Old Jabo

Horrible sexist jokes

Who doesn't get these awful emails?

1. I was devastated to find out my wife was having an affair, but, by turning to religion, I was soon able to come to terms with the whole thing. I converted to Islam, and we're stoning her in the morning.

2. The wife suggested I get myself one of those penis enlargers, so I did. She's 25, and her name's Kathy.

3. Went to our local bar with my wife last night. Locals started shouting "pedophile!" and other names at me, just because my wife is 24 and I'm 50. It completely spoiled our 10th anniversary.

4. My son was thrown out of school today for letting a girl in his class give him a hand-job. I said "Son, that's three schools this year! You'd better stop before you're banned from teaching altogether."

5. The cost of living has now gotten so bad that my wife is having sex with me because she can't afford batteries.

6. A man calls 911 and says "I think my wife is dead." The operator says, "How do you know?" The man says, "The sex is about the same, but the ironing is piling up!"

7. I was explaining to my wife last night that when you die you get reincarnated, but must come back as a different creature. She said she would like to come back as a cow. I said, "You obviously haven't been listening."

8. My wife has been missing a week now. The police said to prepare for the worst. So, I had to go down to Goodwill to get all of her clothes back.

9. The Red Cross just knocked on my door and asked if we could contribute towards the floods in  Pakistan . I said, "We'd love to, but our garden hose only reaches the driveway."

Gic to Har

It is late at night, cold and damp
The air is filled with tobacco smoke.
My brain is worried and tired.
I pick up the encyclopedia,
The volume GIC to HAR,
It seems I have read everything in it,
So many other nights like this.
I sit staring empty-headed at the article Grosbeak,
Listening to the long rattle and pound
Of freight cars and switch engines in the distance.
Suddenly I remember
Coming home from swimming
In Ten Mile Creek,
Over the long moraine in the early summer evening,
My hair wet, smelling of waterweeds and mud.
I remember a sycamore in front of a ruined farmhouse,
And instantly and clearly the revelation
Of a song of incredible purity and joy,
My first rose-breasted grosbeak,
Facing the low sun, his body
Suffused with light.
I was motionless and cold in the hot evening
Until he flew away, and I went on knowing
In my twelfth year one of the great things
Of my life had happened.
Thirty factories empty their refuse in the creek.
On the parched lawns are starlings, alien and aggressive.
And I am on the other side of the continent
Ten years in an unfriendly city. 

Kenneth Rexroth

Oceanside Pier, two seconds

Fairchild

War and Peace

Jeffrey Goldberg's The Obama Doctrine has been pretty much dissected and commented on by nearly every political and journalistic hack with a no. 2 pencil on the planet at this point. Lord knows you don't need me to parse it for you. But it dovetails with an email chain that I am receiving so pardon me if I do bring it up and offer up a few words in passing.

When I first brought up the article with my coffee group, one of my cohorts said that this is exactly the kind of President that he had always hoped for. We agree to disagree. I consider his reign at best an opportunity wasted and an abject failure on many levels, not helped by an obstructionism on the part of the opposition that is unparalleled. I recognize that the tide has shifted and that I might be in the minority in my views. That is okay. That has never bothered me.

The so called Obama Doctrine is a radical departure for the United States, both in its honesty and its dishonesty. Despite seven years of smooth talk from this administration to its ruffled allies about its good intentions it turns out he was pissing on their leg and telling them it was raining the whole time. This has caused a serious "trust" issue with many of our ostensible "allies."

Saudi Arabia and Israel, you are on your own, he's just not into the middle east anymore. Iran may be a bunch of bad acting terrorist pricks but they are a fact of life, learn to live with them. It's your problem now. Ukraine, too close to Russia, you guys are on your own too. England, France, done carrying you. Cuba, we can worry about that human rights stuff later. Rwanda massacre, sorry, we didn't have the time. Didn't you get the memo, America is war weary?

There's even some Lewis Carroll logic, that red line in Syria, not enforcing it was the greatest move he never did. Because "they" were expecting him to, or something like that, whomever they are. I watched Obama BFF Goldberg during his Facebook video wherein he tried to explain the "cold eyed" Obama's motivations and I couldn't figure out which of the two of them was more blithely arrogant and oblivious. "I don't bluff, I was bluffing," man this guy is hard to figure out...

I am trying really hard to think of a President that could match this one in the narcissism department but failing. A President with such a cool relationship with members of even his own party. He's most like Jimmy Carter I guess if you had to pick one. Both highly intelligent but with obviously substandard people skills.

Although my past description of whatever doctrine the President may or may not have was fuck your friends and reward your enemies, and that may not be altogether off the mark, I also believe that he signals a moral neutralism and resignation that once seemed more the bastion of the Paul family. In any case, the true Barack Obama has been unmasked and those that doubted his intentions and commitments can unfortunately now take comfort knowing that their fears were well placed.

