Community Matters

(Community Matters) Holiday cheer and merriment – what a super time of the year. 

Cocktails and hors d’ouevres at Alexa & Blaine Wesner’s last night as they welcomed our 2020 colleagues to town.  So many dear friends in attendance including John Thornton, Marc & Suzanne Winkelman, Lynn Meredith &  Jim Martson.  There’s a magic to their home that allows extraordinary elegance while preserving intimacy and casualness.  (we had to duck out eary) At today’s 2020 meeting we’re discussing healthcare with a couple of stellar panels.  

and healthcare reform became one of the topics at our subsequent dinner celebrating David Booth’s birthday with Suzanne, Chandler and four of their dear friends.  Most insightful to gain the perspective of UCLA professor & LA Dept of Health Service Director, Dr. Jonathan Fielding as well as that of all guests, including Karol Fielding, Pam & Edmund McIlhenney.

(Community Matters) NYT best selling author Barbara Ehrenreich’s blog

So welcome to the Women’s Movement 2.0: Instead of the proud female symbol — a circle on top of a cross — we have a droopy ribbon. Instead of embracing the full spectrum of human colors — black, brown, red, yellow, and white — we stick to princess pink. While we used to march in protest against sexist laws and practices, now we race or walk “for the cure.” And while we once sought full “consciousness” of all that oppresses us, now we’re content to achieve “awareness,” which has come to mean one thing — dutifully baring our breasts for the annual mammogram.

Hat Tip: Jan Hill

(Community Matters) I haven’t had the time to read up on the email/global climate change controversy but am doing just a bit today.  The below CNN piece gives some context to the controversy.  Appears mostly communication between colleagues at one UK university –  with some outside engagement including Prof Michael Mann director of Penn State’s Earth Science Center.

Discussing this last night, a friend in the academy noted the risk of reviewing email exchanges between academic colleagues since there’s a presumption of knowledge and integrity and the language of quick email exchanges read out of full context could easily yield misleading interpretations.  In the video, the explanation of “tricks” within the context of scientific experiment is but one example.

That Oklahoma’s Senator Inhofe is leading the charge to publicize & exploit the emails, interestingly on the eve of Coppenhagen, should be a huge flag.  Senator Inhofe receives more oil & gas industry support than all but a few US Senators, and the disingenuous  involvement of the oil & gas industry in global climate tricks & skuldruggery is legendary (eg. Exxon Mobil’s $16mm tobacco-like disinformation campaign). As an aside Inhofe denies evolution and compares global climate change concerns to Nazi big-lies.

(Community Matters)

Happy Birthday, Melissa

good gosh, I’ve known her most of her life

Love ya, Lis

(Community Matters) Breakfast yesterday morning with Tim Sulak who is running for State District Judge (353 District Court – the late Scott Ozmun’s bench).  Tim comes highly recommended by Russell Bridges and John Hildreth.  I’m impressed by his sense of duty, intellect and his history of judicial involvement – also by his list of supporters.

Supporters include David Butts, Becky Beaver, Elizabeth Christian, Rowland Cook, David Escamilla, Deborah Green, Ora Houston, Rep Donna Howard, Rebecca Lightsey, Susan Longley, Jim Martson, Glen Maxey, Mary Ann Neely, Rev. Parker, Mark Perlmutter, Paul Ruiz, Nancy Scanlan, Rob Schneider, Brigid Shea, Bruce Todd, Michael Whellan, Bill Whitehurst and Anne Wynne.

I was going to wait for the filing deadline to endorse anyone in these races but Tim is just too compelling a candidate, has lined up the right supporters and is working appropriately hard already.  Check out his website and I recommend him.

John Hildreth was unable to join us for breakfast.  His mother passed away yesterday morning

(Community Matters)  Leonard Pitts:

Among African Americans and Hispanics, Obama’s approval rating remains staggering – 91 percent w/ blacks and 70 percent w/ Hispanics – but just 39 percent among whites. Obama’s performance has been neither as execrable as the rating among whites would suggest, nor as walk-on-water miraculous as the rating among blacks and browns would have us believe. And that gap between them is less a measurement of a president’s performance than of a nation’s enduring irresolution.

I almost can’t believe these numbers, would like to know more about the source

If true, what do they tell us beyond what Leonard Pitts writes?

(Community Matters) Too coincidental that Steven would have an Amazon package lost and I would have a Barnes & Noble one derailed (now five days shipping vs three).  Appears some major systems crashes or errors underway at UPS

(Community Matters) Especially surprised by the margin of loss.  I’m still glad they tried and that they counted the votes.  My LGBT friends in NY now know who to support and who to organize against.

Isn’t a punch in the gut; we’re used to losing at the ballot box on this issue – still, much progress has been and will be made.

Popular votes nor legislative ones didn’t end racial discrimination and probably won’t end LGBT discimination – in the case of marriage, I still expect it will be the S. Ct first.  Given Kennedy’s Colorado opinion, I don’t dismiss his support.

(Community Matters) Worth reading – not just a piece by some radical lefty, this from a distinguished professor of law at Harvard and the person selected by Congress and the President to oversee the financial industry bailout.

Today, one in five Americans is unemployed, underemployed or just plain out of work. One in nine families can’t make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans is on food stamps. More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy every month. The economic crisis has wiped more than $5 trillion from pensions and savings, has left family balance sheets upside down, and threatens to put ten million homeowners out on the street.

(Community Matters) Gotta be kidding me.  I wasn’t aware.  Must see Cate Blanchett as Blanche DuBois at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a Streetcar Named Desire.

not to mention Joel Edgerton

(Community Matters) The Red Book – Jung’s confrontation with the unconscious (1913 – 1930), translating his emotions into images and grasping his fantasies that were stirring underground. It documents the founding of analytical psychology.

I know it’s Steven’s belated birthday gift, and I can’t seem to put it down

that’s okay, he’s still asleep and no fighting over it

(Community Matters) We’ll my clock is finally back on my preferred schedule – waking up between 3 and 4am feeling perfectly refreshed.  I’m so much more productive on this schedule.  Admittedly, I usually need a tiny nap during the day or early evening.

Also, I’m back to feeling 100%.  Driving back from OK, I was feeling a little ginger.  Monday night feared I was coming down with the flu.  Mostly recovered yesterday and stayed in with the exception of one meeting.  Good thing, much better today.