Opinion

Editorials

Beyond Curry Powder and Soy Sauce By DEBBIE CHANG

Tuesday December 27, 2005

As a student in a professional cooking school in the Napa Valley, I knew I was lucky. Within walking distance, there were great restaurants to train at, artisan olive oil makers, and organic produce at the Farmers market. Napa Valley, however, lacked one thing. Ethnic cuisine. By ethnic, I don’t mean Asian-fusion, Rachel Ray’s “thirty-minute” version, or the high-priced “____-influenced California cuisine” (fill in the blank with your choice--Mediterranean, French, Japanese, Indian, etc.) -more-


Editorial: Impeachment’s Back in Style By BECKY O'MALLEY

Friday December 23, 2005

Memory is physical as well as mental. If my memory serves me correctly, in a drawer somewhere in our house, perhaps in the bookshelf in our living room, we used to have (and perhaps still do) a fading yellowed copy of something headed “Bill of Impeachment.” I’m pretty sure it was from 1967 or thereabouts, and I’m pretty sure that John Conyers, the smart, dapper young congressman from Detroit, and Robert Drinan, the only Jesuit ever elected to Congress from Massachusetts or any other state, joined about 10 House colleagues in proposing impeaching Lyndon Johnson over his pursuit of the Vietnam War. That impeachment action came to naught, unless you count Johnson’s eventual decision not to run again. There have been other occasions in the intervening years when impeachment has been started, but only Bill Clinton ever faced an actual trial. -more-


Public Comment

Dream Of The Earth By Nozomi Hayase

Tuesday December 27, 2005

The earth axis shifts and latitudes change. The sun is hidden by the shadow of the moon. At the sound of ice melting on the North Pole, a white bear opens his eyes. An epidemic breaks out in Africa, rain falls in the Sahara, and Palestinian refugees escape imprisonment. Something is going on in the world. Something is going on. Every minute and every second, the earth revolves and the world changes. Everyone deeply in dream, not noticing unusual scenery, day after day read poems whose rhythm is out of time…. While a fresh couple with joyous smiles presses a seal on a marriage registration form, somewhere, someone pushes the pedal of a bicycle to buy sweet potatoes roasted on hot pebbles. While a newborn baby gives a first cry somewhere on the earth, someone somewhere passes away, in a birth of new life and a departure named death. As we fall asleep to a dream called “ordinary life” …. Not knowing that something is happening somewhere. A year, 365 days, 24 hours, each minute and each second, on the stage of the earth, various plays are unfolding. When a sun’s spotlight is on, somewhere a curtain of night falls. Each is not aware of each other's play. At the time the curtain closes, we get sleepy and yawn. On the other side of the earth, in darkness of night, the shade of the daytime, something is happening. Samurai at the Meiji Restoration, without falling asleep, run around all over Japan for the sake of revolution. At the time of war, the captain who received saddening news, not sleeping into comforting words, keeps his dignity. Great heroes at various times, backstage of the play “our ordinary life,” shake our history—change the world. While we are snoozing, while we are having a sequel of a dream, the earth revolves, the world changes. The earth axis shifts and the latitude changes. The moon is hidden by the shadow of the sun. While we do not know, someone with a sharp look witnesses the change of the world. Just now, just right … now, someone is watching. -more-


Fred Korematsu, Hero By Kay Wehner

Tuesday December 27, 2005

In honor of Fred Korematsu of Oakland, who refused Japanese internment camp in 1942, and was tried, convicted and imprisoned for his “crime.” Federal court in 1983 ruled the internment unjust. He died this year, and I would like to submit my poem in his honor. -more-


The Bus Poet By RUBY LONG

Tuesday December 27, 2005

When I worked at UC I took the No. 51 bus to my Oakland home nearly every day. It was often a ride of surprises. -more-


Christmas Cookie Head By William smith and Lisa Wenzel

Tuesday December 27, 2005

Her name is Desdemona. Yes, a color-specific name for our white kitty-cat, inspired by the lead female character in the Shakespeare play Othello. -more-


If Your Blind Friends Don’t Tell You... By Arlene Merryman

Tuesday December 27, 2005

If you ever offered to help a blind person and were rudely rebuffed or felt unappreciated, or if you find unseeing people puzzling or scary, please take note of the following. -more-


Merry Christmas

Tuesday December 27, 2005

Christian Curry on skis, wishing you a Merry Christmas. -more-


When Yosemite Calls By Janis Mitchell

Tuesday December 27, 2005

I did not grow up in an outdoorsy family. We never played sports, took hikes or went camping. When I was 27 I married a man who had been a camp counselor. John loves the outdoors. He can walk all day in any terrain and he has an unerring sense of direction. I can get lost in a parking lot. About a year after our wedding I succumbed to his romantic descriptions of the pastoral life and agreed to go car camping. It would be fun, he promised. We would go with a gang of friends to Yosemite. We would take turns cooking. I was not to worry because he was experienced and confident and he owned all his own equipment. -more-


The Collector By IRENE SARDANIS

Tuesday December 27, 2005

Bertha (not her real name) sat in a chair opposite my desk, a woman in her ‘60s, thin, wearing a faded print blouse and pants that I could see were held up with a safety pin. The sandals she wore looked like they were two sizes larger than her feet. -more-


Light Your Candles By MARY WHEELER

Tuesday December 27, 2005

This is the song that my first-grade students will sing for our school holiday performance: -more-


Man of Courage By David Bunnell

Tuesday December 27, 2005

The most courageous man outside the gates of San Quentin on Monday night, Dec. 12, was this guy. Hundreds of angry people shouted him down and he did not budge an inch. He kept reminding us, “It’s 11:31 and Tookie is going to die in 30 minutes.” The most courageous man inside the gates was Tookie himself. Being there was easy for the rest of us.. -more-