The story of stuff…

Author: Scott Sep 03

I have a lot of stuff in my life, but not as much as most everyone I know. A few years ago I realized that the system was broken, unsustainable, and I looked for ways to get off the treadmill. It felt impossible to me to not keep buying stuff. The stuff I bought inevitably either broke, wore out, or became obsolete. So I tried, and made little steps toward reducing my consumption until one day, when a catalytic statement pushed me into a totally new lifestyle.

It was right after the act of terrorism on 9/11 that awakened, enlightened, and transformed me. Our President, George W. Bush, went on national TV and told us all that our best way to cope with the grief, that our duty as Americans in this time of crisis, was to go out and SHOP. In that crystalline moment I saw the overwhelming degree of corruption and greed our government was involved in. The government was no longer a tool of the people, it was a blatant tool of the huge corporations who actually run it. Go shopping. Buy things so that the corporations can continue to make a profit. I was disgusted, and immediately changed my way of life.

What did I do? Well, I stopped watching TV, stopped going to the mall, shopping at big box stores, eating at fast food places and chain restaurants, buying new cars, worrying about my credit rating, and I destroyed all my credit cards. I basically stopped playing the game that the corporations and media wanted me to play. I quit being a consumer.

I discovered Craigslist, and now buy almost everything used. It not only saves mucho dinero, it keeps me from having to go to the mall and play the game. I haven’t been to a Safeway in nine years. This computer, my huge Mac with tons of memory and programs, which looks and works like new, cost me $400.00. I didn’t go to the mall and talk to some geeky teenager at the Apple store and pay $2,200.00, plus tax, by the way, for a new retail version of the same thing.

The most power hungry corporations are the Big Agra firms, and what they are turning our food into is reminiscent, to me, of the stuff in the movie: Soylent Green (before Chuck Heston discovers “it’s people!”).

Have you ever seen the ingredients in a Chicken Nugget? 56% corn, and 38 other ingredients, including types of Silicon and Butane, which are toxic. I have learned to make my own fried chicken, which doesn’t depend on corn or corporations for its flavor and health benefits.

Consumers in America are bombarded with about 3,000 suggestions to buy stuff each day, thanks to our media and Madison Avenue. That’s 187.5 ads insisting we need what they are selling each waking hour of the day, or more than three ads per minute. My average is way less, with no TV, radio, or other media presence in my bubble. And because of that, I feel the impact of the ads that do impose themselves on me when I go out. they are so everywhere that most people don’t even register them, but they do register, nevertheless. It’s a societal conditioning that we are being bombarded with. Buy, Buy, Buy!

The truth is that we don’t really need to buy stuff in order to feel good. All we need to do is stop believing what Madison Avenue and our government tell us about that connection. I have more happiness, free time, savings, and awareness now than ever before, mostly because I’m not playing the game of consumerism. You will be amazed at how much more you can accomplish when you turn off the TV…

And if you say; “So what?”, then I might want you to see the following video. It shows clearly that the non-sustainable practice of consumerism is destroying the planet and its inhabitants, including the consumers. It’s called The Story of Stuff, and it explains the economics of consumerism and the price we pay for our addiction to shopping.

If you want to see more of this kind of thing, these people also expose all kinds of stuff from bottled water to cosmetics. Check it out and get involved! http://www.storyofstuff.com/

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Greetings from the Playa…sort of.

Author: Scott Sep 01
neon in a casino

Neon tower with hoops.

As you are reading this post, I’m visiting A place which looks and feels like the surface of the Moon. I’m taking a little time to be with a few friends and reflect on the way society could be, where we give and care and love as if we were a big family. Here, however, there is no internet service, so this post has been pre-recorded as I sat in my hotel room in Reno awaiting the opening of the Burning Man Conference.

One of the most amazing sights there is what one sees while “on the playa” at night. There are the billions of stars, no lights from towns, and  thousands of vehicles and people being illuminated by neon lights, laser beams, and glow sticks. The colors therein are anything but white; purple, green, and pink abound in dots and moving lines and strong beams suspended just over our heads.

I have no way of showing you this now, but while in Sparks, Nevada, I happened upon a casino that had been designed by someone who had seen what I have just described. so I snuck a few pictures while there, and from these you will be able to imagine what I will be experiencing while in the desert. But out there, there are no slot machines, or the stench of cigarette smoke permeating one’s clothing and body, and it’s quieter on the playa too.

casino carpet

The carpet at the casino.

