There are important things in California still to decide… and nationwide… so keep voting till the polls close!
Category: California Page 3 of 4
I was a little embarrassed that only a few days after scoffing at how dangerous Oakland is, I got shot. I intended to post about it, but I just never got around to it. Each time I thought about it, it moved farther away from “kind of scary” and closer and closer to “old news,” but it never quite became a blog entry.
Anyway, one Wednesday night last fall,
Say you wanted to go from Oakland, California to Sacramento, California, a distance of 80 miles, to catch a Friday night Sacramento Rivercats game. (They’re a minor-league baseball team.) And you wanted to take public transit and come back the same night. That seems possible.
So I went to the California Democratic Convention in San Diego last weekend. It was a productive experience… I networked with some people, got to see most of the Democratic presidential candidates speak, and got a resolution that I wrote passed on the convention floor (and did almost no promotion for — meaning it passed solely on merit, which is kind of cool).
[This paragraph didn’t age well, but we all make mistakes. – JG, 5/29/21] I went to the convention already having committed to supporting John Edwards, and my conviction that he should be the next President of the United States has only strengthened. However, I know a lot of people went in with an open mind. One friend of mine, fellow delegate, and fellow DFA’er (Dean for America and Democracy for America) Dan Wood, decided during Edwards’ speech that he was now on board with Edwards ’08. So here he’s already gone and started Deaniacs for Edwards. What an achiever! I’m impressed and humbled by his insanely efficient effectiveness.
Robert Salladay blogs California politics at the LA Times. He writes that — surprise, surprise — according to the Legislative Analysts’ Office, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was overly optimistic in his budget predictions.
Via The Capricious Commuter: The National Motorists Association has declared June National Lane Courtesy Month. I’ve written about how Minnesotans don’t relinquish the left lane to people who come up behind them who are driving faster than they are. (Californians are even worse, and Wisconsinites are completely unpredictable.) So here it is: a group that believes, “The lane courtesy ethic must be reinvigorated, promoted, and recognized for the contribution it can make toward safer, faster and more enjoyable travel.” Yes! (I’m not sure I agree with everything they stand for, but I’m certainly in favor of more “driver-to-driver courtesy.”)
Of course, I think it’s extremely unrealistic to expect people in this country to truly understand the ripple effects of their individual behavior. But we can dream.
Let’s see…. In March went to San Diego for the World Baseball Classic; that was cool. Driving through LA sucked, but, you know, it was a nice reminder of why not to live there. I had a nice lunch with Chris Gandhi in Pasadena, which was the main reason I failed to get the car back before the rental office closed. It was pretty much worth it.
Heh: ultra-right wing conservative Californians, who are unhappy with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointing a business-friendly Democrat as chief of staff, are inexplicably trying to draft Mel Gibson for Governor. More power to them, I guess.
Life in the Bay Area
A series of 3 vignettes
Life in the Bay Area, Part I
Thursday, I showed up to work on time.
Wow, it’s already July 3rd. I spent much of June preparing to move, which ended successfully. I now have a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Oakland, just 7/10 of a mile from work, more convenient to public transportation (about the same distance from the TransBay bus, and much closer to BART), and no longer on a hill. No roommates, also, for the first time ever. Freedom! (Well, of course, I have to make sure not to annoy my neighbors in this 30-something-unit building.) I need to get a few things to make it a truly functional place, such as, among many other things, lighting for the living room, but eventually it will be pretty much ideal. I plan on staying for a while.