You can get tickets here

Paul and his family are in difficult straits. If you can't attend the concert, please see his website and help with whatever you can.

This is zhongzie, I usually have one or two for breakfast, with tea cooked egg or fresh local yogurt or warm fresh soy milk, sometimes some fruit, all from Beijing street stands. Inside the bamboo leaf of the zhongzie is sticky rice with some sweet stewed dates in the center. It is delicious beyond words, perfectly filling and less than 15 cents.

Beijing was the last stop on my trip through Asia, and I took these pictures knowing my time there was drawing to an end. It's exciting and poignant to be back in Beijing on my own. I lived here for 3 of the almost 4 years I lived in China, departing for the home land almost exactly 3 years ago.



















I'm revisiting friends, my fonder memories, and enjoying the neighborhood I'm staying in, living a life I didn't get to have when I was here. I'm staying in a partially gentrified and almost fully restored hutong, one of the warrens of ancient stone alleyways that courses through the interior of The Emperor's City.

When I was living there they were knocking hutongs down right and left to modernize neighborhoods. (Some of them did not have indoor plumbing or proper sanitation, others had the misfortune of being in the way of high-value real estate developments.) But some of them are, thankfully, being refurbished and modernized without losing the original architecture.






My hotel is a Chinese courtyard home, a series of rooms facing courtyards connected by halls and breezeways, very comfortable, with TV and a/c in the room and wifi in the Tea House. In the hutongs around me are boutiques, galleries, cafes, restaurants, snazzy bars and more traditional side lanes where Chinese live and tend small shops. Walk outside the hutongs and there is real Chinese street life, wide, highly trafficked streets, billows of exhaust fumes, throngs of Beijingers on purposeful travel, on bicycles, awaiting busses, workers steering loaded pushcarts or working in small stores with their Beijing mojo on. Chinese work harder than any people I've ever seen. Banks, ATMs, Chinese pharmacies, China Post, and people, people everwhere. This isn't a high rise district, and hopefully won't become one.



We're near Hohai, a park on a pair of lakes that I used to love to stroll, but it's gone past it's prime somehow, it felt "used up" when I went back there to find my favorite Beijing "thinking place" Yinding Bridge.



I find no significant change in Beijing since the Olympics, except the yuan has been revalued, rendering the dollar 20% less than when I was here. Even with that China's still a phenomenal bargain if you know where to shop and eat. The people are still amazingly industrious, most everything is still open 7 days a week. Most of the people I know, Chinese and foreigner alike, are still working, but all the freelancers now have or want full time jobs and regular paychecks. The global economic downturn is always referred to in Chinese media, and always with the coda "which is America's fault." What can you say, they're right! Be that as it may, the economic downturn made the unbelievably inexpensive flights to Asia and home possible.

There's such a difference between the Bangkok Thai and the Beijing Chinese. Thai don't have the opportunity or pressure of rapid economic development and they grow up with siblings. This makes a huge difference in their outlook and interactions. Beijingers are more focused, busy. Bangkok Thais are more easygoing, humorous, fatalistic.

It's been hot in Beijing, city-hot. The breezeways in my courtyard hotel and through the hutongs help but only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun. I'm writing this relaxing and blogging in a cafe on Nan Luo Gu Xiang after a Chinese breakfast, sipping a well turned latte (you say latiah here) under a ceiling fan. Later, a pedicure and leg massage, maybe a duck dinner. It's a tough life. It's good to be back. Something I'll be doing again and again.

***

So at that point I was going to upload this blog but rudely discovered that blogger dot com was blocked in China! Ah, the Chinese net nanny. That's China! I'm now back in New York, popped awake at 4:30 by jet lag, seeing the morning up till my brother wakes up and we'll have a nice American breakfast. No zhongzie.

Maetaman Elephant Camp, Chaiang Mai, Thailand. What a day.

Wat Pratat Doi Suithep is visible on the mountainside overlooking the city of Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand. At night it's golden chedi glitters in the lights, a spiritual guardian of the region.

Legend has it that a monk on a pilgrimage to the kingdom of Lanna had a dream and when he awoke, he began digging and found a relic which contained a small bit of ashes that were green. He knew he'd found ashes of Lord Buddha. He brought them to the king in Chiang Mai who realized he was supposed to build a temple to entomb the ashes. But he didn't know where to build it so he set his white elephant free to find it. The elephant climbed the mountain and walked a circle in the rain forest, pounded his trunk on the ground and died. That is where the king erected Doi Suithep and entombed the sacred ashes of Lord Buddha.

When you enter the temple there is a powerful feeling of spirit and kindness. Women must cover their arms and legs entering a temple and all must remove their shoes. You can feel ancient reverence connecting through your bare feet, moving up your body, shimmering in your heart, quieting your mind, filling you with joy and serenity. The moist beauty of the surrounding rain forest resonates.

The day I visited Doi Suithep was, by happenstance (perhaps my blessed luck) a particularly holy day. It is believed that Lord Buddha, as the Thais know him, was born, reached enlightenment and died on the fifth full moon of the year, Visakha Bucha Day. The whole weekend Thais were worshiping and performing rituals at Doi Suithep. It was a sublimely gratifying experience. When I made my offering I didn't ask for blessings, I gave thanks for them.

I'm in Bangkok, Thailand. I have friends who live here. It was mud season in Maine, the only time of year that it's not gorgeous. I jumped on a very cheap airfare and here I am after a 27 hour flight (2 stops). It's green, it's steamy, it's exotic, it's sublime. These smiling gentle Thai people, the fabulous food, the massages, the markets, the spirit houses, the sky train and river taxis intrigue and enthrall me. I've seen the golden reclining Buddha, the Temple of Dawn, even caught a glimpse of the king as his motorcade made it's way into the Grand Palace for a celebration of his 60th year on the throne. As he passed the crowd of street vendors and monks made a sighing sound. He is much beloved. This is a free country, but you'd better not insult the king.

