Diana & Cynthia's Excellent Venture

I am now well acquainted with the Ultimate Hair and Nail Salon at 23rd and J Street in Sacramento. It's owned by Diana, who runs it with her sister, Cynthia. Diana and Cynthia were born in Vietnam, moved to Seattle as teenagers with their families. They put themselves through college and set out to create success for themselves.

Diana moved to Sacramento first, got married, had a baby and bought the Ultimate Hair and Nail Salon, a run down looking business which had operated for some 40 years in what's now a trendy section of Sacramento. She spruced it up a little, not a lot, rented back a station to a haircutter from the old establishment and started pulling in clients.

"It was hard at first," says Diana. "I got a lot of clients and I needed assistance. I hired several people but they say they'd come, and then not come. They were not reliable. They would call in sick. Sometimes not call in at all. I kept asking Cindy, when you gonna move from Seattle? She say maybe next year. Finally, it next year, she came. There's nothing like family, it is so great that she's here."

Diana and Cindy live near each other. They're both married, both have children. Their husbands both work for larger corporations in far flung suburbs. One of them, I forget which, lives with their parents. The parents cook for all of them every night and watch the children while they're away at work.

They are Buddhists, but they always have a Christmas tree. As Cindy put it, "Christmas not really religious. Christmas is about being American. We want to be American, so we have a Christmas tree."

They like me a lot because they can talk me into anything,

"Sara, how about you have an eyebrow wax before your hair cut?" okay
"How about you have a facial?" okay
"How about you bring your daughter in for pedicure?" okay

I pretty much do whatever they tell me to do.
And they do a great job at everything. They keep their appointments. They do great nails, great hair. They charge very little. They never complain. They never run anyone down. They appear to love their work and they resist my efforts to speculate as to the ages of the clients who have been coming to their station renter for 40 plus years ("They good clients. Longtime clients.")

I wouldn't be surprised if I'm coming to Cindy and Diana when I'm 85 too.

800,000 Privileged Youths Enlist To Fight In Iraq

This is just way too funny--plus mentions my alma mater:

800,000 Privileged Youths Enlist To Fight In Iraq

WASHINGTON—"I didn't realize you could just sign up," said 26-year-old Brookline, MA resident and law-school grad Daniel Feldman.

Five Snouts Up for "Groundhog Day" 17 years later

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) out of a possible five snouts for Groundhog Day the 1993 movie starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. Tonight my kids and I started a new tradition of watching it annually on February 2nd--important because in other respects our Groundhog Day observance went lacking (groundhog is only safe for O blood types to eat and I've discovered I'm an A).

An amazing 17 years after it was made, the movie endures. My 10 and 12 year old love it for its BillMurray silliness and mulitiple suicide attempts--"play the part where he runs off the cliff with the groundhog again!" I love it for its profound spiritual lesson: what do you do when every day is pretty much the same?

Stage one: eat, smoke, drink and fuck everything in sight.
Stage two: try to manipulate the people around you into thinking you're a good person so that you can get what you want
Stage three: attempt suicide
Stage four: accept that now is the only moment you have so make it count--learn to play piano, speak and read French, master brain surgery, ice sculpture, and above all love every single person you meet beyond reason, without expectation, and with true humility.

Then and only then do you get to move on.

I fully expect to be watching and learning from this film in 2024.

I'll Miss Molly Ivins

There's no way I can do justice to Molly Ivins' passing. As a bold, large, sassy, hilarious woman who was one of the most insightful political commentators in the country, she was one of my heros. She was one of those people who just by being herself gave other people permission to be themselves.

She dubbed Bush "dubya" and "shrub," she wrote about the hilarious and horrible happenings on the floor of the Texas "lege."

Go out and buy one of her collections of columns and just savor every word.

Should I join the movie bloggers?

I have been "discovered" in the blogosphere. That is to say, some program that sweeps around looking for movie bloggers has contacted me to ask me to join "movie bloggers.com" whereby my movie reviews would be co-posted on this site.

At first I was flattered--they like me, they really like me! Then I linked. The good news: the actual reviews posted there are not embarrassing company to keep. The bad news: the ads. 1 ad was for Venezuelan brides, another for bizarre sex aids, another for singletarians (unmarried Unitarians)--do I want to be associated with this?

Tonight, however, I notice that ads have changed to wireless surveillance cameras--an upgrade? Stay tuned...

Come Down with Clown Syndrome

My insanely funny and successful friend Russ Haan is at it again. This time, he's trying to spread Clown Syndrome across the land.

Don't check out the website and watch the hilarious uTube videos. If you do, you'll find yourself, like I did, ordering a clown kit, planning to videotape a sequence of yourself in a clown costume, going about your business.

Next time Bill is in a photo op with Arnold, he's wearing the clown suit.

Ask yourself this: what will you do as a clown?

Four Snouts up for When the Stars Fall

(:)(:)(:)(:) out of a possible five snouts up for the travelling production of Lacandona or When the Stars Fall which I saw at Cal State Sacramento billed as children's theater. For the most part, this amazing performance art of dance, song and unparalleled computer-graphic scenery went straight over the heads of the fifth graders I was chaperoning.

This production is a road show from Mexico City--possibly coming to a city near you soon, look for it. If you're Katie Laris, don't just look for it, see it. The two performers dance, sing and interact with a series of moving opaque screens which have computer graphics projected on them. Sometimes the performers actually seem to move the things on the screen, throwing things to each other that dart across the screens, arranging the sometimes abstract, sometimes representational objects.

The story is an environmental theme following a trip with mother and daughter through the rain forest, to find out why the stars are falling. Our performance was bilingual, heavily accented English, all songs in Spanish. Some performances are Spanish only. It made me wonder, will constructed, painted sets one day be a thing of the past replaced only by holographic computer projections...

Get real about the real estate market

Is it just me, or is ridiculous for people to talk about not selling because of the downturn in the real estate market? I'm talking about people who have owned property in California for years. This is just sillyness.

You don't hold on to your house, when you would otherwise want to sell it, because it's worth 2.8 times what you bought it for instead of 3 times what you bought it for.

I could understand holding off if you bought it for more than you could get for it, or if you bought it predominantly as an investment property and it's not worth your while to convert your investment, but if you bought it to live in and you've lived in it and it's more than doubled in value, in what sense is it a bad decision to sell it now?

The market could theoretically make your property quadruple in value too. Does that mean that you don't sell it at the peak of the market because it's only worth three times what you paid for it?

In 1992 we bought a beautiful row house 7 blocks from the U.S. Capitol for $222,000. In 1997, we sold it at a loss for $212,000 (which for us was the right decision because we needed to get our equity out and had enjoyed living there for 5 years prior to selling). Today, if the woman who bought the house from us for $212,000 in 1997 decided to sell she might only fetch $500,000 for it in the "slow" real estate market of Washington, DC, instead of the $600,000 she could have gotten last year; should she hold off?

Closely related, some of those who do put their houses on the market complain that the property doesn't sell. Why doesn't it sell? Because they they're asking too much for it. If they lowered the price, the homes would sell.

It never ceases to amaze me that people don't understand the fundamental principle of the real estate market: a property is only worth what people will pay for it, nothing more, nothing less. There is no independent concept of "what the property is worth."

3 Snouts up for Curse of the Golden Flower

(:)(:)(:) out of a possible 5 snouts for Curse of the Golden Flower now playing in art houses everywhere.

This film like many directed by Zhang Yimou has everything you would want in a big Chinese epic: Chow Yun Fat, Gong Li, glorious color and costume, insanely improbable fight scenes, jealousy, plots and most of all incestuous royalty.

There is more personal intrigue and less fighting than some of these things, so that held my interest a bit. Also the sheer scale and color is visually arresting, if, like the fighting completely improbable and distracting. Mostly, though, I was bored by it and had trouble caring. If you're going to see it, see it on the big screen. Better yet, stay home and watch the Sopranos on DVD.

Sigh. Should I perhaps stop seeing movies?

Three Snouts Up for Syriana on DVD

(:)(:)(:) out of a possible five snouts up for Syriana, executive produced by George Clooney. I was disappointed in this movie.

I expected a sort of freshness and honesty or something shocking or a sort of critical quality that was beyond what I had seen in other Hollywood international suspense movies--didn't get it.

I also expected a level of sophistication and complicated intrigue that went out of fashion a couple of decades ago. You know with the movies that you had to follow really closely to be able to know what was going on--also didn't get it.

What I got was a confusing, and largely not intriguing, set of interlocking plot lines, sprinkled with a heavy dose of didacticism. Rather than keeping me on my toes, no one was taking any chances that I wouldn't grok the interlocking interests of big business, oil, U.S. Government and middle east princes--thanks for the education, Clooney.

I'm sure there are people who learned things about the lengths to which the US government might go to protect American business interests, but I wasn't really one of them.