Casino ceiling

not exactly stars, the casino's ceiling still shines.

casino lights with movement.

Now add a little movement, and you're there.

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it’s time for a war

Author: Scott Aug 30

Dear Readers,

I have had a suspicion since childhood about the government’s adding Fluoride to our drinking water. I thought then that if the world’s population had survived for millenia without needing to ingest Fluoride, why was it so important as to be forced on us all without any other option to the general public (remember that when I was a kid, there was no market for bottled water)? I developed, in my young mind, a fantasy that the government was actually trying to feed us all a chemical that would make us more docile and lead us to believe whatever they said. We would no longer question authority, and the ones in charge would see their power grow until we were all their slaves. I know what you’re thinking: That kid was watching too much Twilight Zone. Yup, it sounds pretty nutty indeed.

Recently, I was at an event for chemists, and was privy to a conversation within a group about the extreme dangers of Fluoride. They were mourning one of their colleagues who had accidentally gotten less than a half gram of Fluoride on his skin, and within weeks the Fluoride had absorbed into his system and leached the calcium from his nerves and bones, leading to a hideous death. They then mentioned how Fluoride, in smaller doses, can render people docile and non-resistant to authority.

Wikipedia reports: “Fluoride-containing compounds are so diverse that it is not possible to generalize on their toxicity, which depends on their reactivity and structure, and in the case of salts, their solubility and ability to release fluoride ions.

Reaction of the irreversible inhibitor diisopropylfluorophosphate with a serine protease

Soluble fluoride salts, of which NaF is the most common, are mildly toxic but have resulted in both accidental and suicidal deaths from acute poisoning. While the minimum fatal dose in humans is not known, a case of a fatal poisoning of an adult with 4 grams of NaF is documented. For Sodium fluorosilicate (Na2SiF6), the 50% lethal dose (LD50) orally in rats is 0.125 g/kg, corresponding to 12.5 g for a 100 kg adult. The fatal period ranges from 5 min to 12 hours.”

It was as if my childhood fantasy had been repeated to me. I began paying more attention to the things we are being told are safe by Big Brother, and I saw a trend popping through the slick spin the powerful interests feed us. I remembered the Bush administration’s scaring us into a frenzy with the H1N1 flu campaign, with emergency funds being pumped into emergency vaccines for an epidemic that didn’t exist. 90 million Americans took that Kool-Aid without question, and the epidemic never came. In fact, the deaths which occurred due to the flu that year worldwide were about 1/3 of normal, and the rates of influenza in general were down 60-65% without this supposedly necessary emergency vaccine. But our government got a third of its population injected with something that year.

Then we get the news that there are toxins being put into our food which are outlawed in many other countries. The FDA declared them safe, so they must be OK, right?. The Agra giants are putting silicone into our food as a filler, and incorporating pesticides into the genes of corn, so bugs will die if they consume this food product. Huh? What about us?

And now, with the people starting to push back, the government is coming out of the closet in their tactics against those who won’t eat what they tell us to eat. The other day law enforcement officers, with guns drawn as if the culprits were terrorists, shut down a small food coop in Los Angeles which shared raw milk with its members. That’s right: uncooked milk, like people have been consuming for thousands of years, and still do in the rest of the world. The U.S. Senate is considering a bill, written by a Monsanto executive, which will put farmer’s markets out of business by making them pay big fees and have testing done on their produce, and be mandated to use certain chemicals on their foods in the name of safety. I won’t be able to give you a basket of tomatoes without government inspections and permits and fees. They want the small farms shut down so that there will be less resistance, fewer options, more dependence when the big food crisis and epidemic comes. And when they bring that one on, we will truly be their slaves.

Remember the OPEC cartel’s manipulation of gas in the 70’s? The same will happen with food, as soon as they get a little more control. Please check out  Senate Bill S.510, and you’ll see the future, brought to you by Monsanto and Uncle Sam. Maybe it’s because I am closer to the subject than others, I don’t know, but what I see is the small guys being crushed by the mega powerful, because they can and will have total control. Remember the last scene of Food, Inc. ? Where the seed-saver guy is being forced to rat out his customers during a deposition by Agra giant attorneys? To them, a million bucks in lawyer’s fees is chump change. To the seed guy, any lawyer’s fees would destroy his fragile life of cleaning seeds for his neighbors.

