that this has come to pass in our time.







There is no audicity where hope is concerned here...











I get the feeling that things are truly possible... for our country, our planet, our future.









It doesn't hurt that Obama is possibly one of the gifted orators of our time.

It may take more time than I have left on this planet to process the headiness of the possibility of humanity today.





When I think of where we have come from, in my lifetime, to where we are now (even if it remains but a possibility), it's a good thing.











Maybe --just maybe-- the promise that this election holds for us may come to pass.




I'm certainly not going to take it for granted that it will happen. Nor be devastated if the real evildoers among us keep us from reaching that goal. At least I can see it is possible.

This is probably as close as I came come to that sense of wonderment that Europeans felt in the past when they realized that the optimism and "can do" of the American spirit wasn't just hollow air.

McCain can't have it both ways

First, Sen. McCain lambasted Sen. Barack Obama for a lack of foreign policy experience. Then when Sen. Obama draws a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin, he snidely says, that he'd go to speak in Berlin, too, but he preferred to spend his time in America's heartland campaigning.

I'd thought that it would be fitting for McCain to have a post in the Obama cabinet as a show of bipartisanship, most fittingly as Secretary for Veteran Affairs. Yet now that he's letting the far right dictate more of his platform, and spoken out against gay adoption (among issues), perhaps it would be time for him to consider retiring from politics altogether.

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

There have been Obama magazine covers, and then there have been Obama magazine covers

It's not that Obama supporters don't have a sense of humor, nor the ability to appreciate satire, but at some point, as good an artist as Barry Brill is, he might want to consider that just maybe he might have missed the mark with his New Yorker cover.

The day my heart doesn't miss a beat when a police car slows down as it approaches me, or I can put the memories of the 60s behind me (not all the them; just the scary ones).

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.

LA Chinatown's 70th Anniversary Party

Flood-related web resources courtesy of the Iowa City Gazette

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

Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival

Richard & Mildred Loving Day

On this date in 1967, the Supreme Court struck down the anti-miscegenation laws in Loving vs Virginia

One more word about "traditional weddings" and I might lose it

Forms of traditional arranged weddings are still practiced by more than half of the world's population.

This includes Afghanistan, Austalia, Canada, China, England (!), India, Iraq, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa and Vietnam.

The bride-to-be might even be murdered by the family of the groom if they don't think the dowry is enough. Though the practice is largely illegal, they are often disguised as accidents or suicides.

So, please, if anybody happens to mention that they're voting for the constitutional amendment this November, casually ask them how much the parents had to pay for a dowry in their wedding.

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

Leslie Jordan is taking his Trip down the Pink Carpet

I was fortunate to see Leslie last night at the LA kick-off of his Gay Pride book tour. If it's possible to die from laughin' then I've died an' gone to Heaven.

The good news is, that in addition to his new book, Leslie will soon be seen on Sordid Lives, the television show!