Haven't Been Around Awhile -- Life Happens -- But We Shouldn't Go Backwards

Sorry, I haven't been writing for my blog for quite a bit of time. The only thing I can say is that life is happening.

And obviously there have been some changes to the blogging software that are quite obvious to me as I try and type this missive.

Anyway, I do plan to get back to this blog. There is a lot happening in my life and a lot happening in life around us all. Some of it good and some of it not so good -- not just in my life but, it seems, in many other people lives.

I've had some good news in my life about photography but not enough to say that I can now make a living as a professional photographer. Still, I have had opportunities arise that look to be promising.

On the other hand, the job market in general -- and for some of my skills in general -- looks less promising. Let's just say for now that out-sourcing is taking its toll on a lot of us with high tech/computer skills.

I certainly believe that is no less due to the politics and policies of quite a number of Republicans, especially a couple who are running for Governor and U.S. Senator in California (Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina) -- I personally call them the quintessential "out-sourcing Queens" since that seemed to be their policies as CEOs of their former corporations. I cannot see them changing if they are to become elected officials.

My fear is that if they are elected, they will push to implement policies that only further erode the middle-class in America and will send too many better paying jobs out of this country. So you can only expect to see an increase in unemployment if Whitman and Fiorina are elected and manage to influence economic policy.

I've written about the "dismantling of the middle-class in America" in a previous blog. Unfortunately, the newly charged "Tea Partiers" in America (and quickly embraced by the GOP) -- many of whom are middle-class -- seem to be blind to what the GOP will do to make it harder in this country to either aspire to become or remain a member of America's middle class -- let alone that old American dream of becoming wealthy.

How unfortunate that these "tea partiers" do not envision how far their economic lives will be set back by allowing the GOP to revert our country to the policies of GW Bush.

Unfortunately, they are misplacing their blame for our current economic straits. The hated "economic stimulus packages" and tax policies that have gotten us into this economic mess did not come out of the current Barack Obama abminstration.

Those policies were put forth and enacted during the Bush administration. But people's memories, unfortunately, are very short and they want to blame the current administration.

The other thing people do not seem to understand is that correcting the course of a large economy such as ours takes time to reverse that course. There is a certain amount of momentum that needs to be corrected that does not happen over night.

In fact, it would be lucky if it happened over just a couple of years and really takes more like nearly a decade to change.

So think about it: The Bush policies have had several years to influence our economic situation. And where are we? In the midst of the most difficult recession this country has seen since the Great Depression. Why nobody wants to blame GW Bush administration for this economic disaster puzzles me.

People seem to want to blame Obama for what he inherited from the failed policies of the GW Bush administration.

How unfortunate that people do not seem to understand the difficulties of this country's economic momentum and misplace blame for an economic disaster that was created by the GW Bush administration.

The real shame is that the voting public now wants to go back to the failed policies of the previous administration before a course correction can even begin to happen under the new administration.

Frankly, I'm prepared -- but not happy -- for the worst.

My biggest disappointment is that most American really just don't pay proper attention.

Sometimes Things Really Do Change for the Good

This may be a bit late but I had to think about it some. So please bear with me.

Memorial Day came and went. We spent it like a lot of other people: Relaxing, some barbecue pork back ribs, and a movie.

That doesn’t go to the feelings I have about Memorial Day. I’m a Vietnam vet. I went over when I was 18-years-old and spent nearly two years there.

I came home from Vietnam in February 1969. During the years I lived in Washington, D.C., I made it a point on each Memorial Day to visit The Wall – that is the Vietnam Memorial with the names of brothers and sister who died or went missing during the war.

Since I’ve moved to the San Francisco area I can only go there in my heart, which I fervently did on that day.

I’ve also noticed a change across the country on Memorial Day over the years, especially in recent times. It seemed that for so long and beginning about the time of the Vietnam War the holiday was all but forgotten.

Then the change came about shortly after the beginning of the Iraq War. People started paying attention and honoring veterans and those fallen in the conflict. This also has been the same for Afghanistan.

It certainly is a stark contrast to how those of us who served in Vietnam were treated and remembered.

A Million Gallons Here And A Million Gallons There: Now We're Talking About Some Real Oil

The Gulf oil spill continues to dominate the news, and with good reason.

It seems that every effort by BP to stem the massive deep-well oil flow gets stalled. The perception is that BP really doesn’t know what it is doing. Yeah, they got a cap in place on the Deepwater Horizon well this last week but oil still flows into the Gulf.

The major issue is that BP put profits above safety. They apparently knew the risks drilling so deep in the Gulf. Still, they just went about business as usual and didn’t worry that there might be a massive blowout let alone put any thought into disaster planning.

BP CEO Tony Hayward even admitted the company couldn't handle the crisis. "What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit," he said.

Before that, with foot firmly in mouth, he added insult to injury by declaring that the spill is not a problem because the gulf “is a very big ocean.” Then he goes onto add that “the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest."

