Today I spent the day on Fillmore street at the Jazz Festival--Harlem of the West-- where the city of San Francisco is trying to revive the spirit of a place that fell under the weight of a heavy wrecking ball. I spent the better part of my time listening to the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra play "Harriet Tubman." After the sounds cast it's spell, I stumbled down the street and into Yoshi's Jazz Club .  It was out of my dreams. I was standing in Bop City. That's democracy for me. 

I am unanimous when I say that I am sad that Mollie Sugden passed away yesterday.  Known as the pithy Ms Solcombe who was obsessed with her pussy (cat), Ms. Sugden provided me with incessant laughter as I watched the British comedy year after year and show after show. Ms. Solcombe could knock back a drink or two with the best of 'em. Betty Solcombe used to say " I am unanimous" when she thought she was right about a particular subject or matter. She was the biggest flirt on earth. She seemed to change her hair color--sometimes to pink, purple and multi- color swirls--more times than they had shows. I loved Ms. Solocombe when she'd say "weak, weak as water." Again she liked drink something strong, strong as whiskey. Farewell Mollie Sugden and thanks for the amount of laughter you gave to me.

Wow! I have to go back to my school and thank my professors as I was skeptical about the power of digital media. These two stories make the potential of the Internet and digital media worth another look:

Follow-up to the Jena 6
Black Blogger's Forum

As I am nearly finished reading Lawrence Goldstone's Dark Bargain, I started to panic. I started to panic because I didn't have a new book to read.  A few nights ago, when the panic attack was eminent, I was in my bed surfing the internet. While I was on my computer and the Internet, I happen to be listening to a re-broadcast of C-SPAN's After Words wherein Columbia journalism professor John Dinges was interviewing Eduardo Galeno about his book Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. During this interview Mr. Galeno read some of the vignettes written in Mirrors. I was very satisfied with the stories he told about his work and the stories he read. I was so satisfied that I memory-marked Mr. Galeno's book in my mind. After listening to this interview I turned the television off because it had become tedious; it was as tedious as sitting in front of the television like a zombie which is becoming less and less a bad habit of mine. So I shut down my computer, walked into the other room, shut off the television and returned to my room, jumped back in bed and I picked up Dark Bargain to finish the last few pages. The panic of not having something new to read was so strong that I only read a couple more pages.  This usually happens when I really enjoy a book that I am reading.  I remember after reading Beloved by Toni Morrison a few years ago, I had this panic problem while attempting to find a book that was as thought provoking and poetic until I came across Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. 

Another reason I memory-marked Mirrors by Mr. Galeno  book resides in the fact that Mr. Dinges compared the author to Marquez and his work to Solitude.

A day or so  passed and I made it to the bookstore to purchase Mirrors and Toni Morrison's, A Mercy. I am free of panic and free to finish Dark Bargain. I only have two pages left.  I really enjoyed Mr. Goldstone's work because it pulls back the thick layers of American history and exposes the rawest of raw nerves in United States history: slavery. He does a good job of placing all the actors in the drama on stage in Philadelphia during the re-writing of Articles of Confederation.  He plays no favorites in identifying where and how the "bargain" was struck between Northern and Southern states as they decided to form a union. The bargain is enshired in this country's most serious document. The manner in which Mr. Goldstone lays out the drama highlights the sectional rivalries that ultimately forecast the run-up to the the war between the states.

I think Dark Bargain is relavent becasue slavery still haunts this country.  The U.S. Senate just passed a "no binding" resolution apologizing for its complicity in the one of the most imfamous trades of them all. If that doesn't illustrate how slavery haunts this country, just check out this story on Rhode Island wanting to change it's name because of what it thinks it says about its (our) past.