Call it Spockian, call it a lack of empathy, our president seems to brush off dead civilian Syrians like inconvenient ants at the family picnic. I have to wonder what would have happened in 1941 if we had a Barack Obama at the helm? Would we sit out the global conflict?

America was once a land that prided itself on trying to do the right thing, more than willing to take a moral stand. Nowadays such talk brings up the same equation, over and over again.

Don't mention (your choice) because we were worse Insert here

1. with the native americans.
2. with the slaves.
3. when we brought down Mossadegh.
4. "         "        "            "   Allende.
5. in Vietnam.
6. invading, bombing Iraq.
7. etc.

Any sin of any regime, affecting any amount of people, to any degree of harm, can be equalized by the moral bankruptcy and history of the United States.

I hesitate to do this because exposing your social media communications can be a little ugly, like letting friend's rummage through your dirty hamper but here goes. Illustrative.

I got this email from a liberal friend I will call Q the other day. Addressed to a bunch of folks:

Q. - Bernie Sanders is a hawk? Happy Sunday, all!  Now that I'm digging a little bit into his candidacy...I see how misled I was regarding his Leftist anti-war bona fides.  This article is dated, but I like how it exposes Bernie's AIPAC status.  If I were ever to form a party....it would first-and-foremost be a Peacenik Party!

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/30/the-myth-of-bernie-sanders/

"Sanders is the darling of the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee and the right-wing Likud government of Israel.  He has done everything within his power to keep the myth of Islamic terrorism alive.  He never questions the U.S. government’s unconditional support of Israeli acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.  It is as though these are nonevents." 

Hmmm. Can't forget that Sanders is a jew and can they really be trusted? Not to mention in bed with  Sandia Labs and the nuke builders. And let's not forget the myth of islamic terrorism? Zionists and neocons engaged in a vast conspiracy to keep the good peoples of the world locked in a state of constant bloodshed. 
I sent this back:

Me - Very few people are anti peace. But this viewpoint lacks nuance in general. A bury your head in the sand approach would neither save the 1400 Syrians killed by sarin gas, the victims of the Rwandan massacres or various other genocides that occur in our miserable world on a regular basis.

I wonder if Barack Obama had been at the helm during the forties, if the United States would have even entered the second world war, let alone picked a side, leaving the question of opposing mass extermination and the concentration camps.

Look at the President and his words re: Ukraine.

“Putin acted in Ukraine in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp. And he improvised in a way to hang on to his control there,” he said. “He’s done the exact same thing in Syria, at enormous cost to the well-being of his own country. And the notion that somehow Russia is in a stronger position now, in Syria or in Ukraine, than they were before they invaded Ukraine or before he had to deploy military forces to Syria is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world generally. Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence. Russia was much more powerful when Ukraine looked like an independent country but was a kleptocracy that he could pull the strings on.”

Obama’s theory here is simple: Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there.

“The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-nato country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do,” he said."

Ceding the world to the wolves doesn't advance the cause of peace in the long run either.

Q. - Ah, yes...so it's "perpetual war...for perpetual peace," is it?  I'm sorry, but that's hate-mongering of the worst kind.  It's in essence the way good people have allied themselves with horrifically bogus bellicose causes throughout history.  I don't think that the world is a "miserable" place...and I don't believe that there is such a thing as pure "evil."  In fact, I believe that solutions to the world's hostilities require that humanity begin to see more clearly that people are inherently Good...and that it takes quite a large and steady dose of Fear and Paranoia to get them to harm others.  Is that what you're about, Robert?  Is that the limit of your vision?  ...using WWII and Hitler to justify all future conflicts?  Really?

Warren decides to jump in in his normal cryptic fashion:

"Hail! Hail"! For the Ukrainians or is it "Heil! Heil" as they along with the SS were the perps of the "camps". I assure you if Russia was even tangentially active in Mexico there would be some what of a different perspective.

"Escalatory Violence "as the U.S. is currently just picked up War no.17 as we "hit the beaches" in Yeman. Video game murdering from Langley then the players go home and coach a Little League Team.

As far as the Saran Gas $6 will get you $5 it was purchased from let's say ?? MMM who wanted to Scotch Tape Vietnam with Agent Orange and Napalm . We talk peace and $ell 20 billion in weapons to the world.

Ps I can simply never understand how "American Global Interests" never have anything at all to do with Americans?

Me - Re: Q's email - take that holocaust out of the equation, substitute the killing fields, I don't care. Does the U.S. have a moral imperative to stop genocide? 1400+ Syrians killed by sarin gas as Assad crosses the red line and Obama whistles...

Ukrainian complicity in the war that shall not be named gives Russia carte blanche to bugger them for perpetuity Warren? Might as well sentence the Japanese to eternal damnation too.

We are all beasts but an america that turns its head and does nothing is a relinquishment and abdication of duty.

