Many, many thanks to those of you who responded to my request for money to help three kids go to summer day camp at El Centro.  They are there now, and they are having a great time.  Not only that, the kids get fed twice a day, and the report from them is, “We even get seconds!”  My goal was to raise $300, and I raised $140.  I’m happy with that amount.  Church of the Angels has agreed to provide the rest.  I’m content because I didn’t want to bludgeon anyone through repeated pleas.  I made the request once on this blog, once through direct e-mail to some folks, and twice via Facebook—very circumspect (unconventional) for someone trying to raise money.  (Cue Frank: “I Did it My Way….”)

To those I know are regular readers and didn’t contribute…next time I make you say no to my face.  (Who loves ya, baby!)

Chicago 2009.  Photo by The Scout.

When my youngest son was in 3rd grade, I visited his classroom twice a week to read with a group of kids who needed extra help.  One of those kids, Blanca, said to me, “Ms. Russell, do you have those three?  You know, breakfast, lunch and dinner?”

Wow—Blanca was not only struggling with reading, she was hungry.  I got to know Blanca, and got to know her family.  No father, a hard-working mother who couldn’t read or write English or Spanish, and a lot of older sisters working and providing for the family.  I wanted Blanca to be the first girl in her family to graduate from high school, to not have a baby at 16.  But Blanca did get pregnant and did not graduate from high school (like three of her older sisters).  Fast forward seven years: Now Blanca is living in North Carolina, and I hear she has a pretty good job as a translator.

My friend A (with the three kids in day camp) is Blanca’s older sister.  Now the goal is to get A’s kids through school successfully.  To make that happen, A needs a steady income, and child care so she can work.  If A had her GED, she could get a better job.  But it’s a whole chicken and egg thing—how can she spend time studying when she needs to be working, even though she’d make more working if she had her GED?

What does it take for a family to get out of poverty?  Is it sheer will?  The right set of circumstances?  Of course it is a combination of a bunch of different factors.  I’m doing what I can to help one family.  Thanks for doing that with me.

I generally dread summer heat. This year I didn’t bother. Why dread it when it is inevitable? Why waste a good, cool spring dreading the white sky and hot temps of Southern California?

2009 Best in Festival, 1st Place – Mucha by Arlou Somo

If you’ve never been, the Pasadena Chalk Festival is a lovely event. Taking decent photographs of the artwork is nearly impossible, because even if you get up high enough you’re still at an angle. You’d have to be suspended over the sidewalk to get a really good shot. But never mind, lots of us took lots of photos anyway. Even the UK’s Telegraph!

I like going toward the end of the event, when the art has been completed and the artists are sitting around, covered in chalk. Some of them have that zombie look, like they’ve just pulled an all-nighter and they can’t quite believe they made it through.

Since taking a decent photograph of a whole work was not possible, I focused on details (text above added by me).

2009 Best in Festival, 2nd Place – Green Dame by Eric Sisley

Pasadena’s very own PIO was on hand. During the awards ceremony, she said lovely things about public art, about how the Chalk Festival is impermanent public art—much like a live performance, or improv, or the GuerilLA folks who do site-specific improv.

What is the relationship between art and permanence? I think of the Mona Lisa, hanging there in the Louvre. She’s the epitome of western art world permanence, no? But we can’t be with her all the time. Whether we’ve seen her in person or not, she lives in our minds, hearts, memories.

2009 Paseo Colorado’s People’s Choice – Let It Be by Shuji Nishimura

Music is another art form we carry around in our heads.  I like having an internal jukebox, even if the record gets stuck on one song (or part thereof) during a bout of insomnia.

I’m glad I went to the Chalk Festival—happy to have those images to carry with me.

This is the post you’ve been waiting for.

I have bad news. We are all racists.

I know, I know. You don’t want to be a racist (I don’t either). You think it is despicable to demean the humanity of another person, or to think of an entire group of people as inferior. Or perhaps you are a member of a group that has been victimized by another group, and you carry hate inside you, even though you don’t want to.

