Ed's picks

an easy and a hard one from Hare brain, tortoise mind.

Ed, the man who supposedly had no interest in art or music, must have been fibbing a little bit. He is originally from Chile and sends me a whole bunch of stuff that I am not familiar with, including this one by Mexican social commentator Astrid Hadad. Don't necessarily understand it but I like it. He also loves Leon Redbone, as does Bill L. I will post some more of his unusual and disparate selections later.

The gorgeous sounds of ladino singer Yasmin Levy. The horn sounds an awful lot like a sheep's bladder.

Junior Brown - My Wife Thinks You're Dead

San Diego de Alcala.

Zorro Garden Nudist Colony - Balboa Park 1935

As a person born in San Diego, and one who has spent the majority of his life here, one would expect that I would know what the words San Diego mean. Until a very short time ago, a person that made that supposition would be dead wrong.

I always supposed that San Diego, first visited by the Portuguese born Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and claimed for Spain under the flag of Castile in 1542, was a diminution of Saint Don. (Now Cabrillo actually named the place San Miguel, after the smallest boat in his fleet but he was suffering from a case of gangrene that he picked up on San Miguel Island and died. It was named San Diego by Sebastian Vizcaino some sixty years later.) Anyway the don appellation would be incorrect. Don translates into Donaldo. Diego is actually a spanish translation for James. Now how do we get Diego from James, you ask?

The answer to our linguistics lesson actually lies in the bible. Ya'akov יעקב was a name given to the grandson of Abraham. It has a loose translation of "he who protects" and is a derivation of the Hebrew word for heel, since he held his twin brother Esau's heel in the story of Genesis.

Ya'akov morphed into the greek word  Ἰάκωβος, Iakobos. In turn Iakobus turned into the latin Iacomus. That in turn changed to Gemmes in French and it was a short stone's throw to James in English. Now it starts to get tricky.

Here the scholars start to differ. Iacomas was also imported into spanish and shortened to Iaco and then Iago. It was either lengthened to Tiago or shortened from Saint Iago into its present construction. Other experts discount this whole line and say that it is merely a construct of the latin term didacus, to be instructed. I have seen this latter line of reasoning completely refuted and tend to agree with the critics.

From Wiki: This form, and its Spanish equivalent "Didaco", were most likely created in retrospect (that is, to translate Diego into Latin, as opposed to being the source of the name Diego). There are no mentions of Spanish people named Didacus during the Middle Ages. During those times, it was common practice to Latinize existing names, as in Ludovicus for Ludwig (Luis in Spanish).

Here is the etymological translation from the Online Etymology Dictionary: James - masc. proper name, name of two of Christ's disciples, late 12c. M.E. vernacular form of L.L. Jacomus (cf. O.Fr. James, Sp. Jaime, It. Giacomo), altered from L. Jacobus (see Jacob). The Welsh form was Iago, the Cornish Jago.

The Hotel St. James was San Diego's first grand building. Bit edwardian looking mansards. Built in 1885, it was once the tallest building in the city. I bought this old tin sign in San Francisco earlier this year, never realizing that the Hotel was actually named for the city I was born in. The hotel was torn down in 1912, and rebuilt the next year. Now a Ramada stands in its place.

Speaking of San Diego, I share with you a picture I  had reproduced at the photo archives of the San Diego Historical Society many years ago. Cabrillo Bridge in 1928, and the lily pond that lay underneath it. I would have loved to see Balboa Park in its infancy.


The Photo Archives in the Park are a great way to spend a rainy day, they have a vast collection of old photographs. Only costs a few bits to research and browse. My favorites are the volumes on the missions and the early photos of the 1915 and 1935 Expositions.

Iron Crotch

You thought you had a bad day at the office? Try perfecting this trick...

China Max

About a month ago a Chinese guy walked into my gallery and wanted to take a look around. He was connected in some tangential way to the San Diego Asian Film Festival and as luck would have it only the Fallbrook Blockbuster had a film in stock that he was  supposed to see. We started chatting and really hit it off.

He told me that his name was Calvin and that he was part of the history department at UCSD, specifically near east studies. I believe that he was studying for his doctorate.

I was the Chief Judge for the Fallbrook Film Festival for the first three years of its life and so we got to talking about movies, we both love samurai flicks and comics, we both read Usagi Yojimbo. We both practiced Kung Fu; he was a student of Wing Chun, I studied Hung Gar and a bit of Wing Chun. We also talked about food, me always on the lookout for a new chinese restaurant.

Yip Man with Bruce Lee 

Calvin asked me for recommendations in Fallbrook and I steered him over to Rosa's. I asked him about chinese food and he sent me this letter.

 Hi Robert,

It was really nice meeting you today.  And, thanks for the Camarones garlic shrimp suggestion at Rosa's.  It was great!

I just recalled that the great samurai movie that I just watched again was Masaki Kobayahi's "Samurai Rebellion" (1967) with Toshiro Mifune.

