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I grew up in San Francisco. I remember “Eddie the policeman” and his horse Chief. Back then, kids could explore Golden Gate Park without tripping over a homeless encampment, or meander through any of the museums and Japanese Tea Gardens, FREE. Did you know that Golden Gate Park is bigger than New York’s Central Park? Yup, we got one up on the Big Apple.
Some of us remember when Playland still existed and Laughing Sal made you almost wet your pants in hysteria. Geary Street was clean. Things change. Then again, some things do not.
One super fun thing to do in San Francisco is to rent a paddle boat at the Stow Lake Boathouse in Golden Gate Park, and get some exercise circling around Strawberry Island (on top of which is a great view of the City), taking in the turtles basking on logs, the idyllic Chinese Pavilion, or the faux waterfall. It’s also a place where birders can have a field day discovering the many fantastic birds that make the lake and surrounding trees their urban home or resting place. I’ve been lucky and have not been pooped on by a seagull or pigeon yet, but I hear it does happen.
If you’re not in shape, the first ten minutes of paddling will give your legs a good burn. After that, it’s all downhill (so to speak). The lake itself and the surrounding scenery is a real time warp: other than the Chinese Pavilion, which was a gift to the City from Taipei in 1981, the scenery is exactly as I remember it as a kid. The Pavilion is so serene that as you come around the curve and see it, you want to stop paddling and drift, imagining that you’re actually in China during some ancient dynasty. This is where you should get off of your boat, and take a look at the exquisite hand-painted ceiling in the Pavilion, rich with Chinese symbols of good luck and blessings.
It’s hard to think that you’re even in a city as you circumnavigate Stow Lake. This really is the BEST city in the world.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
California's budget and the Future of Education
How does education help the economy? Will the Governor cut us off at the knees in mid-2009? How can empowered citizens make an impact through political videos, blogs, or other social media?
By now you’ve all heard facts and predictions:
- 2.3 million Californians are unemployed or underemployed.
- Home sales have declined more than half.
- Foreclosures have pushed many renters and their families into homelessness.
- The California Prison system is the third largest penal system in the country with 33 prisons housing more than 172,000 inmates at a cost of $5.7 billion dollars a year.
- Legislators propose huge cuts to education and to human services, which will especially hurt poor children and the mentally ill.
- Adding to the revenue shortfall—large, profitable corporations and people in the upper income bracket have continuously received handsome tax breaks since the 1980s.
Blog, blog, blog to vent and to make suggestions for how we can deal with the State’s budget crisis.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Eight Years From Now
In the 1969 hit song “2525,” the lyrics blithely ponder, “If man is still alive, If woman can survive, They may find..."
Well it’s not quite 2525, but 2016 is close enough--if we are even here on Planet Earth then.
The Mayan calendar stops on December 21, 2012. At that time, the winter Solstice sun crosses the center of our galaxy. Does that mean Earth reverses polarity and heads back into the Big Bang from whence it came? We get sucked back up into anti-matter? No Christmas, no Happy New Year? Or, does the clock simply get reset?
Remember the Y2K predictions? People were stocking up on emergency rations, but nothing happened. I can imagine how many pessimists drank themselves silly, toasting the demise of technology-dependent Earthlings, only to wake up the next day to the hangover headache from hell. Did they remember to stock up on Excedrin? The truth is, nobody really knows what’s going happen, but I, no Nostradamus, predict:
More gray hair. Dammit. That means my hairstylist will make more money. Eight years closer to Social Security, which amazingly has survived the Republicans’ attempts to “privatize” the system (a euphemism for raid the coffers and then stick it to taxpayers for a bailout).
The good news is that ordinary citizens have participated in self-governance during the Obama presidency, and collectively, we have put a dent in global warming. Mass transit is everywhere, replacing the huge, individually-driven automobiles that Americans so dearly loved. Gas has been replaced by clean fuel and prime habitat has been given back to the wildlife. Polar bears have been spared extinction! Alaska is still pristine. There are organic community gardens everywhere, and local co-ops distribute food that its citizens have raised. Factory farms have gone bankrupt and their CEOs do penance by hauling manure to compost bins. Sonars were outlawed in our oceans, and marine life is making a dramatic comeback.
The economy still sucks, but we have finally come to the realization that Karl Marx was right: there is enough to go around. We have a global flat tax and the tax loopholes and lawyers who helped people jump over them are gone. Women represent 50 percent of elected politicians and have finally made “family values” a reality versus a counterfeit ideology. We have a four-day workweek! Education is fully funded. Affordable healthcare is available to everyone.
Britney’s kids are pre-adolescents. We found out that Angie and Brad were the genesis of the nursery rhyme, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe . . .”
Facebook went the way of MySpace.
George Bush went back to college to study Comparative Religion, earned grades higher than a C, then converted to Buddhism and donated his vast ill-gotten oil fortunes to repay his bad karma.
Animals are recognized and venerated as sentient beings, a vast connection of diversity in the cosmic web of life of which we are all a part.
Life is good.
Well it’s not quite 2525, but 2016 is close enough--if we are even here on Planet Earth then.
The Mayan calendar stops on December 21, 2012. At that time, the winter Solstice sun crosses the center of our galaxy. Does that mean Earth reverses polarity and heads back into the Big Bang from whence it came? We get sucked back up into anti-matter? No Christmas, no Happy New Year? Or, does the clock simply get reset?
Remember the Y2K predictions? People were stocking up on emergency rations, but nothing happened. I can imagine how many pessimists drank themselves silly, toasting the demise of technology-dependent Earthlings, only to wake up the next day to the hangover headache from hell. Did they remember to stock up on Excedrin? The truth is, nobody really knows what’s going happen, but I, no Nostradamus, predict:
More gray hair. Dammit. That means my hairstylist will make more money. Eight years closer to Social Security, which amazingly has survived the Republicans’ attempts to “privatize” the system (a euphemism for raid the coffers and then stick it to taxpayers for a bailout).
The good news is that ordinary citizens have participated in self-governance during the Obama presidency, and collectively, we have put a dent in global warming. Mass transit is everywhere, replacing the huge, individually-driven automobiles that Americans so dearly loved. Gas has been replaced by clean fuel and prime habitat has been given back to the wildlife. Polar bears have been spared extinction! Alaska is still pristine. There are organic community gardens everywhere, and local co-ops distribute food that its citizens have raised. Factory farms have gone bankrupt and their CEOs do penance by hauling manure to compost bins. Sonars were outlawed in our oceans, and marine life is making a dramatic comeback.
The economy still sucks, but we have finally come to the realization that Karl Marx was right: there is enough to go around. We have a global flat tax and the tax loopholes and lawyers who helped people jump over them are gone. Women represent 50 percent of elected politicians and have finally made “family values” a reality versus a counterfeit ideology. We have a four-day workweek! Education is fully funded. Affordable healthcare is available to everyone.
Britney’s kids are pre-adolescents. We found out that Angie and Brad were the genesis of the nursery rhyme, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe . . .”
Facebook went the way of MySpace.
George Bush went back to college to study Comparative Religion, earned grades higher than a C, then converted to Buddhism and donated his vast ill-gotten oil fortunes to repay his bad karma.
Animals are recognized and venerated as sentient beings, a vast connection of diversity in the cosmic web of life of which we are all a part.
Life is good.
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