*

Perhaps Q is right, I am failing to see the inherent good in people. If they fall astray it is obviously something we did. 

Are America's hands sparkly clean? Hell no. Does that mean that we should turn a blind eye when we see countries engaging in predacious activity and genocide? Apparently to some, yes it does. You are either for war or for peace. Because like Pogo, we have met the enemy and he will always be us.

Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

Little No Shirt

Beatien Yazz  (1928-2012) – (Little no shirt – Jimmy Toddy) Sand Painter 10 x 12″ sight, overall 16 x 18″, casein on paper, signed lower right, titled verso

I bought a couple Beatien Yazz paintings from Cam a while back. I love their simplicity and stark minimalism. This one is titled Sand Painter on the reverse. Yazz was an accomplished late navajo painter who studied with the great Yasuo Kuniyoshi at the Chicago Art Institute. I like it. Fist shooting out invisible sand like a clear marble.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi - Dream (1922) Tokyo

Read an interesting story about Yazz on the wonderful Al Anthony's Adobe Gallery site:

Beatien Yazz, Little No Shirt (Jimmy Toddy) was born in 1928 on the Navajo Reservation. Yazz showed promise as an artist very early. At an early age, Yazz met the Lippencotts, traders at the Wide Ruins Trading Post and they made available to him scraps of paper and other equipment so that he might practice in color.
Yazz was also the subject of Alberta Hannum's books Spin a Silver Dollar and Paint the Wind and his paintings were used as illustrations.
He served in the U.S. Marines in World War II and was a member of the famed Navajo Code Talkers. Following the war, he returned to the reservation and began to paint in earnest. He specialized in subjects familiar to him in his daily life on the reservation. He has been eminently popular with collectors since the 1950s.
During the last 20 years of his life, Beatien Yazz suffered from severe eye problems. The medical doctors had not been able to determine what the problem was. A Navajo Medicine Man said it was because he once painted the Navajo sacred Yeibichai. To be cured, Yazz must undergo a purifying ceremony performed by the Medicine Man. This is very expensive and Yazz was never able to afford it.

Interesting that this very painting looks like a sacred nightway painting but what do I know? The other one depicts a sacred fire dancer with gray clay on his body, hopping over the flames. I was able to see a sand painting being created as a young boy in Gallup around 1962. One of the most extraordinary things I have ever witnessed. Why, do you ask? Because the old painter, who crafted razor perfect lines with the colored sand, was completely blind. Don't ask, still can't figure it out.

Madman across the water

Beauteous and the Dragon

Les and I had a delivery to a beautiful old adobe hacienda in Borrego Springs this week.

Ran into this dragon along the way.

Borrego has had huge migrations of Swainson Hawks this year, all feeding on a prevalent caterpillar.

Unfortunately that is a morning and evening thing but I guess it has been really spectacular. Seen some of Hal Cohen's videos. We witnessed a nice flower show in the Anza Borrego. Lovely magenta cactus blooms shine through my memory. And scarlet Ocotilla blossoms.

We had lunch at Carmelitas and then visited with Carol Lindemulder at her lovely home. She has produced some beautiful paintings of late. She also showed me a watercolor by my late teacher Doug Durrant that makes me remember what an incredible painter he could be when he felt like it.

Drove back up and headed to the 78, up Banner Grade and back through Poway. Just beautiful right now.

bugs at borrego

Flatworld

I am a little late to the party in reading Thomas L. Friedman's book The World is flat. His book was written in 2005 and than rewritten a year later. I do apologize. It took a while to find it on the sale rack.

However if Mr. Friedman feels that he has a right to provide his readers with a brief history of the twenty first century at a point in time in which barely 5% of said century had expired, I think I can take ten years or so to comment on his work.

It is an interesting work, which I admit not to have finished. Friedman explains how globalization has caused many essential domestic jobs to be exported to what once were third world countries, like India.

Our new connectivity has "flattened the world," resulting in many jobs lost to countries whose wage scales are not only a fraction of our own but now boast a highly skilled workforce.

"It is now possible for more people than ever to collaborate and compete in real time with more other people on more different kinds of work from more corners of the planet and on a more equal footing than at any previous time in the history of the world - using computers, email, fiber optic networks, teleconferencing and dynamic new software." Thomas Friedman

The author posits that we entered a new phase he calls Globalization 3.0 around 2000. This is the era where the flat earth platform comes into its own. He sees a scenario soon approaching where all of the menial accounting tasks on your tax returns are performed by some skilled CPA in Bangalore, leaving the American's to more conceptual questions designing what he calls big picture strategies.

There are similar stories about medicine and he clues us in to the fact that a lot of radiology is being performed real time in India as we speak, or as we spoke ten years ago anyway. Many other industries are certainly following the journey off of our shores. Globalization is a fact of life and it is creating major changes in the planet's economies.

