Food for Thought

If there is one important lesson to be learned from the last election it is that the referendum process in California is broken and being abused. There is something wrong when any individual or group with unlimited funds to flood the airwaves with propaganda and the malls and grocery store parking lots of the state with petition signature gatherers paid on commission can attempt to either legislate morality based on religion or enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayers. More to the point, many such measures violate both the spirit and letter of the fundamental documents of our democracy, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, as well as the structure and process of government in a federal republic. Let’s take three cases in point.

Food for Thought

Now that the excitement, tears, and post-election euphoria of the presidential election has receded, the headlines have returned to the country’s very serious economic woes, and the news gets worse by the day. It is becoming more evident that the “top-down” bailout of Wall Street pushed by the Bush Administration is not working at the current funding level and the lame duck and his banking-insider treasury secretary will soon be asking for more. Already, AIG—whose executives continue to enjoy lavish getaways, now at the public’s expense—got yet another nearly $40 billion in the past few days. The corporate capitalists that control our government who constantly whine about “socialism” for ordinary citizens every time a new program like universal health care is proposed, have no compunctions about seeing that the rich get it in a sleight-of-hand inversion of the Robin Hood method.

Food for Thought

Last week I asked the question: Is our national nightmare nearly over? I don’t think we know the answer yet, but come Jan. 20—which can’t come soon enough—we may see the beginning of the end. One thing is for sure, the landscape of American politics has been significantly and permanently altered for the better. With the decisive election of a mixed race African American as our president, we have finally exorcized the demons of centuries of racial intolerance and bigotry. We have shown the world that we really can live up to the promise and potential of our democratic ideals and doctrines, and that we can walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

The volunteers who gave us our country back.

Guests started to arrive in force at the Silicon Valley for Obama victory party at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View at around 7:30 pm. The election had already been called. He had won.  And everyone was ecstatic. They walked in looking more stunned than happy. Who could believe it?

The shindig attracted some high-tech politicos and local elected officials, but mostly it was about the campaign volunteers. Silicon Valley for Obama, chaired by former State Controller Steve Westley, had been enormously successful.

Nancy Pelosi talks tech in Mountain View

At Google headquarters, as elsewhere in Silicon Valley, the term “disrupter” is commonly used to describe technological innovations or companies that force evolution. Nancy Pelosi found a novel way to repurpose the word during a visit to the search-engine giant’s Mountain View campus Monday.

“Our founders were disrupters,” Pelosi said. “They disrupted the status quo.”

Food for Thought

I have been on vacation the past week and the one question going through my mind as I sat on the beach has been: Is our eight-year-long national nightmare nearly over, or has it just begun? One thing is for sure, the Bush II era will end at noon EST on January 20, a massive failure by any standard of human history. The inheritor of the Bush Republicans’ terrible mess will be faced with the daunting task of pulling the country back from the precipice it has been driven to by the horrendous misjudgments of a shallow president, his deregulatory-feasting party of the wealthy elite, and international political theories of a small group of neocons led by a vice president who has hacked our Constitution and international treaties to bits in pursuit of empire and brutal, Roman-style dominance of the less powerful.

“She Made It!” Exhibition at History Park

One of San Jose’s most precious possessions is History Park—located in Kelley Park—under the direction of the good group of people at History San José (HSJ). It’s a great place to take your family for a weekend visit. I learn so much every time I go there, which isn’t nearly often enough. We can never know enough about our past and History San Jose is doing an excellent job of bringing that point home with small but very interesting exhibitions. A new exhibit, “She Made It! — The Tradition of Women’s Arts and Crafts in Santa Clara Valley,” that opens on October 24 in the Leonard and David McKay Gallery at the Pasetta House, is a good example of what I am talking about.

Food for Thought

Your proposition may be good
But let’s have one thing understood—
Whatever it is, I’m against it!

With the approach of every election with state propositions to consider, I start hearing Groucho Marx singing “Whatever it is, I’m Against It” from Horsefeathers in my head. That’s exactly how I feel when I look through the 12 propositions on this year’s ballot. Why are we even being asked to consider most of them?