My favorite place for dim sum in San Diego is China Max, 4698 Convoy St, #101.  They're a little pricey, but the most authentic Hong Kong-style Cantonese dim sum.  At Jasmine and Emerald, they often have over-priced new, fancy dim sum that's not traditional.  My other favorite place because it is good and very cheap is Yum Cha Cafe, 6933 Linda Vista Road.  It's kind of like fast food, you order from the counter, and it's great and cheap.  Pearl Chinese Cuisine in Rancho Bernardo, 11666 Avena Place is also good, authentic, and a little pricey.

I'll stop by to see you again the next time I'm in Fallbrook.

Calvin

關俊榮

Yesterday Leslie and I decided to try out China Max for lunch. San Diego Magazine recently anointed China Max as best in San Diego. In case you are not aware, Clairemont Mesa is mecca for ethnic food in San Diego, specifically Convoy between Balboa and Clairemont Mesa Blvd.

You can find everything from Afghani to Korean, Vietnamese, crab houses, tofu, noodles, Japanese, Thai, and an incredible array of Chinese restaurants. Lots of great markets, Korean, Japanese and Ranch 99.

My posse normally eats at Jasmine. We pulled into the parking lot at China Max and looked longingly at the Sichuan restaurant on the other side of the parking lot. My allergies are acting up and some industrial strength chili paste would really cut through the muck. But we kept our focus and on Calvin's recommendation entered the two story China Max.

China Max is the kind of Dim Sum restaurant where you order off a menu and they then bring you what you have ordered on carts, We were practically the only caucasians in the restaurant. We filled out our order cards and then waited. Not an interminable wait but a wait nonetheless. Now what is cool about Jasmine is that you sit down, you are rock and rolling. Food is flying at you left and right, like jumping into a shark tank. You look, you like, you eat. Simple.

China Max is more of a traditional stoic affair. Bit more reserved. You order and then wait. No ordering on the fly. We started off with pan grilled crab cakes, which were excellent. Out came a delicious order of shrimp shumai. Out of this world. Nice little bowl of chili paste working, we were set.

Then came barbecued pork in rice noodle, frankly kind of lame. Way too much noodle. Not enough pork. If we had seen it rolling by we would never have ordered it. You quickly learn at Jasmine to forego the slimy rice noodle dishes, there's too much other great food. We both ordered the rice cake treats wrapped in lotus leaf, really tasty but smaller than those we are used to across the street.

We tossed back an order of crab claws and then deep fried shrimp balls and maybe something else and we were toast. Both of us missed our customary salted prawns from Jasmine or the whole barbecued duck we normally get. And the gluttonous frenzy, the orgy of food, especially when accompanied by Brigitte and Morgan.

China Max was good, I will give it another shot but I think I still have to vote for Jasmine. But I also can't wait to try Yum Cha.


By the way this is a picture of my Kung Fu instructor Sifu John Vihilidal's teacher, Sifu John Leong of the Seattle Kung Fu Club, one of the oldest Kung Fu schools in the nation. He helped bring the southern five animal style Hung Gar to America.

Melissa sends this over. A chinese blogger is thrown in jail for a bad review, calling the food too salty. The Taiwanese court said that it was an unfair evaluation after only one meal. Think it can't happen here?

We are NOT the Incredible String Band - 1968

This is a video of The Incredible String Band's reunion at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last summer. That is old friend, ace photographer and blast contributor Stan Schnier (New York Stan) on lap steel. You and the band sound incredible, Stan!

Words

Sign, Fallbrook Hospital

I have been wracking my brain trying to come with a word that expresses the new technological dread that I (and I imagine we) find ourselves beset with. Until I come up with something better I am going to use a moniker that I coined in the wee hours of the morning, cybermaw.

Cybermaw is what happens when you have been phished, slammed, hacked, spywared, identity stolen, find yourself talking to a recorded announcement (or screaming at a recorded announcement), had your password stolen, lost your password, facebooked, crashed your hard drive, been social networked to death, linked in, have had your pin stolen, bounced back, been unlocked, had all the money pulled out of your account, trojan horsed, darpa'd, credit cards jacked, been data mined, had your emails read by the government, falsely relegated as a spammer, had your picture subjected to facial recognition software, are under government surveillance, forgot about some automatic payments that have been deducted from your account for years after you have stopped using god knows what service, have been falsely branded as an enemy of the state and otherwise scammed by some similar perversion.

I lost the good function of my primary email account over a year ago. Pacbell.net is a very early suffix and doesn't work quite right in the machines anymore. Some of my email gets to me. Some of it bounces back to sender and oblivion. Yahoo points at Apple, Apple points at ATT but the reality is I am caught up in the dance and it is now not trustworthy and I am forced to use Gmail instead of my favored Macmail. Because some level 3 tech isn't capable of rational thought or is too lazy to care, I have lost the utility and function of my primary cyber address.

In any case I have a pervading sense of doom about many things digital in our new age. I feel strangled when I hear about waitresses in restaurants surreptitiously running your card through that special card reader in the other pocket or the gas station operator whose skimming machine is actually in the pump itself. Or the scanning systems that get all your information by just driving by within 15' of your card or person. I feel sick to my stomach with the whole wave. And its only going to get worse.