A friend of mine in software development told me about the problems he has had lately with American programmers. A domestic senior programmer costs him about 170k a year. He can get a PHD coder from eastern Europe who will work for about 70k. Happily. "And do a better job," he says.

I am not going to belabor a book that I haven't finished reading but I thought that the chapter on Indian call centers was most instructive. Not only are scads of eager young Indians servicing most of our computer and banking needs, they can do it in the english accent of your choice, depending on who they are speaking to.

These call center operators make about 700 bucks a month and they are very happy doing it. And the competition for the jobs is so fierce that only about 6% of the applicants ultimately secure a job.

Betty bought a bit of better butter. Thirty little turtles in a bottle of bottled water.

The language is what mostly interests me, being a language sort of guy. The operators are taught to speak in a neutral middle american accent at one leading company, 24/7. They read a phonetic paragraph over and over and learn to roll r's and soften t's.

I was thinking about the book when I saw this article the other day Inside the World of Accent Training on BBC.

The Philippines has now overtaken India as a call center hub. It now employs 1.07 million people and grosses over $18.9 billion in revenue, contributing nearly a 10th of the total GDR.

At SPi Global, one of the Philippines’ largest BPO companies, call center workers are introduced to 35 distinct English accents — from New Yorker to Medieval English to Jamaican — an assortment fit to prepare workers for a wide variety of interactions, while providing some background of the foreign language.

The biggest thing they stress is again, accent neutralization. But there is also a need to respond to customers needs and to communicate regardless of accent.

“Accent neutralisation is at the top of the list,” said Villena, “but the game is changing now. It’s not all about the accent anymore — it is now geared towards comprehensibility and their [the workers’] ability to interact with the customers regardless of if they have very strong accents or if their accent is neutral.”

The world is definitely flattening. Drone operators in Nevada and elsewhere kill enemies a world apart with a flick of a joystick. CentCom, which manages our conflicts in the middle east, is housed at some posh megabunker in Tampa. Free trade is invigorating some nascent economies and bludgeoned others like ours that have gotten used to domestic protectionism that is disappearing.

And we have no problem buying goods from places like Walmart that sometimes utilize foreign sweat shops and take advantage of Bangla Deshi style work and child welfare laws. Not to mention goods produced in Chinese prison camps. Americans don't really have time to think about who makes their stuff, as long as it is cheap.

 It was a fun ride being on top but there is no top anymore on a flat earth, we learn to once again get our hands dirty, think creatively and hustle or we go extinct. Adapt or die.

*
The San Diego Union had an interesting opinion editorial today ruminating on the manner in which social media is altering our political landscape, Donald Trump's rise mirrors social media.

We have a message for anyone who longs for the tidier times of 1992 — or even 2012. This election cycle has seen the emergence of a political media culture in which candidates and traditional journalists have been muscled aside by a technology-enabled public. Millions of Americans don’t want to be treated like children and shepherded through their decision-making by a paternalistic establishment. Fueled by social media and online news framed with strong ideological views, these voters demand change and flock to unconventional candidates. Party insiders still have structural ways to impose their will on the rank and file, such as having senior officials be “superdelegates” at conventions — deciders who in theory will pick the candidate most likely to win in November. But their role as gatekeepers deciding which candidates are acceptable has been obliterated.

The authors wonder if the danger is the public misperceiving Twitter or social media or the politicians failing to be able to influence and manipulate it?

*
I am still pondering the data from New Hampshire in which Trump supporters said that Sanders was their second choice. This shows that the salient forces involved are something more than just ideological. The rise of the alienated, antiestablishment voter.

*
I have just finished watching the first season of Better call Saul. I am bummed that Netflix won't ship the second season out. Living in a rural area puts me in a backseat for certain information. Bandwidth and access is power.

Lynn agin...

All fall down

Hello Dalai

Buddhist offering, Escondido

I got a tweet from the Dalai Lama the other day. Another one.

I don't want to appear overly cold hearted or cynical, I appreciate the message Dalai, I really do. The fourth one this month.

Call me old fashioned but shouldn't the fourteenth incarnation of Avalokiteśvara be spending a little more time cultivating oneness or exploring the void locked in a cave on some mountaintop and a little less time blabbing on social media?  A guru who won't stop tweeting is kind of like Aunt Bea at a leather bar, a little incongruent if you ask me.

Most jewish people go through a buddhist phase at some point in their lives, hence the term ju-bus. Marin County is so thick with these sorts that you could hardly find an asian roshi in those parts if you tried.

Turnabout is fair play Dalai, how 'bout sticking on the tefillin and giving it a whirl? We could give you a yellow kipah. It's a natural combo. Guilt and suffering. Tell me, who's better at it?

Seriously, I think that this Dalai Lama is an amazing man. You talk about a guy who walks the walk and talks the talk, he has been exemplary in fighting for both human values and the rights of the tibetan people.  Consistently and only with love and never recrimination.