The title of Ellis Cose's book, Envy of the World, taken from the pen of Toni Morrison and the from the mouth of her protagonist Sula resurfaced in my memory after I clicked the link--provided of course by TPM -- to Politico's story about Obama. It resurfaced because I remember reading Sula the book as the character was telling Nell, her best friend and a man name Jude, a small story about black men being the envy of the world. I remember this part of the book because it was ridiculous. Ridiculous in only the way Sula is/was telling this story to Nell and Jude. Sula is telling this tall tale because Jude is complaining about being a black man in this world. I understood his complaints. Lord, do I know his complaints. Sula was trying to illustrate to Jude that black men were the envy of the world because we are either greatly admired or feared; and sometimes admired and feared at the same time. There usually isn't a middle ground and it is maddening.

The State, a South Carolina web site posted e-mails from this event

There are several reasons (so far) I've never voted for a Republican. The first being their twisted formulation of the Southern Strategy which is a direct response to the Civil Rights laws passed under Lydon Johnson's administration. The Southern Strategy was always in the background after Johnson passed Civil Rights legislation but reactivated by Nixon and fully reignited under Regan when he held a rally and kicked off the remaining portion of his campaign (after the conventions) in Philadelphia, Mississippi; the same Philadelphia, Mississippi  where three Civil Rights workers were killed. By kicking off the final stretch of the 1980 presidential race in this Mississippi town, Regan was saying that if he was elected, he would make sure that federal government mandated Civil Rights laws would be roll back to pre-Johnson norms.

The first person I associate the Southern Strategy with is Barry Goldwater. He seized the opportunity to appeal to the most base instinct among a certain segment of Americans--he wasn't by far the first prominent American politician to use race like a wedge. Nixon picked up where Goldwater left off. I wanted to believe that this country, my country would cease to use dirty political racial tricks like the Southern Strategy but Nixon perfected it. Nixon was so bold, that he often expressed--listen to his released tapes-- his disdain for black people. The New York Times reports another piece of this twisted puzzle. Nixon was breathing new life into that all American tome wherein black and white people should not have children together. Through his actions he announced that blacks and whites procreating was the ultimate trespass. Imagine if these so-called eugenicist had their way in the United States--in some cases they did.  I can't say that it would have resulted in a genocide but look what happened to the Jews in Europe as Germans employed the nefarious theories they learned from early 20th American eugenicist like Charles Davenport. The Southern Strategy in all its forms is the notorious follow-up to the 1924 Racial Integrity Act.

It is pure racism when the politically powerful can by fiat, dictate the terms of lives of those they govern. And I am not blind to see that Democrats have taken the African American vote for granted for far too long. I just wish the Republicans would stop politics based in theories which are faulty to say the least.

There are no words but it has meaning. I think the name Baraka means blessing.

When Senator Boxer asked General Walsh to please, call me Senator it was like a flashback to In Heat of the Night wherein Sidney Pointer famously said, "They call me Mr. Tibbs" as the law enforcement of that small Mississippi town was investigating a murder. 

His story is compelling and I think it puts another face on the "The Don't Tell Don't Ask" non-sense upheld by our government

When the budget axe falls where does it cut? It falls heavily on those who can least afford it and cuts close to the bone. If there is any doubt that this is true. please listen to the testimony of people about to lose their benefits in California.

The most ironic aspect of these cuts is that California will lose stimulus money if they cut some of these programs.

After Friday's election in Iran, I am so sorry that the United States government can do little more than remain quiet. It wasn't too long ago that we had our version of Iran's election. I don't know how anyone who (is serious about the rule of law) didn't stand up during the 2000 and 2004 elections in the United States can right now hardly criticize the outcome or the government of Iran without seriously being a hypocrite.

This leads me to believe that United States will have to remain quiet when it comes to torture. I hope that I am wrong but I think if the United States government doesn't make corrections quickly, this aberration will weigh the country--even the world-- down when--if it hasn't already-- it tries to respond to human right abuses throughout the world. The United States will have spent what little moral authority it has left to call other countries on the carpet when it comes to specific issues of human right abuses.

After reading staylenc's Truckin' it brought forth so many memories of my travels to and from many places in California. My first California road trip started east of the Mississippi River and concluded in Los Angeles. It was four days long and I couldn't wait to see that sign with poppies on it that said, "Welcome to California." The trip allowed me to get a better understanding and scope of the land mass that we call the United States. Texas and everything west of it is so massive that it took up most of the trip. If I wasn't limited by time I would have spent more of the trip in New Mexico and at the Grand Canyon. I had commitments in Los Angeles so I did the best I could do under the the circumstances.

