A few minutes ago, a part of me passed away: the most trusted man in news Walter Cronkite died. It's now 5:21 PM PST as I write this, and it's as hard in its way as the passing of Michael Jackson was almost exactly two weeks before.
I'm not going into a long blog post about his stats, just what I remember. Walter Cronkite was American Culture of the time, and the way many have wanted it to be, I think: smart, smooth, certain, definite, classy, and professional. I watched him through my childhood and remember feeling robbed when he was forced to retire in the mid-80s.
Cronkite was CBS News, and the one place that this young African American could look to and not see or even think of prejudice. Yes, it was revealed that he was liberal later, but that never was an issue: I just assumed that he was too smart not to be. Yes, I wrote that.
Walter Cronkite
(Indeed, after I wrote this, my Mother called to remind me that Cronkite was the mentor of the late Chicago anchor Michelle Clark, who worked at United Airline with my mother before moving to journalism. My Mother said "It was remarkable in those days for someone like Cronkite to reach out to a young black woman and help her as he did.)
Walter Cronkite was the person through which it seemed we vetted what information was important, and what was not. I came to associate the space program - America's "Can Do" period - with him. I think I watched every single launch and can remember the ones later that didn't have him at the CBS helm; they just were not as important to me.
No.
Walter Cronkite represents the best of America and our culture. Like Michael Jackson, he will never be replaced. A sad day. May he rest in peace and enjoy his trip to Heaven.
(NOTE: This is an update including data from San Jose, CA, by request.)
Who's on the "Top 10" list of Twitter users in Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose? There's no question but that Twitter, the microblogging service, has become a "must be on" new media system with an engaged and loyal core group of users, all microblogging about events, activities, news and opinion. The San Francisco-based firm has grown from small beginnings just three years ago to 19 million visitors (or 17 million if one goes by the digital research service ComScore.com) in April in what was a dramatic 83 percent jump over March, and in that month alone Twitter went from 9.8 million visitors to 17 million visitors, perhaps the fastest expansion of a new media service in the short history of the industry. It's clear that Twitter, as Eric Schonfeld with the tech industry website TechCrunch.com said, is working to become "the pulse of the planet."
As Twitter has grown so have the number of ways of measuring a twitter account holders effectiveness, or "Twitterers" as I call us. Perhaps the best Twitterer evaluation system is "Twitter Grader" made by self-described "serial entrepreneur" Dharmesh Shah. I am rather addicted to his application because it not only lets one know how effective they are on Twitter, but how they rank in their city, which is the most fun part of it all. In his blog at the site, Mr. Shah or "dshah" as he goes by explains how the final Twitter Grade is calculated:
1. Number of Followers: More followers leads to a higher Twitter Grade (all other things being equal). Yes, I agree that it’s easy to game this number, but we are looking at measuring reach and I did say all other things being equal.
2. Power of Followers: If you have people with a high Twitter Grade following you, it counts more than those with a low Twitter Grade following you. It’s a bit recursive, and we don’t get carried away with it, but it helps.
2. Updates: More updates generally leads to a higher grade — within reason. This does not mean you should be tweeting like a manic squirrel cranked up on caffeine and sugar. It won’t help either your Twitter Grade or your overall happiness in life.
3. Update Recency: Users that are more current (i.e. time elapsed since last tweet is low) generally get higher grades.
4. Follower/Following Ratio: The higher the ratio, the better. However, the weight of this particular factor decreases as the user accrues points for other factors (so, once a user gets to a high level of followers or a high level of engagement, the Follower/Following ratio counts less).
5. Engagement: The more a given user’s tweets are being retweeted, the more times the user is being referenced or cited, the higher the twitter grade. Further, the value of the engagement is higher based on who is being engaged. If a user with a very high Twitter Grade retweets, it counts more than if a spammy account with a very low grade retweets.
As you can guess, one's Twitter grade can be all over the place. As of this writing, mine is 99.8, which means out of out of 2,747,790 Twitters, there are just 4,953 who are better than me at this point in time. But a month ago my grade was 99.9 and last week it was 99.7. But since I'm hyper competitive, adding followers at a regular daily clip, I want to know where I stand in Oakland, California, where I live. With that, here are the top 10 users on Twitter who live in Oakland, followed by Los Angeles, then San Francisco, and listed by name, grade, and number of followers:
Oh, and just for grins, the top 10 Twitter cities are:
1 London H9 United Kingdom 63.53
2 Los Angeles CA United States 70.80
3 Chicago IL United States 67.08
4 New York NY United States 71.52
5 San Francisco CA United States 74.00
6 Toronto 08 Canada 67.12
7 Atlanta GA United States 70.60
8 Seattle WA United States 67.91
9 Boston MA United States 69.14
10 Austin TX United States 69.98
Nope, Oakland's not on the list, nor is San Jose. But on the matter of San Jose, you may have noticed that the vast majority of Twitterers are people like "alltop" (who is Guy Kawasaki), but then we have RoundTableSJ with over 12,000 followers, proving that companies, like restaurant chains, can successfully use Twitter and establish a base of followers.
Top Cities have celebrity Twitterers
You may wonder why Los Angeles and San Francisco have so many Twitterers with 100 grades. The answer's a simple one: the vast majority of them are celebrities and micro celebrities who have vastly more followers than people they follow. In San Francisco, the number-one-ranked "missrogue" is Tara Hunt's the queen of online community consultants, and just wrote a book called "The Whuffie Factor" about how to improve one's use of social networks. "EV" in San Francisco is Twitter CEO Evan Williams, who has over a million followers. In Los Angeles, "iJustine" (Justine Ezarik) has over 600,000 followers and that number's sure to grow because today she's a "trending topic" on Twitter due to her new live show on USTream.Tv and as I watch this, she's actively trying to push "Harry Potter" out of the way for the number one topic spot today.
IJustine
Twitter Influencers
What all of this says is if you want your message to get out a large audience you have to work with these Twitterers or become one of them. When one gets over 2,000 followers, and updates over 10 times a day, they can cause others to share their news and information in a process called "retweeting". Or think of how Ellen DeGeneres used her 1.9 million followers to gain signatures for an online petition to stop the proposal to reduce the time animals are held in shelters before being euthanized. Some question the value of Twitter, but those who do, universally also just aren't good at it.
Oakland needs to grow more celebrity Twitterers, and of the top 10 in Oakland only DaveyD and myself are consistent bloggers. Considering the number of bloggers in Oakland, that's a shame. Maybe I should move to San Francisco or Atlanta. And on that, one can make a strong argument that the top Twitter cities are also the best ones for the consumption of online content.
