Peace Corps Threatened By Short Funding

What's up with the news of the Peace Corps having to halt their new wave of recruits from being deployed to their prospective countries because Congress hasn't passed a budget? Aren't Obama, Bush, and McCain trying to sell us on the need to expand humanitarian assistance programs?

Well the Peace Corps is the way to go. These volunteers are ambassadors for this country. Each teacher, engineer, or agricultural volunteer represents a view of Americans that differs by miles from the asinine teenage flicks that inundate our movie screens, or the dirtbags in reality TV shows that flood international homes.

They get paid close to nothing and have to live the way their students live. I was a volunteer myself (in the late '90s in Sri Lanka before the Feds yanked us out when the civil war heated up) and was paid thirty dollars a month. I learned to make do with what I had just like the folks I was serving. It taught me humility and understanding which I sorely needed.

To hear that volunteers aren't being deployed because there is not enough budget is unbelievable to me. We spend so much on war where we end up killing and being hated. The Peace Corps teaches a different approach: building wells, ensuring safe water, garden projects, teaching English, job skills, and teaching about AIDS, safe sex, and other health related curriculum.

The Peace Corps supports over 8000 volunteers in 74 countries. To lose a chunk of these volunteers is a true loss to this country.

The DeceptiColonel

Remember the episode of the old Hulk TV series with Bill Bixby when a meteorite radiates the Hulk and he only halfway morphs back to David Banner? He becomes the Dulk, if you will. That's what I'm reminded of when I see the Kentucky Fried Chicken designed by Jeffrey Daniels on Western near Beverly. (Does that make me Mr. McGee?) This may be the most unique looking corporate fast food restaurant anywhere, and the corrugated metal predates the overdone corrugation nation we're living in. I'd say it's a bucket transforming into a chicken. Let's call it a chucket.

Cityscapes & Googie Fetish

My husband bought me some paint and canvasses to keep my mind from wandering. I'm bipolar and I tend to be self-destructive at times, but that's another story. Anyway, I've been doing a series on cities so here they are...

Half Baked: Not All Eurasians Come Out Purty

My nephew is a quarter Russian, quarter Korean, and half Filipino. He's so damn adorable. Then I have a couple of friends with multi-racial kids that are super cute. One too many times, however, I've been told by people (experts in their own minds) that if I were to have a little watermelon, it'll look way cute. My husband is a halfy himself - white and Mexican.

Then of course there are those who say, "Half white and Asian kids are always so adorable. Good combination, always."

I say to this...WHATEVER! I've seen a lot of mixblix in my time, and the genetic theorists are frikkin' wrong. There was nothing cute about some of the multis except for their predictable GAP attire. These generalizations and exotic fallacies piss me off. The truth is there are as many plain, average, and ugly halfies than there are cute ones. You end up with the same cute factor spectrum as anyone else, with the same percentage of 2s, 7s and perfect 10s. So chill, everyone. Shut your trap and don't let me hear you say what a great combination Asian and white children are. I will slug you. And no. There will be no watermelons popping out of my delicate apertures.

Library, library, quite contrary

I've heard way too many excuses for Santa Ana's failed library "system", now down to the Main Library and the Newhope Library Learning Center. Apologists point to the housing slump, bleak tax revenue, public safety funding that should override other city services, and on and on. Yes, crime is up. The recent high-profile shootings are horrible. But why can't the city leadership see the direct connection between libraries, literacy, education, and jobs?

A strong library system is a sign of a healthy city. A city council that supports improving libraries - expanding hours, adding services, staffing highly qualified librarians, rehabilitating facilities, expanding libraries, constructing new libraries - is a city council that supports creativity, child development, adult literacy, skill development, gang intervention, safe learning, and employment.

Let's look at the Santa Ana City Council. If the economy is up or down, doesn't matter, the Council has gutted the libraries to fund other priorities. Even the bookmobiles were stripped of their funding! How long do the councilmembers think the current economy will be in the doldrums? They're not even willing to start planning for better times. As long as improving the library system is off the table, we're stuck with another symbol of a sick city.

We need libraries now more than ever.

Show me some skin

I discovered the secret to stepping into construction sites to take a look-see without getting hassled. Dress professionally, look like you belong, and when construction workers come your way, just give them a friendly nod and say, "It's looking really good."

Today I rolled into the job site for Los Angeles Unified's new School of Visual and Performing Arts. What a beast...about $200 million budgeted. Getting close, and LAUSD plans to open it up Fall 2009. Too bad nobody knows what the curriculum will be or which students will be allowed to attend. Setting aside the steep pricetag for a moment, the design is tops. I'm big on the silver-gray metallic panels, the awesome twisted tower view of/from the 101 freeway, and the coney library (a flash-forward version of Oxford's Radcliffe Library). It's a sure bet that a sci-fi movie will be filmed here, like Serenity and the Cell were filmed at Diamond Ranch High School.

I left quickly. Horrible memories of interviewing for a stint as a substitute teacher in 1996 (!) came back, so I had to escape. Egads...I can still hear that phone ringing at 5 in the morning to call me back to hell.

Save the Bucket

How did the Save the 76 Ball phenomenon catch on? I haven't heard of any similar campaigns to keep the Kentucky Fried Chicken buckets alive and spinning. Those larger than life signs are historic. (Hey, anyone remember the Leave it to Beaver episode when the Beav gets stuck in the teapot billboard that actually emits steam? How about Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Rat interrupts Damone watching the same Beaver episode to get him to bring the wallet to the restaurant?) The days of the old buckets are numbered, and most cities have zoning regulations that keep a new giant bucket permanently locked out.

Here's a KFC in North Long Beach (Artesia & Downey) that still has the old Colonel...not the updated one with the silly apron...up high on a bucket.