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As to Alaska, All I Can Say is “Wow!” (with a sprinkling of other “W” words)

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The other day we rented a car from Enterprise in Anchorage, Alaska, to drive south of the state a ways. Up to then the only words we had to describe what little we had already seen in the state they call the “Last Frontier” was: “Wow!”

And it had barely begun. Believe me. Those mudflats and sparkling waters, near where we hiked the day before, along with a stop on a mountain called Flat top, where cold winds gave life to our aging bones – all that was, indeed, “Wowful” but when I steered our midsized Kia onto the highway to Homer it was like rolling along a highway in the Twilight Zone, watching a world open up to us unlike any we had ever seen or dreamed of.   [Read more…]

From Petrolia with Love: Alexander Cockburn RIP

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Progressive media is only worth a damn when it has the courage to think bad thoughts and consistently afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

I learned of Alex Cockburn’s death when I picked up a copy of the North Coast Journal in a gas station minimart in Eureka. My family and I were in transit between the deep woods near the California-Oregon border and our next destination off the Lost Coast Highway when we stopped to fuel up and get snacks. While I stood waiting for my son to finish buying a candy bar I picked up the paper and randomly flipped it open to an article entitled “Cockburn Country” in which Marcy Burstiner chastised the local daily, the Times Standard, for failing to adequately comment on Cockburn’s demise.

To rectify this omission Burstiner details how Cockburn had been living in Petrolia for two decades where he co-edited the left online journal and publishing outlet CounterPunch, continued to pen his column for The Nation, and published many books challenging the sacred cows of American Empire and skewering the pieties of the right and left alike. Burstiner tells the story of Cockburn giving a speech in 2009 to “a rag tag bunch of nobodies” in the rain inEureka with incredible passion and energy despite the circumstances. She then ends her tribute by musing, “Alexander Cockburn, if your spirit hovers over me at some rainy Eureka rally in the future, know that one of your fellow residents appreciated you for being a thinker in a world where most people avoid thinking, for calling out the bullshit you saw in the world around you, for exasperating people around you of all political stripes and for being part of our little world out here.”   [Read more…]

DUMBSHIT Airways

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By Bob Dorn

Nowhere can ostentatious American dumb be seen in such sharp relief as when your international flight lands and you board the connecting flight home. Maybe you were impressed by the effete flight attendants and Spanish passengers who spoke your language and two others, but now, exhausted and nearly unconscious aboard the plane bound for San Diego, you look at the in‐flight television offerings and find blurbs meant to attract your eyes; words like these describing an installment in a Showtime serial: “Sean and Matt spend a day bonding together.”

Aside from the whisper of man‐sex in there, that blurb could only appeal to people whose kids bear those names. It’s a cinch that Delta did not for a minute consider offering Sean and Matt’s special day to fliers on the Madrid to Atlanta run; after all, passengers could see more interesting stuff going on in the seats around them. But look at the phrase, “bonding together.” That’s where stupid really lives in Delta’s in‐house tv guide. Which word could best be eliminated? Why didn’t Delta simply say S and M “spend a day together”? I know, I know, that’s inert, and lays there all flat, like Mitt Romney’s version of “America the Beautiful,” or the joke he might tell. Like Romney himself, the phrase, “spend a day together,” seems to lack something. So, the Delta blurber inserted “bonding.”   [Read more…]

The NFL has a new lockout; football preseason starts with scab referees

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by Laura Clawson / Daily Kos 

In 2011, the National Football League locked out its players to get them to accept contract concessions. In 2012, it’s the referees’ turn. Preseason play started this week with replacement officials brought in from college football and, apparently, the Lingerie Football League. If the NFL’s efforts to force players to take pay and benefit cuts and weak safety policies didn’t convince you that this is all about greedy billionaire owners, a second lockout of a second group of (much lower-paid) workers, again with possible safety repercussions for players, should go a ways toward convincing you.

