A police officer shot John Crawford dead in a Wal-Mart. Mr. Crwaford was shopping in the toy aisle and holding a toy BB gun. Mr. Crawford was a black man. The police officer, who was acquitted of any wrong doing, was a white man. Let’s start a conversation about gun control and the interpretation of…
My T-shirt caught fire and burned in the microwave.¹ There probably wouldn’t have been a fire if I’d removed the shirt when the timer went off, but, I was working in another room. Sure, I smelled smoke, the air has been smokey for 2 days because of the wildfires. Losing the shirt was not upsetting. Neither was the fact I could…
I was a five year old who stuttered with an occasional stammer. A few people noticed and mentioned this to my mom and recommended early intervention to correct the problem. There was a frustrating afternoon for both of us when she was trying to get me to say school and something snapped. She looked at me;…
Damn. He’s back. He’s thinner, a lot thinner to the point of gauntness, he has the yellow cast of jaundice and a weariness that wasn’t there before, or maybe it’s just the loss of hope. I last saw Curt in Starbucks loading bags of sugar into a cup of coffee. It was February and he…
I get anxious this time of year now and latter realize it is October 17th. My dad died on this day in 1998 and somehow I always find myself doing something, well, not normal. This year I cleaned the plexiglass on the 7th floor balcony at 8:30…. pm. I got my own crazy. My brother…
911, what is your emergency? People, 911 is not your personal assistant or bodyguard on demand. In Minnesota a man ran out of cheese while making lasagne and called 911. In Ohio, a man called 911 because Burger King would not honor a coupon. An understaffed, overstressed operation should not be fielding these calls; 911 operators…
This past spring, as I was walking, I noticed these “things.” It was the same “thing” in different locations, painted different colors. The plaque on them said Oakland A’s Stomper. Ohhhhhhh, it’s an anteater, an aardvark. It’s hard to have a mascot for athletics, so have a mascot with a name that starts with an A.…
Here are the numbers; 59% of the 997 people surveyed said Kavanaugh should not be appointed to the supreme court if Ford’s charges are true; 12% are unsure and 29% say yes. This is not partisan politics; this is wrong. This was not a normal week. How did we get here? The Nuclear Option The…
The tech headlines in June were all about the inaccuracy of facial recognition software, if you’re not a white male.¹ For white males, facial recognition for gender was accurate 99% of the time; the accuracy of facial recognition for gender of dark skinned females was 65%. Why is this happening in 2018? We know how, the…
I’ve been asked a few times, “why do black women look so mean all of the time.” It’s a good question, but I can’t think of an easy response. See the comments to the right I read this week.¹ I am referred to as an animal. “These are animals.” “Stop hiring these animals.” That was hard…
The Safeway clerked laughed and shook her head as she scanned my purchases. With 2 bottles of Dr Pepper and 2 giant sized Hershey’s Cookies and Cream bars; I laughed with her. I was in a full blown binge mode. Three days later, 12 bottles of Dr Pepper, 4 giant sized candy bars, 2 bags of…
Why do we celebrate Labor Day, historical significance or modern day celebration? Labor day originated as a celebration of unions, back in the late1800’s. Now, the first Monday in September is more about back to school, end of summer and sales. Union membership was at a record low in 2017 – 10.7% of the working population.…
“Why are you limping, are you hurt?” I get asked monthly. “I have scoliosis. My spine curves laterally to the right instead of going straight down my back throwing off my gait. I can compensate for it most of the time; when I’m tired, I limp.” Would friends and casual acquaintances ask me that so…
You are being watched. It’s not a person looking at you, speaking into a headset, it’s not an overhead motion activated camera tracking with a flashing red recording light. No, it’s none of that cool looking stuff you see in movies. If you use a computer for work, your employee can install or may have…
There are people living in tents, sleeping on the sidewalks, huddling in doorways. Why? They don’t have homes. Must be a shortage of homes. Crazy, right? There is a lack of diversity in tech. Must be a “pipeline problem?” Oh please, that is a marketing construct for corporate absolution. The real issue is supply and…
Nia Wilson died when her throat was slashed in an unprovoked attack on a BART train a few weeks ago; the day I turned 60. I determined I needed to work until 65 to ensure I am fully funded to the age of 96. I was in a bubble. I forgot Black women experience the…
Facebook showed this photo I posted three years ago today. It reminded me how different some things are. I took the week off to do nothing in particular, except to rest pause and reflect. When was the last time you took a pause? Lessons learned; it’s something I do at work after a big project. It’s…
This is like eating that entire bag of chips. You know you did it, you were there for every moment and yet it still comes as a shock when you reach in and the bag is empty. Yup, that is how I feel about turning 60 today. And, when people ask, what are you doing…
I published my first blog post on July 14, 2014. I’ve done 210 weekly posts. It reminds me, every now and then we need to celebrate and have fun. My celebration 🙂 A big thanks to Matt Simoneaux (Baby Elvis) for taking these photographs last year in Deland Florida.
