Jamey Skies
Hunter and Son (via.cali.relocator)
via alameda.info
Lookout Closes Doors (by Aidin Vaziri)
8.6.05. Lookout Records, the Berkeley indie label that helped launch the careers of artists such as Green Day, the Donnas, Rancid and Operation Ivy, laid off its staff this week after Green Day reclaimed ownership of its pre- 1994 work from the label. According to Lookout publicist Tristin Laughter, who is one of those out of a job, the move came as a result of unpaid royalties on four of the multiplatinum trio’s early releases, including 1991’s “1039/Smoothed-Out Slappy Hours” and 1992’s “Kerplunk!,” 60,000 copies of which the band originally sold from the back of a van.
“They made their decision because of royalties that are owed and the label is unable to pay at this time,” Laughter said. “Like many indies, Lookout is suffering and they couldn’t make the payments.” Green Day was roundly censured by the East Bay punk community, centered around the club 924 Gilman Street, when it left Lookout to sign with major- label Warner Bros. for its breakthrough 1994 release, “Dookie,” which sold 12 million copies. Yet Lookout continued to benefit from the band’s skyrocketing popularity as interest in Green Day’s older material rose, providing most of the revenue to support Lookout’s new signings like Ted Leo, Mary Timony and Engine Down. Former Lookout president Lawrence Livermore: “Lookout has been failing to pay Green Day (and other bands) for years now, and apparently using the money instead to put out a series of terrible records that very few people wanted to buy. Gambling on new bands is part of what a record label does but you don’t do it with other people’s money.”
Hakone, Saratoga (via lin.jirsa)
76 (via now.then/cuny)
Stossel trumpets Ame biz
7.03.11 Today, Asian students crush Americans on standardized tests, but it’s Americans who invent things like the transistor and the integrated circuit. Our culture of entrepreneurship turns that science into wealth. It’s relatively easy to start a business here. I opened one in Wilmington, Delaware. I named it “The Stossel Store.” It was just a table from which I pitched my book and Fox merchandise. I picked Wilmington because our research showed that Delaware and Nevada make opening a business easier than other states. It still took me a week to get legal permission, but it would have taken much longer in Europe. Unfortunately, bureaucrats are threatening this good part of America.
I had to register with the Del Sec of State and the Division of Corporations, get a federal employer identification number, buy commercial liability insurance, and register with the Del State Dep of Finance. D’souza: the Founding Fathers specifically put protection for patents and trademarks in the Constitution. Suddenly, the entrepreneur is taken from the bottom of the heap and brought to the front.
Chiara Offreducio saves child from wolf
by Gio di Paolo
Lady Cardinal (via go.stanford)
Santa Clara County pop: 1950- 300k; 1960- 600k; 1970- 1mil; 2010- 1.8 mil; growth of 6% from 2000- 2010 lowest ever. Politics: 2008 pres election- Dem 70%, Rep 30%; 1984- Dem 43%, Rep 55%.
Gaspar Portola and his paper (via ochistorical.com)
Juan Bautista (via bertc)
5.5.11. Vic Hanson on whacking killers
We have executed from the air over 1,500 suspected terrorists by Predators. President Obama has ordered four times as many drone attacks in the last two years as President W. Bush did in eight. Are those killings more constitutionally suspect than Bush’s treatment of the three terrorists at Guantanamo?… targeted assassinations are better done under liberal presidents, who are more likely to be seen as humanitarians who only reluctantly order such killings. The Bush antiterrorism protocols — tribunals, renditions, preventative detentions, Predator assassination missions, Guantanamo Bay — were decried as illegal and immoral. Such furor vanished, however, when President Obama embraced or expanded them all…. preemptively bombing Gadhafi to foster democracy in his absence is now considered morally justified.