I have never felt comfortable about banking online and use a lot of precaution putting account numbers on line but hey, who can really be protected? There are news of large data thefts every day. The bank that took over the mortgage on my building let me know that the flash drive that had all of my information was lost or stolen last year and I was going to get a year's free Equifax account for my trouble. Paypal, Ebay, Amazon, all vulnerable, we are all basically sitting ducks.

Am I alone in my cyberparanoia?

***

On an entirely different topic, I have a question. I have been batting this around for a few years and would like some insight from my learned readers. Out of left field, really.

The spanish word for right as in right turn is derecho. The spanish word for right as in personal right or is also derecho. My question is why? Why does a word for a direction and a word for a liberty have the exact same translation in two languages, english and spanish? It can't be a coincidence but it is a definite non sequitur. The two terms have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Spanish is part of a language sub tree called the romanic or vulgar latin languages. At one time there were many of these indo-european languages. The principal surviving ones are Spanish, French, Portugese, Catalan, Italian and Romanian. Others are Aragonese, Aromanian, Arpitan, Asturian, Corsican, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Friulian, Galician, Ladino, Leonese, Lombard, Mirandese, Neapolitan, Occitan, Piedmontese, Romansh, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian and Walloon.

The English language belongs to the Anglo-Frisian sub-group of the West Germanic branch of the Germanic family. Other sister tongues are german and anglic. It originated in England in the fifth century after Britain was settled by Anglo Saxons from Germany and further influenced by the Norse.

I looked into this linguistic aberration a little bit this morning. The english word right comes from the old english word riht meaning "to lead straight; to guide; to rule." Left evolved from Old English lyft, which meant "weak". A question is in order. How did going straight ahead come to mean the same thing as facing starboard?

The latin word for right is dexter, or skillful. Left is sinistro or wrong. The left handed were thought to be tools of the devil. Left is translated as gauche in French, which means lacking in grace.

I still can not see a connection that will account for the non latin origin of the use of the same word with two different meanings in English and Spanish, two languages with such different etymology. Smart people, please comment.

***

Saturday afternoon in Fallbrook means that I get to hear the drum circle pounding for three hours or so. I call it the natives are getting restless. I walked down with my wife after brunch the other day and wanted to see how much I could stand. Not much.

White people in a drum circle, especially when you get a whole bunch of them, is a painful affair, at least to my ears. I am no great musician but have played guitar and cello in my lifetime. Noise is filling every little space in every measure, in music we need to occasionally leave notes out and let the music be free. And to occasionally listen.

Drum circles are like a lumbering barge that can only turn very slowly. I don't care if we are talking about hippie drums or native american drums, they are both musically quite primitive.

I was listening the other day and the plodding beat cried out for some dominant instrument to pull it out of its slumber and just cut across the grain. A violin, a horn, something that can tear through the horrible, thick texture. It never occurred. And the more players, the worse it gets. And there were plenty. There were a congalero or two that knew what they were doing but they were lost in the din, amongst the native flutes and the aging hippie noisemakers. Perhaps I would be more tolerant after an ayahuasca or peyote session but I sort of gave that stuff up in college. Now it's just an exedrin headache every other saturday.

So What?

Tuesday Musing

Some of you may remember the post. A guy wrote in from Georgia, asking if he could post a guest blog on  the health condition mesothelioma. I corrected his spelling and he got grouchy. Do a guy a favor... I got this letter today from these guys in Florida which I provide as a screenshot along with my reply. You will have to click on the box to see it.

***

I was killing time in the hospital and I pulled the blog up on the courtesy computer in the ICU lounge. Boy, was I in for a shock! The blog looks like absolute shit in Internet Explorer. The type wasn't right, the thing didn't scale properly, it was all such a sorry, shoddy affair. I gave my PC away last year, I only turned it on during eclipses, preferring the MAC platform. The majority of you, according to my stat analysis, are using IE on Windows.

I humbly suggest you consider using Firefox or Chrome or some alternative browser on your PC if you want to see things as they were intended to be viewed.

***

My neighbor is a driller. He drills for perc tests and things like that. He gave me one of his coveted business t-shirts the other day and I decided to wear it today. The message can be construed as having negative racial and sexual connotations, if that is the spirit you wish to perceive it.

It's funny how things happen. I had to go to the ATM and a lovely black woman pulled in next to me in her Lexus. I gulped and did my business at the machine. She never saw it. Looked up and the black box boy from Fresh and Easy gave me a broad smile. He never saw it but I was acutely aware of it. Wearing this shirt is definitely an interesting sociological experiment. I wonder how I would feel if somebody showed up in my shop with a t-shirt emblazoned with a hooked nose money lender?

***

Regarding masks, I saw an interesting one the other day. A short man with what was once a baby face, but now hidden under a very hard body emblazoned with prison tats. I looked at him and had a minor epiphany. Beneath every tough caricature like this lies a scared little boy who has once been deeply wounded. The brittle adornment is compensation, a psyche's attempt to say back off, do not enter. I am not a psychologist, I only play one on the internet, but next time you see a hard bitten vato with ink scribbles on his neck, do a quick psychic assessment for evidence of childhood scarring.