When are we going to wake up to the fact that the government is in bed with big Pharma and big Agra, and they are all only pretending to be looking out for us? To them, it’s all about power, control, profit, and our submission. More and more of us can not afford anything but the cheapest, most processed food available. We don’t know how to grow anything anymore, we are becoming dependent on others to feed us the most basic of products.

We need to take a proactive stance on this front. How can we stand by while our rights are being removed by special interests? The most important step for us is to educate ourselves, then, with the facts, speak out. Tell your senator that S.510 is unacceptable, and that the big corporations are not in charge. Then tell everyone you know what’s happening. If your community doesn’t allow residential agriculture, stand up and change the laws. Show your support for the small farmers by buying as much local, sustainable, organic food as you can, and all the while cry out against this injustice. Learn to grow things again! Real food tastes so much better than the crap these giants force on us. You’ll reawaken your taste buds, and regain an appreciation of real food.

A former President once declared to the world;”You’re either with us, or agin us!” (agin means against in Texan) as a call to action. We need to declare the same thing against these Corporate terrorists that are on the verge of making us their slaves by taking away our food choices. Here’s a quote from a Monsanto executive which tells exactly where their interest is: “Monsanto should not have to vouch for the safety of Biotech food, our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”- Phil Angell, Director of Corporate Communication for Monsanto.

There is a book out now called: “The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved“. It is all about this. It isn’t a conspiracy; it’s a takeover. A recent article about “A Month Without Monsanto” was really along these lines too. Here’s the article about GMO corn: http://www.biolsci.org/v05p0706.htm, and here’s the story: http://web.me.com/aprildavila/MWM/Blog/Blog.html

For some quick education, here are a list of films you can watch:. King Corn, Food Inc, Fresh, the Movie, Super Size Me, McLibel,  and The Corporation are all great options and available on Netflix.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-08-29

Author: Scott Aug 29

Powered by Twitter Tools

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Barkissimo: The Thanksgiving Dinner

Author: Scott Aug 26

With all the Americans living in Ensenada who came to the restaurant, or who were living on boats in the local marinas, I thought I’d do a little giving during the holiday season by throwing a five dollar thanksgiving dinner. I asked around and figured on about fifty guests showing up for the event. I did a little promotion, all in English, and then went shopping for the turkeys and fixings.

We bought six birds and fifty pound bags of potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, and onions. The day before Thanksgiving, between our regular meal service, we cooked the food that would last a day, like the pies and mashed potatoes, and prepped everything else we could in order to get ready for the dinner the following day.

Thanksgiving morning we stuffed and roasted the birds, cramming our two large ovens full of foul. Things came together nicely, and by the 4:00 start time, we were fully reay to serve. We decided on paper plates and plastic utensils, so we could save on cleanup afterward. The kitchen looked like we were prepared for an army, as the colorful food was uncovered and readied for service.

Normally, I don’t like guests walking through the kitchen, but this day we gad turned the fryer and broilers off, and the central island served nicely as a serving area, so today, I’d have the guests, our poor ex-pat Gringos, get served cafeteria style.

We opened the door to find a dozen of our happy hour regulars waiting to be fed. They paid their $5.00 and took a plate, and we chatted briefly as they were served their food by the cooks. After these folks, there was a lull, which is to say no one else came aboard the boat. So, with an investment of over $400.00, we had taken in a whopping $60.00 our first hour. I was starting to worry. There were fifty people who said they’d be here, and they weren’t! I went outside and strolled the malecon, looking for obstructions or some other excuse for a lack of clients. I had actually closed the restaurant to our regular business for this event, and now it seemed I’d be feeding the homeless people of Ensenada the next day.

As 5:00 arrived, the sun was setting, and I was nervous. Two more people had come for the Thanksgiving dinner, and the first group were about to leave. Well, there was nothing to do about this except be thankful that I had a dinner to serve and a business I could afford to close for a day.

At about 5:10, another group of six came aboard. They were from the happy hour regulars as well, and could offer no insight as to the whereabouts of their friends. I helped serve them, and as the last of the sextet had her plate filled, in walked another family of six. They were on a hundred foot ketch that was anchored in the middle of the bay, and this was the first time they had set foot aboard Barkissimo. I think they were German, and only the husband spoke English, but I was glad for their attendance. During the explanation of the tradition of thanksgiving to him, which he was translating to the kids, I looked to my left and saw a line of people coming aboard the boat. They soon got to the kitchen, and the line still continued down the gang plank and onto the dock.