Thursday, I happened to notice that famous vlogger IJustine was on because around 3 PM, she was one of the "trending topics" on Twitter; she was on USTREAM.tv, doing a live stream from their San Francisco office. When I clicked in, she was talking about new iPhone apps, and how they work, or more to the point, trying to figure out how a particular app worked.
iJustine calls herself a "new media chick" and Apple fan girl who's Twitter profile announces that she is the Internet. Her real name is Justine Ezarik and since her first foray into "lifecasting" - which is a form of vlogging, kind of a live diary - with USTREAM, has become an Internet star largely because she embraces the medium and has an honest, tech savvy-yet-curious acting approach (Ezarik sees iJustine as a character who's most popular group are teenage girls, according to Gawker's famous blogger Emily Gould.) Having started with USTREAM, in 2007 she jumped over to the then-new competitor Justin.tv to become the new model of their lifecasting show process replacing the founder Justin Kan. In 2008, she rejoined USTREAM.
Ezarik's follower and subscriber numbers are just plain amazing: over 600,000 Twitter followers, 121,000 YouTube subscribers (like me, she's a YouTube partner, which means she earns money from her video views), and her YouTube videos commonly draw between 50,000 and 100,000 views in one week. She became famous after turning the camera on herself to show and complain about a 300-page iPhone bill from AT&T, which casued the company to alter its billing format.
Later, AT&T hired Ezarik in a new media initiative that failed to "go viral" as they expected. It's wasn't her fault, but borne of the fact that the phone giant didn't allow her to make the videos and keep them within her site and subscription system, in fact the best performing videos were those placed on her blog and YouTube channel.
The key to her success is that she's fearless: willing to turn the camera on herself without care for what others think. The result is she gains from the primal fact that we're all voyeurs wanting to look into the lives and habits of other people. Ezarik gives the public want it wants.
What the public wanted today was iJustine on a live stream and that's what they got. Because of her use of her base of Twitter followers, she was able to drive her name to near the top of the "top trend" subjects, but failing to replace "Harry Potter" in the number one spot.
The lesson for media types is this: get a small camcorder and practice talking into it, downloading the video, editing it, and then posting it on YouTube, or Blip.tv. Then do it again and again and consistently, developing a following over time, join various social networks, and establish a blog to promote what you do. And most important is not to care what people are going to think; that's the one dynamic that stops many in this area of endevor.
Who's on the "Top 10" list of Twitter users in Oakland, Los Angeles, and San Francisco? There's no question but that Twitter, the microblogging service, has become a "must be on" new media system with an engaged and loyal core group of users, all microblogging about events, activities, news and opinion. The San Francisco-based firm has grown from small beginnings just three years ago to 19 million visitors (or 17 million if one goes by the digital research service ComScore.com) in April in what was a dramatic 83 percent jump over March, and in that month alone Twitter went from 9.8 million visitors to 17 million visitors, perhaps the fastest expansion of a new media service in the short history of the industry. It's clear that Twitter, as Eric Schonfeld with the tech industry website TechCrunch.com said, is working to become "the pulse of the planet."
As Twitter has grown so have the number of ways of measuring a twitter account holders effectiveness, or "Twitterers" as I call us. Perhaps the best Twitterer evaluation system is "Twitter Grader" made by self-described "serial entrepreneur" Dharmesh Shah. I am rather addicted to his application because it not only lets one know how effective they are on Twitter, but how they rank in their city, which is the most fun part of it all. In his blog at the site, Mr. Shah or "dshah" as he goes by explains how the final Twitter Grade is calculated:
1. Number of Followers: More followers leads to a higher Twitter Grade (all other things being equal). Yes, I agree that it’s easy to game this number, but we are looking at measuring reach and I did say all other things being equal.
2. Power of Followers: If you have people with a high Twitter Grade following you, it counts more than those with a low Twitter Grade following you. It’s a bit recursive, and we don’t get carried away with it, but it helps.
2. Updates: More updates generally leads to a higher grade — within reason. This does not mean you should be tweeting like a manic squirrel cranked up on caffeine and sugar. It won’t help either your Twitter Grade or your overall happiness in life.
3. Update Recency: Users that are more current (i.e. time elapsed since last tweet is low) generally get higher grades.
4. Follower/Following Ratio: The higher the ratio, the better. However, the weight of this particular factor decreases as the user accrues points for other factors (so, once a user gets to a high level of followers or a high level of engagement, the Follower/Following ratio counts less).
5. Engagement: The more a given user’s tweets are being retweeted, the more times the user is being referenced or cited, the higher the twitter grade. Further, the value of the engagement is higher based on who is being engaged. If a user with a very high Twitter Grade retweets, it counts more than if a spammy account with a very low grade retweets.
As you can guess, one's Twitter grade can be all over the place. As of this writing, mine is 99.8, which means out of out of 2,747,790 Twitters, there are just 4,953 who are better than me at this point in time. But a month ago my grade was 99.9 and last week it was 99.7. But since I'm hyper competitive, adding followers at a regular daily clip, I want to know where I stand in Oakland, California, where I live. With that, here are the top 10 users on Twitter who live in Oakland, followed by Los Angeles, then San Francisco, and listed by name, grade, and number of followers:
Oh, and just for grins, the top 10 Twitter cities are:
1 London H9 United Kingdom 63.53
2 Los Angeles CA United States 70.80
3 Chicago IL United States 67.08
4 New York NY United States 71.52
5 San Francisco CA United States 74.00
6 Toronto 08 Canada 67.12
7 Atlanta GA United States 70.60
8 Seattle WA United States 67.91
9 Boston MA United States 69.14
10 Austin TX United States 69.98
Nope, Oakland's not on the list.
Top Cities have celebrity Twitterers
You may wonder why Los Angeles and San Francisco have so many Twitterers with 100 grades. The answer's a simple one: the vast majority of them are celebrities and micro celebrities who have vastly more followers than people they follow. In San Francisco, the number-one-ranked "missrogue" is Tara Hunt's the queen of online community consultants, and just wrote a book called "The Whuffie Factor" about how to improve one's use of social networks. "EV" in San Francisco is Twitter CEO Evan Williams, who has over a million followers. In Los Angeles, "iJustine" (Justine Ezarik) has over 600,000 followers and that number's sure to grow because today she's a "trending topic" on Twitter due to her new live show on USTream.Tv and as I watch this, she's actively trying to push "Harry Potter" out of the way for the number one topic spot today.