Once I settled into living in Los Angeles, I wanted to explore the state of California. I knew that California had some of the most diverse terrain in the world and I wanted to see as much of I as I could possibly see.  After only eight months in Los Angeles , I became enamored with the idea of driving up to San Francisco. I planned and plotted the trip up U.S. 101 but I wish I had done it during the daylight hours. It always excites my sense of curiosity to travel unfamiliar landscapes. Because I took this trip at night, the landscape, the terrain and California's history remained a mystery for a few more years.  Little did I know that U.S.101 is part and parcel of El Camio Real. The Royal Way or Road is the passage built by the Spanish to thwart the movement south by the Russians. The passage cuts the coastal ranges of California from it's vast central valley.

Along the El Camino Real, California history takes shape in the form of missions and presidos. They stretch to cover nearly two-thirds of the curvaceous but sometimes flat lands of California. The first mission, San Diego de Acala (1769) is/was one of two permanent and initial settlements by Spain in Alta California. The first military outpost was El Presido de San Carlos de Monterey (1768). This military output was founded at the same time that Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel. A year after Carmel's Mission was built, Mission San Gabriel Archangel was founded. It is just north of Los Angeles and east of Pasadena. Mission San Antonio de Padua was also built during 1771 in one of the most rural parts of Monterey Country. The completion of San Antonio marked the second mission in Monterey county. Only within the past three years have I visited San Antonio which is north of the city of Paso Robles.  San Antonio is far off U.S. 101 on Jolon Road in the valley of the oaks. I tried to go to this Mission once but I thought misread the directions as I drove right by it. On the second try I found the entrance. It sits on a U..S Military base near the Santa Lucia range that separates coast from the Salinas Valley . One of the next trips I constantly dream about includes a ride to San Antonio so that I can see the landscape as I ascend Ferguson-Nacimento Road which drops somewhere into the middle of Big Sur. I want to try this route because I want to return the portal to the Sun and sea at Pfeiffer Beach.

Farther south on U.S. 101, San Luis Obispo de Tolosa appeared on the Spanish map of California in 1772. The bishop and prince of Missions is roughly half way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I remember the first time driving over the Gavoita Pass just north of Santa Barbara in the middle of night and then up and over the Cuesta grade just north of SLO. I had no idea that San Luis Obispo, known for its Nine Sisters, was otherwise so hilly and those Sisters sweep out to a gorgeous blue-green Pacific ocean.

Highway 101 is a beautiful drive in California because it shares asphalt at several junctures with the mythical Pacific Coast Highway or the 1. Just north of the Cuesta grade on 101, PCH 1 splits--Highway 46 is the connector-- off and becomes the essential California road trip and the way to see Big Sur (PCH 1/US.101 also cross the Golden Gate Bridge on the tip of the San Francisco peninsula). The first enclaves north of Highway 46 include Cambria and San Simeon, home of Hearst Castle. Farther north  there is a place along the Pacific Coast Highway called Big Sur but Big Sur is much more than a place on a map. It is almost everything I could imagine about the rugged topography of California. It is "Relax Honey, you are in Big Sur." Again I missed this scenic place the first drive north because I didn't drive specifically on the 1.  Even though I missed it the first time, it is one of my favorite drives. I always say that I will never drive it until I actually get in car to do it and then I remember that "Relax, Honey" sign. I never saw that sign until someone actually said "Relax, Honey." There is something seductive about the Santa Lucia Range, the small ribbon of road clinging to the cliffs, the forested landscape and the surf crashing the jagged edges of California that makes Big Sur, Big Sur. 