I abbreviated my story as best I could and looked out the kitchen window to see a line of at least a hundred people waiting on our $5.00 dinner. They were almost all Americans, with a smattering of wharf dwellers who had heard of the great meal deal aboard the fancy boat restaurant. Cool; I always enjoyed sharing with my local neighbors.

The kitchen staff and wait staff were up to the task of serving the crowd, and the guests kept on coming. By 7:00 we were running out of turkey, and I had taken a ham out of the fridge and had popped it into the oven on high, along with some potatoes and chiles rellenos I had made for the next day’s special of the day.

By 7:30 we were out of food, yet people kept coming. We had served 160 guests by that time, and I dove downstairs into the freezer and storeroom to see what we could possibly serve our endless line of guests. It seems that the $5.00 dinner idea was a little more popular than I’d imagined. I had the cooks fire up the grill and the fryer, and we switched to plan B, or whatever it was by that time. We started cooking hamburgers and fries, chicken breasts and pasta to be able to offer something to our guests, who seemed to have come from all corners of Ensenada to celebrate thanksgiving with us.

Around 8:30 the last few people came aboard. They happily ate hamburger patties and fried potatoes and spinach. A young boy was enjoying my last piece of cheesecake, and his parents didn’t complain about his choice because they had gotten the absolute last bits of food in the restaurant. I was amazed at the amount of people and food that left the restaurant that day. at the end of it all, we had served 204 persons, and had emptied the boat of almost all of the food (I had some onions, shrimp, and ribs left), and all the beverages we had in stock. people were even ordering beer at room temperature when that was all there was to drink.

We were finally done with the day’s work around 11:30pm, that is, except for me. I stayed and worked on the emergency shopping list I’d need to fill in the morning in order to open for lunch the next day. I decided on a special menu for the day, based on whatever I would be able to get my hands on in the morning. The restaurant had never been so thoroughly depleated in it’s history. such is the life of an entrepeneur, I guess.

I got back to the house around 1:00am, and when Rebeca saw me, she bid me to come to where she was in the bed. she seductively reached out for me, and when I came near, she pulled me close, and sniffed my neck and breath.

“OK, so you weren’t out drinking or with a woman! no go take a shower and tell me about your gringo give-away in the morning…” She snarled.

Yup, such is the life of an entrepreneur.

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Finding diamonds on Craigslist

Author: Scott Aug 24

Recently Barkissimo underwent an evolution into the world of music venue, where we hold house concerts in an amazing setting. When I started looking for musical acts to book aboard Barkissimo, I was in the dark as to where to find talent. It seemed that, as with most everything else in my life, Craigslist would provide the answer. So an ad was crafted and inserted into the list:


Looking for talented local musicians in the genres of acoustic, folk/American roots music, singer-songwriter, jazz and classical, for a new, intimate concert venue aboard a yacht. Artists must be of top caliber and must compose at least 50% of your own music. Compensation to be negotiated. Our venue is an intimate setting, catering to music aficionados. You must be able to travel light – this is a boat so there’s not room for a lot of equipment. Please send video or audio demos and resume of local performances. Please mention the word Barkissimo in your reply to eliminate robots, spammers, and people who don’t pay attention.

Look at the venue here: http://www.meetup.com/Music-on-the-water-concert-series/
http://barkissimo.shutterfly.com/
http://barkissimo.com/blogissimo/

We got over 250 responses to the post, most of whom were not artists I’d want to listen to for two hours in an intimate setting. Some were OK, but didn’t have the magic I was seeking, and then there were the two gems that stood out from the crowd like brilliant diamonds on a sunny day.

With little ado, I contacted Haruwn Wesley of the KDM Jazz group and asked him if they wanted to do a show aboard the yacht on August 20th. he said it sounded fun, and that was it. They were signed, so to speak.

Another act that stood out was a Napa group called Buckeye Knoll, and why they don’t have a record contract is beyond my simple capacity to comprehend. They have some of the best original lyrics and compositions I’ve heard in years, and the talent therein is undeniable. There is no difference between them and many of the bands I hear featured on KFOG radio. I listen to their CD often, and am reminded of Death Cab for Cutie, but with three times the talent. After the jazz concert this past Friday, Buckeye Knoll’s CD started playing on my stereo, and the KDM band members were amazed by the music. Quite a compliment from a trio of very well seasoned veterans of the American music scene.