IJustine
Twitter Influncers
What all of this says is if you want your message to get out a large audience you have to work with these Twitterers or become one of them. When one gets over 2,000 followers, and updates over 10 times a day, they can cause others to share their news and information in a process called "retweeting". Or think of how Ellen DeGeneres used her 1.9 million followers to gain signatures for an online petition to stop the proposal to reduce the time animals are held in shelters before being euthanized. Some question the value of Twitter, but those who do, universally also just aren't good at it.
Oakland needs to grow more celebrity Twitterers, and of the top 10 in Oakland only DaveyD and myself are consistent bloggers. Considering the number of bloggers in Oakland, that's a shame. Maybe I should move to San Francisco or Atlanta. And on that, one can make a strong argument that the top Twitter cities are also the best ones for the consumption of online content.
The giant 100-acre Oakland Army Base is the focus of a development competition between two groups led by people well-known to many Oaklanders: "AMB/CCG" (for AMB Property Corporation and the "CCG" is California Commercial Group) is directed by Phil Tagami, of California Commercial Investments, and who redeveloped two Oakland landmarks the Fox Oakland Theater and the Oakland Rotunda, and Federated Oakland Associates, who's boss is Michael Johnson, the developer of several multi-unit housing projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the builder of the San Francisco version of Yoshi's Jazz Club.
The Oakland Army Base
The developers are engaged in a competition with the Oakland City Council as the final "decider". The winner gains the right to enter into an "Exclusive Negotiating Agreement" with the Oakland Redevelopment Agency, which will lead to the production of a kind of contract called the "Disposition and Development Agreement" or "DDA" that is the guiding agreement stating what developer and redevelopment agency will do. The objective is the creation of what will be a "new town in town" given the size of the land area.
Today (Wednesday) the Oakland Tribune reported that the City Council's Community and Economic Development Committee could not get the majority votes necessary to move to the full Oakland City Council with a recommendation on July 21st. The vote was 2-1-1: with Vice Mayor Ignacio De La Fuente and Councilmember Patricia Kernighan voting for AMB/CCG and Councilmember Jane Brunner and Councilmember Larry Reid voting abstaining and voting for Federated Oakland Associates respectively. Brunner said she needed more information and wanted it before the matter was brought before the City Council.
Just looking at the two proposals, I can tell you what's missing from both without having talked to anyone about them. A bit of background: it was my job to review such proposals for Elihu Harris when he was Oakland's Mayor. I worked for him in the capacity of "economic adviser" from 1995 to 1999, then from 1999 to 2001 headed on the Oakland Super Bowl effort.
My job for Mayor Harris was to represent him on the same Community and Economic Development Committee the Tribune referred to today. My specialization was in reading development spreadsheets because of my background in urban planning and experience with the Oakland Redevelopment Agency; I could comb through one and explain what the strengths and weaknesses of a proposal to council were. I could also determine what information was missing from a fiscal presentation or proposal.
AMB/CCG: Long on capacity, short on complete cash balance numbers
The AMB/CCG proposal touts the financial power and real estate development and acquisition experience of AMB Property Corporation. But the problem with the proposal is actually something Phil Tagami (who's my friend) and I used to talk about frequently: it has a lot of "pretty pictures" and little numerical substance, even in the proforma. What it lacks is a full 10-year presentation of the full cash balance - even if the results are in the "red" - which is a possible and expected fiscal picture of what is to be an enormous mixed-use development project.
In the main proposal there are a number of sheets that read "To Be Determined" in large letters, which sends up a red flag for anyone on the City Council, and certainly would for me. What the City Council wants to see is some assurance that a proposed development will throw off enough cash to pay for itself over time and if that's not the case, how much the Oakland Redevelopment Agency will have to contribute should it fall into the red (which means it has generates more in expenses than revenues).
That kind of fiscal presentation is what's missing from the AMB/CCG proposal. The proforma is there with the 10-year revenue estimates, but absent the overall cash balance (revenues minus expenses) forecast sheet. By contrast, its in the Federal Oakland Associates proposal itself (and they provide the proforma), and they're bold enough to show a positive net operating income over time.
While the Federal Oakland Associates proposal is long on the kind of concise fiscal representation the Council wants to see as well as the kind of minority representation the Council (at least part of it) wants to see, its short on the development power presented by the the AMB/CCG team. Not that Federal Oakland is weak - not at all - but Phil's adding of AMB Property Corporation to his team was a huge coup that he worked a long time to secure. But that written, financial power is no excuse for presenting an incomplete proposal. Yes, that's a harsh statement, but I go back to the large red letters in the AMB/CCG proposal itself that read "To Be Determined."
Both proposals lack an economic impact analysis report
Something else missing from both proposals is an economic impact analysis report. In other words, what's the employment estimate per year, revenue from all taxes and fees, total population, and municipal costs to service the population will be. That's not a hard task to complete; when I was fresh out of Berkeley's planning grad school I created something called "The Area Redevelopment Economic Model", a spreadsheet program such that one could have both a fiscal and an economic impact report of any redevelopment project in the State of California. I used it to evaluate the then-Coliseum Redevelopment Survey Area. (Now, it's a full redevelopment area.)
The Oakland Redevelopment Agency should have insisted on this being part of the proposals from both teams. It would give the Oakland community a complete idea of what to expect from something that will completely alter the landscape of the city. Yes, some environmental impact reports have such a section, but this is too big an undertaking to wait for that. Moreover the council needs to be able to compare economic impacts of the proposals - it can't do that right now.
The City Council should combine AMB/CCG and Federal Oakland Associates
The Oakland Redevelopment Agency / Oakland City Council is not bound by the competing teams as they're presented; working as the Oakland Redevelopment Agency, the council can combine the groups into one. Let's be real honest here: this is a competition between a largely white group and a mostly black and "of color" one in an Oakland with a history of supporting minority business efforts. That to some extent is what's holding up the Council's vote; it's not said publicly, but for anyone who knows Oakland's political development landscape, that's the issue to a degree. The best way to end that racial division is to fuse the groups into one.
The new group would have to mate its development plans: take out those land uses which will not "pencil" (make money over time) and keep those plans that will. Personally, given America's push toward increasing its manufacturing base, the AMB/CCG plans look better, but the proforma numbers in the proposal support what is basically an educated guess at this point and need to be placed into a full cash balance spreasheet. I'm not at all comfortable with the lack of a real cash balance presentation in the AMB/CCG main proposal; if the project's going to be in the red or the black, show it.
Of course, they will show it in the black (making money).