Driving the Pacific Coast Highway takes patience. Driving up or down U.S. 101 takes stamina. It seems like everything north of Paso Robles on U.S.101 is mostly flat. El Camino Real was probably chosen just because it sits between the Santa Lucia Range, the Los Padres National Forest on the west and the range in what seems like the very center of the state that forms the vast central valley of California. Perhaps it is best to describe this area as the southern most portion of the Salinas Valley. John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath takes place somewhere in this area. Methinks Steinbeck was saying, in a subtle way that Monterey is dangerously and seductively beautiful. Somewhere in the middle of this fertile valley along the El Camino Highway is Mission San Miguel. The first time ( a couple of years ago) that I visited this Mission, I could not believe that I passed it so many times on trips I made up and down 101. It probably ranks near the top of list as one of most overlooked of the twenty-one missions. I find the landscape quite unique because of its locale. I didn't know cacti could grow as far north as San Miguel? The days can be extremely warm--warm by a  foggy San Francisco summer standard-- but the nights, unless there is cloud cover, can seem like a night on the the frozen tundra. San Miguel established in 1797, sits so inconspicuously next to 101 that I had to use a map to find it. It is known as the Mission of El Camino Real or the Highway.


San Juan Bautista in San Benito County ( central California) and San Fernando Rey de Espana in Southern California were founded the same year as San Miguel. There however are several more Missions along El Camino Real that were established well before these three Missions. San Buenaventura (Ventura), San Juan Capistrano, San Francisco, Santa Clara (at San Jose), Santa Cruz and Nuestra Senora de la Soledad are the ones that share this distinction. Four are in the north and two in the south. Oddly enough there is a Mission San Jose (other than Santa Clara in San Jose proper) that sits on land in Fremont, California just north and east of the city of San Jose. I can't say that I remember seeing San Buenaventura along 101 on that faithful voyage to San Francisco. The same can be said about Santa Clara and the Mission at Soledad.  Nevertheless I have had the pleasure of visiting all six within the last two years. San Juan Bautista is the only Mission I remember because I saw a campanario during my first trip to Northern California. Even though I remember this, It is difficult to remember which Mission I visited first, San Juan Capistrano in Southern Californa or Mission Dolores in San Francisco? They both rank at the top when it comes to the number of visits I have made to the Missions. San Juan Capistrano is probably my favorite Mission because it smells (the flowers) so good.

There were a few Missions that didn't receive my attention until I realized that I had almost seen them all. Once I passed an arbitrary number on the visit all the California Missions scale  I had to see them all.  Santa Barbara, the Queen of Missions, was first on my list about three years ago. After visiting Santa Barbara I decided that I would complete the twenty-one Missions on-the-trail-list by adopting a strategy to see as many Missions in one area with one trip. There is too much territory to cover otherwise. The first time I applied this strategy is when I visited San Buenaventura, Santa Ynes and La Purisma in one fell swoop. Incidentally,  La Purisma is the only Mission that the state of California operates as a working Mission and state park. I was almost finished the must-see-all the Missions-list. Before visiting the southern most Missions, San Luis Rey, San Diego San Fernando and San Gabriel--I wanted them to be last--, I made sure to drive north of San Francisco on 101 to visit the Missions at Sonoma and San Rafael.

I thought the only Missions left on my check list were those in the southern part of the state. I was wrong and I don't know how I could forget Santa Cruz? I don't know how I could forget the Holy Cross Mission because I am frequently in Santa Cruz admiring the Boardwalk, the Natural Bridges and the surfers along West Cliff drive. Before I topped off my list of twenty-one Missions, I made an excuse to visit San Cruz and the Mission of Hard Luck. It is probably the smallest Mission among what remains of these historical buildings.

If there is a beginning there is most certainly and end. The beginning of the California Mission trail starts in San Diego. It took two days to see the four remaining Missions on my to-see list in Southern California. It takes careful planning to navigate the great expanse of Los Angeles. Even the most carefully crafted plans will change due to the enormous number of freeways and cars in the megalopolis of the west coast. Traffic tossed a wrench my plans. I drove from south western Los Angeles to San Gabriel just east of Pasadena. Before I even arrived in Los Angeles I studied maps and traffic patterns to find the least restrictive route. I also made sure I had plan to get from San Gabriel to San Fernando in the least amount of time. I sorely under estimated the traffic because I nearly missed the opportunity to see San Fernando. I had forty-five minutes to acquaint myself with the Mission of the Valley.  I left the grounds just before they locked the gates and walked across the street to the park with orange trees. It seems like this was orange grove at one time. 