I went to the cinema this morning to fulfill a ritual of seeing the opening show of every Star Trek movie wherever I am. (I couldn't do it for Nemesis; I was in Beijing and couldn't find a showing.) After the trailers and before the main feature the screen said: "Please pay respect of the King," and every one stood up for a short retrospective film about His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

I was sitting in the plush cinema at 10:45 AM with only a few others. Tenth row center, plenty of leg room, I had both padded armrests to myself. I drank an icy Coca Cola as I waited for the film to begin. This, I'm thinking, is really a moment. A culture break in Southeast Asia. Star Trek in Bangkok. Does life get any more special than this?

Without spoiling it, let me say that XI is the sexiest Star Trek yet (yes even more than the Insurrection bathtub scene) and would you believe Spock and Uhuru get kissy? (But Kirk hit on her first.) This is never explained or resolved, but it's certainly a one-eyebrow lifter. It's funny, full of action, maybe too much action; I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath until I exhaled. There is never a dull moment nor a wasted frame. And at the end you realize space is not the final frontier at all. This is a prequel to TOS. The origin and evolution of the characters of and relationships between the bridge crew of The Enterprise is masterfully nuanced. The way the plot insinuates the time line, the franchise can go on forever without colliding with any established groundwork.

And when the movie ended, I went out into the Bangkok day, savoring every moment.

This is a spirit house. You see one in front of almost every building complex. It is there to collect malicious spirits so they do not go into your house. There are offerings of fruit, gifts, incense and little garlands of flowers. Fresh flower garlands hang from the interior rear view mirrors of taxis, around statues of the king or of deities and on doorknobs. Fruits and flowers abound, luscious ripe tropical fruit from stands on the street or in markets. They have a dish I have come to love: sticky rice and mango. It comes with a little container of coconut milk to pour over it. "Takeaway" Thai food is an art form. You can get it any hour of the day or night.

I'm visiting friends here. They have introduced me to the money, the public transport a few local sights and then I took off on my own to see many more. I've come to appreciate the difference between North Asia, where I spent almost 4 years in China, and Southeast Asia. I will be back time and time again.


This is golden spires of the Grand Palace seen from the river taxi. So far my favorite market is between the boat pier and the palace. That day I had crispy catfish with vegetables and glass noodles over rice for lunch. And Thai iced tea to drink. I bought another puppet for my Asian puppet collection at the market and some small gifts for friends and family.

I'm going to sign off now. Tomorrow I take a weekend side trip to the mountains. Then back to Bangkok for a day and on to China for a while.

Next time I'll log in from Bangkok and a week or two later from China.

In the meantime, all's well stateside, considering, we're surfing the trough. Frugality is the new wealth, and some of the stimulus money is beginning to have an effect.

Obama just signed a $5.7 billion national service bill Tuesday that triples the size of the AmeriCorps (sort of a domestic Peace Corps) service program over the next eight years that helps students to earn money for college. Said the president, "What this legislation does ... is to help harness this patriotism and connect deeds to needs." A major investment in volunteer and grassroot works, a brilliant move. But he comes from that environment and knows what a good investment it is. As difficult as this huge economic speedbump has been, sometimes I can't believe our good fortune. This is one of them.

Way to go Navy Seals, for the rescue of cargo ship captain Richard Phillips from pirates off the Somali coast. A joyous Easter for his family and a WTG moment for us! They'll probably make a movie out of this one, so dramatic, dangerous and skillfully victorious.

Story here, but by the time you read this more details will be available, for sure.

Since I've been microblogging, blogging has taken a back seat. Winter is too slowly surrendering to spring in these parts, so I'm planning an extended Asian journey which will take me from Bangkok to Beijing. Will report in, with pics, for sure.

Happy Paschal holidays to everyone, which ever one(s) you celebrate. Certainly it is a time of liberation and resurrection.

Back in the early stages of the financial crisis, wags joked that our trade with China had turned out to be fair and balanced after all: They sold us poison toys and tainted seafood; we sold them fraudulent securities.
...
China now owns so many dollars that it can’t sell them off without driving the dollar down and triggering the very capital loss its leaders fear.

Krugman in the Times

That's the metaphor for this speed bump in the global economy. A tiger by the tail. One of Krugman's best.

This is a response to a post on Huffington, How Beijing Butchered Sean Penn's "Commie, Homo-Loving" Oscar Speech. The author was frothing at the mouth at how the Oscar speeches around MILK's wins were censored on CCTV, on their Oscars broadcast. I personally thought it was fantastic that they broadcast any of it.

Living recently in China for years, I met a number of gay people from teens to their forties. Social acceptance is proceeding apace with their economic growth and increasing Western influence. Larger cities have lively gay venues. With a graying population and a government of elders, there is resistance at the top, which is where the censorship originates.


There are four confluent issues here: acceptance of homosexuality, censorship of media, resistance to authority, and the word Commie. The latter might well have been the most provocative factor. Once you let loose with the word Commie, even the most modernized of Chinese might bristle. (Penn meant it as a term of endearment, but that's beside the point.) Communism was bestowed by Mao, who is still deeply revered.

Not much needs to be said about the Chinese attitude toward resistance to authority. But in regards to censorship, it might surprise you (as it did me) to find out that censorship, does not offend Chinese the way it does us in the West. They view it as an accommodation to the enormous cultural and generational diversity in their great nation, and as a buffer to instability, which is more dreaded than censorship or totalitarianism.

That said, by the sheer persistence of quality gay-themed major motion pictures and other Western entertainment, the message of tolerance and protectiveness of gay concerns will eventually take root in China. Sooner, I sometimes think, than it will here in the U.S..

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Here it is Super Bowl Sunday and this is one of the few Superbowl Sundays in my adult life that I'm not in the kitchen cheerfully assembling homemade pizza for a pack of bonding males. I'll probably make pizza anyway, maybe with caramelized onions and roasted garlic, it's a good indoor Sunday project for a sub-freezing day, but I don't fan American football and IMHO the only virtue of Super Bowl is that it signals the end of football season.

