An angry, shame-filled weekend in San Diego. - Part one.

I spent Friday night and Saturday in San Diego, a small hamlet south of Los Angeles, famous for a zoo and it's proximity to Tijuana.  I hadn't ventured that far south in 5 years, because I've never been a fan of caged animals or seedy people selling items that are illegal in my own country.  San Diego, like a many cities, rescued it's "historic" downtown from the ravages of developers who had the temerity to suggest that dilapidated buildings should be razed and structurally sound ones put up in there place.  Did I mention that the ground shakes regularly?  (In fact, as I wrote this, there was an earthquake.  Apropos, anyone?)

Part of this "rescue" is what San Diegans refer to as the Gaslamp district (not Gaslight, Gaslamp) which proudly boasts art, boutique, recreation (better known as "drinking") and, of course, that mainstay of all urban restoration projects, restaurants with over-priced yet under-whelming food.  Since my last trip to gaslamp, some 5 to 8 years ago, the area has undergone a subtle transformation from vibrant and cosmopolitan to frightening and slum-opolitan.  As I walked the streets, I kept thinking, this can't be the place.  This couldn't be the "hip", upwardly fashionable, snob-drawing area of my early middle-age.   This place was NOT hip.  It was more like dirty ankle.  I had blue-jeans on I and I felt over-dressed.  After walking a 10 block area, I started to get an eerie, deja-vu-ish, feeling in my bowel.  Tons of young college-aged kids, roaming the streets, some in pairs, some in packs.  Some quietly reserved, others boisterously announcing they "needed another drink".  Did I stumble upon a worm-hole and end up in New Orleans?
On one block, I found more than just a maze of post-pubescent know-it-alls with still-supple livers, there was a mob of them.  Curious, I slowly made my way towards a bulge about mid-block, moving my feet like I was on a ledge in a Harold Lloyd movie, all the while mouthing the words "s'cuse me, s'cuse me".  Once I reached the bulge, I saw what all the commotion was about.  A pod of scantily dressed girls were standing with hands on waist, shifting their hips back and forth, advertising that not only did the club they were fanning with their fannies have near-nude nubiles inside, but alcohol, too!  Twenty minutes later, I noted the girls were wearing gloves and there was more fabric covering their hands then the sum of fabric covering the rest of their bodies.  Yes, I was ogling, but, cut me some slack, dollar shots of Grey Goose, I'm only a man.  I may be over the hill, but I remember what was on the other side.
Then the voice of kill-joy, one of several voices in my head, reminded me that I'm 54 and even though I look like I'm 53, that part of the brain that regulates empathy flashed the image of a drooling middle-aged perv as seen through the eyes of a very young woman.  Slinking in shame, I snaked my way through the crowd.  As I crossed the intersection, away from the naked advertising, I turned for one last glance at the spectacle, asking myself over and over, "Why did I play foosball every Friday night in college?"

Tomorrow, more of my story from the streets of Padre-town.

Either park your car or shut up.

I read a column by that intellectual cretin, Frank Rich today.  In it he whines about the the pressure his beloved Olame-a is under for a problem that isn't his.  Funny how elitist jackals like Rich exhort the necessity of government to protect their privileged lives from the repugnant environs of common folk, yet scoff at the glee of those of us who revel in the legion examples of governments incompetence.  The only similarity between Bush's Katrina and Olame-a's oil slick is they both effected New Orleans.  The main stream media used Katrina's wrath, blended with a crooked mayor's incompetence and a sleeping Governor's under-reaction, to pummel George Bush for the aftermath.  Had the ample warnings of several federal agencies been heeded, their would have been little suffering beyond the displacement of thousands.  Today, as petro-sewage washes up on beach, marsh and estuary, sore-heads want to blame Olame-a and Obama-zombies are doing there darnedest to drive another stake into capitalism's heart.

I love the 24 hour, instant reporting, news culture.  As a self-admitted junkie of evolution, I find it fascinating how news has evolved from the daily rag to an internet tag.  How it's forcing newspapers to undergo excruciating metamorphosis in order to meet the challenges of instant reporting.  It's in this setting the Olame-a administration finds itself, trying to explain to allegiant groupies why the "anointed one" has failed to stop the impending catastrophe facing the gulf coast.  Barry's boosters have the expression of a sitting kitten, head cocked to one side, fully expecting their protagonist to leap from behind a Cypress tree brandishing a government edict that wondrously lifts the befouling crude into the air, then explodes into clouds of butterflies that carry inexpensive, reliable health care to everyone.  Except republicans and tattletales.

While Olame-a successfully concocted an health care reform plan that will destroy health care as we know it, not even his royal hipness can conjure an action that will make the outcome for the gulf any worse.  Thank the Deity for that.  What I am worried about is the same thing that dispatches my comfort daily.  My fellow Americans.  (or 'mericans as LBJ used to say).  My generation never grew up.  By that I mean, they never took time to understand how the world operates, what has worked in the past and what is worth trying now and in the future.  We believe there is someone behind the curtain who can solve our problems.  We only need to elect people who promise to be fair and prove their compassion by owning a dog. 

