I just received one of those chain-letter e-mails that are making the rounds currently and this one cites all the good things that Israelis have done lately. According to this e-mail, Israelis have invented the cell phone, perfected Windows XP, achieved a per-capita income that exceeds the UK’s, developed the Pentium chip, have the highest percentage of college graduates anywhere, discovered how to treat breast cancer without radiation and even invented a cure for pimples. Go them!
After reading this huge laundry-list of Israel’s sparkling achievements, I was immediately reminded of the good old pre-Sputnik glory days of America, back when our education system was the best, our scientists were the best, our economy was the best, our healthcare was the best, our government was the best and everything about America was completely top-drawer.
We were always Number One in everything.
And then along came the corporatists who now own America — taking over our country and shoving their selfish schemes for wealth consolidation, government de-regulation and endless war down our throats. And today, after spending approximately 40 years under corporatist control. America is now 37th in healthcare, 25th in math education, 10th in economic competitiveness, etc. Just look how far we have sunk.
And now even Israel, especially even Israel, clearly outranks us in so many areas and ways. Well, good for them — and bad for us.
However, the corporatists who now own Israel are clearly following the very same policies that originally derailed America: Corporatism, wealth consolidation, government de-regulation and endless war. Now all I can say to Israel is, “Good luck with all that. I hope you do better under corporatism than we did.” But being able to successfully ride the corporatist dragon is probably never gonna happen in Israel either. Why? Because past is prologue and Israel is now blithely heading down the very same road to ruin that America has already traveled. And there’s really nothing to stop Israel from becoming just like us — corporate-owned has-beens.
To quote my friend’s recent chain-letter, “Israel now has the fourth largest air force in the world (after the U.S, Russia and China) and, in addition to a large variety of other aircraft, Israel’s air force has an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s. This is the largest fleet of F-16 aircraft outside of the USA.”
Looks like Israel has already traveled a goodly distance down that same road that has already incapacitated the U.S.
America has become like Pinocchio, lured off to Pleasure Island by the corporatists. And Israel’s nose has clearly already started to grow also, marking the beginning of the end for their accessible education, fabulous healthcare, scientific excellence and economic achievement — to say nothing of Israel also losing its only chance to develop a conscience and become a Real Boy.
PS: Speaking of the past, my son Joe, my daughter Ashley and I just went on a whirlwind tour of most of the places in Southern California where my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents and various aunts and uncles used to hang out. All of them are gone now, but we really enjoyed seeing where they used to live.
My great-grandfather, Charles Gandy, was a Methodist minister in Trenton, New Jersey, the end-product of seven generations of Methodist ministers before him. But then he got TB and moved his family to Banning, CA, out in the desert, and that’s where my grandmother and mother were raised — and so we toured Banning, soaking up all kinds of ancestor vibes. Here are some of my photos from Banning: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150529357901618.366224.519281617&type=1&l=ae3e2bd3e3
And my father’s father, Eugene Purpus, had been a farmer in the Oklahoma Territory until he too moved his family to Banning, to work in the orchards up on the rural Banning Bench. My father was born in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1911, on Route 66, on the way out from Tahlequah.
My Uncle Orville and Aunt Helen used to live in Idyllwild, a historic art colony in the mountain pine forests overlooking Palm Springs, where Aunt Helen was a weaver. But, sadly, Uncle Orville got hit by the 1919 flu epidemic and then came down with Parkinson’s Disease.
Joe, Ashley and I all gave Idyllwild a big thumbs-up, and here are some photos of us roughing it, eating wonton soup, being “Based Gods,” and watching Jurassic Park on TV: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150527084371618.365988.519281617&type=1&l=ab9245ee2e
I also spent most of World War II living in Point Loma while my father was off serving in the Pacific and being stationed in Occupied Japan. So we found my old house there and it was all very deja vu. I had loved living in Point Loma, and moving away has always been my Paradise Lost moment — but my family had been forced to move because, after coming back from the war, Pop couldn’t find work in San Diego and so we migrated north.
Here are some photos of our old house in Point Loma: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150513096146618.364558.519281617&type=1&l=8d85116c88
Then Joe, Ashley and I spent a sweet rainy day in Tijuana, where my mom used to take me when I was a kid. And we have the photos to prove it: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150517601961618.365016.519281617&type=1&l=914b37c3af
Next on the tour, we visited Aunt June in Escondido — or at least tried to. It seems that her home had recently burned down and she was now happily ensconced in an assisted-living facility in Maryland. Maryland? Definitely not part of our tour. Sorry, Aunt June.