I like the halftime show. I wondered "aloud" on Facebook how I could catch halftime without watching the game and got some good answers from my beloved wolfpack. The best was from 4ever bud and primo musical conscience Mark Sebastian:

You'll know it's halftime at the Superbowl when 200,000,000 toilets flush simultaneously, raising sea levels globally and wiping out coastal towns from Provincetown to Malibu.

I'm watching Sunday morning talk TV, a sacrosanct weekend pastime (don't ever call me before 2pm EST on a Sunday) listening to the flushing sound of the economy through various partisan viewpoints. Obama's stimulus chess game is a fascinating study in contrapuntal lesser evils. I have to admit that I listen to or watch conservative newstalk for the supreme pleasure of watching wingnuts squeal like the stuck pigs that they are. Oh excu-u-use me, that's not terribly bipartisan, but I've had to suck up eight years of predictable de-regulative fallout culminate on the verge of what would be my retirement. Even so, I am wary of the Democrats getting a filibuster-proof majority in the legislature; the ability to bulldoze is an invitation to corruption and excess no matter who's driving. I do believe loyal opposition, despite all evidence to the contrary, does exist and implements the constitutionally intended counterbalance of the three branches of the U.S. Federal Government.

China's Premier Wen Jiabao and Russia's PM Vladimir Putin were spot-on in rebuking the USA, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, for septic tanking the global economy with high consumption, low savings, rampant borrowing and irresponsible market oversight.

It's going to take a hell of a bailout to level out the Superbowl cluster flush, but hey, what's a meta for?

To all my Chinese friends and friends in China.

Today Barack Obama boarded the Amtrak train in Philly that will take him on Lincoln's 1861 route to Washington DC, starting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with stops in Wilmington, Delaware, and Baltimore, Maryland.

And so, today, begins this historic Presidential Inauguration.

2009 rang in with the drama of chaos and the flash of fireworks, but it won't truly begin for Americans until Tuesday, when Barack Hussein Obama is sworn in.

He has restored hope and enthusiasm to the American public in the face of epochal challenges and optimism is the most essential fuel for progress, even and maybe especially, when the engine is broken.

Forty years ago my generation had Woodstock, in a time when rock stars supplanted the influence of national leaders. When civil rights and an unjust war in Viet Nam were the issues, the rock and roll generation became our conscience and consciousness. Besides the message of unity, resistance, truth to power and questioning authority, rock had the flash and energy of youth, an outpouring of artistry and most importantly, it would prove, the power of the media. Barack Obama's constituency has the power of media undreamed of in the halcyon days of rock, media that politicians of power today only begin to understand and begin to understand only after Obama's constituency embraced it.

Washington DC will be filled to capacity with Americans eager to witness and participate in this monumental Inaugural, but those of us not on the ground there in the freezing weather can participate in a huge CNN online event on Facebook, with citizen reportage by text and picture message from smartphones, transmitted by the people who don't need popular music anymore to encourage and and articulate their shouts to the hilltop.

I haven't heard any songs of today that express this generation's fears hopes and objections but the train, long a powerful metaphor for progress and hope and a fixture in American popular song, pulls into Wilmington, as I write this, to pick up Joe Biden, the people cheering, the President-elect waving. And lines from a Paul Simon song, The Boy in the Bubble, run through my stammering brain.

these are the days of miracles and wonder
this is a long distance call

The distance wasn't so long, after all, was it? I am still alive. And so is the optimism I feared was drowning in cynicism and lost forever.

I believe we have witnessed the most amazing year since 1968, and it isn't even over yet. Civilization is shaking on its axis. The post-election euphoria was still reverberating when the the economy was shaken by seismic failures within the financial sector. Gas went below $2.

Lobster went below $4. Not because of a shortfall of sales, it was due to an unusually enormous harvest.

The Lobster Coast by Colin S. Woodard explained how this happens. After game commission estimates of the lobster population and harvest predictions proved vastly erroneous year after year, Win Watson, a researcher from the University of New Hampshire, decided to drop a camera to the bottom of a midcoast Maine lobster habitat and find out why.

The first thing that happened was the lobsters fought each other outside the trap entrance. The winner entered the trap, took the bait and left, as did several other alpha lobsters, leaving the trap for less experienced lobsters, who wandered in after the smell of long gone bait, and got caught. It turned out that only 6% of lobsters that crawl into a trap remain trapped. The other 94% take the bait and leave. Most of the lobsters on Maine's rocky bottom are just lunching off the bait, flourishing and breeding. Did I read something about financial industry executives and the politicians that abet them that resembles this?

The lobster boon backfired and what with the price of lobster this season, it's not worth taking a boat out. That'll drive the price up again in time. OPEC, under economic constraints precipitated by failing markets, met to decide to limit production until the price of oil goes up again as well. In the meantime here in Maine, we feast on lobster even more than usual and don't hesitate to drive somewhere whenever we feel like it.

This has been some year. Democracy came roaring back to life in U.S. elections. A mobilized citizen task force of reformers of every age, race, and economic stratum, put Barack Obama and a Democratic congress handily over the top. The symbolism of the victory was as potent as its fact, and is responsible for a sense of hope and determination in the face of an epochal economic challenge.

President-elect Obama assembled a brilliant cabinet, with Hilary Clinton appointed Secretary of State. My only (and heartfelt) disappointment with the presidential race was resolved.

Michael Phelps, an endearing guy with a great mom, is the new heartthrob of America, after winning 8 golds, one of them by a fingernail, in the Beijing Olympics.

Beijing was still basking in the glow of the most extravagantly successful Olympics ever when the scandal of deliberately contaminated baby milk broke. The government knew about the menace before the Olympics but wouldn't release any news or cautions so as not to detract from favorable coverage of the Olympics. Putting their own children at risk, and many were affected, rather than risk face. Their own population, most of whom can only have one child, is outraged and they are dragging some accountability out of their chagrined government. Favorable coverage didn't last long.