Having a theater complex in a proposal - as Federal Oakland Associates does - is a terrible bet given the placement of movie content online and the negative impact that technological development is having on the theater industry overall (But at least they have the cash flow estimates installed in the proposal!) I can't see how anyone could justify the assertion that such a development would pay for itself over time. Talk about a rosy scenario!
On July 1st, Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Barbara Zuniga issued a decision that altered Richmond, California's economic course for the future. She ordered the oil giant to rewrite its environmental impact report (EIR) because of environmentalists' contention that the EIR was flawed and that a newly refurbished Richmond refinery would not produce lower carbon emissions than the current facility.
Her decision was hailed as a victory for "the little guy" by my friend San Francisco Chronicle Columnist Chip Johnson. But his column made me ask "Who's really the little guy, here?" So in a search for the answer to my query, I did some digging and found a person who represents the real "little guy": Dennis Roos. But before we meet Roos, a brief recap is in order.
Two Sides To A View
A year ago the Richmond City Council narrowly approved a development agreement allowing Chevron to refurbish the existing refinery. The contention with the approval, according to community activists, is that Chevron's working to use a "dirtier" yet cheaper to produce grade of crude oil. Chevron's claim was that the new process would result in cleaner air.
The approval set off a lawsuit filed against Chevron under the grounds that the refinery EIR did not meet California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) quidelines. The Judge agreed and handed down the ruling which called for construction of the new facility to stop until the problem with the EIR was solved.
I think what's forgotten by many is the current state of the refinery. It's old and dirty, right now, and needs to be upgraded which will not happen because of this tribal culture we live in. What the real problem is, frankly, is that every time there's a development project there's someone who crafts a reason to stop it mainly because they're jealous that someone has done something big. Think about it. My point is not to poo-poo environmental concerns, not at all, but to get at something I've noticed and now have to ask bluntly: why are all the activists poor and struggling and always working against an organization or person they view as wealthy? It's a common theme. Some of these activists don't want to work with organizations to improve anything; they'd rather just stop them cold. Period. But why can't they pay the rent, these guys?
Chevron's not the best neighbor in all of this either. As one who's worked in government, I can say the best companies work years to gain the community's trust and to make sure that the needs of the people are met when they don't need anything. From people I've talked to for background information, this was the Chevron of Richmond's past.
Chevron would contend they're working with the community now, and their Richmond plant website gives a good presentation of what they're doing and have done in that community. From the website one can gather the idea that Chevron has been a major and positive part of Richmond's culture, or has tried to be. Somehow this news isn't reaching the community activists, but perhaps they're not listening or reading it to begin with. Maybe Chevron should try Twitter?
What happened? Why is it, particularly in California, we have "sides" to an issue that consist of people who don't talk to each other? Moreover, it consists of people who just don't like to think at all; they'd rather toss insults or lawsuits than have an intelligent conversation that leads to a workable agreement. It's all so tribal this new culture - one side puts out its view, the other has a view and we in the middle have to figure it out - it's done nothing to improve our economy or quality of life, and it cost Dennis Roos his job. I'm frankly sick and tired of this dumbed-down culture we've allowed to form. Whatever caused it, it's time for a push-back.
The Activist Mayor of Richmond
Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin says the victory is a win for Richmond. But which Richmond? The people who need the jobs don't think it's a win at all and neither does the city's finance director Jim Goins, who said the ruling will "have an impact." (Hey, I guess Richmond's doing fine in this recession, huh? Someone needs to tell Mayor McLaughlin her city's unemployment rate is 10 percent and that the number of Richmond jobs has decreased 65 percent since 2007. Richmond's in trouble.
This is what I'm vexed about: the desire to "get a win" seems to have overruled any idea of "getting to yes" where both parties can agree and improve a community. Shame on Mayor McLaughlin for acting less like a leader and more like an activist. Mayor McLaughlin should talk to one of her own people about this so-called "victory": Richmond's Dennis Roos.
Dennis Roos is the little guy
Roos is a union electrician (with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 302 in Martinez, California) who grew up in Richmond and started working for Chevron there when he was in his 20s as a researcher of sorts. Then Roos took a series of jobs, building a reputation as an electrician who specializes in new facilities and remodeling (or what he calls an "inside wireman"), like the one Chevron had planned to build before Judge Zuniga handed down a questionable call. I talked to Roos about what happened and how it's effected him.
Roos explained that he'd already been released by Chevron and didn't know what he was going to do for income considering his normal obligations and the fact that he has two daughters: one in college and the other just graduated from high school. At any rate Roos said he was laid off, he thought prematurely, and without other job prospects forced to go on unemployment. "It's pretty detrimental to the economy (of Richmond and myself) and I'm reduced to what I call necessity spending." Roos recently bought a new home and as a result of that and the court action against Chevron, he's not in the best financial shape at all. (He's looking for work, so please contact me if you have any opening and I will relay that information to him.)
A terrible decision
Judge Barbara Zuniga could have resolved this issue in a way that helped all parties. Rather than order a stoppage of work to solve the environmental impact report problems, Judge Zuniga should have ordered the formation of a group of community activists and environmentalists to work with Chevron and then install the project change orders necessary to make sure the refinery's production process was "cleaner" in its emissions release than before. This would have saved the 1,000 jobs that have been removed - and perhaps even the 3,000 total refinery jobs that are now in question as Chevron considers moving production south to El Segundo - and made sure Richmond got the $61 million in community benefits from Chevron it negotiated for, which by the way lead to more jobs. Instead, Judge Zuniga made a terrible worst case call that harmed Richmond, Chevron, and workers like Dennis Roos.
It's hard to argue that "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away", but is it something we should tell our kids? Well that's what the National Health Service in the UK is doing according to the Times Online. What vexes me is why tell kids this and not adults? Moreover, why can't the U.S surgeon general say that to adults in America?
Well, back to the Brits first.
Everything about this campaign to promote delayed sexual activity in kids is questionable but one has to applaud the British government for at least trying to take the stigma out of nookie, something they've been working at since at least 2007, when a national conference about "pleasure principals" was held. Still, consider that the title of the document reportedly given to kids is called "Pleasure". Pleasure. An item of literature given to kids is called "Pleasure" and its about sex? Yikes.
Consider the rationale for all this: Steve Slack, who's the director of the Centre for HIV and Sexual Health at NHS Sheffield has advocated that far from causing youth to actually become sexually active, it could cause them to delay having sex until they are sure they will enjoy the experience.
What!?