The reviews of the officiating coming in are … not good. There’s the ref who confused Atlanta and Arizona and also, after forgetting to set the first down marker, had to announce that “the first down chains were not set prior to the snap so we shut the play down prior to the snap.”    [Read more…]

Field of View: Sweet Home Chicago

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Tell anyone you’re headed to Chicago and you’ll get a list of must-sees and -dos. I couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface during my short stay, but here’s what I learned:

  • They don’t call it the Windy City for nothing. A more appropriate name might be The Wrath of God.
  • As soon as you feel one raindrop, no matter how small, run for f$%*ing cover. Whatever you do, don’t listen to the locals when they, “Should be nothing―just some scattered showers later.”
  • People don’t honk a quick f$%* you in Chicago; they scream full-on sentences with their horn that’ll make you blush.
  • The views are breathtaking, especially from the John Hancock Observatory and the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower).
  • If you can, load The Blues Brothers soundtrack onto whatever device you have. You’re going to want to listen to it.
  • The buildings go all the way up, and the architecture is remarkable.
  • Visit Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria.  I preferred the “Lou,” which had the freshest tomatoes that I have ever tasted. But if you’re a meat lover, the “Malnati Chicago Classic” is for you. Just beware that beneath the cheese is a layer of thinly-sliced sausage covering the entire pie.
  • Oh, while visiting Lou Malnati’s you might see Trueblood actor Joe Manganiello and squeal like a little girl before calling your husband to get credit for not chasing the hottest werewolf on TV down the street. I’m just saying that might happen.

All photos by Annie Lane, except where noted.   [Read more…]

Pussy Riot Band Members Push the Limit of Russian Dissent

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St. Maria, Virgin, Drive away Putin
Drive away! Drive away Putin! Pussy Riot

Three members of the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot have been in custody since February and face a possible prison sentence of up to seven years. They are charged with “hooliganism on the grounds of religious hatred” for singing their punk prayer “Mother of God- Drive Away Putin” in Moscow’s main Orthodox church.

  [Read more…]

Wynola Wine and Restaurant Romp

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By Morloc

With Ramona wineries shuttered except for weekends, our day for a wine and food romp last Thursday was a washout for any place new. The regulars, Pamo Valley tasting room and Southern California Wine Co., were both too near in the calendar’s rearview mirror. So, it was a reprise in Wynola, just around the corner down SR-78 from Julian, for a wine and restaurant romp, friends Owl and Buzzard in tow.

First stop, since it was nearly closing time, was the sly and winsome doña of Country Cellars (4456 Highway 78-just steps away from the Wynola Farms Marketplace) for a take home of a Shadow Mountain “100% estate” 2009 Carignane (sic) at a quite reasonable retail price. Always like to see SoCal locals daring to bottle single varietal from the thunderously leaden pole of the grape spectrum.   [Read more…]

What Congress Doesn’t Know About The City Heights Post Office

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It was stinking hot walking from the 40th Street transit stop on University Avenue to the City Heights Post Office four blocks away. Cumulus clouds, a sure sign of summer rain everywhere else I have ever lived, were piled up in the sky directly above me. They deflated before my eyes, as if whatever rain they held had been sucked right out of them in one thirsty gulp. There would be no sudden refreshing rain shower.

A rain shower would not have been well received by the fifty or so adults sitting on the low wall outside of the Church of the Nazarene, or standing on the sidewalk and leaning against the wall of the building in the adjacent alley. It wasn’t 2:30 yet and the church would not begin its weekly food distribution for another half hour. Most of the people were elderly. A long line of their collapsible walkers with a seat and basket awaited the box of food that would be forthcoming.   [Read more…]

Why We Need More Poetry in Our Lives

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By Karen Kenyon

“We are hungry for the secret news about life,” said former poet laureate, the late Stanley Kunitz. He was speaking of the news that poetry delivers.

Most Americans just don’t get this deep soulful daily news.

