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Progressive Stocking Stuffers for Year Two of the Trump Era: Reading for Dark Times

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If you just can’t bring yourself to give up on the sordid consumer frenzy and go all in for a Buy Nothing Christmas, then perhaps getting your loved ones a few good books to help them navigate our dark times is the next best thing.  

Here is my list of a handful of some of the best books of the last awful year:
Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy MacLean
No is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need by Naomi Klein
Thoreau, A Life by Laura Dassow Walls
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson

  [Read more…]

Brother Martin: From Logan Heights to a Trappist Abbey

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While I was collecting material for the book “La Neighbor: A Settlement House in Logan Heights”, my friend Emma Lopez recommended that I get in touch with a monk named Brother Martin, who grew up in Logan Heights. I wasn’t sure how much he would have to share, or, for that matter, how much he would remember, since he had been at an abbey for over 60 years. But I followed Emma’s advice and contacted Brother Martin via regular mail.

On one particular day, he asked when I was coming up to visit him. I promised I would go “next summer.” As “next summer” came to an end, I began preparations to meet Brother Martin.   [Read more…]

Merry Dickensmas!

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If you haven’t had your dose of Dickens this season, it’s not too late!  Aside from live productions in San Diego, there is always the Alistair Sims version — and let’s not forget, the Muppets version.

The spirit of caring for the poor, helping our fellow man and experiencing redemption are not just Christian values. These qualities are in some form in all religions, legends and myths.

No writer has captured them so engagingly as Charles Dickens.   [Read more…]

Toko Telo – Relaza : A Madagascar Melody | Video Worth Watching

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The group Toko Telo (group of three) brings together a trio of musical stars from Madagascar: D’Gary, Monika Njava and Régis Gizavo. From the YouTube page notes:

Relaza
(Régis Gizavo)
Semi-autobiographical, this song tells of Relaza, who comes from a big family. Among 15 children he’s the eighth. The word has a second meaning: enemy. But Relaza’s no enemy, he’s nice to everyone.   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Red Flag Warming

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December
and the desert rattles trees
blows open doors
shut

Bends the knees of flags
toward foaming ocean

Fans palms
into flame   [Read more…]

The Day School Shootings Became the Norm

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SDFP Flashback: On this 5th anniversary of Sandy Hook, we are reposting this article by editor Annie Lane. It’s still relevant three years later.

By Annie Lane

The 1999 Columbine High School shooting jolted me. I was 15 at the time. That is, I was still immortal and arrogant in the way that only a teen can be. Despite this, I remember being jolted by the violence of it, and the permanence. The kids killed were my age; they were essentially moments away from entering into the adult world, however unprepared, just like me.

The black-and-white cafeteria footage that ran on a seemingly endless loop across news stations nationwide was spell-binding. It was simultaneously real while perfectly mimicking Hollywood violence – or was it the other way around?   [Read more…]

How Coca-Cola Invented Christmas As We Know It

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By Valerie Vande Panne / Alternet

The fat old white man clad in red is a marketing gimmick. Let’s consider replacing him. When you see Santa today, all fat and jolly and rosy-cheeked, you’re seeing an image created for and promoted by the Coca-Cola Company for over 80 years. Michigan artist Haddon Sundblom created the Santa Claus we know so well in 1931, for Coke’s “Thirst Knows No Season” campaign.”

Sundblom modeled his Santa on “A Visit from St. Nicholas,” an 1822 poem by Clement C. Moore. While people often point to that poem as the defining element of Santa Claus’ style, or to Thomas Nast’s versions of Santa Claus for Harper’s, it wasn’t until Sundblom and Coke codified the Claus in mass advertising that the world adopted and accepted that version of Santa Claus. Prior to 1931, Santa Claus was depicted all sorts of ways, from an old Diogenes-type man to a bishop to a sprite-like troll.   [Read more…]

When Is It a Good Time to Talk About Gun Safety? The Sandy Hook Elementary School Mass Shooting – Five Years and Counting … | Video Worth Watching

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Today is the 5th anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting. So, is today a good time to talk about gun policy? Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) interviewed on CBSN: “We have to be talking about policy change every single day in this country or we’ll never end up doing anything about the 90 people a day who die.”

Vox.com has a site which tracks gun violence and mass shootings since Sandy Hook. The site includes an interactive map displaying the dates and locations of mass shootings since Sandy Hook.   [Read more…]

Thai Oyster Cult Video Leads YouTube Globally Trending Hits | Video Worth Watching

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Catching us up with the rest of the world, a Boing Boing article informs us that the top trending video globally (currently with over 186 million views since June 2017) features a masked singer in a costume that resembles a clutch of oysters, if anything.

The song is titled “Until we become dust” and is featured as an entry in a televised game show called The Mask Singer. Don’t know whether this was the show’s ultimate winner, but globally it’s a hit. What am I missing?!   [Read more…]

Geo-Poetic Spaces: Black Friday for the Birds

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Black Friday crow parks
on top a new SUV

Sliding glass doors slide

A 3000 dollar suit
squawks outside
. flaps sleeves at air   [Read more…]

Brian Alexander’s ‘Glass House’: Examining Industrial Grief in the Heartland

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For those of us in California, the older industrial belt of the Midwest including Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and western Pennsylvania, is a world away from us regarding immigration issues.  Our state is doing what it can to protect its immigrants from attacks from the Trump administration. But if we want good national immigration reform anytime soon, what happens in upcoming election cycles in the Midwest is very important.

The Republican Party has bought the Trump base with its anti-immigrant, nativist politics that only grow more rabid by the day.  The only path to improve national immigration laws in the near future is through the Democratic Party winning back the Congress in 2018 or 2020 on a platform of inclusion.  

While President Trump was elected by a majority of white voters in every popular category, it was the white “swing” voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, who had voted for Obama in 2008 and 2012, that were a surprising part of Trump’s narrow margin of victory in those states last year.

What’s going on back there to make this happen?   [Read more…]

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