Cantara’s (Social) Notebook

Do I have to come back to America and slap you all upside the head? Even the Weather Underground wouldn't have fucked up as much as you have. All right — here are the rules for the revolution: DO NOT bring the children . For Christ's sake leave them with the sitter. Children who are too young to understand the cause shouldn't be put in jeopardy for the cause.  DO NOT make life harder for the elderly and infirm.  Appoint leaders. Yes, you're going to have to do this. You can throw them to the wolves later. Hide the money ! Your leaders can do this for you.  DO NOT let in spongers. Cut out the luxuries! NO MORE organic chicken dinners and sheep's-milk-cheese salads! DO NOT disrespect your food crew!  DO respect your environment — which includes its permanent residents. Rally to a SPECIFIC CAUSE. This is a strength, not a weakness. ARTICULATE THE FUCKING MISSION!!! Failure to do this is what undid the Weather Underground. If you're going to long-...

Take a close and objective look at the angry demonstrators now gathered on Wall Street, and at similar protest encampments burgeoning from San Francisco to Madrid. What you see is not simply a vast expression of rage at the crisis enveloping the world of democracy. The demonstrations also frame a fundamental contradiction—a profound source of strength that has been transformed into a disabling weakness. They deserve enormous credit for drawing a global spotlight to the perpetrators of that crisis: a sinister cabal of financial scamsters and rightwing politicians, backed by the dubiously “grassroots” electorate of the Tea Party. What almost no one, on the right or left alike, wants to talk about is that the cabal was empowered by the very people who are now denouncing it. Progressives, out of a mixture of political correctness and embarrassment, carefully avoid the subject. The Republicans are delighted at the silence, because it masks what should be fatal weaknesses in ...

Heard on NBC radio from San Francisco 1949-1951, Candy was the toughest and wittiest of all the female private investigators on the air. Candy Matson, YU 2-8209 created by Monty Masters—husband of the star, Natalie Masters —also had some of the cleverest dialogue and well-plotted mystery scripts in broadcast drama. An added plus are the real-life Bay Area locations woven into each story. Candy’s love interest, SFPD Lt Ray Mallard, was played by Henry Leff, while her sometime sidekick, aptly named Rembrandt Watson, was played by Jack Thomas. Astonishingly for the early 50s, Rembrandt is obviously gay— probably the first favorably portrayed homosexual on radio . This episode, entitled “ The Fort Ord Story ”, is dedicated to my husband, novelist-editor Michael Matheny, who took his basic training in Fort Ord in 1967 before being shipped overseas.

An old friend from San Francisco, the tough-guy actor and outspoken gay activist J.E. Freeman, just sent this poem to me and asked if I could repost it for National Coming Out Day , which I am very glad to do, as the suicides of those young  people are also weighing heavily on my mind: Unfortunately to be free requires sometimes that one fight back The most expensive quality in life is freedom. Freedom is never free. Never without cost. The price is not caring what the price is The price is to dare to be unafraid. Or if afraid to stand any way in fear and to take what comes. For what else makes courage? How else are heroes made? It is by facing that which we fear and surviving. It lies in requiring in demnding the haters to stand exposed in the light of their hatred which is only their own fear lashing out. To kill one's self is to become one's own executioner. It is to buy into the verdict of the hater. If one must die for one's freedom make the h...

Ross Ching 's vision of a carless LA. That's what I love about this city, all the possibilities. This posting is dedicated to my favorite car-free film producer, Marcia Nasatir.

What, no Bramwell? The Bronte sisters, painted by Bramwell

Tim Cooney in New York in the 50s. Just posted on YouTube today is an hour-long talk with Timothy J. Cooney (1929-1999), author of the book Telling Right from Wrong: What is Moral, What is Immoral, and What is Neither One Nor the Other . The blurb says: An important contribution to the field of moral philosophy, this book provides an objective and precise answer to the question, “What is morality?” Moral philosophers, the author claims, have gotten bogged down in meta-ethical questions and now find themselves in a hopelessly relativistic position. Cooney develops a unique moral theory and isolates and explores the core of morality, separating actual moral issues from apparent ones. It’s a slim book, only 158 pages, published in 1985 by the small press Prometheus Books after Random House rescinded their contract when Cooney admittedly forged a letter from the chairman of the philosophy department at Harvard that attested to its brilliance. And that not insignificant anecdote po...