***

President Obama's aides have announced that his views on gay marriage are evolving and that it should now be best left to the states. Which is interesting because he also  joined forces with the power companies against those same states when it comes to energy policy and regulation in regards to power plant emissions, arguing that it is the sole province of the EPA.

With every passing week, I find that this is a man without intellectual integrity or deeply held values. I can honestly see myself sitting out the next election. I had hope but it was quickly squashed when it became apparent that the incrementalist in chief was just another lousy politician.

***

Speaking of politics, it would be a shame if, as is being reported, huge numbers of republicans would refuse to support Huntsman or Romney because they were mormons and not christians. We are not electing a pope. Another great example illustrating the importance of separating church and state.

***

The little love affair between Hamas and Fatah sure didn't last too long, did it. What will the administration do now that their new best friends are on the outs?

***

Has the government instituted a full scale news lockdown on a nuclear incident in Omaha? Read this article in the Nation.

Bryan Ferry --- " Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues "

Now

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind and the benefits of being thoughtless

I am reading an interesting book called Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, how intelligence increases when you think less. It is not a new book, it was written by the british psychologist and buddhist scholar Dr. Guy Claxton in 1997. I haven't got all that far but the book is very intriguing.

Claxton writes about three different modes of thinking, each with its own inherent processing speed; fast, reflexive, faster than thought thinking that he calls wits, D or deliberative thinking, which is very analytical and lastly, slow knowing, a dreamy, contemplative mode of thinking. It is Claxton's postulation that this type of thinking is oft the most satisfactory and effective mode of problem solving, a process that is everything D-mode is not, a process that doesn't rush to conceptualize, leaving us with a more supple, agile mind. He talks about the brain's plasticity and how this last type of thinking might be our best cognitive bet.

One of the interesting things in the book is his use of puzzles. And I leave you with a famous one. The Luchins Jars. Answer later.

Claxton notes that researchers Abraham and Edith Luchins demonstrated the importance of shifting into slow thinking in 1942. These tests took place in their lab. Milton Rokeach discusses the tests in his "The effect of perception time upon the rigidness and concreteness of thinking" Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol 40. (1950) pp. 206-16.


Imagine that you are standing beside a lake and that you are given three empty jars of different sizes. The first holds 17 pints, the second jar holds 37 pints of water and the third 6 pints. Your job is to see whether, using these three jars, you can measure out exactly 8 pints.


Next solve the problem with 31, 61 and 4 pints and end up with 22.


Finally 23, 49 and 3 pints and finish our experiment with 20 pints.


Please email me or post the answer to comments. No fair looking it up. I finally arrived at the proper answer but typically, not in typical fashion.

Water to Wine © Rick Griffin Estate

Quotes from Sylvia Plath

 And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.

*
Dying is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well. I do it so it feels like hell. I do it so it feels real. I guess you could say I've a call.
*
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again.
*
Kiss me and you will see how important I am.
*
There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.
*
"Let me live, love and say it well in good sentences." 
*
"Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted." 
*
"What did my arms do before they held you?" 
*
"I do not love; I do not love anybody except myself. That is a rather shocking thing to admit. I have none of the selfless love of my mother. I have none of the plodding, practical love. . . . . I am, to be blunt and concise, in love only with myself, my puny being with its small inadequate breasts and meager, thin talents. I am capable of affection for those who reflect my own world." 
*
"There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart -
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge,
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
 
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes."
— Sylvia Plath (Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement)

Lay down

The wonderfully throated Melanie Safka accompanied by the Edwin Hawkins Singers.

Life moves forward

Last week is over. Every one performed their roles properly and life reached its expected and inevitable conclusion. Leslie and I want to thank you on behalf of the whole family for your tremendous support. Your calls and letters mean so much to all of us.

***

I have been playing a lot of guitar, my long neglected instrument.

***

The Citrus Label Show looks fantastic, my last show with the library. Try to see it, some of the work is simply gorgeous. This is a label from my personal collection that is not in the show.

***

My saturday morning photographer's coffee klatch is starting its own blog, Redneck Shutters.

***

We stopped at Cucina Urbana yet again, on one of the trips back from Coronado. Amazing meal once again, won't go into it at length but did have this beautiful plate of a full marrow bone with garlic crostini. Heaven. Pardon the blur, cell phone.

***

This is a picture looking up at the trunk of my sequoia sempervirens, or redwood tree. Redwoods belong to the tallest tree species in the world, Sequoioideae, a subfamily of Cupressaceae, or Cypress. I have two redwoods, planted by Jasper Lalli in 1970 and they are now very, very big. This one is well over 80 feet tall. The girth is ginormous.

I have never watered them, my elevation of 525' is right over a water table and the Santa Margarita River aquifer and their long roots allow a free, permanent drink.

***

We knew the Fukushima radiation disaster was bad, but did we know it was this bad? Shawn sends me this disturbing article from Al Jazeera. What happened to the good old days when the CEO of the Tokyo Electric and Power Company would kneel down in front of the country and disembowel himself in shame for his perfidy? Kids today just ain't got no respect.

It makes no difference

Funny Cartoon Characters Quiz

My buddy Deli Guy, who is planning to set sail soon for bluer waters with his first mate, asked me to come by and take a look at a few things he was planning to scuttle and make sure he wasn't giving away some buried treasure.