The jazz concert last Friday also taught me a little life lesson as well. 6:45 does not absolutely mean 6:45. The keyboard player got to the boat at 6:35, saying that Haruwn told him to be ready to play as 7:00pm. Our agreement was that the show would start at 7:00, not that the band should show up then. I was in a panic! We had 54 seats reserved, and half the guests and 2/3rds of the band weren’t present yet. I called Haruwn, and he laughed about the time, saying for me not to worry, He’d be there in about an hour or so…, which translated to 7:45ish. Great!

But since half the guests weren’t there either, and those that were didn’t seem to notice the absence of a band, I was  driven to take a deep breath and chill about something as trivial as time and deadlines. The band arrived around 8:15, and we got the show underway at 8:30. No one seemed to mind the late start, owing all to what they call Jazz time, and once the music started, all sense of anything was suspended.

I can’t remember ever hearing a more disciplined, tighter jazz group in my life. Well, live, at least. These guys were amazing, to say the least, and the crowd roared with applause at the end of each tune in a show of their appreciation. I think we were all amazed at the quality of what we were hearing, the perfection of the tempos and the flow between the artists, with none of the obnoxious overplaying one usually experiences with club based Jazz groups. KDM is the real thing, …and I found ‘em on Craigslist.

Buckeye knoll will be playing on October 15th, and I’m sure we’ll sell out that show, even though I have no idea if anyone’s ever heard of them. There is a certain energy in the air here, a sense of the quality of our shows that is generating it’s own wave of buzz about the artists that play here. I feel honored to have found such amazing talent to play aboard Barkissimo, and that the artists are as excited to play here as I am to have them. It’s truly a great ride, and you’re invited to enjoy it with us.

Oh, and I’d like to thank the good folks at Craigslist for hooking me up with a couple of beautiful diamonds…

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And now let’s talk about fish…

Author: Scott Aug 18

Dear loyal and faithful readers,

First, I need to tell you all how grateful I am for your interest in this blog and what I have to share with you; for yesterday I logged my 5,000th reader. I am overwhelmed with gratitude and love for your interest and support in this endeavor. So, once again, I thank you from my heart.

So a friend sent me the following video, and it reminded me of a subject I have been meaning to share with you for a while now; the consumption of fish. The subject is important to me because I care about the sustainability and quality of the food we eat. I used to live in a Mexican fishing village, and got to know the men who harvested the sea. They would stop by my floating restaurant each morning and sell me the best of their catch for my daily specials and the like.

I have seen and experienced first hand the effects of overfishing as the fishermen complained of diminishing harvests and smaller fish in their nets. I’ve also felt the impact of what our pollution does to poison our bodies through the fish we eat. The act of cleaning the bottom of my boat, which required my being in the water of Ensenada bay for two or three hours, would inevitably leave my sick for days afterward. I could only imagine the health effects on the fish living in that environment, given that I couldn’t endure three hours.

I used to work as a photojournalist, and one of my mentors was Eugene Smith, who went to Minamata, Japan, to do an essay on the effects of the industrial poisoning of the fishing grounds of Japan, and the resulting maladies and birth defects that came from eating contaminated fish therein. His photographs still come to the surface of my mind with startling frequency. If you think that “farmed” fish are as healthy as wild caught fish, think again. Anything living in filth, or filled with antibiotics and chemicals in order to survive until it is executed is not going to be healthy for us if we choose to eat it.

We need to think before we buy our seafood, as well as everything else we decide to ingest. Our lives are short and fraught with disease already, and it’s obvious that the huge corporations and powers that be are not in the least interested in the health of the planet or it’s inhabitants. They will continue to pollute, continue to try to sell us the most profitable products possible, regardless of the consequences, and continue to think of the bottom line above all else. When I ran my restaurant, I’d tell my staff that we could theoretically serve shit to our customers if the presentation and service were great, and the guests would like the product. At the time it was a joke of an example of marketing, but it seems that these multinational thugs have taken the idea and literalized it. Actually serving us poison and animals raised in bacteria infested shit.

And if you think our government is busily watching out for our interests and protecting us, you are erring on the side of foolishness. Here are the facts about government testing of mercury in seafood: In 1969, the FDA first set an action level for total mercury in fish; 0.5ppm (part-per-million) was considered the maximum safe limit. (Action levels represent the limit at or above which FDA will take legal action to remove a product from the market.) In 1979, the action level was raised to 1ppm. In 1984, there was another major change. The FDA stopped measuring on a basis of total mercury and instead started checking levels in terms of methylmercury only. In 1998, the FDA stopped widely testing for mercury in fish.