We don’t know the names of our great poets.

We don’t pay our great poets much (the majority of poetry anthologies pay in copies — most very accomplished poets teach at universities or other schools, in order to survive). Poets’ paychecks are either nil or less than even an outfielder in a minor minor league. Even our Poet Laureates are only given a stipend of $35,000. They are not household names.

Thousands don’t fill a stadium to hear a poet here in America — unless that poet is also a musician — say, Dylan or John Lennon. It’s a different story in many other countries.

The poets often speak, or spoke, for the people.   [Read more…]

The Starting Line – It’s a Bad Day for San Diego’s Little People

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San Diego Schools Busing Program Gets Ugly…Yesterday’s snail mail brought myself and the parents of 22,000 other school aged children in San Diego a letter from the SDUSD Transportation Services Department demanding payment for the coming year’s busing within the next couple of weeks—or else. Dated July 31st (Yesterday was Aug 6th) and signed by Gene Robinson, “Director of Transportation and Distribution Services”, the letter also incidentally mentions that transportation fees for a single student will rise from last year’s rate ($420) to $500. A family’s second child gets the discounted rate of $250; additional children are not charged. The “or else” part of the letter is that, if you don’t happen to have that much cash laying around, your child will not be riding the bus this year. Programs allowing for monthly payments or by the semester have have been eliminated, so it’s all or nothing.

“Payment in full for each student must be received by the Transportation Department no later than August 24, 2012.”

Parents of students who are exempt from transportation fees, like those who are in certain classes of Special Education programs and Free or Reduced Lunch categories, still have to obtain certification and submit it to the Transportation Department by the August 24th deadline. I wish all those parents good luck in getting SDISD to process their paperwork prior to the deadline. Apparently different divisions within San Diego Unified are incapable of talking with each other.
  [Read more…]

Mr. President : Legalize Marijuana and You’ll Get the Youth Vote and Win the Election.

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A Majority of Americans Support Legalization of Marijuana Now for the First Time

This is an Open Letter to President Barack Obama Calling on him to legalize marijuana.

If you legalize marijuana, Mr. President, you’ll get the youth vote and win the 2012 Presidential election. It’s as simple as that. However you do it, Mr. President, if you legalize cannabis, you’ll then do for the young of this country what you did for the Mexican-American and Latino populations, and then what you did for the gay and lesbian communities earlier this year.

How is this so?

It just so happens, that here in the midst of campaign 2012, the issue of marijuana legalization and the status of medical cannabis have perhaps paradoxically both become highly charged topics. Legalization initiatives are on three state ballots, there’s a whole array of other reform measures up for vote, and there’s polls that show a majority of Americans support straight-out legalization of pot – all that makes this year 2012 an historic year for marijuana reform.
  [Read more…]

ACLU Sends Warning to US Attorney Duffy: “Stop the Threats” of Del Mar City Workers

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By Marcus Boyd/ Americans for Safe Access / August 6, 2012

San Diego, CA – In an ever increasing waste of federal funds to circumvent state medical marijuana laws, last month US Attorney Laura Duffy fired off this threatening letter to City of Del Mar employees. In response late last week the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego & Imperial Counties (ACLU) posted an article on their blog titled; “U.S. Attorney Shouldn’t Be Threatening to Prosecute City Employees” and fired fired this letter back to the US Attorney.

On their blog, the ACLU writes:

“The San Diego U.S. Attorney is treading dangerous legal ground with a legal opinion that seems to be threatening Del Mar city employees with prosecution if they comply with an ordinance on medical marijuana up for a vote in November.”

Duffy’s intensified war against the civil liberties of sick and dying patients caught the attention of ACLU Legal Director, David Loy, after the director received an email blast and supporting materials from San Diego ASA detailing Duffy’s attempts to threaten lawmakers with federal prosecution for adopting ordinances that regulate dispensaries.   [Read more…]

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