Deli Guy had a box of aluminum molds of these cute little cartoon figures. They are threaded on the bottom of the metal post. I am having a temporary cartoon character brain freeze and was wondering if anyone could help figure out who these orphans really are.

They look like they were hatched somewhere between the fifties and sixties. The rubber figures were probably produced from these very molds. About eight inches, stem to stern.

If you could be specific I would appreciate it. For the sake of conversation I will give them names but I am in the dark here; Little mouse figure, Sylvester the cat, Elsie the Cow, Bambi, a lovely one with a nice deco detail verso, a shmaltzy little bird and Dumbo.

I have duplicates of some of these as well. Maybe we can find them a new home?

Are these critters Disney, Hannah Barbera or what? I have to believe that some one in the blast universe can reveal their true identities and shed light on what we are holding. If it was Zap Comics or Your Mother's Oats I would have instant recall but unfortunately I had my coming of age in a different era. Wasn't paying attention.

I Shall Be Released/Circle be Unbroken

Ruth Sherman Gellman

My wife's mother Ruth passed away yesterday. She was a gallant woman who fought the valiant fight against a terrible disease, multiple sclerosis, for twenty eight years. In the end she succumbed to complications from pneumonia.

Ruth had been in the hospital for the past nine days and in ICU for the last seven. Yesterday, per her wishes, we took her off the ventilator that had kept her alive but in a near vegetative state for the past week.  She died a little after 10:00 last night, in the company of her son Andrew. We had left a few minutes before.

My mother in law was one of the greatest women I have ever met and a major influence on my life. She was a truly beautiful woman, inside and out, and had a keen intellect. My friend Garry Cohen once told me to always look at the mother if you wanted to see how your spouse would eventually look. I saw this gorgeous woman and knew that I was set.

She loved her children, her little dogs and her late husband Marvin. She was an avid bridge player and a very good one. She knew all the conventions and taught her daughter and I the game, although we could never begin to play at her level. She was a competitive woman and a courageous one as well.

Prior to her disabling illness, she had been a distance runner and I am told a good and tenacious tennis player. In Michigan, she delighted in sailing the family sloop with Marvin, her son Andrew J and daughter Leslie.  She loved books and keeping her mind sharp. She spoke excellent spanish. Ruth was a keen advocate for animal rescue. She took particular delight in the comic strip peanuts. She was a familiar figure in the Coronado Cays, zipping along on her motorized scooter, in the company of her Shih Tzu's, Sammy and Kona.  Ruth was a wonderful friend, she had many, and they all drew strength from her fierce loyalty and great companionship. She had an affinity for strays, both the animal and people kind.

***

Ruth Shirley Sherman was born in Detroit seventy four years ago to Oscar Sherman and Anna Leebove Sherman. She had four brothers and sisters, Bill, Larry, Betty and Arnold. She lived in both New York and St. Louis as a child. Ruth and Marv made their home in Southfield, Michigan. They moved to the west coast and Coronado in the early eighties, only to make the horrible discovery that she had contracted multiple sclerosis, a cruel disease that over activates the immune system and eviscerates the neural network. Researchers have found that M.S. somehow clustered in upper midwestern women from industrial cities in her demographic time and age group. The malady decimated the family finances but could never touch the love and loyalty they felt for each other and in my opinion actually strengthened the family bond. They came together as a family in the face of a nasty foe.

I met Ruth twenty one years ago. Leslie and I had our first date and let me be the first to admit that it didn't go really well. My future wife went home and asked her mother what she had been thinking to go out with such a son of a bitch? Her mother, who had barely met me, said that there was something about me that she felt was special and that she should give me one more chance. Well suffice it to say, I have had many more chances, and for that act of kindness on the part of her mother alone I am eternally grateful. Without her admonition, I wouldn't be with my wife today, the very definition of a soul mate. Sorry, honey.

Ruth was the toughest person I have ever met. I saw her over time going from an awkward gait walking up her stairs under her own power, to the loss of her legs, her body finally arriving at a point where she could only move one hand. It was only a matter of time before she lost all internal muscle control. The day was always coming. But it had been long delayed, while she endured a constant burden that would crush a normal mortal.

And yet this woman never lost her composure. She was always impeccably dressed, neat and perfectly presented. She was the epitome of dignity. She bore her fate with a strength that was so impressive. I never heard her once bemoan her fate and the terrible hand that she was destined to draw. Can you imagine being struck down at the height of your vitality and soldiering on with the grit and fortitude that Ruth showed every day?

***

There are a lot of people that need to be acknowledged. Ruth could not have made it all these years without the love and devotion of her caretakers, Flor and Amelia. They are as broken right now as we are, and we all cried together at the hospital. I would like to thank Dr. Patrick Yassini, who had been her physician for the past 12 years and would care for her in her home. Ruth had many friends, too many to count, but I would like to mention a few core people that were instrumental in her life. Her brothers. Millie and Aunt Geri. Diana, Deena, Hanna. Paula. Gloria. Shooter. Howard and Carolyn. Annie and Lillian, who preceded her in death. Emil, wherever you are. We all were enriched by this brave and special woman.