Our best source of standing up to these corporations is by choosing products that are not farmed, or imported from abroad, or mass produced on feed lots. We can catch our own fish too, you know. It’s not against the law…yet.

Minimata bath

Eugene smith, Minamata.

effects of mercury Poisoning

The effects of Mercury poisoning

The element Mercury

The industrial toxin Mercury

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Being a Dad

Author: Scott Aug 16

Being a Dad is a jewel of many facets. It starts with the brilliance of birth and bonding with one’s child, then shines through the changes of diapers and sleepless nights. As fathers we sacrifice much to assure the development of our children. We watch with boundless pride as our little ones go off to school and sing in the holiday pageants with their classmates. We defend them against bullies and give them structure and security in their lives. As they grow we are there to answer the immortal question: “Why daddy?”, and countless others. We help with homework and build tree houses, all the while loving them without reservation or pretext.

As our children grow, we are given challenges which hone and polish our love for them with increasing frequency. There are bad report cards, first dates, and defiance which grows exponentially with each year of their teens. The facets of our love and responsibility multiply as the child reaches the critical moment when they leave home, and keeps shining through their career and their own growing family.

As fathers, we have much to love and admire in our children, yet not all of our tasks are pleasant or enjoyable. We must accept that being a dad means loving with impunity and grace at the same time. After recently glowing with pride in the enrollment of my step-daughter into the culinary arts school of the University Autonoma de Baja California, I am now glowing in a different way, and my jewel of fatherhood is about to earn another, less brilliant facet.

I am flying to Mexico right now to do something that will cause several people a great deal of discomfort. Sometimes that’s a part of being a Dad. It seems that my daughter has decided to move out of her house, finding a life of rootless existence preferable to the petit set of rules her Mother and I have imposed on her in order for her to remain in the environment of cost-free luxury. I am going there to offer support to Rebeca and Deniss for their decisions in this affair, and to insure that the decision has time to ferment, grow, and reap its rewards.

This is not the first time Deniss has moved out. A few months ago she decided not to abide by a curfew, and instead of dealing with the consequences, moved in with her friend, Anna. That lasted a couple of weeks, until Anna’s Mother told Deniss that she had overstayed her welcome at their home. After that incident, I had a talk with the girl and we agreed on three simple rules if she were to continue in her home and at college. For school, she had to maintain an 80% average in the university and her French language class, which would be almost effortless if she applied herself. Second, the agreement to stay in the house was dependent on her respecting her parents, and keeping her areas clean.

So this past week, as Deniss returned to school for the start of her second semester, she made the adult choices which led to her telling her Mother that she would be moving out. She started school on Monday, and returned home each night intoxicated. Thursday night she called to say that she had to stay late at school for a special laboratory, and called numerous times to update her Mom on the progress of the lab, finally returning home at midnight. When Rebeca went to the university the next afternoon to discuss the late class with the teacher, she found out that the daughter had made the whole thing up. Upon exiting the office, Rebeca found Deniss nearby on a break, and confronted her with the facts, which the youngster rebutted with a statement about the university lying. Friday night she didn’t come home at all, not answering her phone until Rebeca used the phone of a friend of Deniss’ on Saturday morning, when the girl was supposed to be in French class.

Deniss came to the house to pick up some clothes for the beach, and told her mother that it was best if she moved out, being an adult and all. Rebeca has been in tears and filled with guilt and loathing ever since, and Deniss enjoyed a relaxing day at the beach with her friends.

For me, somewhat distant from the intense drama of this coming of age, it is easy to rationalize and second guess their choices. I know that this step is perfectly common among newly-legal young adults and their parents, and is an integral part of the process of maturing. I know that Deniss is extremely intelligent and self sufficient, and will adapt to her new environment well, albeit with frequent pangs of home sickness. I know her Mother will worry incessantly for a while, and then realize that her daughter will actually survive life without her, and the worry will subside into a longing sadness which will linger indefinitely. I know that I will secretly help Deniss with funds to keep her in food and clothing, as well as give her ideas on how to survive the world of roommates and crappy jobs. And I know that we will all be uncomfortable in this awkward transitional time.