I'm sure there are people who cared whether the middle eastern princes lived or died, and who succeeded whom, but I wasn't really one of them.

I'm sure there are people who understood why we had to learn so much about the Clooney character's wife and son, the missing missle, Matt Damon's travails (not to mention the virginal pakistani boys) only to have all this information rendered largely if not completely irrelevent in the last few minutes of the film, but I wasn't one of them.

Because of my love for George Clooney, from his politics to the tilt of his head (my neighbor maintains that there is a national network of straight men that are "queer for Clooney"), and an inexplicable Matt Damon fetish, I am granting this DVD one more snout than it may deserve.

Otherwise, I might suggest that you wait for it to come out on toilet paper.

3 Snouts Up for "Freedom Writers"

(:)(:)(:) out of a possible 5 snouts up for Freedom Writers starring Hilary Swank and directed by Richard LaGravanese playing in movie theaters everywhere now.

This is one of those films that is driven entirely by narrative--a great story to tell. It's well-acted and reasonably well-written. Beyond that, it has little to offer as a movie. It's predictable as hell. It seems to have had the budget of an ABC after school special (although Hilary Swank executive produced or I'm guessing it wouldn't have gotten made, and it obviously had a decent promotional budget).

Nonetheless, I am such a sucker for the spunky dedicated school teacher who takes a bunch of ne'er do well kids and inspires them story. And this story, being true, and being told in a way that genuinely makes you truly care about these kids, is really worth seeing.

I cried...several times...something I rarely do in movies (but often in weddings).

Mundane prediction

Someday when newspapers and newsprint are obsolete, someone will manufacture wrapping paper made to look like retro newspaper wrapping paper.

Unclear on the Concept

Well, my "raw" posting the other day occasioned a lot of concern. And while I am grateful for everyone's thoughts. I feel the need to explain. I intend to write on my blog at least 5 days a week, preferably every day. I never promised that the content wouldn't ever reflect my true feelings. So, on days that I'm feeling sad (and that's all it was, just sad, but in a raw, skin stripped off kind of sad), I'll write about it.

Today I'm not sad. Today I'm happy and my skin is on. I'm also still laughing over last night's daily show with phone-in guests: Leonard Nimoy and George Takei--hilarious!

A Reckoning Deferred?

Thanks to the many friends who called and emailed me love and concern after my raw posting yesterday--truly lovely to know that people out there care--I'm doing better today principally by looking at the many things for which I have to be grateful.

Nothing to distract from one's own misery like focussing on world affairs. One friend, Steve Engelmann, directed me to this commentary from the editors of Middle East Report in Middle East Report Online. It's better than anything I've read in terms of looking at the congressional Democrats' relatively weak reaction to Bush's outrageous troop increase proposal.

No pain, no gain?

Today I am struggling, walking around without skin, raw nerve-endings exposed to the world. The good news is that this is what I signed up for. I have consciously called forth seeing myself clearly. Some days this is what it looks like. The bad news is this is what I signed up for--what could I have been thinking? When I will cease to struggle against the sides of the cocoon? When will my wings by fully formed? Does it really have to be this hard? Didn't someone once ask me, "would it be okay if life got easier?" Yes!!!!!!!!

Dina's Diary--a breast cancer survivor

My friend Dina Howard survived a harrowing year of breast cancer last year. She documented much of it on sophisticated audio equipment borrowed from our local public radio station. The station ended up boiling it down to a powerful hour which they broadcast called "Dina's Diary."

You can hear it by clicking on the above link and clicking on Dina's face. I cannot believe the courage she had to record what was going on for her on some of her very worst days. I can barely function on my worst days and I'm not being poisoned, cut and burned.

Unconventional Mango

Today, at Whole Foods, I noticed a sign outside advertising "conventional mangos." I toyed with asking where they keep the unconventional mangos. Wouldn't that be frightening?

I already have enough trouble with mangos, their overly fragrant selves covered with an inedible skin to which my friend Katie is deadly allergic.

How the heck are you supposed to eat them anyway? Someone is always answering this question for me, snatching a mango out of our fruit bowl and deftly scoring it in such a way that it falls into a bowl in neat cubes ready to be consumed as mango sal-sa.

But when I work with mango, it starts with a crude peeling, followed by liberating random, unappealing chunks of slimey fruit and wasting half of it. Thankfully my kids slurp it up anyway, loving every morsel.

So I could never dare ask for an unconventional mango.

I'm this close already to being banned from various health food stores for walking up to managers and asking where they keep the bulk organic free range diet coke.

The Governor's got Weintraub all to himself

In yesterday's Sacramento Bee, Dan Weintraub got it right when he wrote "the Governor's got the political center all to himself." The piece pointed out important truths often forgotten in the California legislature, namely that while registered Republicans in California (i.e., real people) overwhelmingly support such issues as protecting the environment and raising the minimum wage, the corporately-funded Republicans in the legislature uniformly don't. Most Democrats stay to the left.

The Governor then, whose inaugural speech called for "post-partisanship," is alone among California state elected officials in staking out the territory of the political middle.

The only thing that makes it less lonely for him is Weintraub, who has slavishly clung to the idea of this Governor as a centrist even when the Governor himself temporarily strayed. In many respects, Weintraub has been the Governor's most steadfast supporter, putting Maria to shame.

One Snout Up for Troy on DVD

(:) out of a possible five snouts for Troy on DVD. For some reason something I read or heard made me think that this might actually be a good or at least enjoyable flick (I initially wrote "film" but that ain't it). So, despite having avoided His Pittness for years (as far as I'm concerned, it's all been downhill since the ass shots in Thelma & Louise), I gave it a try.

Troy has been backing up my Netflix queue since early December when Bill and I stomached an hour of it and then couldn't go further. I was all for mailing it back but thought that Bill might watch the rest. Tonight we read and answered our email while the rest of it played to the finish. To detail why it is bad would give it more than its due.

Troy's only possible redemption, and even this is a stretch, is as a college drinking game where you get to throw back a shot each time someone says something like "the name Achilles will live on through the ages," or "long after you are gone, the battle of Troy will live on." There's no question one would get good and drunk playing it, but would you ever get sloshed enough to enjoy the tedium of the endless battles and uninspiring love scenes it serves up?

Not possible. Long after the battle of Troy has been forgotten, the movie Troy will live on on the list of worst movies ever watched by Snichols.

Four Snouts up for The History Boys

I proudly join the North American Man Boy Love Association in giving (:)(:)(:)(:) out of a possible five snouts up for The History Boys, a film version of a successful British play.

The film, set in 1983 (with the soundtrack to prove it) focusses on an uncommonly bright and gorgeous group of working class boys who have aced their A levels and are madly prepping for their essay/interviews for top universities. Their odd brilliant teachers, who look as if they'd be more at home at the Hogwarts Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry, work hard to teach the boys what they'll need to know to gain acceptance at Oxbridge.

The film is well-written, sweetly acted and entirely believable. If you're in the mood for a sweet and disarmingly homoerotic look at pedophilia, poetry and prose, Bob's your uncle (or, more accurately, Bob's your 12th grade history teacher), The History Boys is just the thing, innit?

Let's face it, NAMBLA would give it five snouts.

Three Snouts Up for Outsourced

(:)(:)(:) out of a possible five for the new movie Outsourced starring a promising Josh Hamilton (and delightful co-star Ayesha Dharker) and directed by John Jeffcoat of Seattle. The movie is about a man who is obliged to go to India to train his own replacement to manage a call center selling cheap Americana objects, in the process, blah blah blah blah. I saw it tonight at the opening night of the 2007 Palm Springs film festival.

It's entertaining, well-acted, visually fun and humorous, but it's an utterly predictable plot. Bill thinks the film may do very well precisely because it's formulaic yet set in India--somewhat ironic that the film clearly outsources most of its production efforts to get made. Despite the implication of the title and subject matter, the film has no real social message to convey.

I'd recommend it for a family-friendly fun film that feels as if you're being adventuresome by watching it, when you really aren't.

Oh to be easy in the harness

Driving with a decaf soy latte through the fuchsia orange sunrise of Palm Springs brought me this gem at my morning meeting:

"You have freedom when you're easy in the harness" said Robert Frost

This week I have felt uneasy in my harness. I have longed for different constraints, trying on imaginary yokes of different colors and styles. So for none of them have fit as well; I have chafed at their possibilities.

So today I'll stay in this harness and just be happy that I have a stable to which I can return and be fed.

Did we really need an additional federal holiday today?

Don't get me wrong, I revere Gerald Ford as much as the next person (I'm in Palm Springs now for crying out loud, what more can I do to show my respect?), but did we really need Congress to declare an additional random federal holiday today? I needed to go to the post office today is the main reason I noticed this, but here's the thing:

There wasn't a special federal holiday for Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson. Will there be one for Jimmy Carter, George I or Bill Clinton? Probably. Now that it's been done once, everyone will read this blog and clamor for it. Oh well.

