The Kaiser Rooftop Garden is located at 21st and Webster, above the 24-Hour Fitness facility and public parking garage. Opened to the public in 1960, it was at the time the largest continuous rooftop garden in the world. The garden spans more than 3 acres and features trees such as olive, holly oak, Japanese maple, and
southern magnolia. It is open to visitors Monday through Friday during business hours. It's a great place for a quiet lunch time stroll or picnic. The roof has several access points, but the easiest by way of the long escalator which begins just outside the back entrance of the Longs drugstore.
Is the President a freestyle rapper? LOL, you might respond by text. But seriously, check out Mos Def's rendition of "What's Beef?" Originally done by the Notorious B.I.G., I first heard it on The Dave Chappelle Show. It is sardonic and didactic, in full "Let me learn ya" mode. The President was recently in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, riffing on "What is Government" and the parallels between his "flow" and Mos' were, at least for me, striking. First, check out Mos Def's:
Mos Def is essentially exhorting denizens of the Hip Hop Nation (and black America, to not conflate the two): “Wake up, open your eyes, avoid distraction and get real about what should really be occupying your attention." Here's my favorite line, which is, sadly, too damn topical: “Beef is high blood pressure and bad credit/Need a loan for your home and you're too broke to get it."
Now, like I said, maybe President Obama has begun listening to Mos Def spit fiyah, because that's what he did recently. Here's the President, in Minnesota this Monday, August 15, vigorously defending government -- not just his administration, but the very concept of government itself. He enumerates (many) of its functions that are simultaneously viewed as indisputably necessary by most Americans (all but the far right*) but that, ipso facto, to their purported consternation, also make government BIG:
You’ll hear a lot of folks, by the way, say that government is broken. Well, government and politics are two different things. Government is our troops who are fighting on our behalf in Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s government. Government are also those FEMA folks when there’s a flood or a drought or some emergency who come out and are helping people out. That’s government. Government is Social Security. Government are teachers in the classroom. Government are our firefighters and our police officers, and the folks who keep our water clean and our air clean to breathe, and our agricultural workers. And when you go to a national park, and those folks in the hats -- that’s government.
The President's exhortation here is “Wake up, here’s what government actually does for you. Are you not in favor of that?” We know President Obama could benefit from a little more fire, and I think this is the type of fire many Americans want to more consistently see. It is argument by distinction, and his oratorical, repetitive motif here does hearken back to his campaign trail.
In light of what seems to be the recent national-scale intervention for President Obama, performed in Op-ed pages, blogs and on cable television, much in the vein of, "What's eating Barack "Gilbert Grape" Obama?" or, more seriously, “What does Barack Obama really stand for? Like, um, really?” it may just be that the President has finally gotten off the couch.
So, if President Obama is still shaking off a certain malaise brought on by the debt ceiling fight, for a more speedy recovery I would recommend a daily morning dose of Mos Def’s gem. I reckon it could only further channel the focus and indignant attitude so on display by the President in Minnesota.
* The people seem to wish the government crash, that allow natural disasters and such take their natural courses, and, finally, to hasten Armageddon.
No doubt, Oakland is a gritty, post-industrial city. And it has a reasonably justified reputation (hopefully waning) for crime (hopefully waning). Still, is it preposterous to say, "Oakland is a beautiful city"? If we are comparing it to cities around the world, or even in the U.S. – darn, even the Bay – it is hard to keep a straight face and claim that Oakland is, by physical appearance, the fairest of them all.
But why should we adopt a zero-sum, deficit oriented view of beauty? We know we shouldn't. Not for people. Not for cities. Because they are, after all, much more than what meets the eye. The fact is that Oakland is many things, many of which make it deserving of Ishmael Reed's nomination, "Blues City." Oakland's soul is beautiful, the book implies, and I second that. Still, someone's also got to make the claim that, you know what, quiet as kept, Oakland's a cutie pie.*
This post inaugurates a periodical feature, "Where in Oakland?" to show Oakland's physical beauty, often in unlikely and certainly less well known places. An image of a hidden gem in Oakland will be posted, meant to invite inquiry and exploration. A week later, the identity and background info of the gem will be posted.
Today: in the heart of Oakland, a pond and park that is not Lake Merritt.
Where in Oakland is this scene?