***

Many people have rotten things to say about their mother in laws. I never have and I never will. Because she was always so good to me. If my wife and I were having a beef, my mother in law would never take a side. Never once. She always played it straight down the middle. But she would not hesitate to challenge or correct me if my behavior was less than exemplary. I am going to miss the hell out of her and even more so will my wife. They had become not only mother and daughter but best of friends. The family bond was fierce. The Gellman family stand behind each other.

***

Ruth leaves her son Andrew and Andrew's wife Nicole and their two children Jake and Brooke as well as my wife and I. And so many of you. We are going to have a private service at some time in the future. Please honor her memory with a contribution to the S.P.C.A. or the animal rescue of your choice. I am so lucky and honored to be her son in law and friend.

Golden Section

Out of all of the books I read in college, I think that I may have recommended this one more than any other. The book, The Power of Limits was written by Hungarian architect Gyorgy Doczi. This book illustrates how perfect composition as set forth in the golden section exists both in nature's creations and in man's artistic endeavors. 1:1.6180339087....

The hospital in Coronado has the golden section worked into the design of the floor. It is a nice reminder that life also has its inherent limits. But within these bounds, we can still, as the Navajo say, walk in beauty.

***

The two juvenile hawks have sort of moved away. To my house. When I opened my gate this morning, the pair were sitting on my three foot chain link fence. They flew up into one of my tall redwoods and have mostly hung out, shrieking like teenagers all day long.

Rob's Hot Links

Warren Bishop sent this cute little film over.

Richard Hudgins sent over this valuable piece of info. If you deactivate from Facebook, they still keep all of your dossier. Delete completely and hide by clicking the word link.

I read a great piece the other day about Republican behavior during the Obama Administration. The strategy has been one of total obstruction, with admirable unanimity, from day one, on every single issue. I can't find or cite the piece again but it was very clinical and revealingly accurate. People have very short memories. They forgot how we arrived at this downturn. It wasn't just Fannie and Freddie.

As little as I care for this president, I am beholden to the ideas that he actually campaigned on, but has never attempted to achieve. If the opposition manages to regain power, and they always do, one would hope that they are met with similar accommodation from the Democrats.

Robert DeGoff sends along this old joke:

JEWISH POKER CLUB
             
Six retired Jewish Floridian fellows were playing poker in the condo clubhouse when Meyer loses $500 on a single hand,  clutches his chest, and drops dead at the table. Showing respect for their fallen comrade, the other five continue playing, but standing up.
At the end of the game, Finklestein looks around and asks, "Nu, so who's gonna tell his wife?"
They cut the cards.  Goldberg picks the low card and has to carry the news. They tell him to be discreet, be gentle, don't make a bad situation any worse. "Discreet?  I'm the most discreet person you'll ever meet.  Discretion is my middle name.  Leave it to me."
Goldberg goes over to the Meyer's condo and knocks on the door.  The wife answers through the door and asks what he wants?  Goldberg declares:  "Your husband just lost $500 in a poker game and is afraid to come home."
"Tell him to drop dead!" yells the wife.


"I'll go tell him." says Goldberg.

Jon Harwood sent the following link - ipod magic

iPod Magic - Deceptions from Marco Tempest on Vimeo.


An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools. Ernest Hemingway

Eighteen With A Bullet - Pete Wingfield

Optical Locomotive

These are some more of the photographs I took of Jon Harwood's sweet and mint 1928 Voigtlander. My father was a World War II photographer and gave me his army issue Zeiss Ikon Voigtlander when I was very young. It was stolen from me in New York around 1972. Zeiss had the greatest lens's in the world, hand polished for an eternity. This is a beautiful and precise instrument, in virtually the same shape it entered this world 83 years ago.

Hamsin

It has not been a real good week in the Islamic world. Syrian tanks surrounded the northern Syrian city of Jisr al-Shughour and after uprooting olive groves, started indiscriminately shelling their own people, killing an estimated 1200 countrymen, including many women and children. On June 5, whole units of the army reportedly defected en masse in Jisr al-Shughour, and used their weapons to defend the unarmed protesters. Over 120 of these soldiers were killed defending their countrymen from the iron fisted Alawite autocracy.

According to this defector's account from Time Magazine, the Army was instructed to leave Homs and "sweep the towns," starting at al-Serminiyye and continuing five kilometers north to Jisr al-Shughour. "We were told that we were doing this to capture armed gangs, but I didn't see any. I saw soldiers indiscriminately shooting people like they were hunting, burning their fields, cutting down their olive trees. There was no resistance in the towns. I saw people fleeing on foot to the hills who were shot in the back."

