The fact is, we all know exactly why we have Cesar Chavez day, and it has everything to do with his ethnicity and politics, and very little with his actual accomplishments. We started down this slippery slope when Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday became a holiday.
Month: March 2007
The Giant Diaper Pin
One of the pieces of art I have always looked forward to seeing at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco is a sculpture I dubbed “The Giant Diaper Pin” the first time I saw it. I encountered it first at the Legion of Honor, right outside the cafe, while the new de Young Museum…
Costco is a Rip-Off
My husband and I used to believe in Costco. We bought Costco cards and went into the big-box retailers’s store regularly; and when we came out, having spent hundreds more than we would have in a trip to a regular store, I mentally justified it by telling myself we’d saved money by buying items in…
Public School Gaia Worship
Likewise, religion is firmly banned in our public schools, but that doesn’t mean they’re not religious. Neil goes to an environmental science magnet school, but there is a frighteningly clear undercurrent of Gaia worship. For the past several years, I’ve gone to the schoolwide Earth Day presentation, which usually takes place in the morning. One year, several students came out as various animals: a deer, a banana slug, a squirrel, a bird and spoke about their habitats. A teacher came out as Mother Earth and all the “animals” knelt around her as she spoke about how important it was for man to stop destroying the world the wild animals lived in. I love nature, animals and my environment, but on a certain level, that made me uncomfortable.
Teaching Children to Lie for the Right Cause
Yesterday, Neil came home from school, eager to create an informative flyer for the school’s annual No-Trash Lunch Week. I allowed him on my computer and being an analytical sort of a guy, he quickly came up with a flyer with three statistics about waste, and an admonishment to stop the process and lower the…
The Psychology of Clothing Size
A few weeks ago, Peter was out with one of his British friends, named Andrew, who wanted to buy a skirt for his wife. Peter called to ask me for the American equivalents to British clothing sizes. After some confusion, I came up with a phrase to clear it all up: American girls want to…
The Decline of Detroit
Mike Manley, one Neil’s cub scout troop leaders, is fascinated with once-vibrant communities and houses, like English Camp and the Henry Miller mansion, that fell into decline and now can only be found by hiking in on a dusty path in a lush forest. How does it happen that a place like this, not all that far from a current urban area, should have been abandoned and effectively disappeared, he wonders.Actually, we have to look no further than current-day Detroit.
Teeny Bopper Bands
I first realized I was too old for some bands when I went to see the Norwegian band a-ha in San Diego. As an MTV addict, I loved their video for “Take On Me” as well as their album I’d consequently bought. But when I took my place in the theatre , I really did…
Zodiac
Last night, I went to Camera Theatres to see the movie Zodiac. I love reading true crime, particularly about serial killers. But movies based on serial killers are usually gore-filled horror flicks, focusing on the killer; or gritty action films, with a sole trigger-happy cop looking for the killer and gunning down everyone in his…
Losing Cathy Seipp
Various blogs I read alerted me to the fact that columnist Cathy Seipp is in the hospital, near death, and with no hope of recovery. The news saddened me greatly. I had heard she’d had breast cancer*, but I’d always assumed she’d recovered, because, well, I’d always thought of her as one of those writers…