Why I'm not an Obamaniac

Iran not a "serious threat".

I could go further and rant on as to why I'm so impatient with the alleged progressives who think we are an empire and shouldn't be, but seriously, I need to remember that people with no sense of the links between culture, economics and war nor of the great sweep of history pose no serious threat and ignore 'em. (Unless they vote, I guess.)

Transporter

A Berkeley High grad and local junior college student wound up in a late-night frat fight and killed a UC engineering student.

It's tragic for everyone -- obviously the victim, but also the killer. He was just a kid like me, only better, because at only 20 he was already going to college. He had plans and a social life. Unfortunately he also had a knife.

Judgment will follow the natural question: Why did he have a knife?

I spent a lot of time out on the streets of Berkeley and Oakland after dark. To me it makes perfect sense that he had a knife. His drunken judgment to pull it is what must weight against him. Very possibly he found himself surrounded by a bunch of large and arrogant frat boys and reacted in fear and self-defense. Personally, I hope if that is the case, that is how the case is ruled.

Sometimes there is no good news.

Stories Untold

I really have nothing to say except this article just overflows with dramatic possibilities, stories either real or imagined that can be made to fit the facts as known, stories of lives led astray, men whose paths are never clear, and the overwhelming confusion of choices some folks are faced with every day, every hour. This article reminds me of my old dream of bringing these dusty suburbs to life through the power of story, these suburbs I fled to when Berkeley, unique little Berkeley, became just too cold. It also reminds me that no matter where you go, for some people life is simply fucked.