How the heck is a kid going to avoid having sex because he or she may feel they will not enjoy it? That's ridiculous and implies the kid's already sexually experienced enough to have had a good roll in the hay! Plus, I think about my friends who are school teachers, two of which told me about incidents where they caught their 14-year-old students doing sex acts so bizarre it would shock you. And given the cultural similarities between America and Britain, I'm sure English instructors have similar stories too.
Its true that sex and orgasms are good for you, as are hugs and great relationships. It's good for your cardiovascular system. But all of these benefits are commonly aimed at adults who may have high blood pressure and other problems, not kids, who normally don't. That's why I say the effort's misplaced; adults should be the target market, not kids. I think about the San Francisco Bay Area and how uptight so many people here are - it's obvious a good daily orgasm's missing from their lives.
Sex makes adults happy!
Just yesterday a woman friend I talked to at a birthday gathering at the Balboa Cafe in San Francisco - a place commonly known as a singles hangout - told me that celibacy among women in the city was so common that it's not hard to find anyone who had not "had it" in over a year. I couldn't believe it, but anecdotally it seems to be true. Given the pleasures of and benefits of sex, what does it say about a regional society which seems almost devoid of it? It says that society is perpetually stressed-out, uptight, mean, rude, and always angry about something. And with that kind of person you're not going to get one who enjoys spontaneous conversation unless they've had a few cocktails or are like me and love to engage people to begin with. A fear of talking is not good at all, but I contend that describes the San Francisco Bay Area today. Indeed, the only group of people for which this isn't true seem to be Gays, if the free-loving, expressive environment of Gay Pride weekend is any indication.
But what about us straight adult people in the Bay Area?
I think the UK's "sex ed" program should be terminated there and aimed at adults over here in America and especially The Bay Area as a kind of experiment. I firmly believe all the violence I've seen - bouncers versus patrons and loser guys beating up homeless people - would not have happened at all if we had a better and freer attitude about sex and about each other.
This part of the world, this Bay Area, has become too neurotic for its own good and that's hazardous to one's health. Indeed, the Bay Area seems to reward neurotic behavior, causing the region to degenerate into a group of people afraid to get to know to each other on public transit systems, or in cafes, or on the street, just saying "hello." Attempts at making social connections have been relegated to Craigslist, where "missed connections" are many and rather silly. Funny, because all the person who had the "missed connection" had to do was say "hello" to the person they were interested in. You can't have sex, let alone great sex, if you fear to communicate with anyone.
Pleasure for kids? Way too early for them. Pleasure for adults in the San Francisco Bay Area? Long overdue.
As I write this, the historic Senate Confirmation Hearing for President Obama's Supreme Court Justice Designate Sonya Sotomayor have started. I'm going to tune in eventually, but I'm not expecting high drama here. As much as the GOP might trying to paint her as not-qualified she is and will sail through this process.
This is a real cool video I saw over at Vloggerheads by vlogger "Lifes Like That". She makes this fast motion video of how she makes pizza for her family. I think I'm going to copy her example! Yum!
On Saturday July 11th at 5: 30 PM, I walked out of a cafe on Grand Avenue near Lake Merritt in Oakland and noticed that sweet smell that comes after a light rain and a weird amber tint of the sidewalk below me, so I looked up and was surprised by an incredible site: a remarkable double rainbow that stretched overhead and to the left and right of me. It was such an amazing event that people came out of ZZA's and Sidebar restaurants just to take pictures of it; fortunately, I had my small Flip Video Camera.
Double rainbow in Oakland
There were two rainbows, one on top of the other in a perfect arch. It was such a site that people came out to their balconies to see it, and car traffic on Grand Avenue slowed because drivers were craining their necks to get a better look at it. What was remarkable was how robust the double rainbow was as I walked along, not dissolving into one rainbow. It's the first time I've ever seen a double rainbow, so I wondered what caused them to form. Off to Google.
To make it simple, because there are a lot of complicated explainations out there, a rainbow is formed when sunlight passes through raindrops at a certain angle. According to the Natonal Center for Atmostpheric Research, a double rainbow ">happens when sunlight is reflected twice within raindrops: the "primary rainbow" is formed in the "normal" way, but the "secondary" rainbow occurs after the double reflection in the raindrop itself (and explains why the outer rainbow's color order is reversed from that of the inner or primary rainbow). Given that information, can a triple rainbow form? Yes they can and do.
How rare is a double rainbow?
I wondered what does it mean - if anything - to see a double rainbow? Blogger and vocalist Luna Jade believes it means the viewer will be blessed. The Osho Energy Transformation Institute, that Jade links to, explains that "the double rainbow the symbol of transformation":
The double rainbow is the symbol of transformation.
In the first rainbow we see red is at the top and
violet at the bottom.
This represents the material world.
We are a rainbow, but the red belongs at the feet and
the first chakra area and the violet at the head.
So when we see the red at the top and the violet at
the bottom, it is as if we are seeing a person upside
down or descending from heaven diving down to the
earth. In the upper second rainbow,
and remember it is not such a common sight,
the colours are the right way up,
this symbolizes the journey back to heaven,
the ascent of the kundalini,
the journey of transformation, the spiritual world.
So a double rainbow over Oakland must mean something good's going to happen for a city that can use a few blessings, or at least for the Oaklanders who saw it today. With a massive budget problem, a persistent image as a dangerous city, and a double-digit unemployment rate, Oakland people overdue for great positive developments. The double rainbow's a great start - people who didn't know each other were talking on the street which is a rare happening in a Bay Area culture I think encourages anti-social behavior.
This happened today in San Francisco as I was walking up Sansome toward Bush at about 1:14 PM PST. Two men were arguing for some reason - one homeless - then the other man chased him and started to throw him but we asked him to stop and walk off. Later, the homeless man admitted to me on camera he made fun of the guy (for some reason) but that didn't mean he had to try and assault the guy.
Moreover, the police came later, but threw the Homeless Man's items away. Why? He says someone called security, gesturing to the building on the corner of Sansome and Bush. Unfortunately, my camera's batteries ran out, so I went to buy new ones at the Walgreens accross the street; when I returned the Homeless Man was gone.
But the bearded, long-haired guy in black clearly had some problems himself. Total anger management issues as all he had to do was ignore the Homeless Man and walk on, but it was clear that before I arrived he was already in an argument with the guy which (my guess) has to do with the kind of camp site the Homeless Man set up on the corner. Wrong, yes. But it was much more "wrong" to assault him.
If you feel like you've got to take that kind of action against a helpless person, you're one sick dude in my view.