I had this moment of clarity. The Hasan Minaj, interview on the New Yorker radio hour. It’s right after 9/11, Hasan is a teenager and his father told him not to answer the phone; but of course he answers to vicious racial and religious slurs and threats and violence and ending with, and the caller…
“Based on a true story.” That is code for a condensed version of the story, trimmed down to be told in a short period of time and carefully edited to create a compelling story of near mythical proportion. Coming this fourth of July, amidst the parades, barbecues and fireworks, are you celebrating a holiday “based…
On March 13, 2018, a flight attendant was responsible for a puppy being placed in an overhead bin. The 10 month old french bulldog died in flight. Less than 24 hours later, Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana sponsored a bill to ban pets from the overhead bin, because “pets are family.” What does Senator Kennedy…
This Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph, The Soiling of Old Glory, by Stanley Forman is cringe worthy, sickening. It’s 1976, Boston. I heard statements like, well t at didn’t happen here, or that was 42 years ago.The kid wielding the flag is 17 years old. [Joseph] Rakes vividly recalls the “blind anger” that motivated him—anger aimed,…
The first sound – the loud smack of a 4×4 piece of wood hitting shin bones. The second sound – an anguished piercing scream. The third sound – silence. Everyone stopped – mid sentence, mid action, mid thought. A 145 pound wrestler with all his might tried to keep a gymnast on a beam, unaware,…
“An excellent cast is jobless because of Roseanne herself. The show was like a bridge and she burnt it. Lost potential.” That was one my text this week. Potential. It’s that thing. People stay in a relationship, a job or an investment because there is “potential.” Yet, there is the sobering moment when someone asks, what actions…
Memorial Day – at times it seems we are trying to hard to forget what the day is really about. Which is rather ironic for a holiday that is all about memory. Memorial day is in honor of those who have died while serving in the country’s armed forces. Formerly known as decoration day, the…
You think, “Yuk, that doesn’t taste right.” Then you remember, certain food combinations (orange juice after brushing your teeth – cringe)¹ destroy flavors. Hence, the value of a palate cleaner to remove food residue, and competing flavors; enabling you to fully experience your food without the yuk. A weekend is a cerebral palate cleanser. It neutralizes…
A blown fuse, caused by a temporary overload or power surge simply needs to be replaced or reset. A short circuit is frayed wires that need to repaired. They both result in no power, but the fixes are very different. After eight hours of trying to troubleshoot and fix a no power situation in my…
I had role models for my neurosis. When my Dad died, my mom routinely said, “I’ll be dead in a year, you know when one spouse dies the other dies within a year.” A few years later, my mom was deeply concerned and sad; she was still alive. “Does this mean I didn’t love your…
This was pricing discussion was about to take that ugly turn. Our pricing is 30% higher than the competition. The engineer flipped back to his PowerPoint slide detailing the functionalityand snapped, “We’re not higher, we have more features. You’re comparing apples and oranges.” The developers and offering management did the head nod, acknowledgement of the…
“Wow, that’s what you really think?” I slapped my laptop shut, stunned by what I’d read. Was I overreacting to a comment made by a connection on LinkedIn? What’s my problem? Is this a teachable moment? I returned to the post three days later. I read the replies and six out of eight expressed the…
The coffee booth was not at the framer’s market this week, so I took orders from a few vendors to do a coffee run. A customer heard “Starbucks” in the exchange. African American Customer: “No, you can’t go to Starbucks. After what they did, boycott Starbucks.” African American Vendor: “Listen, Starbucks has an engage the…
“…the police shouldn’t be drinking soda anyway.” Huh? The speaker was referring to Berkeley’s sugar ban and a new recommendation asking the … City of Berkeley departments and City food services contractors to refrain from: 1. Procuring sugar-sweetened beverages with City funds; 2. Selling sugar-sweetened beverages on City property, including in vending machines; and 3.…
Can we stop with the Easter Bunny? Look, don’t have kids, I’m not involved in child rearing, so herein is an observation. A key objective in education is critical thinking reasoned judgment in thought and action; the ability to reason well and the disposition to do so. This means, education has to first undo the…