The difficulty will be in maintaining the terms of our contract, and not giving in to the emotional tidal wave that surely awaits me in Ensenada. Both women are filled to the brim with pride, and the first few days will be easy for me, but as reality sets in for them, they will both break down simultaneously and want to kiss and make up. But if that happens, the pattern will continue of the child being the one in control of the home, and the parents being manipulated and disrespected.

So, I am returning to Ensenada to change the locks, paint the room, pack the belongings of our newly independent daughter, and rent the room to someone else. That will be the mark of the law of no returns. Deniss will be obligated to grow up and become the adult she wants to be. The stress and pressure are palpable and disconcerting, but it’s all part of the show, as my ex Father-in-law used to say. I am fortunate to be in touch with my source of strength, and am ready for the challenge that awaits me, after all, it’s in my job description as a Dad.

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More on equal rights…

Author: Scott Aug 14
In an effort to learn (and share) more on the prop 8 thingy, I came upon an extremely informative op/ed piece written by Linda Greenhouse (her Bio follows). I have reposted a part of her original article from this morning’s New York Times, hoping that they don’t mind my doing so.
I’d heard about the brilliantly concise opinion of Judge Walker, but who has time to read a 136 page legal document these days, aside from legal type professionals? So when I came across this piece, it gave a great and easily understandable summary of one of the key points of the case, and more importantly, the changing role of marriage in modern American society.
The piece also, coincidentally, answered the question I had about how much of our planet recognizes same sex marriage as lawful. it was nice to find out that we may soon be as progressive and tolerant and humane as our third world friends in Mexico and South Africa. Go USA! (please feel free to read the entire article at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/hiding-in-plain-sight/ , but my edits concentrate on the prop. 8 issue, and she goes into other issues, such as Roe v. Wade, etc…)

Friday, August 13, 2010

LINDA GREENHOUSE

LINDA GREENHOUSE

Linda Greenhouse, the winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize, writes on alternate Fridays about the Supreme Court and the law. She reported on the Supreme Court for The New York Times from 1978 to 2008. She teaches at Yale Law School and is the author of a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, “Becoming Justice Blackmun.” She is also the co-author, with Reva B. Siegel, of “Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling.”

August 12, 2010, 8:15 pm

Hiding in Plain Sight

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

Of the many smart moves Judge Walker made in his 136-page opinion last week, the smartest was his unveiling of a central hiding-in-plain-sight fact: the change in society’s expectations about what partnership in a marriage entails. “Marriage between a man and a woman was traditionally organized based on presumptions of a division of labor along gender lines” until recently, he said. “Men were seen as suited for certain types of work and women for others. Women were seen as suited to raise children and men were seen as suited to provide for the family.”

Judge Walker cited the advent of no-fault divorce (which New York is about to become the 50th state to adopt) as a marker of how the legal system no long prescribes roles for marriage partners based on their sex. Evidence at the trial, he said, showed “the movement of marriage away from a gendered institution and toward an institution free from state-mandated gender roles.” As a result, the judge continued, “gender is not relevant to the state in determining spouses’ obligations to each other and to their dependents,” and “gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage; marriage under law is a union of equals.”

Judge Walker’s conclusion was that Proposition 8, the state constitutional amendment confining marriage to opposite-sex couples, “thus enshrines in the California Constitution a gender restriction that the evidence shows to be nothing more than an artifact of a foregone notion that men and women fulfill different roles in civil life.” Proposition 8 “mandates that men and women be treated differently based only on antiquated and discredited notions of gender.”

There is much more to Judge Walker’s analysis, but it seems to me that this revelation is the heart of it: that while we have been fussing about same-sex marriage, marriage itself has undergone profound change as the result of forces completely independent of federal judges. Judge Walker is saying basically that he is not “redefining marriage” — the charge instantly leveled by critics of the opinion. We, collectively, in California and elsewhere in today’s United States, have done the job ourselves.

If Judge Walker’s opinion survives on appeal in its full sweep, I think it will be on this basis. Will it survive? I’m not ready to predict. Clearly, the societal changes that Judge Walker identified, the inexorable erosion of the gendered boundaries that prescribed separate roles for men and women in the home and in the world, are the very changes that have animated the religious right for decades. Deep disquiet over those changes fueled the successful opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and is a major part of what continues to make same-sex marriage a polarizing issue here even as other countries are managing to put the debate behind them in growing numbers. (Argentina’s Congress legalized same-sex marriage last month; it is legal as well in Canada, South Africa, Spain and six other European countries. The Mexican Supreme Court ruled this week that same-sex marriages performed in Mexico City, where they are legal, must be recognized as valid throughout the country.