Pony Express to Mento (1861) via wiki
Jim Boswell- cotton/tomato/ wheat farmer; 135k acres, Kings County
(via amazon)
Abrogation in the Quran
The principle of abrogation- al-naskh wa al-mansukh (the abrogating and the abrogated)- directs that verses revealed later in Muhammad’s career “abrogate”- i.e., cancel and replace- earlier ones whose instructions they may contradict. Thus, passages revealed later in Muhammad’s career, in Medina, overrule passages revealed earlier, in Mecca. The Quran itself lays out the principle of abrogation: 2:106. Whatever a Verse (revelation) do We {Allah} abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring a better one or similar to it. Know you not that Allah is able to do all things?
In order to find out what the Quran says on a given topic, it is necessary to examine the other Islamic sources that give clues as to when in Muhammad’s lifetime the revelations occurred. Upon such examination, one discovers that the Meccan suras, revealed at a time when the Muslims were vulnerable, are generally benign; the later Medinan suras, revealed after Muhammad had made himself the head of an army, are bellicose. (via jwatch.org)
Emmylou and Wynona: Sweetest Gift
One day a mother went to a prison
To see an erring but precious son
She told the warden how much she loved him
It did not matter what he had done
She did not bring to him a parole or pardon
She brought no silver, no pomp or style
It was a halo sent down from heaven
The sweetest gift, a mother’s smile
She left a smile you can remember
She’s gone to heaven from heartaches free
Them bars around you could never change her
You were her baby and e’er will be
Lankershim Blvd, North Hollywood (1968)
via: red.neckerson
City. Country. Surf
(via: legend.america)
Sgt. Hansen, Brown & The Curse of the Black Dahlia (1947)
via: steve.hodel
via clark.baker
When smoking was good for your health
(via force.change)
Eileen McGann on Soaking the rich
The three “classes” of taxpayers in the US: 1.) top- taxpayers: top 25% pay 86% of federal income taxes, (2.) tax neutrals: middle 25% pay 14% (3.) tax eaters: bottom 50% pay no income tax but get tax credit checks from the Gov. Pres. Obama and the Left realized that the Achilles’ heel of the anti-tax movement is its reliance on mid-income voters to win tax cuts that go to upper-income taxpayers. Obama is passing further tax cuts on the middle class and higher tax “refunds” for the tax eating poor, thus isolating the rich in America. O’s strategy for winning reelection: Hit the rich hard at the tax office, then outvote them on election day. But the top 20% of earners account for 46% of all consumer spending. Without the participation of the rich, the economy has no hope for recovery. (Catastrophe, 6/09)
Stanford Memorial (via: david.yu)
Judah Street via: genea.blogie
The Valley by Al Bierstadt (1865) via: wiki
Dennis Prager on Prep Schools
American public schools were created to make better Americans. We will end all ethnicity and race based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America, e pluribus unum, “from many, one.” Banned: clubs that divide students based on identities, race, language, religion, sexual orientation. Your clubs will be based on interests and passions. The purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. You and your teachers will follow the formal dress code at this school. No obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school’s property whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can’t speak without using the f-word, you can’t speak. There will be one valedictorian, not eight. We have failed if any of you graduates this school and does not consider himself lucky to be alive and American. Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country.
Dodge Seneca (1960) cherry red. via:xray.delta
Daughter of Selena (via: disney.dream)
Weekend in the City (via la.times)
Medved remembers Ma and politics
7.08.10. Edited: My mother unapologetically admired FDR, Stevenson and all the Kennedy brothers. On the anniversary of her passing, I recall our ideological arguments with wry fondness and recognize that even in the midst of today’s passionately polarized debates, all current conservatives (including me, her oldest son) could benefit from timely warnings she might communicate if she could: 1. Don’t demonize public employees- My mother spent nearly all her work life serving governmental agencies. After moving to California, she not only raised four obstreperous boys but also found a new career as a public school teacher. She loved her impoverished, inner city pupils and spent her own money to buy little gifts and school supplies. Particularly after my parents’ divorce, she became a proud member of the teachers’ union, backing its aggressive drives for better pay and benefits.