Here are photos of Aunt June’s old home after the fire: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150527050396618.365981.519281617&type=1&l=333f25e97a
That left only Los Angeles to visit, which we did. Uncle Donald and Aunt Mina had lived in Hollywood (next to Ozzie and Harriet, BTW). I had been born in Los Angeles and my parents both worked their way through UCLA during the tragic 1930s Depression. Then Joe and Ashley went off to see a Bruce Lee documentary in El Segundo and I holed up at the LAX Motel 6 and read murder mysteries.
The next day, I walked over to my friend Tsering’s amazing eclectic used-book store in Inglewood (Vajra Books and Gifts, 100 North Market Street) and exchanged hot gossip and bought books. Tsering is an old-skool Tibetan refugee and artisan extraordinaire as well as a book-seller.
Then it was off to Griffith Park for lunch, where my mom used to take me in a stroller when I was a baby. Then we did the traditional night-time race up the I-5 back to Berkeley. Wanna see photos of that? Here they are: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150529388471618.366231.519281617&type=3&l=420c088fa8
Perhaps we didn’t cover my entire SoCal past, but we did see a great deal of it. And we had fun doing it too.
My own past has been prologue to a very interesting life, trying hard to do as many good deeds as possible before I die, trying to emphasize “Do unto others” and “Repair the World” — that kind of stuff. And let’s hope that America and Israel’s past will also be prologue to a very interesting life along these lines as well.
Unfortunately, however, if things don’t change rapidly and they don’t ditch their corporatist owners’ greedy and war-mongering attitudes ASAP, Israel’s and America’s “interesting life” is going to become far more interesting — and in an entirely different direction — than its citizens had ever intended.
The Case of the Missing Journalism
KTVU got there Thursday
Tents popped up again onSproul Plaza Thursday
Little tents seen on Frank Ogawa Plaza
As the first full week in February ends, the overwhelming temptation for political pundits is to compare the chaotic process of getting the Republican primary elections voters to choose the man who is ultimately going to get the nomination to Bach’s Little Harmonic Labyrinth, and so the World’s Laziest Journalist will skip that because it is too obvious. The executives for the Democratic Party know who their nominee will be just as surely as Karl Rove knows who his party will select.
Isn’t it obvious to non pundits that Romney is a Potemkin candidate? For most Republicans the situation is like when they learn beforehand that they will be honored via a surprise party and that they will have to act surprised when it happens right on schedule.
The paid pundits in the mainstream media know this but their weekly (“Yeah, I get paid weakly – very weakly”) paycheck is whatcha might call “hush money.” When the inevitable happens watch and see just how authentic the surprise is on the faces of TV’s regulars on the weekend analysis shows. It’s like they say in Hollyweird: “If you can fake sincerity, you have it made in Hollywood.”
Didn’t Republicans fight hard to get ranked choice voting established and now aren’t they using the Liberals’ arguments against the change to discredit Romney who isn’t getting much more than about 50 percent of the voters in any one primary?
Speaking of Republican inconsistencies; what about the possibility of sending Americans into Syria to help them win freedom and democracy? Is it an oxymoron when Republicans staunchly endorse sending American youth to die in a war to establish a democracy overseas? Shouldn’t they want to establish a Republic and not a Democracy?
The Oakland city council at their regular Tuesday night meeting voted down a measure to order the Police to use more stringent measures when dealing with the Occupy protesters.
Some cynics question spending money for keeping people out of a public park or plaza or from seizing a vacant building on a weekend when five murders are committed in other areas of Oakland. Isn’t the answer that there is always going to be gang violence but cleaning up the downtown shopping area makes business associations happy?
Periodically at Frank Ogawa Plaza tiny teepees will appear. Apparently they are meant to be a gesture of defiance regarding the ban on the use of tents in that area in front of the Oakland City Hall.
This week the Guardian weekly newspaper in San Francisco ran an article, on page nine of the February 8 to 14, 2012 edition, written b Shawn Gaynor, about new legislation which is designed to prevent the San Francisco Police Department from working with the FBI to investigate local citizens.