I’m stalled. Work is stalled, the blog is stalled, my plans for world domination in some areas is stalled. A car stalls when the engine is overloaded. My stall is not an overloaded engine; it’s a lack of vision, an absence of what’s next? In times like theses, I watch basketball; it’s March Madness and…
I see this in Target all the time. Shoppers start by picking up a drink at the in store Starbucks and upon check out, these shoppers do this strange juggling act of trying to carry all their items and not pay 10 cents for a bag. This is hilarious, because, oh yes, pay $5.45 for…
There was a time you’d find a bank of phone booths at any airport. Larger airports had set ups with privacy screens and a shelf for the working business person. But that was before cell phones. Cell phones were a disruption. The airports could have tried to keep the phone booths in place, made the…
If there is an invention, an idea, a discovery that is not accepted by a ruling body, does that mean it is not qualified or worthy? Consider the electronic feeding tube; rejected by the American Veterans Administration, but adapted by the French government in 1951. A few years later,the same inventor approached the same organization,…
First, there are sirens. Your brain registers that there are a lot of sirens and emergency vehicles; something must have happened? Minutes later, you are in the office and everyone is standing in the middle of the office, still and quiet with one guy on the phone. When he finishes his call, he reports, “my…
The Lunar New Year which is typically the second new moon after the winter solstice, started February 16th. This is different than the solar new year, which started January 1. Habit makes us want to map something unfamiliar to something we know. Which is why people unfamiliar with this start to look at me as…
My favorite cashier at Target – Karen. Sure, I could do the self check out, but I always laugh with Karen It wasn’t always that way. In 2013, Target had reported that hackers stole data from up to 40 million credit and debit cards of shoppers who had visited its stores during the holiday season.…
Put down the phone, walk away from the tweets and posts and hashtags and let’s talk. Drop the defenses and attitude for a few moments. #MeToo shed light egregious forced assaults, degrading groping and humiliating innuendo in the workplace. Now, Three months post Weinstein, what sound likes “embarrassing choices” and “regrettable sex” have crept into…
If you don’t know, what you don’t know, how do you learn? Follow me here. In the realm of knowing versus don’t know, there are 4 possibilities. 1. You know what you know 2. You know what you don’t know 3. You don’t know what you know 4. You don’t know what you don’t know.…
“You will feel a little discomfort.” A little discomfort is squinting in bright sunlight. A little discomfort is your underwear wedged in your butt crack. This feels like my teeth are being flossed with a very slender wire, this feels like a sharp object is being shoved into my gums. This is not discomfort, this is…
Because people were bombing black churches and he preached Because blacks had the right to vote in 1870 and Jim Crow laws kept them from voting and he marched Because he protested the Viet Nam, a war in which McNamara admitted we couldn’t win and he spoke out Because his message and actions were nonviolent…
“The doctors say it’s never going to get better. A nap won’t help. She’s not lazy. She struggles with pain and fatigue every single day. She has lupus, fibromyalgia or arthritis and it’s not the same as your cold or body pain. The most frustrating part is people look at her and say “you look…
Five minutes; I watched a movie this weekend and the last 5 minutes changed everything. Stories have an arc, the conflict, the climax and the resolution. What I thought was the resolution changed 3 times in the last 5 minutes. The Pacers versus the Knicks. It was 105 Knicks and 99 Pacers with 11 seconds…
She is a mini me. This little brown girl with wide eyes sporting a leopard print hat that matched mine. We locked eyes for a moment; both of us break into a smile. A few moments later, it all made sense. The last tent on the right. There are 4 tents pitched under the highway…
Is it that obvious? I’ve walked by this fence more than 150 times. I took pictures of artwork in October. Yet, it wasn’t until last Friday night, when my friend Audrey was driving me home that I realized, there were letters, there was a name, “The Lot.” How did miss it? When I took the…