O.J. got thrown behind bars. Probably not for long, as his sentence was somewhat disproportionate to his crime, which was more of a boondoggle than a threat to society. But we got to see him grovel and lose after winning and gloating when he was found not guilty of a murder he surely had something to do with.

The Governor of Illinois got caught scheming to auction off Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder among the contenders. He got led away in handcuffs at dawn.

The mind boggling news just continues non-stop. Nonny the Cow, from a Brooks farm, around ten miles from here, is now evidently the world's oldest cow. The story made front page below the fold! She's old enough to vote. And probably could, if she were in Chicago.

A venerated investment fund manager's 30 year ponzi scheme collapsed, leaving his clients, among them many charities, billions poorer. The SEC never bothered investigating his outsized returns on investments, even though there were flags.

The coffers of the U.S. Treasury began gushing bailout funds and plans for economic stimuli to shore up the financial sector and reawaken a consumer market that is just folding its arms and tapping its foot. (I must admit, I snapped up a brand name cashmere coat when I was in New York over Thanksgiving, at an unbelievable price. The entire city was on markdown. Just doing my duty for the economy.) Some of that stimulus cash is expected to flow to Maine, which is usually near the bottom of the federal funding food chain, because we re-elected Sen. Susan Collins and we have Sen. Olympia Snowe, both principled moderate Republicans who will represent a Republican swing vote in many a congressional effort where the Democrats need a little help from their friends across the aisle.

It is amazing to see market capitalism disintegrating and the U.S. government begin to nationalize banks and subsidize major corporations. I'm either too stupid or too astounded to be scared. That's the third time in my lifetime the entire world is changing. But you see, I love it; transcendent change produces transcendent creativity. I can hardly wait to see and partake in what happens. Again.

A just dessert! Enjoy.
Thanks, Audrey!

Salerno, Italy last weekend
photo by Stephen Sanders

Democratic Party HQ on Election Day, Belfast, Maine.

Unity


Free coffee for voters



Have you voted yet today?


The way things should be

Just heard on CNN (David Brody): "When my toilet was running today, I actually called Sarah Palin to get Joe's cell number."

I got another hateful robocall from the Republicans today. They are truly twisting in the wind.

I'll be working the phones at Democratic HQ on Tuesday getting out the vote.

I have been spending my blogging time remodeling Crackpot Chronicles' design. I hope you like it! The new Mediaista sidebar is a notion in development; stay tuned. The home website is also going to get some long overdue maintenance as well.

In passing, I'd like to note that I got a recorded phone call from the Republicans (huh?) today citing Obama's "close ties" to domestic terrorism -- it's desperation time for the pachyderm party.

Gas prices have recently plunged, hovering the $3.00 mark, down lower than it was last year at this time, if memory serves. I reckon the stock market implosion kicked some speculator hiney. Not all the economic news is bad, I guess.

More posting when web design tasks are finished and cross-browser hair-pullers are resolved. Be safe out there.

This is my comment on Huffington Post in response to an anti-Palin screed by Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood (and daughter of the late Ann Richards, whom I love). A link to the offending post appears below mine. You can read it if you like, I won't propagate it here. With liberals like Cecile Richards who needs Republicans?

@Huffington Post

This column is a disgrace. Richards is the kind of cultural ignoramus that costs Democrats election after election by disaffecting moderates, offending women deeply and mobilizing the right.

First of all, calling abortion a "women's health" issue is disingenuous. Second of all, the morning after pill is not contraception, as another commenter pointed out. Third, and most importantly, the notion that abortion is the linchpin of feminist issues is an enormous and disastrous misconception (sic). There are pro-life feminists, stay at home mom feminists and feminists that would like to have sex education taught in a manner consistent with their own cultural values. They believe in equal pay, equal opportunity, abuse protection for women and children and authentic women's health issues, like more breast cancer research. To dismiss this element is to insult and marginalize a segment of the electorate, mostly in the fly-over states, that can swing an election. "Chicken voting for Col. Sanders?" [one of Richards' bon mots] Rhetoric like that is why the women you vulgarize voted for Bush's second term even though they realized it was against their economic interest.

Like her or not, Palin does, demonstrably, represent a significant portion of the women in this country, on kitchen-table issues, as a woman of achievement, as an outspoken leader of a constituency you can't just dismiss by insult.

Calling Palin an idiot makes it all too easy to demonize (what you misrepresent as) leftist, progressive and feminist thought. You're an extremist to moderates and although I agree with your end game--electing Obama and Biden-- I cannot abide by your regrettable and ultimately defeatist tactics.

***

This post is in reply to" Women's Health:
Yet Another Issue Sarah Palin is Out of Touch On

After the post she urges readers to "Sign our letter today -- tell Sarah Palin that she is not your candidate." And the letter itself is the height of arrogant sophistry.

Ya, you betcha. I'm steamed. And eagerly awaiting tonight's vice presidential debate.

Mooshead Lake is the largest lake in New England and a place dear to Henry David Thoreau, who came there in the mid 1850s to retreat and explore. He wrote "A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is the Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature." Thoreau crossed the lake in a birch bark canoe with a native guide and explored the deep wilderness of the North Woods.

The wilderness around Moosehead lake is still rhapsodic wild, but accessible, and among the prime hiking, exploring and water transport ways in the East. It is ever so lightly developed with elegant rusticity, though I hear in the summer "you can hardly turn around" in the tiny port of Greenville. But on our day, the Katahdin was only half full, Greenville was virtually empty of tourists and the weather was sparkling crisp and clear.

Crossing Mooshead on the Katahdin, following part of Thoreau's route, at the first blush of autumn, the sense of Thoreau was palpable.







Mt. Kineo, where native tribes came for the rich deposits of flint.



The restored Katahdin, the last surviving vessel of a steamship fleet that plied the lake carrying passengers and freight and towing booms of lumber.



Katahdin in the Port of Greenville






Mountains along the shore

Shana Tova!
The Days of Awe begin.