No resolutions for me

I realized the other day: another new year is upon me, and I don't have a big long list of improvements to resolve to implement. Why? Because every of day of my life is fucking new year's day.

I don't get it Sara, are bitter about this, or pleased? Are you bragging, or whining?

Answer: yes.

I am a pleasantly bitter whine, with just a hint of bragadocio.

Every day, for over a year and half, I have gotten up each morning and resolved to be open to what the world is coaching me to do. And then, and this is the hardest part, to do it.

This has meant starting every day by praying, meditating, writing, reading, exercising, and working diligently for thinner thighs. Then it's morning again and I start over.

So why should today be any different?

Joe Dunn and CMA

This is old news, but I haven't blogged about it yet. Former state senator Joe Dunn (d-Orange County), who used to be a plaintiff's lawyer and has always been close to the Consumer Attorneys of California, is the new chief lobbyist for the California Medical Association.

As long as I've worked with them, CMA's chief focus has been protecting the odious medical malpractice caps called "MICRA" (the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act)--these extremely low caps on damage awards effectively prevent patients who are injured by negligent health care providers (including hospitals) from getting any lawyer to represent them--it's just not worth taking the case.

Yet the California Medical Association, under the leadership of the late great Steve Thompson, had made some strides in working towards meaningful health care coverage, and occasionally escaped from the dominance of Kaiser Permanente, the giant HMO that pays some 50% of its membership fees on behalf of Kaiser doctors--ooh, I should tell you my favorite Steve Thompson story.

Will Joe Dunn, champion of individual rights now be in the position of fighting to keep MICRA caps low? It's hard to imagine CMA would hire him without a solemn committment to defend MICRA. And it's hard to picture the Joe Dunn I know standing up for negligent doctors. Stay tuned...

White elephant gift, people unclear on the concept?

The other day I was in the store Mixed Bag on K street in Sacramento (where everything they sell is small--it's ingenious. You pick this $5 item, this $6 item, next thing you know you're up at the cash register dropping $150 bucks and you can't figure out how!)--a woman comes up to the counter asking for help, "Do you think this will work for my white elephant gift?" displaying a hideous item she's found on one of the shelves.

The shopkeeper and I exchange quick glances. Um, isn't the point of the white elephant that you're giving away something that you didn't want but maybe someone else would? Are you supposed to go out and deliberately pay good money to buy something that you think the recipient would hate?

In my community, every year a different "lucky" cohouser takes home the same horrible garlic roaster from the white elephant gift exchange. Until now I've assumed that the original purchaser of the item thought it was a nice gift, but now I begin to wonder...

Dining Alone--the exciting world of un-eviting

So far 323 people are confirmed for thanksgiving dinner at my house next week and 53 more are considering it. How did I get so lucky? I sent out a message not inviting them. Turns out today's busy people are highly motivated to respond to a non-invitation.

Here's the back story: during my recent ill-fated stint as communications director for the second most losing initiative in California (turns out only 25% of Californians think that "it's about time for Prop 89"), my overworked cable ISP Comcast decided to eat my web-based address book...twice. For some reason my hard-drive back-up address book was 2 or 3 years out of date; it drove me mad.

Fortunately, I had recently uploaded my entire address book of 596 names to evite--the online "free" invitation tool. The rub: evite would be happy to let me download any email personage to whom I had actually sent an invitation (and I had only sent them to like 50 people). So I concocted a quick invitation to thanksgiving dinner at my house and sent it out to EVERYONE I know (and many I don't know, who are these people? Why did I save their email addresses?) When you clicked inside, you found out that it was a non invitation.

The result: a greater response than any invitation or email of any kind I have ever sent out. People who haven't responded even to personal non-group emails of mine for years came out of the woodwork to RSVP, telling me they're bringing their new lover, arsonist step son's etc. The notations of the people who are coming is one of the funniest things I've read in years. And the responses don't stop.

If the link works, read the RSVPs, however you won't be able to RSVP yourself unless you were personally un-invited. Actually, what the hell, anyone who's reading this blog, I personally don't invite you to spend Thanksgiving at my house next week. I'm really looking forward to not seeing you! Please do me the courtesy of letting me know how many people you won't be bringing.

Sara

I called for change, have you?

Off and on this week, I've phonebanked potential votes for Democrats in tight congressional races around the country through MoveOn.org's amazing website. You can do like 3 calls from your desk right now. If you only have one moment to devote, do it. It's worth it just to say you contributed to the Democrat's taking back the house.

Jack Abramoff on Prop 89

I got this email from "Jack Abramoff" today. He's very concerned about Prop 89. Sara

Dear Reform-Minded Voter,

If Prop 89 becomes law, lobbyists like me will not have the power we once did. This would be a huge problem for my friends and clients.

I was the Capitol’s top lobbyist and I had Washington wired. And now some people call me the poster boy for reform. Boy, that ticks me off. Do people understand that Prop 89 would make people like me and my clients less powerful in Sacramento?

California’s nurses, who are leading the campaign for Prop 89, claim they want to protect voters like they protect patients every day.

HMOs, drug makers, insurers and oil companies don’t need the nurses’ help, which is why they've put up millions to defeat Prop 89. Trust me, the special interests have things totally under control in California and it is working just great. That’s why my old lobbying firm set up shop in Sacramento recently. What will happen to them if Californians enact the tough reforms in Prop 89? Is anyone thinking about the lobbyists?

Prop 89 even bans lobbyists from making donations. How would we ever get anything done? Prop 89 strictly limits campaign contributions to ballot measure committees and politicians. You know what that’ll do? Leave us with fewer political ads. Whose idea was that?

And do you really want tougher laws to put politicians and lobbyists in jail? Aren’t California’s jails overcrowded enough?

Please, as my last request before I enter my own prison cell next week, don’t believe the California Nurses Association and the League of Women Voters’ campaign for Yes on 89. California politics has been working just great (for my clients anyway).

Most sincerely,
Jack Abramoff
Please forward my message on to your friends and family.

Editor's Note: Prop 89, a campaign reform measure sponsored by the California Nurses Association, dramatically reduces the power of special interests over California politicians and limits out-of-control spending on ballot measures. Prop 89 bars lobbyists and state contractors from making political contributions and limits the amount that corporations, unions and other interest groups can contribute to politicians. Prop 89 allows candidates with broad grassroots support to receive funding for their campaigns in exchange for agreeing not to fundraise from special interests (or anyone). Prop 89 also limits corporate contributions to initiative campaigns to $10,000. Learn more about Prop 89.

LA Times Blogger Mocks my Prayer

A few days ago, in the waning days of the campaign, I wrote a private prayer for the Proposition 89 campaign team and sent it everyone inside the campaign by email. I got a number of private emails back from staff thanking me for it and admitting that they too believed in the power of affirmative prayer and wished they had known sooner that I did too. We all vowed to keep in touch and I felt good.

Two days later, the prayer surfaces on Los Angeles Times reporter and blogger Bob Salladay's blog Political Muscle

I don't much mind having my prayer posted on the internet because I believed that prayer and I like the words being read by more people.

And I don't much mind being mocked for it; that's something I kind of expected. Salladay is good at mocking and it's one reason I'm glad he started blogging. By the way, Bob, I can tell that you've been to Harbin Hot Springs too. Glad I didn't see you naked in the cold pool!

On mockery: I was just reading a hilarious account by Anne Lamont of the self-appointed pastor and monologist of the Church of 80% Sincerity. I love the idea of being 80% sincere. I think that's about where I aspire to operate these days.

However, on Salladay's part this was a low blow, beyond the boundaries of politeness. I mind it.

And what I especially mind, and I mind quite a bit, is that someone with whom I worked, with whom I entrusted my private prayer, valued his relationship with Bob Salladay more than he did his relationship with me or the Proposition 89 campaign and saw fit to violate our trust by cynically shooting this sweet little message to god over to be treated with contempt.

It's okay, though, to borrow from Jack on Will and Grace when he's trying to keep from punching Karen in the face, "I see the face of god in everyone."

Watch this video: Don't it Make my Red State Blue?

I don't know who made this, but I got sent this YouTube link and it's really mandatory viewing, hilarious (and not related to my paid employment gig this time). It's a jazzy piano solo with some good video interposed of Bush and close congressional races around the country and some fun racey lyrics which are mostly intelligible.

It took a while to discern the first line, which is very funny, so I'll repeat it for you:

"Don't know who Mark Foley blew. Denny says he never knew."

Enjoy!