Kalu

Trungpa

Can I find enlightenment on instagram?

Fallbrook Shutters Library Show

Warren, Lee, Mike and Kelly

People have been asking me what my contribution to the recent show looked like. I recognize that many of you will never make it to the Fallbrook Library, not now, not in the next hundred years and so I will post some of my pictures. Not all of them mind you...

Bob and Brett

Keep in mind that these images are large, I tried for 17 x 22" when I could, or that was the plan anyway. Size does matter.

Leslie

I like shooting portraits. I may have a new diversion. As I may have let on, this is my first ever pure portrait show. Sort of a knack for capturing people at candid moments. Or their worst. I like bars, drunks, Les, the occasional murderer. Mostly strong characters.

Ain't nothing like the real thing. If you are able, please check them out live and in person and report back to me. Positive or negative feedback is appreciated, that is as long as you love them. 

Of course I am only one of five shutterbugs and my comrades work is equally if not more compelling. Hope that you like it.

Coop and Bruce

The vanishing neighbor

Bill Olson was talking about this podcast at coffee this morning, which I just gave a listen to:

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2016/02/10/podcast-176-the-vanishing-neighbor-the-transformation-of-american-community/

The book is Marc J. Dunkleman's The Vanishing Neighbor: The Transformation of American Community. Have we obliterated the middle ring of social communication? Has technology and prosperity affected the intimacy and breadth of our interpersonal relationships?

Sandra

Walk on by

Hard nose the highway

Rick's

It was a nice weekend. A great photo show opening at the library, a little yard work, a good sale to a nice customer on Saturday. Yesterday we drove out to Palm Springs to pick up the very last of the estate that Steve and I had bought. Afterwards Leslie and I went to Rick's for lunch.

Rick's is a venerable Palm Springs institution, the embodiment of how a diner should be run.  Rick has been doing his thing there for over 28 years. The staff move like they have been choreographed, dancers and boxers, the food is great and the place is always hopping.

Rick is cuban so this time I thought I would try his cuban sandwich, pictured above. I ate a lot of these when I was a kid in Manhattan and this one was simply the best I have ever tasted. Pulled pork, not sliced, grilled, simply heavenly. It was served with sweet plantains and absolutely perfect black beans and rice.

Leslie had the ahi salad which she loved as much as I loved mine. Our server Mike is a doll, I sit at his rail a lot, preferring to see the action from the bar. Rick's has never let me down!

Afterwards we headed over to Miracle Springs Resort for a sauna and a soak in the many hot pools. It was windy and blustery but we still had a great time. They say that they are the only resort in the world with both a hot and cold aquifer and have been rated best water  by some ratings company. Who knows, it was nice. Needs a little maintenance, missing pizzazz but better than the neighboring Desert Hot Springs resort and a hell of a lot cheaper than Two Bunch for day use.

Woke up to a Helen Frankenthaler sunrise this morning. Drizzly and nice. Please, more rain.

The reception for the Fallbrook Shutters show went splendidly, a lot of old friends and some new friends showed up and the attendees seemed very pleased with all of the photographers' work. This is a picture of the excellent violinist Richard Conviser who played with the equally excellent pianist Bob Freaney and provided the music for the evening.

Thanks to everyone that attended. The show hangs for most of April so stop by the Fallbrook Library and check it out if you get the chance.

Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me

Lynn

Houses in motion

Bea and Leonard

Beatrice Levy - Aura

I had a very pleasant morning down at Balboa Park utilizing the research library and voluminous photo archive at the San Diego History Center. An editor friend was researching an upcoming article. The archive has millions of photos of the region dating back 150 years and lithographs and drawings too. The staff was so very helpful and we went through volume after volume before finally cornering our elusive quarry.

Afterwards another nice lunch at Cucina Urbana, the vasi with burrata and garlic, a chicken skin and prosciutto and fried egg pané and salad. My friend had the squash blossoms. A great meal.

I love to research. It is one of the most satisfying components of my life as an art and antique dealer. Because I learn something every day and for some strange reason that is very important to me. Like this drawing from my recent haul in the desert. Probably not worth very much but it opened up a field of inquiry or two in my brain.

Beatrice Levy  - Courtesy - Blue Heron Gallery

This is a drawing of Leonard Bloomfield by Bea Levy. Very competent pencil sketch. So now we have two questions right off the bat - who is Leonard Bloomfield and who was Bea Levy? Thankfully both of these individuals left clear imprints in the sands of time.

Here I borrow from Wiki:

Leonard Bloomfield (April 1, 1887 – April 18, 1949) was an American linguist who led the development of structural linguistics in the United States during the 1930s and the 1940s. His influential textbook Language, published in 1933, presented a comprehensive description of American structural linguistics.[1] He made significant contributions to Indo-European historical linguistics, the description of Austronesian languages, and description of languages of the Algonquian family.