2. Embrace immigrants- My mom was an immigrant herself, arriving from Nazi Germany with her parents just before her tenth birthday. She became a naturalized citizen in her teens but always felt special affinity for other new arrivals who sought fresh starts in America. This included her students in Los Angeles barrio schools. As a bilingual teacher (with her gift for languages, she taught herself Spanish), her students were mostly immigrants or children of immigrants, both legal and illegal. In the classroom, she couldn’t tell the difference. Some of the sweetest, most promising kids were undocumented, and the biggest trouble-makers were often native-born children of legal residents- such as the violent sixth-grader who once assaulted her at her desk, causing serious injury.
3. Family feeling trumps political differences- When my daily radio show began, Mom listened avidly, argued back to the radio and even joined me on air a few times as a disputatious guest. Medveds seem to enjoy verbal rugby over anything, or nothing at all. Nevertheless, my mother patched up any strains of discord among her four boys and encouraged us to work together. For everyone I know who has lost a parent, the memory operates as both conscience and compass. Even when we’re utterly convinced of our opinions, we can sense those lost parents nagging at us to consider other perspectives. As newly re-enforced armies of the right go forth to a fateful struggle this November, our battle plans can only benefit from a few cautionary comments drawn from the recollections of the warm-hearted sensible liberal whose memory I still cherish.
Gangster Squad (Los Angeles, 1948)
Sgts Will Burns and Jack O’Mara organized a team of cops whose job was to crush East Coast undesirables like Jack Dragna, Bugsy Siegel, and Mickey Cohen. They used wiretaps and Thompson submachine guns to achieve their goals. via: L.A. Times - Paul Lieberman
Union Station (via: youre.here)
You are Guilty! Fess up
General John Fremont
born: Savannah, Georgia. Mil.Governor of Calif (1847), Fired by Lincoln (1861), Terr. Gov of Arizona (1878) via: wiki
Chief Bill Parker- Los Angeles (1950-66)
via: lapd.foundation
Golden Gate (via:art.files)
Golden Spike (1863) by Thomas Hill
financed by California Big Four aka “The Associates”- Gov. Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charlie Crocker. Designed by Ted Judah. Bridge to Utah and the Union Pacific. Travel from Sacramento to New York: 7 days.
via: cali.archiv
Leaving for Golden Mountain
Gold collectors by Charles Nahl (1849) Sierra Nevada. via: wiki
Word got out that Sutter’s Mill was only the tip of the iceberg. 300k gold collectors raced towards Coloma on covered wagons and sailboats, all craving the taste of buried treasure.
Powder Monkeys by Mian Situ (via: greenwich.shop)
Central Pacific freight train
Queen Califia (via: sdiego.insider) nsfk
Father Junipero Serra wants you! to love God (via: static.panaram)
Every time I saw this statue off the 280 highway, I knew we were just 20 minutes from San Francisco.
Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. (via:bitten.bnd)
D’Souza: Reagan wins Cold War
The new Soviet leader was attempting to achieve the great 20th century hope of the Western intelligentsia: communism with a human face! A socialism that works! Yet, the Soviet regime turned out to be sorely defective. If Reagan was the Great Communicator, then Gorbachev turned out to be the Great Miscalculator…. At their first meeting in Geneva (11/85), Gorbachev insisted that the US had to shelve SDI, and warned that the Soviets would expand their offensive/defensive systems to meet the American threat. Reagan responded with equal firmness: “We won’t stand by and let you maintain weapon superiority over us. We can agree to reduce arms, or we can continue the arms race, which I think you know you can’t win.” Two years later Gorbachev visited DC to sign the INF Treaty in which the superpowers agreed to reduce their interm.-range nuclear missiles to zero. The treaty involved the Soviets destroying 4x as many warheads as the Americans. (via RR, Ch.8)