There have been numerous reports of widespread rape and news that an old Syrian proxy, Hezbollah, is being used by the regime as snipers against the Syrian people, according to various reports. From the Jerusalem Post:

One soldier said the "cleansing" in Rastan in Homs caused him to defect. "We were told that people were armed there. But when we arrived, we saw that they were ordinary civilians. We were ordered to shoot them," he said.
"When we entered the houses, we opened fire on everyone, the young, the old... Women were raped in front of their husbands and children," he said, predicting that there were some 700 deaths, although this has not been verified.
Another soldier, Khalaf, told AFP that in a town near the Turkish border, "a professional soldier pulled out his knife and stabbed a civilian in the head, for no reason."
He said he decided to flee after he saw militiamen open fire on people. "When they started shooting people, I dropped my gun and fled," he said, claiming that around 25 people were killed in a demonstration last week.
Khalaf's brother, Ahmed said after witnessing violence in Homs, "I realized that the regime is prepared to massacre everyone." He said he and other soldiers considered revolting against the army forces, but were too fearful.
Ahmed added that "when the soldiers do not shoot, they shoot the soldiers down," claiming that the Assad regime has deployed snipers from the police or the Hezbollah militia.

Approximately 83 defectors were found beheaded in a mass grave. Over 10,000 refugees have fled the country. This is not the first time that Syria has set its crosshairs on its own people, since they killed between 10,000 and 40,000 in the town of Hama in February of 1982.

Neil Sammonds of Amnesty International says that dozens of children have been killed in the Syrian conflict - nearly 10 percent of the 1,060 known deaths of civilians, more than doubling UNICEF's previous estimate of 30 on June 1. A second teenager was found to have been horribly tortured and disfigured this week.

***

In Bahrain, the monarchial regime is trying 47 doctors and nurses of trumped up charges of stealing medicine and stockpiling arms and forbidding the mention of any abuses they may have received while in detention. Dr. Ali al Ekri, an orthopedic surgeon, and Rula al Saffar, the head of the nursing society, said their confessions were extracted after they'd been tortured. They said they had to sign the papers while blindfolded. The Bahrainis have been harassing and imprisoning opposition political figures. The government charged two moderate politicians, Jawad Fairooz and Mattar Ebrahim Mattar, Shiites who quit their seats in parliament to protest the government crackdown, with inciting hatred against the regime and speaking to the news media. A 20-year-old female poet, Ayat AlQurmezi, was sentenced to a year in prison for reciting anti-government verse during the demonstrations.

Of course, much of the crackdown is being performed by our ally the Saudis, their troops went into neighboring Bahrain on March 5th to assist with the repression and brutal beatings and have never left.

***

In Iran, on June 12th, Iranian police swinging clubs chased protesters and made arrests on Sunday to disperse hundreds of people who gathered in the capital to mark the second anniversary of President Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election. There are also new reports of the American hikers being tortured in Iranian prison.

***

In an effort to restore relations with the Pakistani Intelligence Service, the United States gave up two Pakistani bomb making facilities this week. By the time authorities came to seize the facilities, the perps had been tipped and fled the scene.

In Peshawar, the death toll from the Saturday market twin suicide bombings is now at 34 with 80 injured.

***

The new cabinet in Lebanon announced today by new P.M. Najib Mikati is dominated by ministers from Shiite Syrian/Iranian proxy Hezbollah. The same Hezbollah that is now in front of an international tribunal investigating its complicity in the killing of the old Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

***

Five people were killed, many injured in a suicide bombing yesterday in the Iranian port of Basra. Today there was a dreadful suicide bombing in Baquba, about 65 kms north from Baghdad, an attack that killed eight, as the forces of jihad start a new intense wave of indiscriminate killing.

***

In Jordan, from the New York Times:

Youths clashed with riot police officers during a visit by King Abdullah II to Tafileh, a long-neglected tribal area 125 miles south of the capital, in a rare outburst of anger surrounding a royal event. About 30 riot police officers were hurt and five police cars were burned. Youths in Tafileh had been protesting against corruption and had wanted to meet the king, left, a request that was denied. A government spokesman said the clashes occurred as people rushed to salute the king. In a nod to protesters the king pledged Sunday that in the future the government would be elected, rather than appointed, but he set no timetable for the change. 

*
 I could continue on to Egypt or the Sudan very easily, probably get around to the Tajiks and elsewhere. Story of sufi repression in today's Los Angeles Times, the suicide bombers, including a 14 year old kid, blew the mosque up last summer. But I think it unnecessary. It would be quite difficult for one to either name a democracy in the middle east or north africa, or find another society whose citizens have such little regard for human life. Rape, torture, beheadings, honor killings, the killings of innocents because they don't practice the proper version of the Islamist creed, we only tolerate or should I say expect this sort of behavior for one particular group of people. Basques, Tamils and Irish Republicans have been really quiet lately. But people die violently every day in the middle east, unfortunately including American soldiers. Not to mention the tribal fratricide.

Now what I find interesting is that all the normal voices that constantly condemn the actions of that other democracy in the middle east, are so silent when the arabs start killing each other.  Doesn't fit their favorite narrative. The English, the Gaza lift people, J Street, AlterNet, Naomi Klein, the Chomskyheads, Hamasheads, the liberals, where are their voices today? Have you ever heard of a jewish soldier raping? Beheading? Torturing children? I don't recall ever hearing about the citizens of the Warsaw Ghetto suicide bombing, it would be totally contrary to any religious law or law of decency.  Not a lot of women getting stoned in Israel either, except maybe near Uncle Mustache Cafe at Damascus Gate. In fact the catholics and the lutherans haven't been in a shooting war for several hundred years, by my reckoning. Most cultures evolve.