*You know, like when you were in high school and you pointed out to your homies that girl who you thought you just might have a chance with. With a deliberately dispassionate but knowing tone you might have said, "Quiet as it's kept, A--- is a cutie." The best response your homie could have was "Truuuue." Oh, to be the discoverer of something kept unduly quiet! Like discovering Saturn on your own.**
**Blame my legal education and Bill Simmons for the use of footnotes.
Presenting Brandon Marshall: NFL wide receiver, two-time Pro Bowler and University of Central Florida college graduate. And now: role model.
Less than a week after players and owners signed a deal to end the NFL lockout, Marshall announced and explained his mental health challenges with borderline personality disorder. You can hear the emotion in his voice. This 27-year old man just made a courageous move and is to be commended.
Charles Barkley once famously remarked, "I'm not a role model... Just because I dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids." Taken literally, this is obvious. But he also misses the point: an athlete's power - for good.
People have been attending sporting events and marveling at athletic feats for thousands of years. While there is certainly a pure entertainment value in it, what is most compelling in sports is the virtuosity with which athletics demonstrate the potential of the human body. (For team sports, of course, there is also the alignment of individual will and effort for a collective purpose). So when professional athletes use their platform and voice to bring attention to an important issue that the voiceless need the powerful to hear, they should be applauded. Applauded because it can represent represent courage, conviction and, even, compassion.
Now, Marshall's series of legal run ins, including allegations of domestic assault, cannot be excused or papered over. But watch the video. Voice full of emotion, no doubt striving to hold it all together, Brandon Marshall displayed courage, conviction and compassion. A reminder of the best in us. And if that isn't a role model, I don't know what is.
As I suggested yesterday, the persistence and worsening of the racial wealth gap in the U.S. must be attributed, at least in part, to widespread acceptance of the current U.S. racial order. Thus, perhaps the most revealing statistic to upset some of our entrenched suppositions is the wealth decline of Asians: 54%.This even exceeds the percentage decline for blacks.As of 2009, the median household wealth for Asians was still, $78,066, grossly exceeding Latinos and blacks.However, Asians nonetheless lost their top ranking (over whites) dropping from their 2005 mark of $168,103.
Something is surely rotten in Denmark when the group prompting UC Berkeley and many Ivies to feel the other edge of that meritocracy sword, and therefore walk towards a more “holistic” approach to admissions, finds itself unmistakeably in the same boat as black and Latinos rather than whites. Or, perhaps, nothing is rotting at all -- perhaps it has always smelled this way.
Hopefully not lost amid the ruckus over the debt ceiling is the Pew Research Center report on the effects of the recession on the wealth gap between whites on the on one side and people of color. Released Tuesday, the report looks at inflation-adjusted median wealth over the period 2005-2009. The Pew study defines wealth by subtracting a household's debt from its assets: houses, personal goods like cars and jewelry, cash and investments (stock and 401(k)s stacked up against mortgages, credit card debt and student loans, etc. The income of every group fell from 2005-2009 but, according to Pew, in this same period
inflation-adjusted median wealth fell by 66% among Hispanic households and 53% among black households, compared with just 16% among white households.As a result of these declines, the typical black household had just $5,677 in wealth ... in 2009; the typical Hispanic household had $6,325 in wealth; and the typical white household had $113,149.
An equally grim finding: TIME magazineexplains that “35% of African Americans and 31% of Hispanics reported zero or negative net worth in 2009. By contrast, only 15% of white households were in the same boat.”
Pew believes that, compared to household income, wealth provides a more accurate snapshot of the financial well-being of Americans across race.
The picture presented by the Pew report is downright alarming, although it is unlikely to make the splash it ought to. White households were about 20 times wealthier than black ones in 2009, and 18 times wealthier than Hispanic ones. In some respects, it is a measure of relative trauma – all Americans have been traumatized by the recession.
I’d offer that bigger problem is that the numbers are, I daresay, expected. Widespread acceptance of the U.S. racial order among both whites and other racial groups leads all to do little more than shrug. Or respond, “That’s f*cked uuup,” shake ones head as if by second-nature, and move on. As if it were a tactless and painful comment about one’s hairdo leveled pointedly but in jest by a definite friend.
Hooray. Who can deny that the women in this photo, Phyllis Siegel and Connie Kopelov, deserve as much as any two people who ever loved one another to have their love formally recognized? Could there be a better Exhibit A for why any two adults should have the right to marry regardless of their sexual preference?
