How to appeal to the future of the Democratic Party... not...

"Anxious Democratic Establishment Asks, ‘Is There Anybody Else?’ Party leaders who are fatalistic about Democrats’ chances in 2020 are musing about possible late entrants to the race. Sherrod Brown? Michelle Obama?" So reads the head of this NYT article, but when you scroll down, much of the talk is actually about Hillary or Bloomberg jumping in, or being conscripted by... who, you ask? Those out-of-touch party elites and Wall Streeters? Nah...

Your Second FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Bohemian miners (coal loaders) unemployed since mechanization of mines. Jere, West Virginia. They live together in one house with a woman housekeeper. All on relief. Spend most of their time fighting about politics. Call their dog "Hitler" because he's so mean and nasty. To the left is an outdoor oven for baking bread. Abandoned mining town.
Marion Post Wolcott, 1938

Your FSA/OWI Photo of the Day

Unemployed miner. Herrin, Illinois
Arthur Rothstein, 1939.

35 Soul Classics 1970-1975

Is there ever a time when you would not want to listen to any one of these songs? On Spotify.

Little things

I took this blurry close-up of a valley oak leaf with my phone the other day in Arastradero Preserve... the little red pimple- or volcano-shaped galls caught my eye, although they knocked off so easily I wonder if they were not some kind of scale insect. At any rate, I missed the handsome jumping spider entirely, until I cropped the picture...

Can Music Be Perfect? Vol. 90

While I was spluttering through my mile at the pool today, one of the lifeguards was playing a pretty good playlist, including some Sly... though not this song, which is among his best. So many great lyrics, including my two favorite verses: "Stand! You've been sitting much too long– there's a permanent crease in your right-and-wrong" and "Stand! Don't you know that you are free? Well at least in your mind, if you want to be..." A sarcastic dig at the Beatles? Then the funky denouement...

Meanwhile the SF Jazz Collective this season is covering Stand! along with Miles's In a Silent Way on the occasion of both albums' 50th anniversaries. I hope they capture the wild funky spirit of both...

Where were you and what were you doing during the earthquake?

On the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta quake, KQED wants to know. I have a weak memory, but I do remember that moment. I was in my office in Kenna Hall at Santa Clara University. The shaking was scary, but the loud steel-on-steel roar that the building made was even scarier. "Freight train over railroad trestle" seems about right. But then it subsided, and I decided to drive home... carefully. That was eery. Most people seemed to be hunkered down– not a lot of traffic. The most vivid image was of a cannery on my way home– there were still some canneries even then– with a buckled wall and a huge stack of empty cans spilling out. That's when it hit me that there was some serious damage.

Laura was in Colorado on business, pregnant with Aidan. Of course we couldn't get in touch right away, and the news outside the Bay Area sensationalized to the point where she might have thought it was Nagasaki. But I was OK, and so were most folks. Are we ready for the next big one? I doubt it.

We laugh, because... what's the alternative?

“As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!).”

This represents some hubris... I really don't think he has totally destroyed and obliterated our economy yet! But give him time...