Inner conversation: Why are you even blogging about this? You’re not an expert on racism. You haven’t read one book about racism. You’re a WASP, for gawshsakes. You should at least read that YWCA blog before you post this. You’re “OUTTA YOUR ELEMENT!“

The Scout and I are part-way through the audio version of Inheriting the Trade (do watch the video clip from The Early Show). The author, Thomas Norman DeWolfe, grapples with learning that he’s related to one of the largest slave-trading families in history.

Get ready for a sweeping generalization: One can make a pretty strong case that our country is the prosperous place it is due to two things: 1) abundant natural resources; 2) slavery.

Remember Aaron Proctor? That dude had a foul mouth. He also had a great sense of humor. He was definitely an equal opportunity offender. I let AP know when I thought he was funny, and I tried to let him know when I thought he was offensive (though to do that well would have been a full-time job). He once said something about Armenians on his blog, something racist and offensive. I let him know I didn’t like it.

Since I grew up in this culture as a member of the dominant group, I think it is my responsibility to examine my thinking and see where racism might be lurking. It’s a difficult self-examination. Talking about racism with others is also very necessary even though it too is difficult. Pointing fingers at others is not the starting place.

Go over to Project Implicit and take the black-white race test (Race IAT). What are your results? The results scale: little or no preference, slight, moderate, or strong preference. I took the test once, and according to it I have a slight automatic preference for European American compared to African American. Michael Shermer says when he took the test, it showed strong preference for European American—you can read about it here: Kramer’s Conundrum.

Taking Care of Blogger Business:

1. I have been a contributer to Pasadena’s Political Underbelly but have not posted there recently. Even though I am a contributor, I don’t have the ability to delete or edit posts written by others. This post (note sound of “wicked power-mad laugh”) makes that quite clear.

2. There has been an incredibly wacky, sometimes funny, sometimes hateful comment thread on Sharkey vs Snarky: Blog Smackdown. I hope it is clear that I made one, and only one, comment on this post. I resisted the temptation to post anonymously as Satan (didn’t want to offend Jesus). Sigh. If you want to know the truth, I find the whole thing rather depressing—time, energy and soul-sapping.

The Scout has a hard time understanding my affinity for blogging and reading blogs. He is wondering right now why I’ve spent four hours on this post. I tell him blogging can be a powerful tool for community-building. I think most of us still believe that, even though political passions run deep (whoa, is that an understatement).

People can be mean and say mean things. I say let ‘em. I have very thin skin, but that’s my problem. We all get to choose which blogs we read. Thanks to my own life experience, I have developed the ability to recognize mental illness when I see it (well, some of the time anyway).

Point of blogging etiquette: It’s a no-no to re-post pictures taken from others’ blogs without appropriate photo credit.

Photos on this blog post courtesy of The Scout.

Extra credit reading:

Most Americans see lingering racism—in others

Lyrics: Everyone’s a little bit racist Here it is on You Tube.

…because you do not ask.

Well, I’m here to ask. I’m asking you to make a small any size financial donation to help my friend A.

I will accept a yes or a no.

Here’s why you might want to say yes: You will be directly assisting a strong, hard-working woman with her goal of keeping her children occupied this summer. She’s got them signed up to go to El Centro de Accion Social’s Summer School in the Park program.

It costs $100 per kid, and she’s got 3 kids who are the right age for the program (the youngest is too young, and believe me, that bugs her).  So the goal is to raise $300 by July 4.

There are two ways to give:

1. You can give your donation to me via Chip In. (WordPress.com doesn’t allow the widgit, so please use the link.)

2. If you want a win-win with the US Government, you can make a tax-deductible donation to Church of the Angels:

Church of the Angels
Attn: Summer School in the Park
1100 N. Avenue 64
Pasadena, CA 91105

Be sure to include your name and address so we can send you a receipt.

The fun thing about giving is that no donation is too small. Do what you can. Thank you.

I‘m thrilled to report that two generous souls have already contributed a total of $60! Only $240 to go! Yay for generous souls.

1. I don’t know if you’ve been on the bus lately, but I have. There are a lot of crazy people on the bus. Oh, I get it…that’s why you haven’t been on the bus lately. You went on the bus that one time and encountered the crazy people and you haven’t been back.

