As if San Diego hasn’t gotten enough negative coverage in the major national press, today we were first column, front-page in the NY Times. A loony anti-immigrant, anti-government, anti-tax representative, Randy “Duke” Cunningham, pleaded guilty to tax evasion, conspiracy to commit bribery, wire fraud, and mail fraud. Grand total: at least 2.4 million dollars. What [...]

Today is Sunday. Today is New York Times, two cups of joe, and a bran muffin Sunday. Today it is 75 degrees. Last night it was 51 degrees. Global Warming is so inconsistent.
Today I am thinking about Twisire Kitamula. She is 2. She is from Northwest Malawi. And a photograph of her covers a third [...]

Or “Notes for the Begininning of the 1,327th week of my life”.
How do I know that this is the beginning of the 1,327th day of my life you ask? Because Google Calculator tells me so. Really. Just go to Google and type in “how many weeks in X years.” From there it’s just a matter [...]

I’m in an area of my gymnasium known as “the pit.” It is full of free weights; of dumbbells and barbells that go thump against the padded mats. Tattooed, young Asian-Americans and Eastern European graduate students grunt loudly on their ninth and tenth repetitions before dropping the weights to the floor in disgust. They rise [...]

Look it up. These are lyrics to a country song. The coffee shop that I frequent in Dupont is blaring non-stop country on satellite radio. I’m not one of those “anything but country” people. I am not opposed to bluegrass or Johnny Cash and I’ve probably been seen inadvertently toe-tapping to an occasional Garth Brooks [...]

Junior High “Graduation”, 1993, Anaheim, California

Thank you Eddie, EMC, Patti, Julissa, and Mariposatomica for commenting on yesterday’s post. If anyone else has anything else to say, I’d love to hear it.
Today is my little sister’s sweet 16th birthday. I won’t bore you with wordy, exaggerated reflection … I already subjected her to that this morning in a bday card turned [...]

I said I would only post this month about Global Voices and my Reporting Across Cultures class. Here’s to that little practiced art (by me anyway) of keeping one’s word.
Last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine had a feature piece on Literary Darwinism. Most of the article dealt with how a small group of academics are [...]

Look what I got in my email box today. I knew today was going to be a good day:
” ROYAL FOUNDATION INC.
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION/PRIZE AWARD [...]

Look at all these people. All waiting for something to happen. And it never will.
That, or something close to it, was reportedly said by one Charles Bukowski as he walked by Caffe Trieste in San Francisco’s North Beach district. And he’s right. The beat generation is six feet deep and was long before Ginsberg, homo [...]