The following day, only two Missions left. A few miles north of the beginning of the trial I was was near the end of my to-see list. San Luis Rey de Francia reminds me most of buildings I've seen pictures of in Spain. The adobe stands out against the blue Southern California skies. The replica like the original Mission is extremely large. The palm trees stand proudly in front  and sometimes dance as the hot dry air the blows across the landscape. It is amazing how the bougainvillea cling to the adobe walls and provide an attractive contrast to the whiteness of the walls which relfect the powerful Sun.

Ah San Diego! I really had a tough time finding this Mission. It is stuck between the freeway and Qualcomm Stadium. Again I studied the map to try to fine the easiest way to the Mother of all Alta California Missions. The map doesn't do justice to actually getting there. But when I did get there I was extremely happy because this was last on my-must-see-list. I wanted to kiss the ground becuase it only took fifteen or so years of doing this to get this is point. San Diego's front portico is just like most of the Missions in the system. I found the lavender in the front garden extremely pleasing to the eye as I tried to size up the tall campanario. From the pictures I had seen, I thought all of San Diego de Acala was on flat ground but it sits up on a hill just above the road. Like all of the Missions, San Diego de Acala has a chapel, a garden and a story. I walked in and found the living quarters of Junipero Serra. All I can tell you for sure is that he was short man with huge ambitions. It would take someone like him to establish a good number of the Missions in California because the terrain is rugged and diverse. I can't imagine walking from San Diego to Monterey as J. Serra did when he established the first Missions in San Diego and Carmel and the first Presido in Monterey for the crown of Spain.

P.S. I topped the whole trip off with a revisit to San Juan Capistrano's Mission just north of San Luis Rey.  And it still smells good!

P.P.S. Somewhere in the middle of all these trips I re-discovered that California has roads that come and go east and west. Yosemite was first the place I went east of that great central valley of California. And finally two years ago, I made my first trip to Death Valley. It's a long drive from San Francisco.

The Huffington Post via The Daily Beast reports that the Anthony Woods story is officially interesting. I posted this story 23 hours before it made to TDB and Huffington Post. Who gets to decide what and when something is newsworthy?

Rep.  Ellen Tauscher  said her goodbyes to her constituents in the 10th District which covers places like Fairfield, Antioch and Walnut Creek. These places are east of San Francisco and not that far from Sacramento. Tauscher  is joining the Obama Administration as an under secretary in the State Department. In leaving, Tausher of course leaves an open seat but she also maybe opening the door to the debate on the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" issue because one of the candidates, Anthony Woods is an openly gay candidate who happen to graduate from West Point and fought in Iraq.

Sacramento Bee

Friday, June 5, 2009

The still unscheduled special election to replace outgoing Bay Area Rep. Ellen Tauscher may soon become fodder for the national debate of  the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Tauscher, who is leaving her East Bay seat to join the Obama administration, is the sponsor of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2009. The House bill would repeal the policy and allow veterans forced out of the armed services for admitting they were gay to re- enlist.

Today, Dan Choi, a Arab linguist and lieutenant in the New York Army National Guard who declared he was gay on national television, endorsed a West Point classmate with a similar story to replace Tauscher.

Anthony Woods, an Army captain and Iraq War veteran who was discharged after telling his commanding officer he was gay, is running in a crowded field that will likely include Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan and state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier.

A special election date is to be set once Tauscher is confirmed as Obama's undersecretary of state for arms control and international security.

Choi, who plans to campaign in the district for Woods, is waging a highly publicized fight against his dismissal from the military. It extends to his advocacy for Woods, whom he endorsed today as "a leader and an officer of the highest caliber."

Anthony Woods for Congress