Peter Jackson, the Academy Award-winning producer and director of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy and King Kong took on a new and exciting movie project in 2007 that's a documentary-style movie about an alien encampment in South Africa. Called "District 9" it's set for release August 14th and features perhaps the most realistic take on the age-old story of aliens visiting Earth I've ever seen thus far.
In District 9, a giant alien ship hovers over Johannesberg, South Africa. In total the ship and its crew have been there for 28 years. Over that time, a generation, they're forced into slum-like conditions in an area called "District 9". Reportedly a government agent become a friend to the aliens and becomes a human host for their biotechnology.
The Alien Encampment and the Ship in District 9
That's as much as I'll give away but what's interesting are the questions raised by the film: why do we feel the need to imprison those who are different from us? If we were visited by alien life forms in a public way, in other words, a large ship so large you can't miss it, how would we react? What does it mean to be ready for "alien visitors"? Will such a development cause those who are racist to be challenged in their thinking about other humans, or will the visit only make what some claim to be a mental illness even more of a problem?
Given improvements in our communications technology, allowing us to "hear" into space better, and current and upcoming search programs for extraterrestrial life, we may be closer to a point of actually dealing with those questions that we realize. In the interim, we have District 9 to serve as a kind of "situation simulator."
One of the highlights of the Michael Jackson Memorial is an amazing speech given by the Rev. Al Sharpton. Sharpton's always a lighting rod for criticism for his "tell-it-like-it-is" style, and he presented it at the memorial. Sharpton gave one of the best speeches I've ever heard because it cut deep to the core reasons why many people love and defend Michael Jackson and for another reason: Jackson represents the growth of mainstream American Culture, where people paid less attention race and more attention to what they liked regardless of the skin color of the person who made what they liked.
Sharpton walked up and delivered an old-fashioned unplanned stump stemwinder speech. The kind I'd expect to hear from him in church. Here's the transcript of Sharpton's masterpiece presented by Seattlemedium.com:
All over the world today people are gathered in love viduals to celebrate the life of a man that taught the world how to love.
People may be wondering why there’s such an emotional outburst. But you would have to understand the journey of Michael to understand what he meant to all of us. For these that sit here as the Jackson family - a mother and father with nine children that rose from a working class family in Gary, Indiana - they had nothing but a dream.
No one believed in those days that this kind of dream could come true, but they kept on believing and Michael never let the world turn him around from his dreams. I first met Michael around the 1970 Black Expo, Chicago, Illinois. Rev. Jesse Jackson, who stood by this family till now, and from that day as a cute kid to this moment, he never gave up dreaming. It was that dream that changed culture all over the world. When Michael started, it was a different world. But because Michael kept going, because he didn’t accept limitations, because he refused to let people decide his boundaries, he opened up the whole world.
In the music world, he put on one glove, pulled his pants up and broke down the color curtain where now our videos are shown and magazines put us on the cover. It was Michael Jackson that brought Blacks and Whites and Asians and Latinos together. It was Michael Jackson that made us sing, “We are the World” and feed the hungry long before Live Aid.
Because Michael Jackson kept going, he created a comfort level where people that felt they were separate became interconnected with his music. And it was that comfort level that kids from Japan and Ghana and France and Iowa and Pennsylvania got comfortable enough with each other until later it wasn’t strange to us to watch Oprah on television. It wasn’t strange to watch Tiger Woods golf. Those young kids grew up from being teenage, comfortable fans of Michael to being 40 years old and being comfortable to vote for a person of color to be the President of the United States of America.
Michael did that. Michael made us love each other. Michael taught us to stand with each other. There are those that like to dig around mess. But millions around the world, we’re going to uphold his message. It’s not about mess, but it’s about his love message. As you climb up steep mountains, sometimes you scar your knee; sometimes you break your skin. But don’t focus on the scars, focus on the journey. Michael beat ‘em, Michael rose to the top. He out-sang his cynics, he out-danced his doubters; he out-performed the pessimists. Every time he got knocked down, he got back up. Every time you counted him out, he came back in. Michael never stopped. Michael never stopped. Michael never stopped.
I want to say to Mrs. Jackson and Joe Jackson, his sisters and brothers: We thank you for giving us someone that taught us love; someone who taught us hope. We want to thank you because we know it was your dream too.
We know that your heart is broken. I know you have some comfort from the letter from the President of the United States and Nelson Mandela. But this was your child. This was your brother. This was your brother. This was your cousin. Nothing will fill your hearts’ lost. But I hope the love that people are showing will make you know he didn’t live in vain. I want his three children to know: Wasn’t nothing strange about your Daddy. It was strange what your Daddy had to deal with. But he dealt with it…He dealt with it anyway. He dealt with it for us.
So, some came today, Mrs. Jackson, to say goodbye to Michael. I came to say, thank you. Thank you because you never stopped, thank you because you never gave up, thank you because you never gave out, thank you because you tore down our divisions. Thank you because you eradicated barriers. Thank you because you gave us hope. Thank you Michael. Thank you Michael. Thank you Michael!
Fox News Bill O'Reilly said Sharpton's speech was racist, but that's certainly not the dumbest thing I've ever heard O'Reilly say - his crack about not knowing "Black restaurants" could be nice places to go to takes the prize - but it's close.
The bottom line is Michael Jackson did change American Culture. Think about it. He became a singing star just four years after the passage of The Civil Rights Amendment in 1964 and continued to produce hit after hit to his death, all the time gaining fans around the World who didn't care what color his skin was; they just liked his music and him. That's powerful, and all the more so when one considers the racial problems we've seen and experienced. It's really gotten better and Jackson deserves a lot of credit for that.
Conservatives can't deal with anyone telling the truth about race relations, but they'd better start because it's their inability to understand how race relations have changed that has doomed the political future of conservatives and of the GOP.
A political party historically based on hating a racial group - as was true for the GOP for decades - can't survive when people of different colors are mating as one. Causing that in a small way is but one of Michael Jackson's gifts to society. If it's hard for you to deal with that fact, one of the "hard facts that create America" as President Lincoln would say, you're not American at all because you don't get your own country.
Remember the blog post I wrote about a week ago stating that Oakland District Two Councilmember Pat Kernighan should get the Oakland Redevelopment Agency (ORA) involved in the effort to save the now-closed Parkway Theater? Well, I was just contacted by an unnamed source who explained in great detail how and when the ORA will work to redevelop the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, located at 1834 Park Blvd in Oakland. The effort will mean the "best of" the Parkway's employees will be asked to return to their jobs, if they want to do so.
First a brief review.