Let's not forget the various corporate finger-pointing about which particular company – BP or a myriad of sub-contractors – was to blame and drew the ire of Congress. It really was kind of comic to watch but I wasn't laughing. More than anything it was pathetic that no one wanted to take responsibility.

Now there is news of a criminal investigation. I'm not sanguine that anything will come of it, let alone indictments or convictions.

Why should I, over here in California, care? I remember the 1969 oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel. While much smaller by comparison to the Gulf blowout I think it is still relevant.

Is There Any Getting The Best of Bullies?

I read a lot these days about bullies in schools. It is not heartening news. Many of the stories have tragic endings. It saddens me.

When I was growing up I had many encounters with bullies. Since I changed schools often in my childhood I became a target of bullies.

I think I was generally a target because I was new, but also because I grew rapidly as a child and usually was taller than anybody else in my classes. It didn’t matter that I was match thin, I still was perceived as bigger, so to speak.

So bullies came after me.

Over the years, for me there are three particular encounters with bullies that stand out.

The first was when I was in the second grade in Long Beach – about 7-years-old at the time.

A girl and I had befriended each other in the school playground.

Now, you have to understand, that young boys and girls at that age generally are not friends or companions. Young boys seem to have an innate hatred, scorn or just plain contempt of young girls. Sounds like "eyew" or "yuch" come to mind.

Nonetheless, I didn’t have a problem playing with girls at that age. It probably was because my closest companion in general at the time was my sister, who was a year younger than me.

I remember the girl, Sharon, and I met daily during recess and we’d talk and laugh together. We even made make believe homes in the sand and pretended we were married. Call us precocious. Maybe we just wanted to feel the affection neither of us felt at home.

There was a third grader in the school yard who seemed to think of himself as lord of all the kids in his grade and below.

Even Back-burner Dreams Can Bring Rewards Later In Life

Last week I noted that there have been two constants in my life: music and photography. Certainly music was a much bigger constant.

That does not diminish my love of photography and how much it has filled my life. However, until my early 20s photography seemed to move in and out of my life.

I read a lot of comic books as a young boy. Advertised inside and sometimes on the back covers of comic books was an “opportunity” to sell Cloverine Salve and earn credits to use to redeem products from their catalogue.

When I was 10-years-old I sent away to try this “opportunity.” I got the box of salve a few weeks later along with the catalogue of items I could work for. The only thing that interested me was a camera.

We lived in Mt. Baldy Village at the time and it turns out that the salve worked pretty well on mosquito bites. So I easily sold all the cans in the first box and sent away for a second box. I needed to sell about 3 boxes for enough credits to claim the camera.

It took awhile longer to sell the second and third boxes but I did and before the summer was over I received the camera in the mail. It wasn’t much of a camera. Mostly plastic parts, it wasn’t the highest quality camera, I’m sure.

Shortly afterward we moved down the hill to Ontario. With the camera, I was a big hit with the girls in my neighborhood who loved to play fashion model and pose for me. I shot a few rolls of film and convinced my parents to get them developed.

I vaguely remember the square 2-1/2”x2-1/2” black & white prints of these young girls posing provocatively in their swim suits. I gave most of them away to the models. They loved them.

Chasing Dreams Sometimes Isn't What We Expect

I just finished watching “The Rookie,” the story of Jim Morris who got a chance to live his dream of being a major league baseball pitcher long after he had given up on that dream.

It is one of my favorite movies and chokes me up every time I see it.

It got me to thinking about my dreams.

I talked about some of that regarding my journalism career in a previous blog.

While I had dreams and aspirations in journalism that may not have been fulfilled as I had envisioned in college, nonetheless I don’t feel that my aspirations were truly unfulfilled. Those dreams were just fulfilled differently than I had perceived as a young man.

I’ve learned that life’s dreams also are not narrow, at least for me.

There have been two constants in my life since I was a child: music and photography.

Ambitions Are All in How We Perceive Them

At the recent college reunion, my old dorm-mate, Ken, said one thing to me that stood out: “I had bigger ambitions for my career.”

Ken works for a small daily newspaper in Arizona. He has written a few big stories and won a few state awards for his reporting. Nonetheless, he feels a hollow sense of accomplishment in his career. Ken also says that things at his sheet aren’t looking good and he fears the future.

To me it is a shame to fear the future. I’ve been there but not at this point in my life.

I face an uncertain future even now but not with fear.

Certainly, my journalism career didn't end up as I had hoped while still a starry eyed college student. Quite a number of my college classmates went on to very illustrious careers with some major publications. Yet, there were many like Ken and me who never got close to our lofty ambitions.

I started my career after college at a small weekly newspaper with a news staff of two. We did everything – the reporting, writing, photography, editing, layout and even paste-up.

A few months later I landed a job at a small daily newspaper in Orange County, CA. Before six months had passed I had the flagship beat and held it for a few years.

My city editor, Stan, was extremely old school – he had worked for the Los Angeles Hearld Examiner when William Randolph Hearst was still alive and kept his hand on things at his publications. He held us mesmerized with his stories of those old days in journalism.

I feel privileged that he was my first city editor and remember him fondly.