Channel surfing late night Sundays is practically always futile, if you're not following football. It's a TV dead zone. So I am as amazed as I am delighted to report the discovery of a new show, Huckabee on Fox. Yes, that Huckabee, the former Governer of Arkansas, ordained Baptist Minister and former Republican presidential candidate. It's scheduled for primetime Saturday and Sunday and they do another re-run on Sunday late nights. Crackpot Chronicles is pleased to report a solid winner.

On the discussion seat was not only Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the Conservative chair of the brainy daytime talk show The View, but former Democratic vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro along with a number of Fox finance experts and Conservative pundits talking about the currently explosive economic issues. It was really good. I mean really good. Funny, insightful, balanced, with a homespun feel, I can hardly recall watching something so topical and fresh. Huck is a natural, with his bumpkin persona, wisecracking intellect, and obvious respect for well-stated opposition views.

I tuned in late, but what grabbed me was a question he dropped on Hasslebeck (paraphrasing here): feminism is more about leftist agenda than it is about women these days, isn't it? I stopped plumping my pillows and sat down, stopped cold. He put into words something I've been feeling for years and never could express. It was what bristled me about all the spiteful email forwards and Liberal pundit swipes about how Sarah Palin was going to put women back 40 years. I mean really! It's a good example of the cultural ignorance of leftists that costs the Democratic Party elections again and again. Someone who can field dress a moose and has a pro-life agenda just isn't a woman, according to the left. Well, excuse me, but feminism is the interests of all women, even if they don't have common social or political values. I've seen enough anti-feminist spew over Palin to fund my ire account for a while. Panicky frantic liberal women sniping at her high heels, when Palin is perfectly capable on coming undone politically by her own efforts.

Back to the Huckabee show. It ends with a "house" band composed of the Huck himself on bass and various Fox workers; writers, techs and researchers on the other instruments, a ragtag ensemble, but perfect for the show. Huckabee plays bass guitar in his own rock-n-roll band, Capitol Offense, which has opened for artists such as Willie Nelson and the Charlie Daniels Band, and has played the House of Blues in New Orleans, the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver and for two presidential inauguration balls. Even a picky picky picky musikista like me had to grin from ear to ear.

Watch this show, if you can, even if it is a right-leaning show on a Conservative network. You might come to understand something valuable about another point of view. And you will have a good time.

UPDATE: Kyle hung a right, softened up and missed the midcoast, dropping a bit of rain, but that's all.

Coastal Maine is under the first hurricane watch in 17 years. I'm battening down the hatches.

EASTPORT, Maine (AP) - A rare tropical storm warning and hurricane watch were posted for parts of the Maine coast on Saturday as Hurricane Kyle roared north toward the region with a threat of conditions similar to one of New England's nor'easter storms.

...

The hurricane center posted a hurricane watch from Stonington, at roughly the center of the Maine coast, to Eastport, on the border with New Brunswick, Canada. A tropical storm warning extended from Port Clyde, about 50 miles northeast of Portland, to Eastport. A tropical storm watch extended from Port Clyde to Cape Elizabeth, an area that includes Portland, Maine's largest city.

A hurricane watch means hurricane conditions, with winds of at least 74 mph, are possible within 36 hours. A tropical storm warning means conditions for that type of storm, with winds of 39 to 73 mph, are expected within the next 24 hours. A tropical storm watch means those conditions are possible within 36 hours.

Kyle could make landfall near Eastport, possibly late Sunday, the hurricane center said.

Livin' in the USA sure ain't dull these days. On the home stretch of the most vivid Presidential campaign ever, Wall Street has a long overdue meltdown. Republican candidate McCain tries to weasel out of a scheduled debate with his opponent on Friday, seeing his poll numbers tend southward. He announces that he's suspending his campaign and invites his opponent to do likewise; he's rebuffed. Then the President invites both of them to an emergency conference tomorrow.

The Republican President desperately requests a Rooseveltian solution: nationalizing huge financial institutions with $700 billion of “taxpayer” money. The laissez faire, anti-big-gumment Republicans have their shorts in a knot over this, "it's un-American!" they wail. The Democrats are hee-hawing like the donkey that symbolizes that party. The terse-bail out plan handed down from the throne had no provision for oversight – and the lack of oversight was what brought this collapse on. All this happens just before Congress is scheduled to adjourn for the year. Are you kidding me? This is better than a Tom Clancy movie! I stayed up all night last night watching analysts hash this over on TV.

This is just a more drastic repeat of what happened in the Reagan administration. He deregulated the banks and soon after there was a Savings and Loan collapse that had to be bailed out. The real estate loan business was deregulated under Bush, high-risk derivative publicly traded securities based on these loans were legalized and that precipitated this calamity. And to be fair, there was some deregulation, or more accurately, less than diligent attempts at regulation during the Clinton administration as well. President Clinton, by coincidence, has been making the rounds of all the talk shows this week to report on the Clinton Global Initiative summit, and has had to address this (among other issues).

I don't have any money in the market but I know this is a ricocheting calamity. My livelihood is probably at risk and my grocery, fuel and other expenses, which have risen over the last year, are certainly going to go higher. But I've got some savings and some momentum; I'll get on fine. No pain, no gain. What's the gain, you might ask. In a word, perspective. You can see a bit more clearly when a bubble bursts. This situation is not likely to repeat itself on the next economic upswing, an upswing that can most absolutely be predicted, in time. These are very deep pockets, at least at the top, and this is a very resilient and radiantly ingenious people, one that historically is able to tighten its belt and soldier on.

But if the working American public sees this bailout money going to failing institutions without any penalties, oversight or payback, if executives of these bailed out institutions can subsequently sell their stock, pocket the proceeds and bow out, there will be riots in the streets. Bush knows this and announced in his speech tonight that there would be limits in CEO pay, provisions for taxpayer reclamation, and oversight. It has been suggested that a CEO of a bailed out, and subsequently taxpayer-owned institution should earn no more than the highest paid civil servant, i.e. the President, who earns $400,000.00 a year. Can you imagine? 400K as a booby prize?

