Bull Testicles, Psilocybin and the Gunnison Admonition

Those zany state politicians. What crazy, kooky cut-ups!

An eight-paragraph, four-reporters-credited report in the June 18 Los Angeles Times – so it must be true – says the governor of the Great State of California, grappling with an unprecedented budget disaster, took the time to send the president pro tempore of the state Senate, a pair of metal bull testicles. Read more »

6.17.2009

Democrats Offer Their Plan to Close the Budget Gap. Like the Governor, $4.9 Billion in School Cuts

Democratic lawmakers unveiled a plan June 17 of over $11 billion in cuts — $4.9 billion of them imposed on public schools — to close a nearly $24 billion hole in the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

Even though it generates no savings, Democrats also would suspend the requirement students pass an exit exam to graduate from high school. Read more »

6.16.2009

Commission Weighs Major Tax Overhaul, Flat Income Tax Rate

While lawmakers and the governor lurch toward a budget compromise, the Commission on the 21st Century Economy is starting to wind up its work to transform California’s Depression-era created tax system.

At the 14-member commission’s penultimate meeting in Los Angeles June 16, its members appeared to narrow its potential recommendations, due July 31, to two proposals. Read more »

6.16.2009

A Campaign Message from Jerry Brown

I have had an unusual opportunity to see California State government and its political process up close for a long, long time. I had my first glimpse – in the fifties – when my father ran for attorney general and then for governor, and again when I was governor. It was profoundly different then. Read more »

6.15.2009

A Different June 15 Budget Deadline

Normally, June 15 is the day that the Legislature routinely fails to send a budget to the governor by its constitutional deadline.

This year, the Legislature beat its June 15 deadline by the better part of four months, handing the governor a budget in February for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Read more »

6.12.2009

The Woodman on Money

“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.”

— Woody Allen Read more »

6.12.2009

Akihabara and Anime

Akihabara is ground zero for anime. There are umpteen places selling electronics too in this northeastern part of Tokyo, about five minutes from the Tokyo subway station, but 17-year-old Katie is here for the anime and she is not disappointed.

Anime is Japanese animation. It’s something more than simple cartoons.

There are numerous genres. Read more »

6.11.2009

Of Asakusa, Grandmothers and Plastic Food

Asakusa is a quiet, traditional Tokyo neighborhood — once the tourist-fueled pandemonium of Nakamise Dori and the Senjoi Temple are escaped.

Stepping out of the subway onto Kaminarimon Dori, the main drag, persistent salesman hawk rickshaw rides.

“Empty,” one entrepreneur gestures quite accurately to the traditional human-powered transport. The whole scene screams tourist trap. Read more »

6.10.2009

Tokyo’s Tsukiji Fish Market

The action is starting to wind down at Tsukiji fish market. It’s around 7:30 a.m.

Not winding down, really, just morphing into a new style of frenzied mojo.

Catches of anything imaginable aquatic – from cuttlefish to sea cucumber – have arrived three hours earlier, been auctioned off and now merchants in the cavernous girder-latticed warehouse are packing up product for existing buyers or talking up their wares to potential ones. Read more »

6.09.2009

Sending This Out To Mrs. Lucas:

“I want to be with you forever though the grasses of the whale-hunting sea come to shore but from time to time.”

— Nihon Shoki song, translated by Janine Beichman

(Editor’s Note: Apparently this poem was left by hotel staff on our chief correspondent’s bed in Tokyo. His unprintable response is best translated as: “Damn those lousy whale hunting sea grasses!”) Read more »

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