Bill Magavern's California & Sacramento ballot recommendations

Once again, it's time for my husband Bill Magavern's ballot recommendations for California and Sacramento. Bill's been sending these out for several years now and has, without trying, created a large demand for them. I frequently get begging, pleading emails from people all over the state (and even California absentee voters out of the country) asking for these recommendations as early as mid-October. I in turn beg Bill for them and he says: give me a break, it's mid-October! So they tend to come a week or two before the election.

Most of you who are reading this know me and Bill personally. For those who don't, Bill Magavern is the senior advocate for Sierra Club California. He is a former director of the Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project and Congress Watch.

He hasn't opined on candidates, so I will a little bit. Although I occasionally veer to the Green Party, I am pretty much planning to vote a straight Democratic line this year (note: I won't vote to re-elect U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, I just have to work too hard to get her to do the right thing especially on the Judiciary Committee).

I'll note that consumer advocate (and personal hero of mine) Harvey Rosenfield, founder of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights and architect of the successful insurance reform measure Proposition 103 has endorsed Republican Steve Poizner for State Insurance Commissioner.

I'll also note that while Republican incumbent Secretary of State Bruce McPherson is not the worst Republican on the planet, in my opinion his Democratic opponent State Senator Debra Bowen is perfect for the job of Secretary of State. She is clean. She is smart. She cares deeply about these issues and knows the details really well. She is a person who cares deeply about doing public policy right and she is not a party hack. She's in a tight race and I'd personally like to see everyone give her as much as they can in the next day or two.

Click here to donate to Debra Bowen's campaign on-line.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for:

Bill Magavern's Recommendations:

BALLOT MEASURES, NOVEMBER 2006

CALIFORNIA-WIDE PROPOSITIONS

1-A, NO

This is a bad idea – channel all sales taxes on gasoline to transportation projects, mostly roads. Note that these are sales taxes, not gas taxes. All sales taxes should go to the General Fund, where they can be directed to the greatest needs in a given budget year.

1-B, NO

I’ve wavered on this one, because I do think we need to invest in improved transportation infrastructure. But the price tag is too high, almost $40 billion by the time it’s paid off. We should not borrow from our future when an increase in the gas tax could fund these investments on a pay-as-you-go basis, without paying interest. And not enough of the money would go to public transportation.

1-C, YES

Affordable housing and emergency shelters are badly needed, and appropriate uses of bond funds. There’s also money here for smart growth planning

1-D, YES

Many of our school facilities still are overcrowded or in need of repair, and it’s hard to think of a better public investment than public education.

1-E, YES

I’d be a lot more enthusiastic about it if the Legislature had accompanied this funding with the necessary policy reforms, but we’ve got to get the levees fixed before a Katrina-type flood hits the Central Valley.

83, NO

This was put on the ballot by publicity-seeking politicians, and will waste a lot of money that could be better spent on actually catching sex offenders. The odd thing about this measure, which is sure to pass, is that it will require sex offenders to move out of urban areas and into the rural and exurban areas that are usually represented by the Republicans who are supporting this so they can look tough on crime.

84, YES

This bond would supply needed funds for water quality, parks and land conservation, as previous funding is running out.

85, NO

Sure, it would be great if minors discussed all important life decisions with their parents, but having government require it is not going to make it happen.

86, YES

Taxing cigarettes is a good way to stop teens from ever getting addicted. Plus, the money would go to good causes like children’s health insurance, smoking cessation programs, and emergency rooms. Don’t bother waiting for the Legislature to raise tobacco taxes – it takes a 2/3 vote in each house, and almost every Republican legislator has taken a no-tax-increase pledge. In an interesting controversy, the national NAACP has endorsed this initiative, overruling its California branch.

87, YES

California is the only oil-producing state without an extraction tax, and that tax is a suitable way to fund clean-energy programs. I think the governance could have been structured better, but, again, the tax would never pass the Legislature, so this is our best chance to direct this money to a good cause, instead of boosting the profits of oil companies.

88, NO

As a parent of 2 public-school students, I’m in favor of putting more money into education, but this is the wrong way to do it: a regressive new tax that invades the turf of local government.

89, YES

Clean Money is the reform that makes other reforms possible. It’s already worked in Maine and Arizona, and California badly needs an alternative to dirty-money politics. I see the corrupting influence of campaign contributions all the time in the Capitol. The public funding system envisioned under 89 would allow candidates to run competitive races without being independently wealthy or dependent on the special interests.

90, NO

This is the most dangerous measure on the ballot, because it would create a huge obstacle to planning and land-use protections. Don’t be fooled by the “save your home” rhetoric – the poison pill here is the provision requiring that property owners be compensated for any governmental action that reduces the theoretical value of their property. So a restriction on building in a wetland, for example, or a zoning that prevents your neighbor from putting a nuisance next door to you, would cost local governments so much that they’d probably let the property owner do whatever he wanted (which is what is happening in Oregon after passage of a similar measure).

These recommendations are my personal opinions. You can find a full list of Sierra Club California’s endorsements of candidates and ballot measures at http://www.sierraclubcalifornia.org/elections/index.shtml.

SACRAMENTO COUNTY MEASURES

J and K, YES

I think district elections for school board should make the members more responsive, and more knowledgeable about the community’s needs.

L, YES

SMUD isn’t perfect, but it has lower rates, a cleaner environmental record and more responsive leadership than PG&E. Expanding SMUD into Yolo County will bring that better service to Yolo, while giving Sacramento ratepayers some economies of scale.

Q and R, NO

It’s amazing that so many of our local “leaders” have lined up behind a proposal to raise our sales tax to fund an arena that would not have to be located at the railyard, would not necessarily keep the Kings in town, and would require a contribution of only 10-15% by the wealthy Maloofs – who aren’t even talking to those local leaders. I’m a Kings fan, and would love to see the railyards redeveloped, but putting all the risk on the public and all the profit on the Maloofs is not prudent or fair.

Prop 89 May Hire Sweet Tired Cat

In his weblog today, Dan Weintraub recognizes that the new Prop 89 ad I blogged about yesterday is today the top political ad being viewed on-line--16,000 viewings on YouTube in less 48 hours (10 times more than Bill Clinton's 87 ad). He also suggests that we consider hiring "Sweet Tired Cat" which apparently got a couple few more viewings on YouTube.

Dan, we're working on it. It's been tricky because of how tired the cat is, but given that it's also sweet we have a shot. If we can put it together, can you join a conference call tomorrow with the me, Joe Trippi and the cat?

Seriously though--this video is catching on like wildfire. Bill Hillsman who created the ad said today, "this kind of insurgent internet campaign with an ad like this can amplify the paid media campaign by 1 1/2 to 3 times what you pay for it initially."

Doing the math, this week's internet explosion has turned this from $2 million to a $6 million ad buy--in other words, folks, we're in the game.

People Love Stop the Pounding Ad

Yesterday, the Prop 89 campaign went statewide with a new television ad and today the remarkable ad is the number one rated news video on YouTube. “Stop the Pounding” is the brainchild of Bill Hillsman, who engineered Jesse Ventura’s victory, as well as Ned Lamont’s primary win.

Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Salladay wrote this morning that the new ad "is one of the slickest and most engaging political ads in California right now. Which is ironic, because the ad argues for a halt to the oleaginous, overly simplistic but sometimes engaging political ads that dominate the airwaves during election season."

Watch the Ad:
http://www.89now.org/

Read Salladay’s review:
“Initiative Backers Produce Ad Calling For End To TV Ads”

Please help keep this ad on the air by making a contribution on the campaign’s secure online server:
https://secure.ga1.org/05/cleanmoney

For the latest campaign roundup, see yesterday’s Sacramento Bee:
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/nw/?postId=6960&pageTitle=Proposition+89%3A+Public+financing+measure+an+election+fix+or+a+bigger+mess%3F

This May be the Best Political Ad of the Election!

Reminder: I'm a paid operative right now, communications director for the Proposition 89 Campaign. But I want everyone I know to see this new spot. We’ve got 3 weeks left in the 89 campaign, and despite the opposition’s corporate ed board strategy, our reckoning shows we’re within reach of victory. C.N.A. has produced the perfect TV ad spot which is unique, hilarious, and created by Bill Hillsman, the media genius who vaulted Paul Wellstone and Jesse Ventura to national prominence and has an online cult following.

See the Hillsman Pounding Ad

It's airing starting today in every major media market in California. Please go look at this ad on YouTube and send it to everyone you know.

Please forward the link to everyone on your email lists by noon Tuesday, October 17.

See the Hillsman Pounding Ad

Note: Bill Hillsman is CEO and Chief Creative Officer of North Woods Advertising, a marketing communications and political and public affairs consulting company based in Minneapolis. His work for Paul Wellstone's U.S. Senate campaign won the 1990 Grand EFFIE, awarded by the American Marketing Association for the most effective marketing and advertising campaign of the year. His work for Jesse Ventura's gubernatorial campaign in 1998 and Ralph Nader's presidential campaign in 2000 received many more accolades. Bill has been named one of America's top 100 marketing people and one of the 50 media people in America who most influence our world.

