Colorado Boulevard bridge across the Arroyo Seco looking for all the world a bit arch

Signs of the Times

Spring Day on Lockhaven And Everyone's Got A New Car

As usual my street has more cars than people. The drivers quickly park and then everyone runs inside lest they get caught by the conversation commissioner and be required to actually speak to their neighbors. 

The Insight of Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Just saw a news clip about a bunch of "youths" who rioted at a hip-hop concert in Chicago at the Ford mall. People at the concert said a bunch of teens just ran in yelling, throwing food, looting stores, then they ran outside breaking car windows, jumping on vehicles, smashing side view mirrors and throwing snow at the police. In the video that accompanied the report, everyone at the mall was black.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan predicted this 40 years ago. Back then the black illegitimacy rate was only 25% (today it's 75%). But even then Moynihan was able to look at the trend and famously conclude that any  society that lets its young men grow up without marriage, without fathers, without any connection to "male authority," is asking for "chaos" and gets it.

Well, it took 40 years. But now the chaos is here.  Michael Moore announced last month that the reason whites want guns is to protect themselves from blacks. He offered that bit of news as an original insight. Michael, in case you don't know (and I don't believe you do), guns allow people to protect themselves in their homes from increasingly common home invaders in situations where the cops can't come right away (if at all). Of course whites want guns. How else can a single homeowner possibly cope with a flash mob running in the door?

My Day

A good day yesterday. Ben was up from U.C. San Diego. Gabe was here as well. So for once we had the entire family for dinner. I made spicy chili with oregano, cumin, paprika, chili powder, coriander, and garlic. It turned out surprisingly well. The secret ingredient was unsweetened chocolate which made it taste a bit like chicken mole. We spent most of the dinner talking about the movie, "Life of Pi." Holly and Gabe had seen it and Ben had read the book. As happens not infrequently, I was the  only one without a clue.

Russo the Pup inspecting a tree on my patio where the cat is hiding (or tormenting him).



I went down to the VA Health Center on Temple Street in downtown LA to have my eyes checked and my blood analyzed.  I won't say it's the most fantastic building I've ever been in or that it's scrubbed to within an inch of its life. But they do seem pretty efficient down there. It seems at least more efficient than my current HMO which takes forever to get anything done. Also, there are no fees or co-pays. I could get used to this. Socialized medicine for veterans is at least as good, it seems, as the HMO variety.

The technician who took 5 vials of blood from me managed to find the vein easily and painlessly and without much ado. When I told her she was pretty good at her job she seemed quite pleased. Well, it was the truth.

Hooray For The Pope

I keep reading how "shocked," "stunned," and otherwise made speechless were so many Vatican observers by the Pope's decision to step down at the end of month because he no longer has the physical strength or mental stamina to do the job right. But isn't that what anyone with good character would do?

Of course, maybe the expectations of these observers (i.e. reporters) regarding the voluntarily relinquishing a position of power due to mere old age were formed by our own Supreme Court and Congress. So thus to them it seems perfectly natural that anyone would cling to his post till half-dead and senile.

Today My Ass Would Be Grass

Here is an example of the kind of doodles I spent my days drawing when I was in elementary and junior high school. Occasionally a teacher would look at them (mainly I think to check if I was drawing pornography). But none of them ever cared about my drawings (or was the slightest bit alarmed). They just (correctly) figured I was a bored kid with too much time on this hands. Good thing I went to school 60 years ago. Today I'd be kicked out on my ass for making terrorist threats.

Do Terrorists Really Hate Us For Our Freedoms?

Hate our freedoms?

Well, it's possible that they might hated us for them at one time, but not anymore--because we increasingly don't have any.  Free people don't have to have their genitals felt before they get on a plane. Free people don't live in a country where, the president just issues executive orders if congress won't pass his legislation. Free people don't get killed by their president without a trial if he deems them a threat to national security.

All I can say is, if terrorists used to hate us for our freedoms it's time they stopped--their whole premise no longer applies.

The LAPD Has Lost It's Mind

The LAPD has already blasted two pickup  trucks full of bullet holes because they might have contained the cop killer, Christopher Dorner. The first truck they shot up (nearly 50 times) had a 70 year old Hispanic grandmother inside. She and her daughter were delivering newspapers for the LA Times. The cops, apparently without warning, shot the grandmother twice in the back. Flying glass then cut her daughter's hand. I don't know what the cops did or said when they realized how badly they fucked up. Probably tried to claim the woman pulled something suspicious from her waistband. Well, she did. It was a folded copy of the Los Angeles Times. She was throwing them on subscribers' front lawns. The cops saw something in the air, decided it was a weapon and their lives were in danger.

It didn't matter that they got everything wrong--race, sex, weight, age, and model and color of the truck.

If cops are going to start blasting any truck they see at night,  no matter who is driving and no matter whether the truck matches the description of the fugitive or not, no one is safe. I probably ought not to ride my bicycle down to the corner grocery store.

A thought. Dorner already has a victim complex. Next thing he is going to do is start whining for sympathy on the grounds the cops were out of control. Well, whatever else is wrong with his thinking that's one part he got right.

It's clear the LAPD doesn't want us to have guns but for the rest of us that's a no-brainer. When the LAPD acts as crazy as they did with the newspaper delivery ladies we sure don't want them to be the only one with guns--otherwise they'll just continue to blast the living shit out of 70 year old grandmas delivering the paper.

Droning Bill Ayers

Saw an interesting comment on the web today regarding Obama's supposed authority to kill American citizens with drones. What the author wanted to know was, under the Obama targeting rules, would  Nixon been justified in killing Bill Ayers?