"Ich sehe ein Stück Spinat in den Zähnen stecken"

Hunan Garden, RIP?

We've been eating at Hunan Garden for many (~20?) years. Reliably tasty Chinese food in a pleasant space at a good price. The kids grew up eating the pea greens, and the flounder in spicy salt, learning to manipulate chop sticks and appreciate tofu and hot pepper, and drinking a Shirley Temple as a "special" treat every time (a Tsingtao for Aidan after age 21). The fried tofu in a mildly spicy soy broth arrives at the table as a lagniappe every time as well. And the owner Simon knows your name and inquires after the kids every visit. We know it is his business to remember, but we appreciate the effort nonetheless: Yes, it is commerce, but it is community too.

I wish Simon's son Jarvis well in his new venture as he tries to update this comfortably predictable establishment: We owe him our business at least a couple times. I hope Simon will be there when we come... He and I are strangers in almost every way that matters, but one: We have seen each other pass the torch to the next generation. That makes us brothers, in a way.

Una más

Ni pa'ca ni pa'lla

Señor Rodriguez está en la casa...

Miguel and Danilo...

... Zenon and Perez, that is, played SFJazz tonight. Zenon is wrapping up his "residency" at SFJazz. He is a saxophonist with few peers. He plays fluid, melodic lines, fast and clear; precise, but lovely. His compositions are gorgeous. Much the same could be said of his virtuosic mentor, Perez, on piano. Together, magic. If you have the opportunity, you should go out of your way to hear this collaboration. I haven't had as rewarding an evening of jazz in a long time.

The Case for Reparations

Plenty of people will be reading and talking about Ta-Nehisi Coates's new article in the Atlantic. Of course you should read it too. I don't have much to say at the moment, except to note that his case for the enduring importance of racism in the postwar period is if anything an understatement, because it focuses almost entirely on inequality and segregation in housing, enforced by both legal and extra-legal means. This is a crucial and underappreciated story, but there is much more that he leaves out. Looming large in my mind would be the role of the criminal justice system and incarceration in reproducing and reinforcing racial injustice. It's something Coates has written about, and I presume it will be part of his account if and when there is a book-length treatment.

The ash heap of history

The rapidity with which these wonderful changes have occurred still boggles my mind...

Gov. Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania said Wednesday that he would not appeal a judge’s ruling striking down Pennsylvania’s ban on same-sex marriage.

With the decision, Pennsylvania became the 19th state, along with the District of Columbia, where same-sex couples are able to marry. Judge John E. Jones III of Federal District Court on Tuesday became the latest judge to throw out a series of state bans around the country, writing, “It is time to discard them into the ash heap of history.”

Thanks, Governor. Congratulations, Pennsylvanians...

Magical thinking

I suppose the laws of physics could be considered "very prejudiced" against my desire to click my heels together three times, repeat "I can flap my arms and FLY!" and jump off the top of Half Dome... but then, the new national science education standards are not stopping me from trying...

The standards “handle global warming as settled science,” State Representative Matt Teeters, a Republican from Lingle, told The Casper Star-Tribune. “There’s all kind of social implications involved in that, that I don’t think would be good for Wyoming.” Although oil companies like Exxon and Chevron have publicly supported the Next Generation standards, Mr. Teeters told The Star-Tribune that such teaching could wreck the economy of Wyoming, the country’s largest energy exporter. Mr. Teeters, who declined requests to elaborate, was joined in his objections by Ron Micheli, chairman of the State Department of Education, who called the standards “very prejudiced, in my opinion, against fossil fuel development.”