About Time for 89

Hey, you should watch and listen to (and pass around) this great soulful rap song video, About Time for 89, that the California Nurses Association created to show the need to stop political corruption in California and pass Proposition 89. It's on uTube and it's fabulous!

Sara (full disclosure, I am now the Communications Director for Clean Money Now--Yes on 89). For more information go to www.89now.org.

The gay problem in the GOP

In the depths of a campaign haze, I emerge briefly from retirement to post this, my friend David Link's beautifully written and thoughtful piece in the Boston Globe on the Foley scandal's insight into the GOP "gay problem."

By David Link | October 5, 2006

THE TRAGIC OPERA of former congressman Mark Foley is the revenge of don't ask, don't tell.

Foley, a Republican from Florida, resigned Friday after e-mails and instant messages between him and several teenage congressional pages surfaced. The Republican leadership knew that at least one page had gotten e-mails where Foley admired the body of one of the page's friends, and asked the page for a picture of himself, e-mails the page naturally found sick and a bit creepy.

Republican leaders responded to the potential political problem by telling Foley to knock it off. With respect to the larger issue, though, there was no asking or telling. The boy's own revulsion at the obviously inappropriate attention was ignored, not only by Foley's partisan fellows, but by some news outlets that also had seen the e-mails.

If this has a familiar ring, look in the Catholic Church for the bell. Republican leadership was acting like the Catholic hierarchy, which played shell games with men accused of sexually abusing children. And there's a good reason for the similarity. The inability to deal straightforwardly with gay people leads to other kinds of truth-avoidance when things go south. But that's what comes from not wanting to know something, and going out of your way to remain ignorant.

We've come a long way since homosexuals had two basic options: the closet or jail. But a good portion of the electorate, most of them Republican, still seems to long for the good old days when we didn't have to think about ``those people." Both Libertarians and, generally, the Democratic Party have withdrawn their official support for the closet over time. States, too, are seeing what a losing battle this is, and allowing homosexuals to live their lives in conformity with, rather than opposition to, the law.

But that leaves Republicans and the religious right trying to live a 1950s lie in the new millennium. As Foley prepared in 2003 to run for the Senate, newspapers in Florida and elsewhere published stories about his homosexuality. But you'd never hear any of his colleagues saying such a thing. And Foley himself refused to discuss the issue, until his lawyer acknowledged Wednesday that the former congressman is indeed gay.

Being in the closet is hard to pull off without help, and for years Foley was eagerly abetted by his Republican brethren, whose willful blindness is at the heart of the current tragedy. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, majority leader John Boehner, and others in the House leadership are still under the impression that the closet, like Tinkerbell, will continue to live as long as we all believe. And believe, they do -- against all the evidence.

But the number of people who believe in the closet is declining day by day and generation by generation. Hastert and the rest of his cronies are their own victims. The political turmoil they caused for themselves is only just.

But their failure to acknowledge the obvious reality has other victims as well: the boys whom Foley apparently pursued. Some of the messages show some tolerance of Foley's advances, but not much more. This was no one's ``Summer of '42." The healthy disgust in one boy's use of the word ``sick" repeated 13 times seems about right.

But what can one expect from denying grown men -- and women -- a normal, adult sex life? Whether the denial of adult intimacy comes from religious conviction or the ordinary urge toward conformity, people who run away from their sexuality nearly always have to answer to nature somehow. For people who fear abiding and mutual love, the trust and confusion of the young is a godsend. Add to that the perquisites of power, and a degenerate is born.

Fortunately for the arc of justice, the closet ultimately works against itself. Foley's case and the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal are the last screams of the dinosaurs. It took the dinosaurs a long time to finally die off, or evolve into creatures that could continue to survive, and the same will be true of the closet's final supporters. But they will look more and more ridiculous each time that they take pride in holding up the ruins of this particular antiquity while tending to the wounded when the building again collapses.

Like the Catholic Church, the Republican Party in Washington guarantees its own future calamities in its enduring and steadfast habit of pretending that, unlike heterosexuality, homosexuality can be either denied or suppressed.

David Link is a writer and attorney in Sacramento, and a member of the Independent Gay Forum.

Thoughts on the California Primary Election

Too tired to say much, but before the week passes I'll just observe a few things:

1) Although I voted for Westly, I am perfectly happy to see Angelides win. I'm told he gives a helluva barnburner on the stump and as the more progressive choice if he can pull it off against Schwarzenegger, that'll be magnificent. Trouble is Ah-nold has done a good job repositioning himself since last year. Insider consensus has it that the only choice for Angelides is for him to try to paint a giant W on our superhero Guvna's chest--tough to do unless it is just, as one pundit put it, a democratic year in a democratic state.

2) It was surprising, but gratifying, that Debra Bowen won the democratic primary for Secretary of State by a huge margin--she would be a wonderful SS. Now she needs to run against Republican Bruce McPherson who is also generally perceived to be even-handed and honest prior to being appointed to Secretary of State. There are rumblings of dark dealings by McPherson; Debra will probably need to go negative on Bruce to win.

3) For the few of my readers who care, it looks like the chamber of commerce picked up business Democrats in 3 or 4 state Senate primaries and lost to progressives in 3 or 4 Assembly primaries. Assuming most of the seats don't change parties in the general, the Assembly and the Senate are somewhat equalized with a split between more progressive and more business-oriented democrats in power.

3 Snouts Up for An Inconvenient Truth

(:)(:)(:) for An Inconvenient Truth better known as "that Al Gore global warming movie."

Despite the lack of a 4th snout, this is a must see. The movie is basically a high tech version of Al Gore's internationally shown slide show on global warming interspersed with learning more about Gore's life and why he cares so much about this issue.

At first Gore's droning southern baritone has the usual soporific effect, but after a while it kind of mesmerizes you so that you get drawn into the narrative and grasp, in a way you never have before, the threat to our survival in this lifetime that global warming promises.

Highlights for me were Gore's wry humor and changing body shape (the dude gives Oprah a run from her honey) along with a very real sense of urgency that we all take this problem seriously. For some reason I was fascinated by the very fact of Gore's choosing to show this slide show painstakingly all over the world--truly deciding to pursue one thing with excellence so as to make a difference.

Don't skip the imaginative and inspiring ending credits and music.

It WAS a booth BTW

A number of people have asked if I was REALLY in a booth a week before election day. The answer is yes. And no, not a booth at Denny's, or a fair. A real elections booth at the County Board of Elections.

Of course, there was no reason I needed to darken my absentee ovals in the confines of the booth--I could just have easily sat on one of their couches. But then I couldn't have said referenced the booth...

Weintraub--right and wrong

I'm grateful to have my last post be referenced by Dan Weintraub in his Insider blog today, although it makes me nervous if it means that he agrees with my reasoning--Dan and I don't usually agree.

In particular, I thought he missed the boat in a recent column of his. Although he properly decried the amount of special interest money in the governor's race, I think he was wrong to reject public financing of elections as a likely way out of this morass of corruption and greed.

True, getting clean money into politics would not be a panacea--but the real evidence from 2 full publicly-financed elections cycles in Maine and Arizona suggests strongly that having a clean mechanism for running for office makes a difference. More average people run for office and win. More people register to vote and vote.

And yes, business as usual continues: public officials still vote with the people who financed their elections.

The difference? With public financing it's the voters who financed the elections. Visit www.caclean.org to find out more about how you can help pass clean money legislation in California.

Why I voted for Steve Westly Today

I have never been as undecided in a primary election before as I was filling out the ovals today to elect who would be the Democrat to challenge Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor of California.

I stood for a full 10 minutes in the booth reviewing what I know about the candidates and the race. Ultimately--my headline spoils the surprise--I voted for Steve Westly.

In the final analysis, I voted for Westly because I believe he is the best candidate to beat Arnold in the general election and because the race is so close between him and Angelides that I believe my vote matters. The pivotal issue for me is the role of special interest money in the race. I believe that the unheard of $7 million independent expenditure on advertisements in favor of Phil Angelides by a father-daughter team of Sacramento developers renders it impossible for Angelides and the Democrats to run against Arnold on the issue of his being beholden to special interests.

Seven Million Dollars?!@#$ This is largest single contribution to any race other than self-financed millionaires.

Before they put this money in, Angelides was badly behind Westly, not getting his message out. Now, especially with having a ground operation (Westly is said to have none--Angelides has all the big union endorsements), Angelides is positioned to win the primary. If he does, he will quite literally owe his election to the Tsakapoulouses (or howsomever you spell it).

Morever the most recent polls show Westly beating Schwarzenegger with Angelides losing badly-- and I really don't want the Democrats to lose. It's imperative to defeat this Governor.