I'm not personally fearful, I'm flabbergasted and intrigued. I expect this will sort out very soon, because it has to, and I expect that there will be hell to pay in the Republican sector which will guarantee a Democratic victory in November. Democrat's joy will be short lived as it is the future president who will inherit this mess. And we'll all feel the pinch as this plays out. Most Americans are going to have to live with diminished assets. But as Bill Gates said earlier today in an interview "most of the people in the rest of the world love to have our problems." And in truth, this fissure in the N.Y. Stock Exchange will have much more severe repercussions overseas than it will here.

Thanks to Richard (Peking Duck) for bringing this to our attention on Facebook. It is fantastic.
Representative Marcey Kaptur, D, Ohio.



If it doesn't play on here, you can play it directly on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHmvyjkQ-rQ&feature=related

My home town, my birthplace. You taught me the grit and the grandeur of life. You taught me passion. And what greatness really means.




















Your streets, the aroma of pretzels and mustard, the brownstones and the skyscrapers, the art, the style, the street life, the pizza and the penthouses. And after the worst man-made hit in the history of this great nation, how you stood back up and showed the world that the soul of our magnificent city had a resilience and a spirit beyond compare.

I remember my first trip back when I was living abroad, in 2004, a year and a half into my almost four years in China, circling Manhattan at night over the glittering skyline, beckoning, welcoming, pirouetting, a beacon, a monument, and a homefire. And the words just fell from my mouth, "There it is, the crown jewel of the civilized world."

I remember my annual family Thanksgiving visit in November of 2001, walking from the Lower East Side where I was staying to ground zero and as I passed City Hall, you could still smell the smoke, as the angry crater smoldered in the aftermath. And when I got there, the stunning amazement at how unimaginably huge the attack site was. They were still digging out all the gold and negotiable securities, with the pieces of the fallen, from under the mangled ground. It broke my heart, New York. But it didn't break yours.

No, we don't have to get over it! We're over it. But we'll never forget, not you, not the bravery and shining pride, nor those who were lost on September 11th, 2001.

Labels: New York September 11th 2001

Wouldn't it be ironic if Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, who was just picked as John McCain's running mate, was the first to walk through one of those eighteen million cracks in the glass ceiling that Hillary Clinton broke in? She even just made a complimentary reference to Sen. Clinton in her first speech as candidate, in front of a Republican audience, who cheered heartily. The Republicans are going after the p.u.m.a. factor. Will they be successful?

I bet that's a kick in the gonads of the Obama campaign. NOW the campaign seems like it's going to be as exciting as the primaries. Let's go!

I'm not voting for you, but you do have (and always have had) my respect.

The Democratic Party convention, which started as a complete yawn, has definitely gained momentum. It's a monument to American diversity. Today, the invocation prayer was led by a rabbi, the pledge of allegiance was led by Shawn Johnson, the gold medaled gymnast sweetie pie of the Olympics and the Star Spangled Banner sung by a lovely black singer whose name escapes me at the moment (she was fantastic). And tonight, on the anniversary of MLK's I Have A Dream speech, the first person of color to reach the presidential nomination takes the podium with what promises to be a barn-burner of a speech. A proud day, indeed, for this embattled nation. The mood is "better days are coming" and the economy took a significant uptick today.

After that classy ad by McCain, is the Democratic nominee going to diss him? I guess we'll see.

If you fanned Obama on FaceBoook you were promised a text message announcing the candidate's veep pick before the major media was informed. What a scam! The media announced that Obama picked Joe Biden around midnight and the FB announcement didn't appear until after 3am -- text messages were way behind media announcements. The Obama campaign data-mined 1.3 million Obamorons on FaceBook, and failed to deliver the payoff. And the hapless FB Barackoids are going to have to live with Obamaspam from now on. I bet the mobile phone service providers just love this windfall. And no, I didn't sign up, I saw this one coming. Once again the bamaheads who think that a new kind of politics is in the offing were hosed, a trickle that will become a downpour.

That aside, Biden is a great candidate for vice president. This is a good ticket.

I am one Hillary Clinton supporter who thinks she would not have been the right choice for veep. Frankly, I think she qualifies for a much better job. VPOTUS has but two duties under the constitution; To replace the president in case he or she cannot fulfill his or her term and to break a tied vote in the Senate. Thats it, that's all. All other vice presidential functions are at the sole discretion of the president. So a veep can be given an empty desk, if the president so desires. The Cheney phenomenon, where he is essentially a shadow president is strictly a Bush administration prerogative. And one of the worst turn of events in the course American history.

More later.

I got out of the car in the supermarket parking lot, habitually clipped my key-ring to my fashion backpack and breezed through the sunshine toward the doors. All of a sudden, I felt a curious little tap on my derriere and turned around.

On the ground was my key-ring; I hadn't snapped it properly on. As I picked it up, I thought how nice it was for my keys to potch me on their way down, I surely didn't hear them fall. How lucky for me. I must have an angel on my shoulder. Another moment of gratitude for small things, a small thing that could have turned into a world of hassle, but didn't.

Not to waste the moment: gratitude for the car, the market, the pretty backpack, the shoes, the sunshine and the rain. For health and wealth and love, for Cable TV, cappuccino and a scenic second story window to look out of while I write. For work and friends and loving family, for freedom from worry and pain, even if just for this moment. There is nothing but this moment. And that's the key.

Last Thursday I was so preoccupied that I not only left the keys in the car, I left the car running. In Venice Beach, where I used to live, that car wouldn't have lasted 72 seconds. When I got back from my errand, there was my fine old Dolly, grumbling at me. Or was she chuckling? After my chagrin at how inattentive I was, I counted yet one more blessing. I find my self under a benign protection from the elements, from the slings and arrows, and, most importantly, from myself.