A Supreme Court showdown on same-sex marriage, if one comes, is probably at least 18 months away, further complicating prediction. The justices, or at least some of them, are likely to pay close attention to how the public responds, both to Judge Walker’s opinion and to the Court of Appeals decision that will come next. One early straw in the wind was a CNN poll last weekend, after the ruling, in which 52 percent of the respondents answered yes to the question, “Do you think gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married and have their marriage recognized by law as valid?” According to Evan Wolfson, executive director of Freedom to Marry, this was the first time a national poll showed majority support for same-sex marriage.

Given that last week’s decision is most unlikely to be the last word, the real contribution of Judge Walker’s fact-filled opinion, and of the trial that preceded it, may be to enable a better informed public conversation. Knowledge can change perceptions, which in turn can change reality.

With Elena Kagan confirmed to the Supreme Court, and thoughts turning toward the opening of the court’s new term, the first with three women on the bench, I’m reminded of a play that opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington in late 1977 on its way to Broadway. It was “First Monday in October,” with a plot that turned on the appointment of a woman to the Supreme Court. The notion was regarded as inherently comic, and it was played for laughs. But the successful play propelled a once far-fetched idea into the popular culture. Meanwhile, a woman named Sandra Day O’Connor was sitting on an appellate court in Phoenix, hiding in plain sight.

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We’re about to launch the “Music on the water” concert series.

Author: Scott Aug 12

Wow!

It’s been a huge effort, but the hard work is on the verge of paying off. Last month, after hosting two extremely successful house concerts in three days, I decided to offer my humble yacht as a very special private concert venue. Barkissimo is a unique place with a magic ambiance, and all who come here are enchanted with it. The views are spectacular, and the boat is beautiful, and everything we’ve done here has been a fantastic experience for the guests; the concerts should qualify wonderfully as well.

Enjoying music on Barkissimo.

Annie Bacon packs 'em in aboard Barkissimo.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been in touch with many talented artists and lots of helpful people, including other promoters, private music organizations, and a Zen Master of the local house concert scene, all of whom have given me an intense education in aspects of the world of music promotion. and although I’m nowhere near ready, I know that my intelligence, instincts, and amazing friends will overcome the details that have not yet been conquered.

The plan I am developing is going to be something special for the musicians who play here, as well as the guests who will attend the events. I have a core of volunteers who will see that the shows flow smoothly and the production is top notch. We will be making videos of a couple of songs from each concert, and publishing them on Youtube for the benefit of the artists and the boat. these will be professional grade videos, thanks to my videographer, Jeff Schuenke.

We will also digitally record the events and provide a CD of the concert to the artists, to do with as they see fit. Then, with the accumulated music of the season, We will put together a compilation Cd featuring a great live song from each artist. The CD will be sold to our friends, and all the proceeds donated to Care Pets, a charity I support and do a lot of work with. the CD will help promote the careers of the various artists therein, as well as help rescue animals in need.

The tireless staff here at Barkissimo has come up with an amazing lineup for our inaugural season, and I’m still scratching my head as to how we did it, but we are flush with amazing artists who are excited about the opportunity to play here on the yacht. Here’s the lineup for the next three months aboard Barkissimo:

August 13th: Rick DiDia and Aireene Espiritu, the Ten Ton Feather.

August 20th: The KDM Jazz ensemble.

September 10th: 77 El Deora.

September 17th: Stevie Coyle.

September 24th: The VNote ensemble.

October 2nd: Ladies on a train.

October 8th: Pamela Rose Jazz band.

October 9th: Joey Lent and friends.

October 15th: Buckeye Knoll.

October 23rd: Lisa Ferraro and Erika Luckett.

Pretty amazing, isn’t it? These are some of the most talented artists I’ve heard in a long, long time. If you want more information on the concerts, or to join the “Music on the water ” meetup group, here’s the link: http://www.meetup.com/Music-on-the-water-concert-series/

I hope you can make it to some of the shows, ’cause they’ll be worth the trip from wherever you are. I’ll be filling you all in on the details of these great bands soon, so you can reserve your seats to the shows you wish to see.We here at Barkissimo will be waiting for you.

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