The once-popular Parkway Theater closed its doors on March 22, 2009 after its owners, Catherine and Kyle Fisher of Downey Street Productions, received an eviction notice from their landlord, the Cheng family of San Francisco just four days before closing. The news caused a major panic within the ranks of Parkway employees, who didn't know what they were going to do for work on the short notice of losing their jobs, and within the community, which didn't know how it was going to replace what came to be a center of the neighborhood. Without the Parkway, the area would be a certain candidate for anyone's definition of "blighted neighborhood."
With rapid restoration of the Parkway in mind, a Facebook-based community group was formed called "Save The Parkway" which kind of morphed into a new group called "I Like The Parkway Speakeasy Theater." (I guess "love" is too strong a term.)
At any rate, the organization, led Peter Prato held a large meeting on March 29th that drew about 40 people, including Kernighan and several long-time Oaklanders. There, it was decided that the organization would work to find a theater operator to rebuild and maintain the Parkway as it was before it closed, but better.
Eventually, an organization called Motion Picture Heritage Corporation (MPHC) stepped in to start talks with The Chengs and Kernighan to in some way acquire the Parkway Theater. While the negotiations have been "back-and-forth", the Parkway community folks were digging for information about and then writing and blogging about MPHC, an action that reportedly upset the groups' head Bill Dever. Since Dever and his partners hail from small Shelbyville, Indiana, they're not used to the very public communications that come with the matter of saving buildings and businesses the community values in California. Dever reportedly threatened to pull out of the deal if the chatter didn't stop.
Well, it subsided, but it didn't stop. Indeed, it got worse for a time, as it seemed Councilmember Kergnihan had one direction, the Parkway Community people another, and the former employees just wanted to be left alone, even as the Parkway Community people held another meeting and a party on May 31st to help get money to them. It was a huge mess. But, as I pointed out before, the best solution was for Councilmember Kernighan to bring everyone together, get the ORA involved, and go on the hunt for a number of developers and operators to compete for the right to rehab and run the facility, not just one.
Finally, it looks like we're on the way to seeing that happen. On Tuesday, members of the ORA, including Deputy Director Gregory Hunter, met with concerned Parkway Theater operatives and MPHC (Kernighan was not in the room) to determine a course of action for the ORA. According to my source, Hunter said "we're stepping" in. What that means is the agency may loan the group money or help MPHC purchase the building from the Chengs. As of this writing, the ORA has all of the property condition information and documents and correspondence that have been written to date. They can now do their research work before determining a specific plan of action.
The next step is a meeting with Kernighan and the Chengs, but my source - who was in the room - is confident that this will jump start the effort to save the Parkway. But my request is that the ORA include a meeting with the Parkway community as well to get their input and see the results of their survey work. I don't think their efforts should be ignored.
According to a story by TMZ.com, Tennessee assistant medical examiner Dr. Feng Li said an examination of the crime scene, police interviews, autopsy results, and lab analysis revealed that Sahel Kazemi did indeed murder former NFL Quarterback Steve McNair with multiple gun shots last Saturday.
Both were found dead in his Nashville condominium.
Many reports speculated that McNair was to divorce his wife, but TMZ also learned that the couple planned to purchase a new home. So with this, we can figure out that Sahel Kazemi didn't want McNair to go back to his wife and settled the issue with a tragic action. After purchasing a gun, she shot McNair four times - twice in his body and then in the head - and turned the gun on herself.
- Kazemi was pulled over for DUI Thursday morning between 1-1:30 AM. McNair was a passenger but was allowed to leave the scene via taxi with another person. Kazemi admitted to being high.
-Thursday night, Kazemi purchased a semi-automatic pistol. Police will not say who she got the gun from.
- Early Saturday morning, McNair meets Kazemi at his Nashville condo.
- 1:30 PM Saturday, 911 call is made alerting police of the shootings. Police believe bodies were actually discovered before 1 PM -- cops are "concerned" about the time lapse.
What's interesting is there's no indication Kazemi was arrested by police but that McNair was allowed to leave the scene without her. If the police did take her in if only for a few hours to sober up, she may have felt abandoned by McNair, and that coupled with the fact that he was not getting a divorce, may have pushed her over the edge.
Regardless of the details, it's a terrible end to the life of one of the NFL's most popular stars. I prefer to remember him as I saw him in the 2000 Super Bowl:
According to a story by TMZ.com, Tennessee assistant medical examiner Dr. Feng Li said an examination of the crime scene, police interviews, autopsy results, and lab analysis revealed that Sahel Kazemi did indeed murder former NFL Quarterback Steve McNair with multiple gun shots last Saturday.
Both were found dead in his Nashville condominium.
Many reports speculated that McNair was to divorce his wife, but TMZ also learned that the couple planned to purchase a new home. So with this, we can figure out that Sahel Kazemi didn't want McNair to go back to his wife and settled the issue with a tragic action. After purchasing a gun, she shot McNair four times - twice in his body and then in the head - and turned the gun on herself.
- Kazemi was pulled over for DUI Thursday morning between 1-1:30 AM. McNair was a passenger but was allowed to leave the scene via taxi with another person. Kazemi admitted to being high.
-Thursday night, Kazemi purchased a semi-automatic pistol. Police will not say who she got the gun from.
- Early Saturday morning, McNair meets Kazemi at his Nashville condo.
- 1:30 PM Saturday, 911 call is made alerting police of the shootings. Police believe bodies were actually discovered before 1 PM -- cops are "concerned" about the time lapse.
What's interesting is there's no indication Kazemi was arrested by police but that McNair was allowed to leave the scene without her. If the police did take her in if only for a few hours to sober up, she may have felt abandoned by McNair, and that coupled with the fact that he was not getting a divorce, may have pushed her over the edge.
Regardless of the details, it's a terrible end to the life of one of the NFL's most popular stars. I prefer to remember him as I saw him in the 2000 Super Bowl:
I use Google Trends to follow the most popular Internet searches of the day, and today was no exception. After the moving Michael Jackson Memorial I decided to take a look at what the read was over at the site page. I expected perhaps one or two mentions of "michael jackson" but as of 3:09 PM PST, every one of the top ten searches concerned the Michael Jackson Memorial or some performance that was part of it, but I'm not sure about the reference to Jennifer Hudson being pregnant. She was really on point with her singing, but she didn't look like she was "with child" to me:
1. michael jackson memorial booklet
2. is jennifer hudson pregnant
3. trey lorenz
4. brandon jackson
5. brooke shields and michael jackson
6. shaheen jafargholi
7. shaheen jafargholi michael jackson
8. john mayer
9. smile lyrics
10. smile lyrics charlie chaplin
And here's the screen shot of the site page:
This shows the World public's hunger to read and learn and just plain consume anything about or related to the King Of Pop is still at record-breaking levels. On the Thursday June 25th that Jackson passed, Google had so much traffic the firm's minders thought they were under attack, so it will be interesting to see how today's event impacts Internet traffic by days end.