2. I recently had a proposal writing job for a doctor who wants to become a PPP provider. It was inspiring to meet a doctor who provides care to low-income, uninsured people—and wants to do more of that with the financial help of the County of Los Angeles. Yet it struck me as entirely inefficient for this doctor to have to prepare a lengthy application for the County’s Department of Health Services. This guy is a well-established doc with almost 30 years of experience providing medical care in East LA. Let’s not waste his time with him having to come up with a business plan to explain how he’s going to fund care for people who can’t afford it—let’s let him be a doctor.

3. I have a friend who needs a liver transplant. She had to go before some kind of board and get interviewed to get on the transplant list, and she made it. Now she had to get an insurance rider to cover the transplant. It’s looking like she will get the care she needs, but it strikes me as completely wrong that she has to become an expert health-care advocate (for herself) when she is very ill.

No health care system is perfect, but the American system of health care is broke and baroque. Health care should not be a capitalistic enterprise. No, I’m not saying doctors shouldn’t be paid, I’m saying that providing health care should not be a money-making business.

The single-payer system isn’t perfect, but it is better than what we have now. We’re not going to get it at the federal level, because health insurance companies are major political donors. Some smart folks in Pennsylvania are advocating for it at the state level. Let’s do the same, so that the crazy people on the bus can get the care they need, so that doctors can be doctors, and so that my friend doesn’t have to wade through ridiculous bureaucracy at precisely the time she is least able to do so.

For your consideration:

Single Payer: Answers and Facts about Health Care for All

Congress on a Path to Transfer Hundreds of Billions in Tax Dollars to the Insurance Industry While Calling it Health Care Reform

Best when read aloud. Insert your own vowels to suit. That first line happens to be the sound my mother makes when stifling a burp.

I Found a Poem at the DMV

E P T F L
F L E P T
T F L E P
P T F L E
L E P T F

P T F L E
E P T F L
L E P T F
F L E P T
T F L E P

F L E P T
L E P T F
P T F L E
T F L E P
P T F L E

* * *

The letters “D” and “O” are conspicuously absent from this text, though they are two of my favorites to confuse on an eye test.

* * *

Billy Collins (quoted here): “I have a theory that poetry should be like an eye chart in your ophthalmologist’s office. The first big ‘E’ should be easy to read, drawing the reader in. Only then should it become increasingly ‘mysterious.’” (NB: Poem above does not do this, unless you count the repetition in the last stanza.)

Naomi Shihab Nye: Eye Test. (NB: Mine’s more about making sounds than making a story. You get to bring your own meaning to the sounds. I mean, I could translate these sounds, but I’m giving you a chance to bring your own meaning. Perhaps I’ll do the same in a future post.)

* * *

One last NB: Just in case it isn’t clear that I left one, and only one, comment over at Pasadena’s Political Underbelly, let me say it here: I left one comment (clearly identified) on this blog post.

First, a tamale alert for fellow Angelenos: Adela is selling her fabulous homemade tamales on Tuesday, June 2 and Wednesday, June 3. Place your order by calling 323-691-0073.

Back to Vegas: Somehow I want to respect the ‘achievements’ of Las Vegas (big, bigger, biggest), but I’m so bugged by the architecture that I can’t.

To wit:

Took this out of the car window, car moving. Something about that building strikes me as foreboding. It’s so tall, so not proportional, so contemporary federalist on acid. Did you read about Supreme Court Justice John Roberts in the May 25, 2009, issue of The New Yorker? This building is a visual representation of that guy (at least, as described in that article by Jeffrey Toobin).

This is simply a visual nightmare. Let’s take an iconic structure, miniaturize it, and cram it upside a bunch of other buildings. I guess it’s the billboards on the “Brooklyn Bridge” that push me over the edge. How did that fence post in the bottom left of the shot get bent? Blackjack anger. Brute force from losing $500 after doubling down on an 11.

Whhaaa…? (at the Bellagio)

Time for a bit of visual relief—another Las Vegas structure, close up (though again from the moving car):

I love the colors, the vaguely Euro-Bauhaus-ish style.

I’m flummoxed by Las Vegas, and so I must end with what is either a complete non sequitur or what is perhaps the diametrical opposite of the spirit of Las Vegas. Kind of a Lady Luck vs Triumph of the Will:

‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master,
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Can we women include ourselves here? I don’t see why not.

