Deb Fudge's Campaign

If you would like to help in Deb Fudge's campaign for 4th District Supervisor, think about adding your name to the 170 donors she has gathered to date. Deb has raised over $36,000. She's a progressive, an environmental expert, and she is leading a strong grass roots campaign. Deb Fudge, many times a mayor, has an excellent chance to win--and she would maintain the current and rare progressive majority on the county board of supervisors.

I give Deb very small donations because that is all I can afford.

Visit her excellent web site at www.debfudge.com, where you can see Deb pedaling her bicycle on a cement park path, something I do frequently on my way to Cafe Noto. 

Gary

 

Is Richard Sherman a Thug?

Richard Sherman is an excellent professional football player, an African-American graduate of Stanford and rich. Last week, after winning a key game, he unleashed a display of taunting on national TV that turned off many viewers, including me. I find taunting, rubbing it in, unpleasant to watch, but I'm old and out of date in certain ways. I didn't watch Jersey Shore or those survivor programs (except for the first, which was compelling if appalling).

Anyway, some Interneters and talking heads on TV, none of whom had ever met Richard Sherman, who might be a a nice guy out of uniform, apparently called him a thug. Sherman is a law-abiding citizen and a bad sport but not a thug. John Gotti was a thug. Chris Christie is a bully but not a thug. What really caught my interest, though, was the football player's next claim, which was that "thug" is code for the n-word. As many must know, the term "thug" comes from India, where it originally referred to assassins from a murderous cult devoted to the goddess Kali. This religious organization was suppressed by the British in the 1830s. Perhaps the original thugs became Anglicans. In any case, the term hung around.  

I have never heard "thug" used to mean the n-word. Perhaps Richard Sherman just made that up. Or maybe he didn't. I have to say that I was amazed to see so many of my fellow progressives immediately decide that Sherman was an authority on diction. ("Thug" was also a term in some early rap, where it meant a hopeless guy leading a hopeless life.)

Educational Absurdities

The argument that education can solve our economic problems, demonstrated by the fact that well educated people make more money than uneducated people, is unconvincing. It has been true for individuals. I got to live a somewhat middle class life because I went to college and graduate school. But what if everyone had my education? 

To put it bluntly, our current economic system makes it cheaper to buy a robot than to hire a human. Let's say that 200 million people in our work force go to graduate school. How much impact will that have on the fact that we don't have enough human jobs to go around? Soon you would need a master's degree to flip burgers. And human work with a living wage is even harder to find in most other countries. And no political leader is addressing the problem.

Christie

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In Florida when a reporter asked Chris Christie when he would decide for or against a Presidential run, Christie said, "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it."

(Not really)

Fudge and McGuire

Deb Fudge, often the mayor of Windsor, was endorsed yesterday by Congressman Jared Huffman. Fudge is running for county supervisor, and if she is elected, the rare progressive majority among supervisors will survive. That matters a great deal if you work for a living or care about environmental issues. 

Fudge has endorsed Mike McGuire for the state senate. McGuire, the progressive supervisor that Fudge will replace, saw his last Democratic rival, Novato Mayor Eric Lucan, drop out of the race for state senate.  Lucan endorsed McGuire. At this point McGuire must have a big lead against his Republican opponent in the open primary, but recent history tells us that McGuire will run hard until the polls close, and then he may campaign for three more days just to cool down. What is remarkable about all this is the way that local progressive Democrats have been helping one another. We need a linked effort. 

King

When I was in graduate school (of sorts) at UCLA, one afternoon I started to walk down a sloping lawn on campus and saw a group of about 100 students surrounding a short stocky man dressed in a black suit. I recognized him, of course. It was MLK. I walked on over and stood there in the warm sun as he talked about why we should treat one another decently. His style, Southern and mannered and sonorous, was somewhat foreign to me. My idea of good prose was THE MALTESE FALCON or THE STRANGER. But I did not feel right about being critical, because King was the American I most respected. That is still the case.

Liberals vs. Corporate Masters

My knowledge of Sonoma's five county supervisors is limited. Each makes around $130,000 a year and has one employee, which makes them job creators. All five are Democrats--this is a blue county--and three of the five are progressives. The other two are Corporate Masters. You can tell which is which by whether they talk with unions or try to destroy them. It's unusual for the liberals to be a majority, and the next election may change that.

