Michael Vick, Football, and Dogfighting

I’ve been thinking about the difference between playing professional football and dogfighting.

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Give Peace a Glance

The group “Breasts not bombs” had a protest of sorts at the Federal Plaza in San Francisco earlier today. After lunch a woman I work with came back into the office and reported that she had seen the antiwar group there going topless for peace.

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Cult of the New, Part Two

Have you ever headed straight somewhere and ended up making lots of stops first? That’s what last post was like. It reminded me of a girlfriend I had once who wanted to go clothes shopping for me, but first she wanted in to stop at this dress shop then that shoe store and then another women’s clothes shop then another until I said “I need to get out of this mall” and on the way out she tried to get me into another dress store.

I’d give you our dialog in departing — but it would just be another detour.

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The Cult of the New

Among the problems with a Panasonic cassette player microphone held by hand to the speaker of a portable radio is that you don’t know when to start recording until you hear the first chords of a song you like.

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Henry Bennard and a ’98 Oldsmobile (1898)

I’ve spoken to my Dad lately about how much America has changed, prompting some memories for him of wonderful people he knew in the past.

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Our Ernie Boy

Hey — it’s Bastille Day! Our Ernie boy is five years old now, which makes him 35 in people years.

Ernie was left at animal shelters three times in his first 11 months, and was high maintenance as a 70 pound pup.

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Religious Nuts

Last post, I mentioned having tutored foreign attorneys in that long-ago job. That was one of my favorite gigs, all-time.

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Digressing Freely

I had some coworkers once who helped found a town. They were good people, bright and funny.

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Parade, Part Two — Juxta-marching-positions

When I first moved to Alameda in 1996, one of the burning local issues was whether gays should openly participate in the Fourth of July parade. While most of the more progressive burgs around Alameda (San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland, and the enlightened ‘burbs of San Mateo and Marin counties) had dealt with this issue a decade or two earlier, to have a pink and rainbow flag-swathed entry called “Out on the Island” in the parade was highly controversial. The naval air station (out where I now walk the dogs) was closing down in the mid 1990s, and the island still had enough retired military personnel living here to prompt blistering letters to the editor on the issue.

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Independence Day, Part One

We have a Fourth of July parade here. It was revived by the mayor almost two decades ago now, and it has become one of the amenities of living in Alameda. On this one day, all over town, strangers say hello, people greet each other cheerfully and chat, most everyone is in good spirits, and the best elements of our nature emerge.

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