Bloomfield's approach to linguistics was characterized by its emphasis on the scientific basis of linguistics, adherence to behaviorism especially in his later work, and emphasis on formal procedures for the analysis of linguistic data. The influence of Bloomfieldian structural linguistics declined in the late 1950s and 1960s as the theory of Generative Grammar developed by Noam Chomsky came to predominate.

Beatrice Levy (1872-1974) etching Aldine Square (alternate title is Delivery in Old Town) 1938 ed. 9/50
Courtesy - Blue Heron Gallery

Bloomfield was from Chicago, taught German and Philology (the study of literature and of disciplines relevant to literature or to language as used in literature.) He did seminal work in Sanskrit, Tagolog, Ojibwa, a panoply of languages. Obviously a brilliant man.

I was introduced to Bea Levy's work last year. Beatrice Levy was also from Chicago. An artist, I obtained one of her prints from Dixon. An excellent WPA print from Chicago. Much different from the nouveau style of the earlier Aura pictured above. Died in La Jolla. Here is what I found out about Beatrice:

Beatrice Levy was an etcher, engraver, block printer, drawing specialist, and teacher. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Ralph Clarkson and with Charles W. Hawthorne in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She had a studio in Chicago’s 57th Street Art Colony.

Her work was exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition (1915), the Century of Progress in Chicago (1933-1934), and the New York’s World’s Fair (1939).

Levy was President of the Chicago Society of Artists, Supervisor of the Works Progress Administration Art Project Gallery, and Supervisor of the Easel Painting Division in 1936 for the Federal Art Project. In 1950 she moved to California, where she taught at the La Jolla Museum School of Arts and Crafts (1961-1962) and continued to exhibit her work.

Birth place: Chicago, IL

Death place: La Jolla, CA

Addresses: Chicago, 1947; La Jolla, CA, 1973

Profession: Painter

Studied: AIC; Charles Hawthorne; Vojtech Preissig.

Exhibited: Chicago SE, 1914-19, 1922-31, 1935-45; AIC, 1917, 1919, 1922-23, 1928-40, 1942-46, 1949 (prizes, 1923, 1930); Pan-Pacific Expo, San Fran., 1915 (prize); Carnegie Inst., Pittsburgh, PA, 1929; PAFA Ann., 1923-24, 1929, 1931; SE, 1938, 1940, 1944-45; NAD, 1945-46; LOC, 1945-46; Fifty Prints of the Year, 1932-33; Springfield Acad., 1928 (prize); Chicago SA, 1928 (prize); Ceramic Traveling Exh., Yokohama, Japan, 1963-64; Coronado AA (prize) & San Diego FA Guild (prize)

Member: Chicago SA; Chicago SE; Chicago AC; San Diego FA Guild; Renaissance Soc., Univ. Chicago; La Jolla Mus. Art

Work: AIC; Chicago Munic. Coll.; Bibliothèque Nat., Paris, France; Los Angeles Mus. Art; LOC; FA Gal. San Diego; Smithsonian Inst., Wash., DC; Vanderpoel Coll.; Corona Mundi Coll., NYC

Sources: WW73; WW47; Falk, Exh. Record Series.

Well Beatrice, just when did you meet the handsome and bright boychik Leonard? Any sparks?

In any case, you nailed his likeness very well. Good job.

The San Diego Museum of Art has a number of Levy's works including this 1953 lithograph, Juggler:

Both highly talented individuals. Interesting, the two of them. Did he grok her artwork, did she have an appreciation for language and semiotics?

Look forward to seeing what else I can dig up about this pair. Would like to buy her modernist lithos if you are selling for a reasonable sum.

Class assignment

Read Jeffrey Goldberg's The Obama Doctrine.

Tree and moon

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Straight shooter

It hasn't been much of a business trip for Joe Biden this week. What, like fifteen stabbings and shootings in Israel since he got there in the last two days? Even an American veteran from Vanderbilt University got whacked.

Our buddies at the Palestinian authority are celebrating the assailants as freedom fighters and martyrs. Biden had the temerity to unequivocally condemn the shooters without in turn condemning the Israelis. "Let me say in no uncertain terms: The United States of America condemns these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts," Biden said Wednesday.

Thomas Coax - Getty Images

The ruling Palestinian Fatah party praised the attack, describing the assailant who was killed by police as a “heroic martyr.”

Boy is Biden going to be in trouble with his boss when he gets home.

I always liked Biden. Being a Vice President is a crappy job. LBJ, Humphrey, Gore, Chester Arthur, there are a lot of V.P.'s whose stars were dimmed by the mediocrity of the position. Not a job where one ever has an opportunity to look good. And he says stupid shit on occasion like we all do.

I would take a straight shooting Biden over a mealy mouth pussy like John Kerry any day of the week. A shame he didn't run. I like him better than any of the other options. Third party, Joe?