Food for Thought

What number is 10,217,023,029,529? No, it’s not the largest known prime number recently discovered by mathematicians using powerful computers. It was the amount of the gross national debt at the moment I wrote the number and in the meantime it has grown by almost $10 million. If you are like me and have been trying to make sense of all the big numbers being thrown around these days, it’s nearly impossible. Thanks to my good friend Gray Maxwell, a senior US Senate staffer on Capitol Hill, I have a way to bring the enormity of the situation home by casting the numbers in terms of our city and as individual citizens and thinking about what we could buy with that money.

By any measure, this year’s San Jose Mariachi and Latin Music Festival was a triumph. As a cultural event, it was world class, one of the best ever in our city or anywhere else in the world I have been. People attended from far and wide, including New York, Las Vegas, Tucson and Florida. The workshop students came from San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Bakersfield, Gilroy, Oxnard and, of course, San Jose. It was expertly programmed, well organized, drew large crowds of people of all ages (35,000 in total), colors and backgrounds, and it was entirely peaceful. The festival’s producer, Marcela Davison Aviles, and artistic director, Linda Ronstadt, deserve the high praise they are getting from everyone I talk to.

We are approaching the second anniversary of the death of our good friend, SJI colleague and local historian Leonard McKay. I think of him often and still love re-reading his stories over and over, and remembering the wonderful conversations that we used to have. I was thinking that the very best way we can pay tribute to Leonard is to rerun one of his pieces that he wrote for this site and then ask our readers to post comments and remembrances, or tell a good story of your own. When I was trying to decide which piece to post here, I remembered that Leonard had a favorite story that he told again and again. It is also one of his bawdiest tales and it comes with a warning: Don’t try this at home.

Guitar Legend Ry Cooder Joins Latina Singer Ersi Arvizu in San Jose Concert

Ry Cooder, named by Rolling Stone and just about anyone who knows anything about the guitar as one of the top ten best original guitarists of all time, makes a rare live appearance in San Jose on Friday, September 26, backing popular ‘60s and ‘70s Latina singer Ersi Arvizu, who had virtually disappeared off the radar screen in the intervening decades. Arvizu’s big voice is now back and can be heard in a new CD produced by Cooder, who is credited with her rediscovery and coaxing her back into the musical limelight.

Food for Thought

Over the past 60-plus years since World War II, we have become the throwaway society. Our landscape is littered with plastic and paper wrappers, bags, bottles, containers, etc., and our garbage dumps are filled to the brim with the same. Californians use 50 million plastic bags every day, around 18 billion each year, which accounts for more than 60 percent of the state’s litter. Of course, the main reason plastic is used is its low cost as a packaging material for industry and retail stores, and there is no arguing with its convenience factor.  However, plastic waste is responsible for a long list of costly environmental problems, including the clogging of water and waste systems and the death of wildlife. In addition, plastic is manufactured from oil, takes thousands of years to break down and much of it is not recyclable. At every step of the way from manufacture to end-of-use, plastic bags and containers constitute a major source of pollution.

Food for Thought

A few years ago, I was in China on business and read in the English language newspaper there about a man who had embezzled the equivalent of $50,000 from some government agency. He was found guilty in court and immediately taken out the back of the courthouse and executed by firing squad. The crime of embezzlement of any amount is punishable by death in China and there is no appeal process. It’s no wonder that this crime is rare in that country. Now I am not holding up the Chinese system of justice as an example of anything to emulate and I certainly do not advocate the death penalty for embezzlement. However, it provides a stark contrast to how we treat “misappropriaters” of public funds in the USA.

A Conversation with Linda Ronstadt

The hugely successful San Jose International Mariachi and Latin Music Festival is upon us again. Now in its seventeenth year, the festival begins on September 7 at the HP Pavilion. This year’s concerts feature a long, impressive list of top mariachi and Latin artists, including names that would be familiar to the average music fan such as Lila Downs, Ersi Arvizu (with Ry Cooder) and Linda Ronstadt, who is also the festival’s chief adviser.

Food for Thought

The arrest of a 57-year-old male San Francisco high school assistant principal and a 41-year-old Milpitas woman for running a brothel in an upscale North San Jose apartment complex has shocked the residents of the building and others around the city. It was one of two similar brothels shut down by San Jose police last week and the tenth one of the year brought to police attention by complaints from neighbors. But why should the fact that brothels exist in such places surprise anyone?