Isn’t it one thing for the police to tell a fearful wife that they can’t do much about a husband’s threats until he actually does something unlawful, and another thing for a country that might send troops to Syria to investigate the possibility of future reprisals inside the USA?
This week the New York Times in a lead story on page one reported that the USA plans to downsize the number of diplomats stationed in Iraq. Were they trying to hint that the massive Embassy constructed under war conditions in that country was an example of overspending that precipitated the numerous cuts to welfare programs inside the USA? If that’s what they wanted to imply, why not just come out and say so in an editorial?
How can it be that there isn’t a week that goes by without some liberals protesting the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Prison but the allegations of prisoner abuse in the Los Angeles County Jail gets little (if any) notice outside that gigantic county?
On Thursday, February 9, 2012, Occupy Cal held a rally on the Mario Savio steps at Sproul Hall.
The World’s Laziest Journalist went early to the noon event and, while waiting for the start time to arrive, chatted with a local political activist, Russell Bates, who attends many of the political events in the area.
Bates (who emphasizes that he is not related to the mayor of Berkeley) related a version of the events in Oakland on January 28, 2012, that didn’t quite mesh with the way it was reported in local news media.
According to Bates, the marchers who trampled a fence down at the Kaiser Center in Oakland that day were trying to move away from police aggressive police officers and when the marchers encountered the fences the crowd movement away from the police was a greater force than the fence was engineered to withstand.
Bates went on to assert that the people who were arrested for burglary entry into the YMCA later that night, were merely trying to avoid being arrested in a kettling maneuver by the police and that the marchers were merely rushing through the only avenue of escape. Bates alleges that of the 408 people arrested that day, only twelve were charged.
Bates claims that the news media is complicit in spinning the events of that day because they did not provide aerial coverage from their news choppers of the kettling process.
On Thursday, news coverage of the attempt to restart the Occupy Cal movement initially could be described as meager. A camera man from KTVU was covering the noon rally as well as reporters from the student newspaper, radio and TV studio.
Last fall Occupy Cal received news coverage from a much larger contingent of journalists.
A police officer informed the protesters that the tents they were erecting on Thursday afternoon were not permitted. The police did not take action immediately and attempts to learn about subsequent developments by listening for news reports on KCBS news radio were unproductive.
The columnist functions as the writer, typesetter, editor, fact checker, for this column but also has to do the computer work necessary (download from the Coolpix, edit the photos and transfer the ones selected for possible use to a memory stick and then posted online in a place where the html process can find and fetch it for use when the column is posted on Friday morning) to add photos to the column.
[Note: there is a labor dispute in progress at the World’s Laziest Journalist’s headquarters and the proofreaders have been locked out until they give up their silly demands for wages and other benefits.]
Would it be appropriate if the World’s Laziest Journalist were to be well paid to not cover Occupy Cal? How can “hush money” be spun so that it sounds commendable?
On Friday morning, KCBS news radio was not making any mention of the Thursday student protest and so the World’s Laziest Journalist will have to take a circuitous rout to the computer which will be used to post the column online and check to see if the tents are still making their mute protest or if the protesters have folded their tents and faded away into the night.
On Friday morning, that news station was reporting about a Thursday night public meeting in Oakland where members of the public made charges of police brutality against the participants in the Occupy Oakland events.
Recently this columnist has suggested that there might be a need for an unofficial meeting place for a Berkeley Press Club. Apparently the columnist misjudged the level of enthusiasm such a suggestion might generate. Only one reader responded to the idea of such a group.
On Thursday, the news media seems to regard Occupy Cal as a fad that has faded.
This just in: On Friday morning the tents were still on Sproul Plaza and more TV news crews had arrived and interviews were being conducted. The story on Friday morning seemed to focus on the symbolism of a mushroom as indicating regeneration. The World’s Laziest Journalist will try to file updates next week.
To be continued . . .
California Governor St. Ronald Reagan once said: “If it takes a bloodbath to end this dissention on campus; let’s get it over with.”
Now the disk jockey will celebrate the Beach Boys reunion by playing their “Smile” album. Tuesday in San Francisco there will be several events to mark the 50th anniversary for Tony Bennett’s original studio session for making the recording of “I left my heart in San Francisco,” so the DJ will play that song. He will also play “Desert Caravan.” We have to go and see if we can watch the Grammies. Have a “nothing to see here” type week.