Meanwhile, here's my take on the memorial with a great CNN-provided montage of Jackson's pop-history:
[originally appeared in SFGate City Brights] Okay, take a moment in the midst of your Michael Jackson sorrow and let's think, together, like epidemiologists here:
We in developed countries banned child labor for many reasons - but one of the primary reasons is the adverse health effects of child labor. One of the Victorian industries that objected the hardest to child labor bans was that of chimney sweeps - the argument being that only tiny humans (read: children) could fit inside a chimney. But then a scientist discovered the link in 1775 between being a child chimney sweep - and scrotal cancer from constant exposure to charcoal dust in trousers. This occupational-disease association was the beginning of child labor bans across industries.
Hundreds of years later, we've got a lone industry holdout which has remained exempt in developed countries - the entertainment industry. Even with restrictions on the hours worked, no other industry is allowed to employ children and babies.
Why should this child labor be stopped? I would suggest a hypothesis - that we have a clear association, like that of charcoal dust and cancer, between childhood exposure to fame and early death. I also would argue that the toxic exposure to fame is dose-dependent. Which is to say - the more famous you are as a child, the more likely you are to have a bad outcome. I would further argue that, like other reasons we've banned child labor in industries, there is also a developmental effect. In other words, the younger you are exposed to this toxic substance (fame), the greater your chances of a bad outcome.
If you view fame as a childhood poison, like asbestos, or charcoal dust, fame acts with life-shortening effect, and its impact is magnified by higher doses and earlier exposures. This is a potent epidemiologic argument for extending our current child labor ban to include our last holdout - the entertainment industry.
I would further argue that, besides early death, fame has a dose-dependent, and age-dependent association (perhaps causality) for two other highly destructive outcomes - substance abuse and mental health disorders. These high rates are also likely increased by earlier exposure to fame. While delaying the exposure to fame until adulthood may not completely prevent fame's destructive effects, it is likely that many vulnerable people will be more resistant at a later age. Furthermore, an adult can make informed decisions about fame exposure in a way that children are incapable of doing. There is also considerable anecdotal evidence that a child who is subjected to intense fame becomes developmentally delayed at the first age of exposure, resulting in delayed or even arrested maturation. The famous person is, for all intents and purposes, arrested at the age of earliest fame, lacking age-appropriate maturity, insight and/or impulse control.
In fact, you could, from an epidemiologic standpoint, argue that we, as a society, by allowing child-labor in the entertainment industry, are enabling, if not causing, the early death and destruction of our most gifted members.
What are the opposing arguments for treating the entertainment industry like every other industry? First, there is, of course, the profit angle. In particular, not just the industry's profits, but the parent's profit. These same arguments historically were used to try to prevent child labor bans in other industries, and are still used today to stymie child labor bans in developing countries.
Second, there is the argument that a talented person "wants" to be famous as a child. From an ethics standpoint, however, we as a society often restrict and severely limit children's desires for their own good - both individually and as a group.
Finally, there is, of course, what I would call the Disney effect - which is to say that our children want to see other children singing and dancing and acting. But is that a sufficient justification for the widespread destruction of talented lives?
I would suggest that, at a minimum, an appropriate legacy for the sad tale of Michael Jackson's death would be a Screen Actors' Guild-RIAA music industry-CDC joint prospective study. If children are to be used in the entertainment industry, it is past time we tracked their health outcomes over time. The results may be shocking - and the study would not be hard to do. Assessing fame is quite simple these days - entire businesses are devoted to measuring it in precise detail. A long-term, longitudinal study looking at the effects of early, dose-dependent fame exposure is the least we as a society owe to the memory of this talented, and tortured, individual - Michael Jackson.
So do you think fame is toxic to children? Should we restrict or track children in the entertainment industry? Weigh in with the comments section. If you want to advocate for protecting children in the entertainment industry, you can go to a page at my website and send an email.
You can read more from Doc Gurley at her website: www.docgurley.com
You know it's a special day when your T-Mobile cell phone allows you to make "Emergency Calls only", you know you paid the bill, and you can't even call customer service. I've seen a lot of days and a gaggle of events, but nothing like this. If you didn't know Michael Jackson passed way, today, you do now.
This memorial is incredible: Stevie Wonder just gave a terrific performance. Now, former LA Lakers great Ervin "Magic" Johnson is giving a really personal, funny, ("I didn't know Michael Jackson liked Kentucky Fried Chicken!") and touching speech. And now, Jennifer Hudson's taking the stage. It's simply amazing this was asssembled so quickly and yet so well. It's moving.
Unfortunately, in death, Michael Jackson is more powerful than in life. His power was always to make us happy, if just for one moment in time, feel carefree and joyful. Sadness today, yes, but also clapping, singing, laughter, and joy, and for me, awe. What an amazing power to have, that ability to bring a smile to someone's face. To change the world through the creative act of making a sound. A tune. A song. And how great to take that power and then give back with the money from it. Michael Jackson has given more to foundations and causes than any pop star in history. Michael cared.
For me, this feels like a weird kind of cultural flashback. Reverend Al Sharpton's talking about the 1970 PUSH Convention held in Chicago, at the Chicago Amphatheater, and I was there. From growing up on the south side of Chicago, and knowing people who at least claimed to know the Jacksons, who lived in Gary, Indiana, then coming out here to Oakland, then to Texas for college, and Berkeley for grad school, and everything else, there was Michael Jackson. Always a part of my life. And now, Brooke Shields is fighting back tears to explain a very personal relationship she had with MJ, but I feel like I've grown up with her too. There all of this is, my life in front of me. Maybe yours too.
And now Michael's gone.
But while he's gone, to Heaven, it's not just his music that lives on, but this message: make other people happy, if for one moment. If you have to write something, make it nice, not mean. Sharpton said it best a moment ago and to his kids: "There was nothing strange about your daddy, but what your daddy had to deal with." He's not kidding. Michael Jackson, from the time of his birth to childhood, to adult , to know, was an extraordinary, misunderstood genius of a man who just wanted to be happy, and spread happiness.
I hope and pray we take up his soul and do the same.
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