I got caught up with the idea that the only way people can interact with a place like Las Vegas (or the Bellagio) is through a camera, so I took pictures of people taking pictures of people.

The camera is also the way people interact with each other. There’s a lot of bossing around involved: “Stand over there!” “Smile!” “Johnny! Quit making that ridiculous face!”

Why is it that so many of us are compelled to record our outings? The camera records the experience, but the very act of having a camera in your hand while having the experience changes the experience.

Do you find there’s a difference between being in a place with a camera vs being in a place without it? I like to take pictures, but I also like to go to a place, say, the Acropolis or something, and just be there. You know, feel the ancient vibes.

The vibe in Vegas is weird because the place ate its own history. Old Vegas is gone, and new mega-Vegas with its monstrously large hotels is here to stay. You can read about the tiny shreds of Old Vegas still intact here (appropriately called the “Nostalgia Tour”).

What he saw through his lens (from my angle):

A couple who truly look happy.

This actually may be THE hand that the Beatles wanted to hold.

Only in Vegas? Especially in Vegas!

We did the buffet thing. The Scout generally beelines for the prime rib, then mixes straight horseradish with creamy horseradish to go with it. His sinuses enjoy the experience.

In the last couple of trips to Vegas, we’ve tried the buffets at the Mirage, Planet Hollywood, the Bellagio, and Mandalay Bay. So far, the Mirage wins for best overall quality. Plus, you get to see their 20,000 gallon saltwater aquarium, which is an awesome Vegas freebie.

The Bellagio’s buffet serves champagne in wine glasses. We managed to arrive the end of the brunch session, and watched them bring out the dinner stuff. The Scout had a crab leg for desert. Vegas!

To be continued…

My Trip to Vegas: Part 1

I’m interrupting my Vegas series because I just found this photo over at the Lakenheath ning site.

Lakenheath High School, ca. 1977. This is what my high school looked like, people! (Same photo but bigger, better here.)

Kathy Soden Grant posted this photo with the caption: “The Smoking Area – Can anyone tell me how we got a smoking area?” I supposed we had a smoking area at school because we were all given ration cards to buy cigarettes when we turned 16…just another iteration of the relationship between the military and the cigarette industry. Of course, most of us dabbled in smoking cigarettes or became outright addicted long before turning 16.

I gave up smoking when I was 14 because Kevin Foley didn’t like it. It didn’t help with my relationship with Kevin, but I’m a happy non-smoker to this day.

I do believe that Phil Mason is the guy on the left (in the letter jacket) walking toward the camera. And to the right–the center person in the group of 3–Peggy Gralish?

Ahem. Pardon my nostalgia. I have a clinically certifiable case.

The Scout worked in Las Vegas over the weekend (Lexus commercials), and I went along. He shot photos of the Super Arterial (love that name).

Looking west. Photo by The Scout. Reminiscent of OJ’s slow-speed chase. Gosh, was that really 15 years ago (or almost – June 17, 1994)? Happy 15th Anniversary, OJ! I don’t feel sorry for you! You’ve had a great life! (Wikipedia article.)

I drove while The Scout crawled in the back seat and took photos out of the back and side windows of the car. This made me feel somewhat useful…well, for the five minutes or so that the Super Arterial location was going to be used. It has now been axed from the spot. “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

The Scout doesn’t much care for Vegas, and I suppose I don’t either except I have a horrible penchant for kitsch. It goes from old neon (the arty end) to…to…to…Oh, I don’t know what to —probably because I suppress my inner kitsch-lover fearing the wrath of the ‘truly arty’—when I should be defining the fine line between the good kitsch and the bad kitsch, so I can defend myself against haughty minimalists.

Detail of the exterior of Planet Hollywood. Photo by me.

In my effort to understand the allure of Las Vegas, I find myself at The Bellagio. Look! It’s the happy couple!

One senses great forces of sadness and evil have brought this couple together (parents?). Or is he simply upset about the pink vest and tie?  Never mind…the picture taking must go on!

And on!

And on…

Dear Bellagio, Please move the cherry picker away from the happy couple!  You don’t want to ruin their special day, do you?

To be continued…