Home again. I unpack the luscious groceries. Everything is new. The keys are in my pocket, I take them out and place them into their home at home, in a precious small bowl my mother made that sits on a quirky red jelly cabinet near the door.

A squirrel darts across the driveway.
A hummingbird comes to the window.
The key glows in my mind.

Jerry Wexler, friend, inspiration, mentor, music man. I will miss him dearly. The world is a poorer place today in his absence. He leaves a body of music production that will nourish generations to come, as it nourished, informed and enthralled mine.

Jerry Wexler

The 2008 Summer Games will begin in Beijing this week with an opening ceremony of unprecedented spectacle and showmanship. It will be the most auspicious and thrilling opening in the history of the Games. If it is one thing that China excels at (even more than economic development and cuisine) it's spectacle and showmanship. They've been at it longer than anyone else and take it from me, they are the best. It is a prime exponent of the importance that Asian culture places on Face, where the way things appear are more important than the way things are. It is the venerated cultural reasoning behind why China doesn't feel all elements of an agreement are binding, should they prove inconvenient at the point of execution.

Take for instance the issue of open communication and Internet access for foreign journalists during the Olympics. China agreed to this and now at the last minute, they are requiring hotels housing these journalists to install government-issue firewall software, blocking sites and scrutinizing communications that could cause China to lose Face. You can bet your bottom dollar that all onsite Olympic press room communications will be scrupulously monitored.

Those of us who've recently spent a considerable amount of time living in China, when we heard about this "open for foreign journalists" agreement all said "yeah, right." It makes no difference that China appeared to have renegotiated this with the IOC, they will firewall the journalists, that is their way. I lived with the clogged bandwidth of heavily filtered Internet access, with no access to certain news sites, of periodic blackouts of sensitive TV news items on CNN International the whole time I was there. Government has controlled the flow of information for thousands of years there and it's a hard habit to break. They are betting that the showmanship and hospitality with which they present the Olympics will overcompensate for this and I am betting that they are correct (if not right).

China has the home court advantage in the athletic competitions, and they are superbly prepared, so I am also betting that they will give team America a run for the roses for the most medals won. They will either win the medal count or come so close (including disputed decisions, which we can expect) that their aggregation will be a bigger story than an American medal count win. They'll have the largest cheering section in history. When I talk or email with my Chinese friends they all say the excitement is momentous but the inconveniences of urban life during the run up to the Games gets to them as well. If I ask about the air quality, both foreign and native Beijingers unanimously have avoided answering.

Unknown is how they can clean up the Beijing air quality in time. They will throw every regulation, control, every piece of technology at it and cook the books on reports to make it seem better (they do not even include ozone level in their air quality statistics). This weekend has seen three clear days in a row, which bodes well, but given typical weather for this time of year, hot, dusty, humid, overcast or stormy, this may not endure. Environmental controls are very new to China and since they are not cost-effective in the short term, China is not known for their efficiency at nor its dedication to implementing them. I was in China from 2002 to 2006, the last three years of that in Beijing, and when I departed in May of 06, well after Beijing knew it was going to host the Olympics in 08, the air quality, putrid when I arrived, had gotten steadily and progressively worse. They didn't start in time. Smog control in their new and rapidly growing automobile industry? No way; it would slow the Chinese prime directive: economic development. Industrial emission control? Hardly. It would be a miracle if the air quality remained reasonable for the duration of the Games.

There will be no noteworthy political protest visible in Beijing during the Olympics. That kind of pollution they can and will unapologetically manage.

There have been strong calls in the U.S. for soon to be ex-President Bush (how I love that thought) to decline to attend the opening ceremonies. But that was never even a slight possibility. Bush knows China well. It would lose China face and he can't afford that in any way. Besides, now that the Bush administration has sidelined our moral authority in any human rights discussion, it wouldn't even have made a point.

I watched that birds nest Olympic Stadium go up in Beijing. I passed it several times a week on my rounds. It's a magnificent structure. Even under construction it had a sublime and vigorous elegance. It's placed perfectly, in an aesthetic and historic neighborhood on Chang'an and you could always have a long look at it because traffic was usually jammed around there. But traffic can and will be controlled. There's a new subway line and they will enforce massive traffic limitations. That they can do. It's all for the show and it will be a truly memorable one.

So while refraining from posting here on the presidential campaign, I have slipped and posted a short sweet and irate comment on a NYT Opinion piece The Power of the Protest Vote. Scroll down to comment #98 to read it.

I've been nurturing my campaign abstinence by watching Lou Dobbs (CNN) with guilty pleasure (diminishing guilt as time goes by). He's currently my favorite curmudgeon. He's been leaning hard on the food and product safety issue and how delinquent authorities under this administration have been. It's nothing short of criminal negligence. I've been grousing on it in these pages for a while, starting with the tainted Chinese imports issue which surfaced en masse last year (my coverage). He's supporting the pressure on congress to enforce the COOL (country of origin labeling) laws already on the books, which would have identified the source of the recent widespread salmonella contaminations much faster.

What a canard! The American tomato business was severely damaged by the incompetent management of this crisis, which it turns out originated in Mexican peppers. I hope American tomato growers get a public apology and an enormous amount of very visible compensation. And that the next administration is more concerned about the safety of Americans than protecting the import-export business sector.

Yesterday, Memphis Music Confidential blogged my coverage of Elvis Presley's re-emergence concert at the International Hotel in Las Vegas in July, 1969. You can see it at http://www.memphismc.com/2008/07/29/39-years-ago-today/

And from there you can click through to the full story on my main website (to which this blog is an appendage).

University of Antwerp/Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
Researchers used X-rays from a particle accelerator to reconstruct the portrait of a woman Vincent van Gogh had painted over before composing his landscape "Patch of Grass," completed in 1887. Conventional X-rays used in previous analyses had produced only rough outlines of the portrait. The image, unveiled in a scientific journal published this week, bears a striking resemblance to a series of somber portraits the artist produced in the Dutch town of Nuenen, where he composed “The Potato Eaters,” completed in 1885 and regarded as his first major work.