Why is this kind of violence and hatred so endemic in islamic and arabic culture? It surely can't all be Israel's fault. Why have these people accepted totalitarian monarchies and dictatorships in the 21st Century. Of course the Unites States hands are dirty as well, when we support the head and heart and wallet of the Wahabists, Saudi Arabia and turn the other way when she and the neighborhood countries start repressing their citizenry.

Soft headed do gooders make a faulty assumption when they seek to imprint their western prejudices on the world at large. They convince themselves that certain civilizations can be tamed to conform with western standards of decency and human values. If you really can't see any difference between us and them we have very little to talk about. Or you haven't been paying attention.

Tried so hard

This is a Gene Clark song, written a few months after he left the Byrds in 1966. The singers in this version of one of my favorite unsung bands, the Flying Burrito Brothers, were Rick Roberts, later of Firefall, and Chris Hillman. Parsons had left the band at this point, maybe he was with the Stones making Beggars Banquet or tooling around the Mojave. If I cared enough I would check but I obviously don't. But whoever put Parson's picture on this video was completely off base. Like putting up a picture of Pete Best.

One of my favorite songs by the Burritos is not on Youtube yet. It is called Hand to Mouth. Hope that somebody uploads it soon.

My mother in law, Ruth, is in the home stretch. She has been a great friend and the best mother in law and I will expound soon. Running down to the hospital again.

Friday Nite Lite

Last night was the first night of Hot Summer Nites, the every other Friday Fallbrook event where people come downtown and drink beer, listen to music and show off their fancy rides.  Last night was Hot Rod and sports car night. The place was full of Ferraris, rods and Porsches, even a Panamera, a bloated whale of a Porsche that goes like hell.

We had been at the hospital all day and were really tired so I just decided to grab a couple shots with my sigma 10/20mm wide angle lens.

Conrad Murphy

My friends' Jim and Wendy Murphy's boy Conrad was involved in a horrible car accident in April. I am sure that you read about it, he was really beat up bad. Thankfully he is going to survive but it will be a long road.

I got this press release today and plan on helping the family any way I can. I know that the family would appreciate any help that we can give them. I plan on going out to the concert July 16th to show my support and I hope that you can join me.

Robert

Sunday Kind Of Love

meanwhile, back on terra firma.

It has been an interesting week on the environmental front. Former Arizona Governor and Clinton Administration Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt slammed President Obama for his weak stewardship of the environment at the National Press Club on wednesday. The full text of his speech can be read here.

A couple of other things also caught my eye. The State of New Mexico has decided to stop assisting the federal administration in its efforts to restore the Mexican Grey Wolf. Read about it here. There are about 50 wolves extant in the state, according to biologists but that appears to be 50 too many for ranching interests. I have no problem paying them for lost livestock, it is an acceptable payoff for their losses but they need to understand that predators are a vital part of an ecosystem.

...Republicans in Congress have separately proposed legislation to end the wolf re-introduction program, following their successful attempts to end federal supervision of the gray wolf in the northern Rockies.

I also saw this article about wild horses on federal lands. There is a big kerfuffle brewing in Federal Court regarding if horses are truly wild in North America. The stakes are rangeland and the battle pits the Bureau of Land Management against wild horse lovers. The Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 directs the Secretary of Interior to designate and maintain public range-lands as a sanctuary for the protection and preservation of these animals in a manner designed to achieve and maintain a thriving natural ecological balance on public lands. Yet hundreds of thousands of horses have been removed since 1973.

Archaeologists have proven through the fossil record that horses actually originated on this continent, but ranchers maintain that by once going extinct here they have lost all their rights to roam federal land. Ranchers are now leasing most of the land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the US Forest Service. For this, and other special benefits for ranchers, taxpayers pay some $128 million a year. I have an idea, graze your cows on your own lands. Sounds like socialism to me.

"There are plenty of horses out in the Nevada desert," said Tom Collins, a Clark County commissioner who has a ranch outside of Las Vegas and has run cattle on U.S. lands in Arizona, Idaho and Utah.
"Most of these folks, maybe their father slapped them or their mother didn't love them, so now they are in love with these wild horses that aren't really wild," he said.

What bothers me are ranching and state interests that think that it is their god given right to pillage property owned by the people of the United States of America.  To mine, drill and run their cattle on our federal land for next to nothing.

I applaud Babbitt for speaking up and hope that others will stand tall against the denuding of the American soil by these rapacious and parochial special interests.  President Obama has not been a forceful advocate for the environment, he has caved over and over again, from coal to natural gas.

Speaking of natural gas do you realize that the people responsible for fracking are under no legal obligation to let the federal government know exactly what toxic chemicals they are pumping into the earth's crust. But I am sure that we can trust them, can't we?

***


Eight substances have been added to the list of carcinogens by the US Department of Health and Human Services today. The Report of Carcinogens has added formaldehyde, aristolochic acids, o-nitrotoluene, captafol, cobalt-tungsten carbide (in powder or hard metal form), riddelliine, certain inhalable glass wool fibers, and styrene to the list of carcinogens.