Dark Hollow

Go Aztecs

Kent and I went to the Aztec basketball game Saturday, the last home game of the season. The Aztecs rolled UNLV by 36, and only days before they had beat perennial nemesis New Mexico by 27.

At 23 and 8 at this juncture that makes the eleventh straight 20 game + win season. Their third straight title.

The Aztecs are coached by a guy that I think is the best coach in the entire country, Steve Fisher. His players are always unselfish and they always play defense, exceedingly well, rated one or two in the nation at present.

Fisher has a career win rate of .666. He has five conference championships, four tournament championships, fifteen NCAA appearances, three final fours and one NCAA championship in his 26 years.

I look at this guy like Wooden, without the rolled up program. 547 and 247 all time. And he has quietly crafted a basketball powerhouse, albeit one that has not received the national attention that it deserves.

The Aztecs won the Mountain West by 3 games this year. After a shaky start with a young team, they ended up 16 and 2 in conference. Tough year but they beat Cal. And for the second year in a row, not one player was named to the all conference team by the media. They get no respect, even after waxing the conference yet again.

I can not wait until they can get into a decent conference. The Mountain West is a joke. The RPI is dreadful and many of the programs are garbage. They screw the schools too. Tournament games are played at Thomas and Mack, UNLV's home court, a travesty. Television is practically nonexistent and San Diego State is treated like crap by the conference every chance they get. We went to a Football boosters event before the game and Coach Rocky Long mentioned that the football and basketball programs combined have the third highest winning percentage in the country the last five years. Aztecs have it going on. Bring on the Pac 12!

By virtue of winning the conference, the Aztecs get a first round bye and will face the winner of Wyoming and Utah State Wednesday night. Experts think that they pretty much have to win it all to get a shot into the NCAA tourney, with the conference's intrinsic weakness and a heavy east coast bias. Here's hoping that they do.

Win or lose, this team is exciting. Cheatham is a raw talent with tremendous upside. Kell has made strides I thought unimaginable. Hemsley has a huge basketball i.q. and provides a lot of stability. Pope is starting to play the way he was initially advertised. They just need a few more bigs to replace the departing Spencer and Chol. Looking forward to a team jelling at the right time. This might prove to be an exciting March. If they get in, don't think too many teams will relish the prospect of facing them. A team with nothing to lose and a chip on their shoulder.

Stranglers - Always the Sun

Hard Rain

Paper this morning said that Dylan is coming to Humphrey's for two dates this June. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.

$165.00 plus service per ducat. Will I go? Probably not. An awful lot of gelt for what might be a case of diminishing returns. He delivers when he wants to. Have seen him a lot of times.

Still, tempting to see him at the smallest venue on tour, 1450 seats. Hmmm.

Weighing in

Carl Beetz - Weighing in, 1939  - courtesy Blue Heron Gallery

I think I deserve a medal for tiptoeing around all the political dung piles so deftly of late and not getting myself dirty. Go to bed with dogs... However I am going to wet my toe in the fetid waters for a brief moment and would like to make a few comments, hopefully without frothing or spitting too much or totally giving away my hand.

Every presidential candidate has serious flaws, like all of us mortals do. But the office seekers in question today are far less important than the policies they espouse and I would like to try to focus on those policies rather than personalities. Because like them or not, they only reflect their respective constituencies by and large.

We Americans have been going through a nasty, long time divorce with each other, at least since the Clinton administration. We no longer speak. And all candidates start off being simultaneously loved and despised by a big segment of the population, it is pretty reflexive at this point. Reds and blues could flip policy and adopt each others exact position, and the voters would still find a way to back their same horses without skipping a beat. We've been conditioned and branded.

I read something interesting the other day, that the Trump voters second choice in several of these primaries was Bernie Sanders. Which tells us something unusual is up. That ideology is perhaps not as important as trust these days, that people are tired of typical establishment politicians. And maybe dynasties too, right Jeb? Now the trust in Trump might be a bit misplaced but we have a curious relationship with celebrity and you give a guy a television show and he or she can pretty much get themselves elected pope in America. The familiar.

I personally am a policy guy. And I would take Trump at the helm, nasty, racist, misogynist Donald Trump, any day over one Ted Cruz.

I read the other day that the Republican establishment hates Trump because he wants to tax the rich, keep entitlements and is really a social liberal. And I thought to myself, I am fine with that. I am a pro choice, pro gay, libertarian pot smoker who pretty much feels the same way. And I happen to believe that borders and citizenship mean something too. Not that I am voting for the Donald, I am honestly leaning towards sitting this one out but I believe that I understand the phenomenon.

I hate everything Cruz stands for, the theological moralizing, the cultural dinosaur, his brand of Texas evangelical conservatism frankly makes my skin crawl. A man hated by his GOP peers, some of whom say they will vote for the presumptive Hillary over him if they have to. A man who has thrown a wrench in the wheels of functioning government at every conceivable turn.