An amazing discovery. See High-tech study reveals early Van Gogh work beneath another painting for the rest of the story in the L.A. Times.

What lies beneath? Perhaps the most important question that art, even language can express.

[click pic to enlarge]

The sun over the yardarm in Belfast Harbor July 11 2008

Some years ago, Rod Stryker, who was my yoga and meditation teacher in Santa Monica, told us that there is a space of pure peace between breaths in that moment between an inhale and an exhale.

Peace is a natural mind-state in every one of us. Peace has been there since the day we were born and it is going to be there till the day we die. It is our greatest gift; so why do we think we have no peace of mind? Experiencing peace is like looking at our hands. Usually, we see only the fingers – not the spaces in between. In a similar manner, when we look at the mind, we are aware of the active states, such as our running thoughts and the one-thousand-and-one feelings that are associated with them, but we tend to overlook the intervals of peace between them. If one were to be unhappy or sad every minute of the twenty-four-hour day, what would happen to us? I guess we would all be in the mad house!

-Thynn Thynn, Living Meditation, Living Insight

Despite firestorms in California, the aftermath of floods in the Midwest, the 4th of July weekend is one of spirit and celebration this year. Here, we have sunshine and moderate breezes, softshell lobster, mounds of wildflowers, schooners in the sunset.

On the Fourth of July, we had an unusually big farmers market and bike races in town, which closed off most of the main street loop. The tide was extremely low in the morning, so low we couldn't get the Belle Fast off the bottom--so we took the Selkie out instead and after the row, took her back via the City Landing among the yachts instead of the usual pier among the Zodiacs. Evening was a rock concert in the park by the beach and the smell of barbecue everywhere. Here was small town America in a hard pressed state taking a cheerful break from the many concerns of the day.

A little perspective is in order. The malaise of American life is about as overstated as Barack Obama's halo and while his fans are foaming at the mouth over his recent acknowledgments of military, practical and moral reality, we settle in for the long days of summer reflection.

The economy is taking a few right hooks, which will reconcile in the not too distant, but none too immediate future. In the meantime it is provoking an inquiry into the American lifestyle that signifies refreshingly positive re-evaluations. People scaling back on petrol usage, as best they can, municipalities all over the country are going to four-day work weeks to conserve energy, consumers are demanding local tomatoes while the FDA fails, purposely so in my opinion, to find the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to tomatoes.

In our small town, we have already started collecting money to help the local needy with heating fuel this winter. Did you know Citgo AKA the govt of Venezuela donates 100 gallons of heating oil to thousands of qualifying needy households each winter? Qualifying is a matter of applying, having a local program, and proving need. In many cases households are selected via outreach. Now 100 gallons won't get you through the whole winter around here, but it certainly helps.

There are upsides to the sinking dollar too. The mfg sector is getting a breather to better adjust to global competition. China will probably get more American tourism as it's a bargain compared with Europe. It actually has been for some time, but now, with Europe out of the running currency-wise, Asia looks good. I haven't talked to many people that interested in the Olympics, but after the Olympics (assuming it isn't a PR disaster) I betcha China sees a lot more American tourists, even with the rise in airfares. That would be immensely educational and productive for both cultures and economies. (But it'll have to wait till after the Olympics because China is restricting entry visas until then.)

The price of gasoline is a huge (around $4.07-$4.09 a gallon in my area--$4.79 in L.A!) and a well overdue snickety-smack on the forehead of American life. I subscribe to the theory that it is caused by a speculation bubble. As soon as the spot market softens, and it will, because that level of inflation cannot persist indefinitely, petrol will come down. Not to pre-bubble prices, but down enough and suddenly enough to singe some investor hiney.

So say gas gets down to 3 bucks a gallon. We come away a little better off and having learned some hard lessons, to wit:

• The price of petrol in UK is 4 U$D a LITRE - but THEY driver smaller fuel efficient motorcars.
• SUVs are not feasible anymore. They will be as reviled and marginalized as cigarette smokers have become.
  
• Automakers, hopefully not too late, are scaling down and planning to produce smaller cars in larger quantities.
• Mass transit in areas above a certain population density will become a promising investment.
• Going from 2-3 autos (or homes) to 1 per household is not unthinkable.
• Hedge funds are lightning rods for economic anomalies.

Far from being downcast, I find the national mood one of better informed skepticism, constructive concern for the short term but ultimately optimistic about the longer term. The floods in the Midwest are devastating, but the people are taking care of each other as they always do in the heartland. We'll deal with the economic hit from the millions of acres of lost crops in a few months.

The fires in California are horrid, but that happens every 7-10 years or so due to the nature of the vegetation there. A part of my soul lives in Big Sur and it is hurting as that area incinerates. I remember Malibu burning in the 1990s when I lived in Venice beach and you could watch across Santa Monica Bay as the fire tracked around a Malibu mountainside and suddenly glowed more brightly as it consumed a car. It "snowed" ashes for weeks, it came in through closed windows, even.

But the char from the fire eventually turns into petroleum and diamonds and we believe in that diamond day. Scratch an American a little and you find an unending reservoir of blame. Scratch an American hard enough and you learn the true meanings of persistence, ingenuity and optimism.

At 6 AM we boarded the Cornish gig Belle Fast for a row on Penobscot Bay. A gig is a "pilot boat," so named because it was the type of craft used to row a pilot out to a larger craft coming into a harbor to dock. They became racing boats because the first boat to reach the incoming craft got the job, the gig.

A cox called the strokes and 6 oar-persons, 3 each side, synchronously pulled a 12 foot oar into the water. We went out beyond the point, paused before rounding the buoy marker where cormorants were nesting and went back again, a quiet hour's row on a blue sky morning where the mist on the shore was just lifting. We had the water to ourselves, the fishing boats already gone, the yachts still sleeping on the diamond smooth water.

A sign on the water read: "Slow--no wake"