All other things being equal, I'd be inclined to support Angelides over Westly. I think he's more of a real progressive. He's endorsed by all the groups I care about. And I think he'd be a good governor.

But neither are the differences between these two candidates especially stark. Both are socially liberal and fiscally conservative (in the sense of being anti deficit spending). Both support public financing of elections. Both have strong environmental records (there seems to be a real split among environmentalists I know as to whom they prefer, but it is clearly a subject about which reasonable minds can differ).

There are two important policy differences that I am aware of:

1) Phil has openly advocated an income tax increase, while Westly has not.
2) Westly has supported the San Francisco District Attorney's forward thinking reforms for prisons and penalties for drug offenders, while Phil as not.

As to the first difference, while I agree strongly with Angelides that an increase in the income tax is the wiser public policy for creating a fiscally sound government, I do worry that it is politically suicidal of him to espouse it and am concerned that that alone could tank the general election for him.

As to the second, I think the lack of political courage to reform and cut back the prison industry in this state is of vital importance.

So, at the end of the day, I voted for Westly. Now let me have it--why was I wrong?

Clinton and McCain--Through the Looking Glass

I can't be the only one who has noticed the unpleasant parallels between Hillary Clinton and John McCain's candidacies for president, all of which spell doom for Democrats (which is kind of like cuckoo for Cocoapuffs, but less sweet).

Actually I miswrite when I call them "parallels." These eerie resemblances between the candidates show up more like a funhouse mirror reflection of each other than anything else.

First (and probably most significant) distorted resemblance: Hillary is a centrist (whom most of the country mistakes for a feminazi) while McCain is a maverick conservative (whom most of the country mistakes for a centrist).

Second distorted resemblance: Hillary is highly likely to win to her party's nomination despite her recent pandering to social conservatives while McCain will have to fight to win his party's nomination despite his recent pandering to social conservatives.

Third eerie resemblance (which itself strangely resembles #1): due to eerie resemblance #1, if Hillary wins the nomination (no matter who is the Republican nominee), all her pandering to the right will have been for naught and she will go down in flames as the poster child for limousine liberals. Due to resemblance #2, in the unlikely event that McCain wins the nomination, he wins the Presidency easily owing a lot to social conservatives, with whom he has consistently voted (adopted black children notwithstanding) and governs accordingly.

D-O-O-M for Democrats no matter how you spell it--S O S!!!

Fifty Angry Citizens (including me) Storm Capitol Leaders’ Offices

Read what two other bloggers had to say about it--in the Daily Kos and in Frank Russo's The California Progress Report (which has pictures of the sit-in).

Since these guys cover it well, I'll refrain from writing about it because I'm now banned from the Senate leader's office and don't want to doing anything to give them one more excuse to tank my favorite reform.

Will the Senate Dems Do the Right Thing?

In a year with the public clamoring for reform in Washington and Sacramento, the California Legislature seems poised to kill AB 583, the California Clean Money and Clean Elections bill by Assemblymember Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) tomorrow in the Senate Elections Committee.

The bill, which would create a broad-based system of public financing of elections in California modeled on successful systems in Arizona and Maine, passed the California State Assembly earlier this year on a party line vote with 47 out of 48 Democrats voting for the bill and no Republican votes. Early in the State Senate, the bill received the public support of Senate Leader Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland).

Perata, who has been mired in his own campaign finance scandals for over a year, promised he would move the bill out of the Senate Elections Committee but as of today all indications were that he had yet to twist the arms of his Democratic colleagues. The committee is chaired by Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), who is a co-author and strong supporter of the legislation (she is also a candidate for Secretary of State). The bill also needs two other votes from the five member committee to pass and both Republican members of the committee have long made it clear they intend to vote no.

That leaves Senators Kevin Murray (D-Hollywood) and Gloria Romero (D-San Gabriel Valley) who have been looking to direction from the Senate Leader on this bill that could affect every Senator’s political path. Oddly, while centrist Murray seems open to voting for the bill, the usually liberal Senator Romero seems to be fervently opposed to the measure. The bill needs both their votes to pass.

Earlier this week it was announced that hundreds of signatures were turned in to the Secretary of State possibly qualifying an initiative which would create public financing of elections in California.

The bill comes to a vote tomorrow in the Senate Elections Committee meeting at 9:30am in Room 3191 of the State Capitol.

Must See TV--the Colbert Clip

I'm very late on this, behind virtually every blogger in America, but if there's any chance that you haven't yet watched Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House correspondence dinner, click above to get it.

Even though all of it is devastatingly funny, it's much more courageous and important than it is funny. He stood there, a few feet from the President, and engaged in the most scathing satire of conservatism and this administration that anyone could imagine.

With lines like "we all know that reality has a liberal bias," it was clear that many people in the room had no idea how to react. It is actually painful to watch some parts of it because he is speaking so much truth to power that you have to keep thinking he's going to be killed or at a minimum forcibly ejected.

People in the blogosphere are comparing him to Mark Twain and the best American political satirists and I think they are spot on.

Can Wal-Mart ever do the right thing?

This is a reprinting of my quarterly column Eye on the Pie, Spring 2006--but I'm gonna start writing again!

In the classic choice, people almost always pick the bad news to hear first—they want to cut to the chase. But when the bad news is Wal-Mart, Philip Morris and Coors, unless the good news is “what is the answer to the question which three multi-national corporations are destined to go out of business in the next year,” let’s face facts, you don’t want to hear it.

So what is the good news really? It’s that socially responsible business is hot hot hot. Every company in America is scrambling to prove that that it contributes to the commonweal. And the bad news is, you guessed it, this includes Wal-Mart, Philip Morris and Coors.

Or is it bad? Let’s examine the trends and the opportunities here. Other than the tardy dawning of the Age of Aquarius, it would seem that the main reason for corporate America to go ethical is a market segment called LOHAS.

According to Wikipedia, LOHAS stands for Lifestyles Of Health And Sustainability and describes a $227 billion, 68 million person segment of the American marketplace, 32.3% of all American adults.

This fascinating group of people defies traditional market categorization—they cannot be defined by age, gender, education, or money alone. What defines them is their values, what they want to have happen in the world and how they want their consumer dollars to drive what wants to happen.

No company better meets the needs of this market segment than Whole Foods, whose 100s of stores across the country stock organic and sustainably harvested foods, body care products and, increasingly, clothing and household products.

After decades of double digit growth in the American economy, companies like Safeway and Wal-Mart have developed their own organic lines to go onion to onion with Whole Foods, local natural foods co-ops and Trader Joe’s.

And this is good news, right? This is what we wanted to happen—consumers would make it clear that they wanted environmentally sustainable, naturally pure products and giant corporations would eventually have to respond, right?

Well, maybe. According to Hijacked: Businesses for Social Responsibility by the ubiquitous megaphone-wielding Russell Mokhiber, editor of the Washington-based Corporate Crime Reporter, in an effort to tarnish their terrible images, giant massively unethical corporations including Philip Morris tobacco holding company have taken over a once legitimate business group called Businesses for Social Responsibility.

Soon it seems, the phrase social responsible business may have no meaning whatsoever. If all businesses claim this, how do you discern from whom and what to buy?

The real good news may be that the very qualities that make a member of the LOHAS market buy organic, make them want the product to actually be what it says it is. Accordingly to market research, people who shop this way defy traditional marketing strategies. They mistrust all advertising, read newspapers and books and make their own decisions on the basis of what they believe about what is true.

Invariably, that may leave Wal-Mart, Coors and Philip Morris out in the cold.

©Sara S. Nichols, 2006

Sara is a founding partner of the Gross National Happiness Team, a business that gives away 50% of its sales to organizations promoting peace and justice.

Pray for George

This a reprinting of my quarterly column--Eye on the Pie which appears in Rudolf's Diner. Please pass it on and Pray for George.

I am beginning to believe that we need to start a national movement called “Pray for George” in which we concertedly pray for George Bush to be a better President. The reasons are straightforward: first of all, he is our President for the next three years, like it or not (not) and it would literally be better for the world if he would behave better/differently; secondly, it is painful and divisive to hold so much hatred and anger towards anyone, least of all the most important world leader—it is not a peaceful decision; thirdly, it would be useful to show the nation that we can pray too, that prayer is not reserved for people who hate gay marriage.

The first reason is the hardest for people who aren’t fans of the President to swallow: “Why would I want to pray for George Bush to be a better President? I don’t want him to be President at all. I don’t want for him to succeed. I don’t want him to improve. I want this administration to pull the Republican party down the toilet with it for a generation.”