In many respects, gay rights has gone mainstream. But, really, it's when any two gay people could inspire the same level of "that's so wonderful" -- just like when a black family doesn't have to have the Huxtable pedigree to be "approved" by neighbors, or a black male doesn't have to speak like Grant Hill or the Prez in order to still be recognized as intellectually a G -- then that will be a whole new level of equality. I recognize some images are just more potentially iconic than others, and it's often too complicated, even uncouth, to sort through the DNA of our cultural memes to figure out exactly why. I'm happy to let this be the case here. So, at the risk of contradicting myself, I'll just posit again: could there be a better Exhibit A for why any two adults should have the right to marry regardless of their sexual preference?
"In the right corner, the righteous corner, the made Michelle Obama (and me) believe in America again corner, it's the skinniest but toughest president ever... it's BAAAAROCKYYYY OOOOBAMAAAA!"
I listened to President Obama's press conference on the debt ceiling on NPR yesterday. As he made his case, eviscerating the Republicans on their intransigence, one of the President's signature quips from the campaign kept running through my head: "I'm Skinny, But I'm Tough." He used to say this on the campaign trail and during the health care debate. "Yep," I think, "Barocky Obama."
Really, Barack is the Rocky of our epoch. His rise was improbable, and then when he seems to be getting pummeled on some issue - the health care bill, Don't Ask, Don't Tell -- again and again he pivots and manages to pull through. I'll admit I occasionally vacillate between, "Man! Why is he conceding [pick your issue]" and "Damn, that Barack is too damn smart for 'em."
As he squares up against the GOP, his Ivan Drago or Clubber Lang, I can hear Michael Buffer.* By the end of last month, it really did seem to me that he was down for the count, that he had conceded the argument to the GOP. Then he came with that Jedi mind trick, you wanna cut, then let's go crazy 4.3 trillion proposal. Since then, the GOP has been losing the argument in the court of public opinion, and appearing to more and more Americans, I believe, as the empty suits they are. As he explains in the last five minutes of the conference, putting the deficit and debt issue to bed for the next 10 to 15 years (or at least sedating ity) would rob Republicans of their most effective argument with independents. These are the folks who are not down with "big government" but, aligning with progressives, do believe in "smart government."
So, right now I'm just like some silly, too happy 10 year old doing the "That's mah cuuuzin. That's mah cuuuzin" singsong. (Channel Martin Lawrence). "That's mah preeesident. That's mah preeesident." Here he is. Fast forward to last 10 minutes to really see him smack the GOP silly.
* Or his brother, Bruce, since these bouts might well be more UFC than WBC.
I first heard this quote about fifteen years while watching Rushmore, one of my all-time favorite movies.I’ve always taken it to mean: you gotsta shine yo' light.It has resonated so strongly over the years that it often comes to mind when I find that I have an important decision to make.This primarily meant: do I do my best, in response to the dictates of the moment, to be me, or do I conform because that is the easy way?But it has also related to opportunity: do I shirk it (because the opportunity would require uncapped amounts of blood, sweat, and tears), or do I, with such knowledge, nevertheless take it head on?I have answered in the honorable way often, but, alas, not always.Tragic, in a way.
Last night, this Jacques Cousteau quote came to mind when I heard the jazz piece above on KCSM*. It had absolutely nothing to do with “being me” or seizing opportunity. The only thing it related to, as I drove down Grand Avenue back home, was beauty.Simply, plainly, absolutely: beautiful.In wonder I remarked, “What song is this?”(Didn’t the wise men sing, “What Child is This?”)
Now my favorite quote has taken on an added resonance.I don’t know so much, anymore, about the standard for living extraordinarily** but I do know that beauty abounds in the world, and because of it, there are also many opportunities to experience the extraordinary.I think Cousteau might agree with Khadize’s Corollaries: there are many beautiful things in the world, and when you create one of these things, you must share it.And when you find of one these things, you must share it.And when you are touched by one of these things, you must pass along that touch.
I am glad I found Monty Alexander’s Harlem-Kingston Express last night. It was beautiful.And I’m glad I am able to share it with you.
*The best jazz station in da wurrld! at FM 91.1 in the Bay.
** Ok, so you might think Mr. Yes We Can, though currently bedeviled by the Hell No We Won’t GOP, is the exemplar of leading an extraordinary life. After all, what's more extraordinary than being president. I'd like to up the ante -- or lower it, depending on your perspective:Barack’s life is extraordinarily extraordinary.So the poor man's (or everyman's extraordinary) is that described above.