To some extent this might depend on the fate of Supervisor Efren Carrillo, who was caught with his pants down, literally, by the police while drunk, pathetic and apparently about to break into the home of a young woman not interested in him.  Carrillo is a Corporate Master. If he goes to jail, I figure his seat will be up for grabs, much like his underwear.

Mike McGuire, one of the three supervisors who respect unions, is running for the state senate, and he will win. That leaves a  supervisor's seat open. At least five candidates are in the open primary, including Healdsburg City Council Member Tom Chambers, a centrist independent Democrat who rides a good bicycle, Deb Fudge, a long-time liberal office holder who once lost an election for this post by a few hundred votes, and James Gore, a former Washington wine lobbyist, who may be Fudge's main opposition. Fudge has the backing of many Democratic incumbents, and Gore has the backing (I assume) of the county wine barons, the anti-union folks, and the anti-science voters. Gore has refused to take a position on fluoridated water. Perhaps he hopes that if the liberals' teeth fall out, gumming food will weaken their will to vote. 

At stake is which camp will have the majority of supervisors in the county. The Republicans will pour money and influence into the campaign, hoping to get corporate newspaper endorsements, hoping to elect their favorite Democrats. That's how they roll in these semi-rural parts. 

Fudge and McGuire

Supervisor Shirlee Zane, a strong, progressive Democrat, yesterday endorsed Deb Fudge, who is running for an open supervisorial seat. I noticed that Deb Fudge has endorsed Mike McGuire for the second district of the state senate, another move helpful to the working people in the area.

The oddest news came out of the state senate on Tuesday. Apparently the state senate leader, Democrat Darrell Steinberg, had decided in Sacramento to get Chris Lehman elected in the second district. Steinberg has the right to decide which person would represent those of us living in Marin and Sonoma counties because Steinberg was recently been named King of California. (I guess.)

Lehman is a big money raiser for the Democrats, and no doubt he is a fine person, although I have never heard of him. Our retiring state senator in the district, Noreen Evans, had refused the leader's request that she endorse his pal Lehman, so the leader, much like a New Jersey Dictator, punished Evens by demoting her from her key committee chair in the senate.

Meanwhile our local supervisor, Mike McGuire, had been running for the same seat and had built up a big lead without the support of Evans or the King of California. But McGuire does have the support of Deb Fudge, and now he has the endorsement of Chris Lehman, who has read the polls and dropped out.  McGuire is the sort of vigorous young candidate who will campaign door to door until he drops. Fudge and McGuire, once rivals, are proven community leaders. They have earned support for higher office. If people pitch in, both will win. 

Hordes of Redwoods Crowd Out Native Species

The Sonoma County Transportation Authority has been using our tax money to cut down redwood trees and for an excellent reason. According to a SCTA deputy director, redwoods are not native to the 101 corridor, which has existed for almost 150 years.  Yes, it's true that the trees have been in the local landscape since the Jurassic, a mere 180 million years, but the deputy director knows that humans have been here for at least 14,000 years.  The deputy director plans to replace the trees with genuine native vegetation.

Redwoods grow within 50 miles of the coast, and the 101 corridor, in this case, is within 50 miles of the coast, but the redwoods the deputy director has cut down were planted by people. Anything planted by people is not native by definition. The deputy director intends to plant only native items. Meanwhile Supervisor Mike McGuire is arguing that residents took the cutting down of  so many redwoods hard and that we should replant some of them. Or we could just leave 101 lined with huge red stumps--they might be a tourist attraction.

The Big Eaters

According to THE NEW YORKER, the ordinary pigeon (rock pigeon), which we sometimes call a feathered rat, is numerous in the United States but not native. The domesticated pigeon was brought here from Europe. There are many rock pigeons in the world, about 260,000,000. If you multiply correctly that figure by eight, you will get the number of native passenger pigeons that darkened the sky in the eastern half of North America until we ate them. When pigeons flew overhead, women ran indoors. They roamed in flocks of several million. Meanwhile the Maori of New Zealand dined on the flightless moa, Pacific Islanders munched about 1,000 species out of existence, and, by the way, what happened to the American mammoth? (Ans: it was eaten by paleo-Indians.)