Here's the harsh reality:  either park your car or shut-the-hell-up.  Fossil fuels are the cheapest form of fuel on earth.  Fossil fuels continue to drive the economy, funding research from cures to comets.  Fossil fuels keep our food and power cheap and plentiful.  I cringe evertime I turn on the news and see the video of brownish black goo reaching the shore.  The question I ask myself is:  Is it worth it?  Is the potential for disaster worth the harvesting of our fossil fuels?  What's the alternative?  The alternative is higher food and energy prices and a much poorer society both locally and across the oceans.  And please don't impart the 'alternative fuels' crap-o-rama.  If forced to go to the alternative or "green" technologies of which Olame-a and his merry band of socialists dream, we will find ourselves dependent on energy sources that are expensive, unreliable and incapable of prividing the kilowatts we need daily.  Someday, I believe we will, but for now, we need to man up, draw a deep breath and do everything humanly possible to clean up the mess in the gulf.  But make no mistake, we need to drill, tap, dig, mine, transport and refine every fossil fuel we can get our hands on.  It's the only way we will be able to fund the research and development needed to create the "green" energy of the future.

Ward Connerly - Engaged for the right.

Last evening (June 2nd) I had the pleasure of listening to Ward Connerly speak to a group of republicans concerned with the welfare of their country, in general, and California, in particular.  Ward Connerly has had, what I consider, to be an illustrious career on the front lines, battling progressive bigotry, policy and stupidity.  All to often, Connerly was left hanging by gutless republican politicians and damp diaper democrats, who couldn't muster the courage to stand up to the nonsense that CA public unions, bureaucrats and Latino racists forced on California's education system.

Mr Connerly started by speaking of his formative years, his grandmother and Uncle and Aunt who raised him.  (his mother died when he was 4 and father left when he was 2).  His Uncle, while only educated through the 3rd grade, was gifted.  He had the ability to befriend people, put them at ease, make them feel welcome and important, with little effort, he was a natural.  Ward, to this day, is impressed with his uncles talent, a talent that he himself never acquired.  Equally as compelling, was how his uncle handled the racial environment of the early 50's, principally in around Bremerton, WA, where he worked in a shipyard.  Ward, who was born in Louisiana in 1939, was unaware of the bigotry associated in the south at that time, having moved to Washington at such a young age and, more importantly, growing up in a household more concerned with putting food on the table than blaming bigotry for every ill.  Ward wouldn't see the hideous side of bigotry until a trip to the south for a funeral, then saw first hand, the animus and stupidity of far too many Caucasian knuckle-draggers.  What impressed him, however, was how his aunt persuaded her husband to bite his tongue and how his uncle obeyed, reluctantly, though angry.

Ward related how his uncle loved his country.  How he understood that, even though there were far too many small minded bigots, there were far more decent people, people his uncle had no problem befriending, black and white. 

Ward Connerly is a man who understands the nature of bigotry, that people aren't born bigots, they are taught to be bigots.  Ward Connerly is convinced, as am I, that you can't abate bigotry by institutionalizing bigotry in the name of affirmative action.  He used the example of Rand Paul and how the media and academia attacked him for his regrettable defense of his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, where he openly suggested that the Federal Govt overstepped it's boundary by forcing private businesses to abandon any discrimination based on race.  Ward Connerly has felt the sting of that kind of hysterical hyperbole, mostly from people of his own race. 

Connerly gave some advice to the assembled republicans:  Fight like hell.  He said "Republicans are too polite.  Look at the tea party movement."  He related how much energy the left was expending to make the tea partiers look like violent, home-grown terrorists, how, among the swing voters, the independents, the truth was obvious.  It's Connerly's opinion that retaking the governors mansion in California (yes, like the rest of us, he see's Schwarzenegger a disaster) is not enough, if we are ever going to stop the fiscal annihilation facing the state of California, republicans will need to take the state house and completely destroy the Latino mafia and their goons in public unions. 

Ward Connerly, like Sarah Palin, is despised by the left.  I am 99% in agreement with Connerly, both in policy and tenor.  The only thing I disagreed with Connerly on, was his statement that Meg Whitman was forced to take a stand on the immigration issue, that he saw that as a bad thing.  I don't, I'm of the opinion that we need to take these issues straight on.  By Whitman coming out and saying she was against amnesty and for removing illegal immigrants from the state, I proudly will cast my vote for her over Poizner.

Ward Connerly was everything I suspected him of being.  Honest, courageous, humble, well spoken, educated, proud, respectful and patriot.  He punctuated my disdain for progressives.