Trump reminds me more of Saddam Hussein, a guy without much ideological baggage, a guy who likes to make deals and get things done. An asshole who might just be able to pull a few things off and wouldn't piss all over his own leg when confronted by an enemy. Ruthless, a braggart, a prevaricator, a guy who knows how to work the electorate like puppets. The guy could have his minions goose stepping down Pennsylvania Avenue singing show tunes and it wouldn't shock me a bit, he is such a master communicator. Don't say it couldn't happen. This would be the biggest prize of all for him and I have been winning money betting on him all year. Right Warren?

*
We all have our weaknesses and soft spots. I often hear about one of mine, Israel. You would think I would be above petty tribalism but I care very deeply for my father's homeland. And I think that the Obama administration has been extremely destructive to both Israel and American jewry.

From raising dog whistles about jewish money in politics, to crafting a deal behind an ally's back while secretly tapping its leader's communications, divulging its military plans and intelligence to its enemies, tapping american jewish leaders phones on the pretext of national security, creating alliances and new funding avenues with Iran, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, fomenting and organizing fake demonstrations on the ground among the Palestinians while financing NGO's, gutting the anti BDS bill, I think Obama has been despicable. Truly.

And as much as I like Hillary, I also think it is not beyond the pale to consider that she may be one of the principal architects for all the daylight that Obama has created with what was once a great ally. She disavowed the infamous 2004 Bush letter to Sharon. Said it was informal, didn't mean anything. Hillary was one of those people who wanted to celebrate the great Morsi revolution of the new Muslim Brotherhood, remember those guys that wouldn't let women or non muslims run for office, that jailed and beat demonstrators. Or her friends at Hamas that think it is okay to kill gay people.

It certainly seems probable that Hillary directed Ambassador Pickering to engage in all those spontaneous demonstration shenanigans in Israel. Abedin, Al-Maryati, the list goes on and on. The originator of thou shall not utter the phrase radical islam. I am not sure if Hillary won't be merely a continuation of Obama or even worse in the Middle East. Maybe Sid Blumenthal can be the new Ambassador to Israel. Or his kid. I do believe that she would be tougher than Barack, who lost all respect in the region when he failed to react when the famous Syrian chemical Red Line was crossed.

I get it that liberals don't like jews, war, Israel, neocons or zionism anymore. Hillary is a very able executive, fast on her feet. Not sure of her true convictions but who can be sure of anything these days? I had great hopes for Obama too. Can't blame him for a lot of things, do blame him for a lot of things. Of course Bernie is drinking the J street kool aid too.

*
I think that America is at a generational and political tipping point, the young aren't as racist, sexist, classist, religious or conservative, they are surely more libertarian than their elders. Things are about to change real quickly, I can already sense it in the new eight person Supreme Court. A lot of liberal ideals and dreams  that I have long held dear are being or on the doorstop of being enacted or institutionalized. I believe that the culture war has a clear winner. But I am not happy.

Because it turns out that the liberals are every bit as stupid and over reaching as the conservatives. I have recently read about the case for reparations, read far too much about transexual bathrooms, Norway style welfare entitlements, mostly involved by soaking the upper middle class I'll wager, the upper 1% far too smart to get tagged. Liberal political correctness has run amok and the attendant social engineering and paybacks destined to marginalize a poor, white class. And that's why you get a Donald Trump.

Poor whites figured out pretty quick that there were a bunch of people from the south coming up willing to take their jobs for less money, cash. The popular rejoinder is that white people won't work those jobs and perhaps they won't I don't know. But I think that is the fear. A relative did their thesis on black versus hispanic race relations. Humans would rather make a firm demarcation from the class rung directly below us than attack the apex of the economic pyramid.

Thank Ronald Reagan for Amnesty, Republicans. His 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act made any immigrant who'd entered the country before 1982 eligible for amnesty and even stripped out the penalties for employers, resulting in about 3 million new Americans.

I know that it is liberal apostasy but you break our laws and enter the country illegally, I am not in favor of granting citizenship. Legal worker programs yes, citizenship no. But watch the politicians pander, they know where the new votes are coming from.

*
Bernie to me is exactly what the country doesn't need. We have been governing from the fringes since Bush II, we need to start talking to each other again, across the gulf and not go further to the extreme. We aren't ready for socialism in this country, at least except for subsidizing big farmers, cattle grazers, gifting the energy and power companies, giving away cheap mining leases and building stadiums for billionaire NFL owners. The good kind of socialism.

Or do we burn down the banks, take the pitchforks to Wall Street, in the final act Elizabeth Warren can climb up on Lloyd Blankfein's desk and tear his heart out on national television? I don't blame the millennials. They got dealt a crappy hand. Ain't quite like it used to be, has become much harder, especially with money flowing up out of the middle class reach for the last thirty years or so. Far be it for me to mess with your revolution. Your call, I never had a horse in the race.