We like squabs. To be honest, we did not eat the last passenger pigeon. By some oversight it died in a zoo on September 1, 1914. That was 100 years ago if you need a party theme.

Gov. Christie's Morning

After two sleepless nights, Gov. Christie did not feel on top of his game, but he rose from bed, showered, brushed his teeth and went down to share breakfast with his wife. It was his usual breakfast: eggs, bacon. pancakes, raisin bran, prunes, corned beef hash, toast, oatmeal, home fries, and two modest pork chops. He said hello to his wife. "Good morning," she lied to his face.

When he got into his car, he asked his driver if his sister had called. "Nope," the driver lied.

At the state house, as he was entering his office, the governor realized he'd forgotten what day it was. "Is today Wednesday?" he asked his secretary. "It is," she lied to him. He asked her to get Bob, his campaign manager, on the phone. "Bob," the governor said, "how you doing, guy?"

"Never better," Bob lied.

"What's this stuff about Fort Lee? Do we have a fort? And Lee, what kind of name is that, Chinese?"

"From Taiwan," Bob said. "It's in the news. Why don't I look into it, sir?  I'll get right back to you," he lied. "Also, the money I borrowed? The check is in the mail."

ObamaCare

For the first time since the 1990s, total U.S. healthcare spending grew at a slower rate than the U.S. economy at the beginning of the current decade. That is because of ObamaCare, but is anyone listening?


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Semi-Slavery

There are more African-American men in prisons today than were enslaved in 1850, someone wrote.  It's hard to admit what happened after the Civil War. What happened is that black people were semi-enslaved in the South, as the price for reunification of the country. A slave-whipping losing general became a symbol of  brilliance, nobility and gravitas. Nazi punks, his intellectual heirs, now drive down the main street of my California town with Confederate flags waving from their pickups.

High On David Brooks

The Press Democrat reprinted a David Brooks' column on Sunday in which Brooks discussed his use of marijuana while young. I'm glad I wasn't present. Soon Brooks gave up weed in favor of what he called "higher pleasures," by which I guess he meant licking the boots of billionaires. His argument was that giving up weed helped him "become more integrated, coherent and responsible." He opposed the sale of weed on moral grounds and now wants government to "discourage lesser pleasures." All this from a man who admits to violating the law repeatedly as a college student but avoided jail because he is white. (While black people and white people use marijuana at the same rate, black people are jailed for possession at twice the rate of white people and, I would guess, at about 100 times the rate of students like Brooks at prestigious colleges and universities).

Let me pause to note that the last three Presidents have stated openly that they smoked weed when young. 

"In legalizing weed, citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom. But they are also nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be" Brooks concluded. That is a weird thought--I certainly don't want to be the sort of person Brooks is, a fatuous, pampered, smirking defender of undeserved privileges. But I was most struck by his wish to "discourage lesser pleasures" like weed (and maybe milkshakes and masturbation?) by throwing millions of Americans in prison. 

When I talk about how it is possible to be an intellectual or a dentist and be really bad at the job, Brooks immediately comes to mind.



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Best Film of the Year

I did not see most of the films critics have been choosing. I did see and enjoy THE BUTLER and AMERICAN HUSTLE, but I wouldn't rate them as excellent. I wish I had seen HANNAH ARENDT, but I never heard of it. The best movie I did see (and found remarkable) was STORIES WE TELL, which made the lists of only two critics, Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post and Moira Macdonald of the Seattle Times. Quite a thought-provoking movie.  I also saw on TV a movie that is about eight years old, A GOOD WOMAN, which was excellent (based loosely on LADY WINDEMERE'S FAN  by Oscar Wilde).

Reclassification

Without voter suppression, the American elite can't bring its reclassification of the poor to a successful conclusion. The shape of this struggle can be seen in the reconstruction era after the Civil War. Robert E. Lee and other elitists in the South were determined to recreate the old plantation social order. If they could not have pure slavery, they could build a system of near-slavery. Big Business in the North soon agreed. The country united. Black people and some poor white people were disenfranchised. That effort has been revived in recent years, but it might not work this time around.