Category: Columns

There I am as happy as I can be, at 58, posing in front of a camera at the 40th reunion of Tucson High’s Class of ’56.

It’s a cliche but time does fly, like a peregrine falcon diving steeply for its prey against the background of the sky, as in a few weeks I will be basking in the midst of an increasingly dwindling number of classmates for our 55th. Boy, they’re getting old – and vice-versa.

We greet this Labor Day with anxiety about the possibility of a double-dip recession, persistently high unemployment that never significantly ebbed after the depths of the 2008 downturn, and austerity budgets at the local, state, and federal levels. While many observers have drawn parallels to the Great Depression, one key difference stands out for American workers: Labor is not on the march.

In a perverse irony, the current economic crisis has been cruel to Labor. Rather than rallying workers to the union cause even though Labor did much to elect him, the Obama Administration has shown tepid support for unions after talking big about the value of Labor in his campaign. Hence the Obama era has been a kind of anti-New Deal period with the administration spending more time attacking teachers’ unions than helping American workers of any stripe in any significant way.

Information Overload and the “Post Idea Age”

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, “The Elusive Big Idea,” Neal Gabler makes the case that we are living in a “post-idea” age where mundane observations have taken the place of big ideas. We have left behind the Einsteins for entrepreneurs. As he puts it:

If our ideas seem smaller nowadays, it’s not because we are dumber than our forebears but because we just don’t care as much about ideas as they did. In effect, we are living in an increasingly post-idea world — a world in which big, thought-provoking ideas that can’t instantly be monetized are of so little intrinsic value that fewer people are generating them and fewer outlets are disseminating them, the Internet notwithstanding. Bold ideas are almost passé.

Since I try not to drive at night and since I am on a very “fixed income”, I like to try new restaurants – at least new to me – that are relatively close to my home in Ocean Beach and not terribly expensive. Last week I read an article in the newspaper that is thrown in my driveway on Thursdays, re: a restaurant in Old Town called “BERGIE’S”. It sounded interesting, and since I don’t always have the time to stand in line AND eat at Hodad’s, a friend and I decided to try it out.

On Saturday, August 27^th, the Coalition for a Better San Diego is holding an Economic Summit at Horace Mann Middle School from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM.

The goal of this summit is to bring together a wide array of people from labor and the community to share their ideas about what would make San Diego a better place. The themes of this gathering are jobs, prosperity, quality of life, equality, and fairness. Issues set to be discussed will range from job creation, education, and public services to housing, racial equality, and fair taxation—just to name a few.

An Update: February 26th of this year, I originally wrote an article about the number of helicopters flying over Ocean Beach in the wee small hours of the morning. As an insomniac I find this very distressing. I accept that I will go to sleep after 11:30pm when Lindbergh closes their takeoff routine, and, if lucky, will have the drone of the motor wake me at 6:30am. That is if I am able to sleep in the “between” hours.

“Out there in San Diego
Where the Western Breakers Beat
They’re Jailing Men and Women
For Speaking on the Street”

2012 will mark the 100 year anniversary of the San Diego Free Speech Fight when workers from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) along with allies from the rest of labor and the community at large defied a city ordinance designed to prevent them from standing on a soapbox at the corner of 5^th and E in downtown San Diego and speaking. As I explain in Under the Perfect Sun, street speaking was part of a larger strategy for the IWW:

[W]hen the IWW came to San Diego, they sought to turn “bums” into men by transforming the attitude of the town’s small disposable labor force from individual shame and defeatism to solidarity and class anger. Their method was street speaking…

There’s a proposal floating around the country called a “Contract for the American Dream.”

It’s an ages old dream, simple in its scheme, a dream where everyone has a place of employment (JOBS, NOT CUTS!), roofs over our heads on homes we own and secure futures for ourselves and our children so they can pass the good fortunes on.

The dream eases me into a “What if?” kind of modality. Like what if tomorrow Obama woke up truly realizing that the Good Old USA is in a kind of “do or die” situation. Either he, and Congress, does something or we, in spirit, without a doubt, will surely die.

Saudi Arabia is a young country, being a little bit less than eighty years old. The ruling family (tribe – tribal affiliations are still reflected in the family names of Saudis), in the person of the first king, Abdulaziz Al-Saud, consolidated its power only in 1932. Oil was discovered soon after that and the accumulation of wealth which continues until today began, but as recently as 1960 most of Saudis were desert nomads. That heritage remains part of the identity of many of my students. They harken back to those days and proudly call themselves Bedouins, much as young men who grow up in the western states of America sometimes consider themselves to be cowboys. The grandparents of many of my students actually lived that life.

“Hey, honey! Want to go out to dinner tonight?” Put on your prettiest clothes; have your hair done, have a manicure and pedicure, and I’ll pick you up about 7:00pm.”

Don’t like that scenario? How about this one:

“Ah honey, I wanted to take you and the kids out to dinner at that new hot spot in town, but the McDonald’s is no longer there so we would have to buy the kids a full, expensive meal.”

“Pray for your Governor,” exhorts the Lord of Hosts, “for I desire to use him and raise him up. Pray for his protection and for those around him, for all that concerns him in this critical hour, for he is Mine…. He is a key player in the shift that must take place, indeed that has already begun issuing forth from My innermost chambers.” Tom Schlueter, A Statewide Call to Prayer Day Thirty-Four, Texas Apostolic Prayer Network

“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention.” Molly Ivins

Today, on our daily walk around the “hood”, Buddy and I had an experience that is repeating itself daily. On our walk on Sunset Cliffs, from Adair south to Osprey, we were met by the following:

7 skate boarders – that were not about to relinquish the “right of way” and would just as soon run us than move over, …