Alrighty then. But do you really mean what you say? Do you really want things to get worse before they get better? If you could snap your fingers and George Bush could suddenly improve the environment, create a real universal health care system and establish world peace, wouldn’t you want him to, even though he’s George Bush? I’m not saying that this is a likely scenario. But I am saying that by freezing in our collective conscious and unconscious minds a vision of George Bush that is evil, incompetent and unsuccessful, we enshrine that George Bush and insure that that is whom he shows up as each and every day.

Second reason, closely related to the first: it is painful to hate someone as much as many of us hate George Bush. To have a significant portion of the world population filled with bitterness, bile and hatred at our leader is really terrifying. Ghandi said it best, “be the change you want to see.” So it starts here with us—praying for George will be healing for us all.

Actually it is easy with this man—he’s so clearly human. He’s so clearly flawed. He’s so clearly in over his head. I’m not asking you to forgive or pray for Dick Cheney—we no doubt should, but somehow “Pray for Dick” has a different ring and it might get some of our email diverted by anti-porn programs.

Third reason, which probably has the most cynical appeal, although I don’t personally mean it that way: show middle America that we can pray too. This proposed action really performs a bit of political jiujitsu on the Christian right. It takes up a bit where Martin Luther King, Jr. left off. Pray for George is there to help the President be the best that he can be. Pray for George out Christians the Christians by loving the man we have hated most (well almost the most, see Pray for Dick discussion above).

Let’s flesh the Pray for George campaign out a bit. How would it work? Set up a website at www.prayforgeorge.com (I just bought the domain name, $8.95 at www.godaddy.com, I am telling you) which has a prayer kit for any individual, church or organization that wants to pray for George. Also buttons, t-shirts, hats, etc. Spread the word through existing churches, networks, viral email campaigns.

There are those among us who fret about a couple of other factors: won’t Pray for George distract people from “real” action like working to change the Congress? Won’t Pray for George be a diversion from the real issues? I argue no. For one thing, the amount of media attention this campaign is likely to get once it takes off will significantly help those efforts.

More importantly, this campaign might be able to open some ears to hear our message. When you proceed from love instead of hate, people who haven’t been your allies relax, let down their guard and can hear you. The best kept secret in American politics is that Americans agree on far more than we disagree on. We have a wealth of shared values. We have a wealth of shared experiences. We have a wealth of shared dreams.

Yet partisan handlers highlight and distort our differences so we're unlikely to ever get close enough to "the other" to find out that, hey, they're actually remarkably similar to us.

Like virtually all Americans, we share a core set of values, including: respect, responsibility, fairness, and belief in a greater power. We all want:
• The best for our children
• Plentiful and safe food, water, and air
• Peaceful and livable communities with good schools
• Meaningful jobs, businesses, and opportunities for advancement
• Freedom to make our own decisions

Let’s pray for George so that we can hear each other clearly.

So here is my prayer for George:
I know there is only one power of love within and without us that connects us all.
It runs through us and in us and around us.
Where there is the appearance of dischord, there is only harmony.
Where there is the appearance of violence, there is only peace.
Where there is the appearance of incompetence and chaos, there is only divine right order.
We are swimming in that harmony, peace and divine right order.
And we call it love.
And we call it God.
And we call it good.

And I know that I am a unique manifestation of this power of love.
And as I know this for me, I know this for George Bush, President of the United States of America.
George is a powerful manifestation of this love and power for good that connects us all.
Where George appears to be incompetent, he is capability itself.
Where George appears to be warlike, he is peace itself.
Where George appears to be mean-spirited, his heart is open, gracious, loving and good; He wants the best for his people.

And he produces the best for his people.
Since there is only one mind and George is a product of that one mind,
George has access to all that mind knows.
George has always believed that his top advisor is Jesus the Christ.
George’s heart is now open so that he can listen to the Christ.
George’s body is imbued with Christ consciousness, the Christ of love, the Christ of forgiveness, the Christ of peace, the Christ of charity, the Christ of abundance, the Christ of mercy.

And with this Christ consciousness and the awareness of his role in the world, comes a call to action:
A call to change.
A call to love.
George’s spirit is courageous and true and able to manifest the true spiritual teachings of this consciousness.
George lives and embodies these changes.
George is peace, order, capability and harmony itself.
He is a true leader.

And so I am profoundly humbled and grateful as I utter these words.
I know them to be true.
I know them to be so true and so right and so good that I weep with joy.
I weep with joy at the knowledge that God has a better world
already built for us then the one we think we live in.
I weep with joy at the knowledge that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And so, knowing that it has been done and that George and the world are good, I ask only that this good be revealed to us right here and right now.

I take my hands off it and let it go, knowing that my word spoken into the law of God will make it so.

And so it is. Thank you infinite spirit. Amen.

Medicare hell

First blog in over a month. I am consumed with getting my business off the ground and passing the public financing of elections bill through the California legislature and can't seem to fit the daily blog into my busy routine.

Howsomever.

I need to observe that my pharmacist, Lloyd Ouye of Ouye's Pharmacy on 10th street in Sacramento, one of the few real conscientious neighborhood pharmacists around, now has a recording on his machine that says that due to the new Medicare changes, all prescription drug fulfillment, no matter who is paying for them, will be delayed by 2 to 3 days!@#

I try and try not to be this cynical, but it's impossible to believe anything other than that the Republicans are trying to destroy public support for Medicare by making the prescription drug benefit a nightmare for everyone.

Will it work? I hope not. I hope it backfires big time. Write your congressman. After I talked to him, Lloyd called his (Doris Matsui of Sacto) for the first time.

Rumors about Lieberman

So there's some sort of rumor flying about in Washington that President Bush is considering appointing Senator Joe "I lost Florida" Lieberman to be Secretary of Defense (or at least, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) treated it as a serious possibility in his appearance on Air America today.

If Lieberman would even consider this appointment, I consider him a traitor to his party. We have no reason to think he'd be a good Sec'y of Defense and it would just hand the Republicans an opportunity to have a high profile Democrat to receive populist anger against the war.

Air America & Mark Maron

Air America has grown in the year and a half it's been on from airing on 15 stations to some 84 stations across the country. Its shows are beating right-wing talk shows in many many markets.

Here in Sacramento, Air America started out on Talk City am1240 and then grew so popular that it outgrew its bandwith and moved to am 1320, now christened "Sacramento's left station." But Talk City did so well with leftwing talk that it stayed "Sacramento's progressive station" so now we have two progressive talk radio stations in Sacramento instead of none--great stuff.

The growth of progressive talk radio is easy to explain. The real appeal of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly is populist. But how can you get a good populist rant against a federal government run by people you totally supported and helped elect? Answer: you can't.

What's gonna be your rant? It's like John Stewart said when covering last year's Republican convention, "after 4 years of controlling the white house, the Congress and the federal judiciary, we're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it any more!" It doesn't work.

If Kerry had been elected, Air America might not be sitting so pretty, but no conspiracy theories here.

My one beef against Air America is that they've apparently fired "Morning Sedition" (weekdays from 6-9am) host Mark Maron. He is in his last days on the air. In my opinion, that show is fantastic--very funny and informative. Mostly funny. It has a lot in common with the daily show, only more like classic drive-time radio buddy stuff. I enjoy interviews with their reporter from "Planet Bush," and the daily faxed "Marching orders from the Streisand Compound" especially.

If you too will miss Mark Maron, or if you just want to make me happy. Call or write Air America at the email and numbers below and urge them to reconsider this decision.

1-866-303-2270 sedition@airamericaradio.com

The Trial Lawyers Get Smart

The Consumer Attorneys of California, as they are known to me, or "trial lawyers" as they are known to the world, finally got smart enough to start doing some affirmative public relations for the civil justice system.

And they enlisted two of my favorite people in the world to get the job done: my husband, Bill Magavern, and my close friend, Anne Bloom.

If you go to their website Protect Civil Justice, you can click on these wonderful 30 second spots that have running across the state and see Bill and Anne speaking from the heart about the importance of our civil justice system.

Too late for some of us, the trial lawyers in California have woken up to realize that the organized campaign against our civil justice system has worked. People across the country have gone to the polls and voted to abridge or give up their Seventh Amendment constitutional right to a jury trial.

This ad campaign shows the folly of that kind of thinking and how the civil justice system protects us all. Plus Bill and Anne look really cute on screen...

Food For Thought

I am simultaneously encouraged and worried by this blog posting by Dan Weintraub last
Monday on Clean Money. Dan makes the point that Democrats receive more corporate
money than Republicans and later says that the left supports public financing of elections
because it will allow Republicans to vote more freely. While this may be partially true,
the main reason I support public financing of elections is to allow the majority of Democrats
to vote more freely. I don't see the point of having Democrats in control of the legislature
if they are not going to be free to vote like Democrats. Consistently a rump group of
Democrats votes against bills to take poisons out of our air and water, make products more safe,
bring down the high price of prescription drugs, and extend health care coverage in a
meaningful way. I agree with Weintraub though in one major respect: public financing
of elections is an idea whose time has come--Sara

A Weblog by Sacramento Bee Columnist Daniel Weintraub
November 14, 2005

Clean Money

Supporters of the California Clean Money Act -- public financing for political campaigns -- plan to make a big push for their bill, AB 583, when the Legislature reconvenes in January, and they say they're looking for a new, dedicated source of revenue to fund it.

Here are my thoughts.

First, while I have never been a big fan of public financing, I think its time may have come. The defeat of Prop. 75 last week suggests that public employee union money will continue to be the primary source of funding for California Democrats for the foreseeable future. To a lesser degree, Republicans are prisoners of corporate money. While we often compare the public employee money to corporate money as if they were opposite sides of the same equation, they are not quite that. Corporate money tends to be from a much more diverse set of interests with a variety of goals. No one company has nearly the influence on Republican legislators that, say, the CTA has on Democrats. And business gives more to Democrats than the unions give to Republicans. Much of the time, when the public employee unions are pushing something in their narrow interest, almost nobody is pushing back on the other side. Did any individual company oppose the pension bills that went through a few years ago? The state, its people and its businesses would be better off if we find a way to elect Democrats who feel free to say no to the public employee unions. And the only way to do that is to wean them off that money, to match the union money with our money. The funny thing is that public financing has always been pushed by the left, as a way to free Republicans from corporate money. But in California I think it might play out differently.

For the revenue source, I'd suggest a 1 percent increase in the bank and corporation tax. (That's one percent of what they pay already -- not a percentage point on the rate, which would be a much larger increase in the total tax.) The corporations tax now brings in about $10 billion a year. A one-percent increase would yield about $100 million. I'd use that money to finance legislative races. Again, the business community, which normally squawks at both tax hikes and public financing of campaigns, should like this idea. It would be money well spent.

As for the method of distributing it, I'd prefer something as decentralized as possible. I like the "patriot dollars" concept that proposes using individual vouchers to allow each citizen or registered voter to direct his or her chit to a candidate of their choosing. I think this method has the added bonus of potentially re-engaging the public in government and civic affairs. When you feel like you have some money at stake, even a small amount, you tend to pay closer attention. The downside of this method is that each chit would be so small that, in practice, candidates would have to be well known before they could persuade citizens to transfer their chits, which gets us right back to where we are today. So another method might be more practical.

Many people would like to couple public financing with new limits on union and corporate dollars. That wouldn't break my heart. But I am philosophically opposed to such limits because I think they violate the right to free speech, and I think they just drive that money to hidden corners where it is more difficult to track. I would simply add the public money to the mix and hope it gave legislators some freedom from their normal impulse to kow-tow to contributors.

Finally, I would put a sunset on it. If all it did was add to the money-raising arms race, you'd want it to go out of business on its own rather than waiting for lawmakers to repeal it.

They're Just Crazy Enough to Do it

Here's the thing: I've been encouraged by the chaos in the Republican party lately. The environmentalist House Republicans defections in the amendment to the budget deal on drilling the Alaska Natural Wildlife Reserve was a thing of beauty.

And then I get waves of perverse excitement over how deeply in debt the nation is--clearly anyone, ANYONE would see that it is time to balance the budget or at least lessen it by repealing the Bush tax cuts.

But then I read, as I did yesterday, a front paid story in the relatively liberal Sacramento Bee in which the entire "objective" tone is to make clear that the real problem with our federal government is the ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS!!!! Sorry to use the large caps like someone who is receiving radio signals through his teeth and believes that there is a conspiracy to narrow mayonnaise jar necks but c'mon, people (and by this I mean reporters, so it's stretching it to say people), let's not report this as if it were received truth, that the reason our budget is in trouble is entitlements!

I can't believe I'm even having to say this: the budget was fine after Clinton left office. It became far less than fine when Bush pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens followed by sending more and more of our poorest citizens to war in Iraq with attendant massive expenditures for the benefit of Halliburton. My God, I have avoided having a conspiracy theory about this but I guess it's an avoidable conclusion now: the Republicans appear to have deliberately driven us into debt so as to use it as an excuse to cut health care, and programs for the poor and they are so determined to do it that they are willing to use Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to cut them.

Gunfighter a Brilliant Tour de Force

This just in: time and space are mere illusions. So go back in time and cross space to see Gunfighter: A Gulf War Chronicle directed by Katie Laris at the Santa Barbara City College, running October 21st through November 5th.

I can attest that the closing night performance, while by all accounts not as strong as some of the previous performances, will be fabulous. Laris' staging is nearly flawless: an extraordinary multi-media montage of CNN-footage from the first gulf war, riveting apache aircraft movement and sites and actual footage of people on-stage being interviewed by the ubiquitous on-stage tv reporter Heidi dogging the soldiers for a story. But the truth of the production is in the sum of its parts: the music, the video, the performances of the central characters all fit together perfectly. It was of a production level almost never achieved at the community theater level (and SBCC is a community theater, not a college theater, the actors are cast from a wide pool and paid).

The play takes place during the first Gulf War and shortly thereafter and is the true story of a Lt. Colonel who took the fall for faulty equipment in a friendly fire incident. I believe the play premiered in Sacramento at the River Stage at Cosumnes River College (which is incidentally, consistently the best community theater in Sacramento, sorry B Street...).

In keeping for my theme from this week, my only criticism would have been the reaction of the closing night audience. You could tell they were riveted to the stage, but it was more as if they were watching tv than at a theater performance--huge laugh lines were passed over by a passive crowd, opportunities to gasp were missed. Still, they clapped loud and long at the end and clearly loved it. It's a shame one has to drive 400 miles from Sacramento to see such high quality theater.

Nodding at the She-Mob

What a pleasure to be at the release party for She-Mob's new album, Not in My World, this past Saturday at the Starry Plough in Berkeley. Mostly, I just love the idea that I, a middle-aged mother of two, am friends with a punk-rocker: Suki O'Kane.

Of course, not completely coincidentally, it turns out that She-Mob is populated by, specializes in and thrives on middle-aged women. How many punk rock bands can say the same?

Watching them play their "album" "cuts" backwards first the "second side" of the disk then the "first side" was often not unlike life itself in that there were, especially in the last (hence played first) slower more esoteric songs, long stretches in which one kept waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen. And then one would realize (and this is the life part): oh! this IS what's happening. It's never going to be more than this. This is it. And then one relaxed and really loved it.

But the most surreal moments came towards the end when they got to their most head-banging thrashy pieces and were really tearing up the stage. Cut to an audience that could have been downloaded from a jazz club and superimposed on this punk scene. Polite nodding, slight tapping of feet, and nursing of drinks was the order of the day.

To hell with that thought Lisa Mennet and I. We'll change the order of the day. We get up, virtually stepping on mellow Berkeley-esque types sprawled on the floor and begin wildly dancing, thrashing ourselves around--the music demanded it. The music wasn't happy without us doing that. We had no choice.

The audience responded. Oh, not the way we had hoped, by leaping to their feet and thrashing with us. No, they responded by nodding, smiling, enjoying the show. Obviously we, painfully overdressed middle-aged women (well, I was, Lisa was understated), were part of the she-mob. Obviously, we were part of the show. Yay, She-Mob! Good show.

Yes. Yay, She-Mob! The songs were clever, fun and well-done. The music, particularly Suki's inspired rhythms, was great. These girls have been written up in the Village Voice. They're the real thing. Buy the disk. Have a listen at their website: http://shemob.com/.

Hurray for CNA!

When all is said and done, the turning point in being able to beat this special election came when Arnold made the mistake of attacking the California Nurses Association.

He shoulda asked SEIU first: you just do not pick on CNA. They may seem like a small insect of a union, that you can squash like a bug, but they're not--they're the feistiest, most ornery, most tendacious group of (mostly) women you'd ever "like" to meet. He should not have bragged about "always kicking their butts" ...or called them a special interest ... or ejected one of them from sitting at a movie premier he organized.

And CNA joined forces with another group to be reckoned with on the California scene: the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. For years this Nader-derived group has been giving as good as it got. And its Arnold Watch played a pivotal role in changing the water the voters were swimming in in this no-so-very-special election.

Together CNA and FTCR had the guts to attack Arnold when the rest of the Sacramento insiders were still fawning over him and hoping to here the secrets of his orange tanning glow. Once these Davids pummelled Goliath to the point that he shed blood, the rest of the cowards took notice and began coming after him with all they had. (oops, pretty violent imagery for me: I'm trying to practice peace--forget all that: CNA and FTCR had the guts to LOVE where others merely HATED, that's what I'm trying to say).

Okay, this is falling apart, but what I'm trying to say is Hurray for CNA! You did it again. The People of Cah-lee-for-knee-a thank you.