Stow Lake

Orlando and I had a little jaunt around Stow Lake today. We always take the inside track around the island. There are more squirrels there, and a dirt trail rather than the sidewalk. It makes it feel a bit more like we are in nature. The trail takes you over the meditation stones at the base of the waterfall and through the pavillion, a gift from China to it's "sister" city. It is a lovely little walk. One of the best parts of the seasons changing was the bloom of the Calla Lilies. They had taken over an entire hillside on the south side of the island, and they were gorgeous. Standing about shoulder tall to me, the impressive army of lilies blanketed the island with a field of white. They must have really looked like an army to someone because several months ago now someone ripped all the plants right out of the ground. In their place was some rudimentary landscaping, a trail fork to lead you up the hill and some brush plants. I decided to give it all a chance, maybe it too would grow in to be impressive, maybe there was some larger picture that I didn't know enough about. But today the small plants have grown in are in full bloom and are depressingly scraggily and even as a team of new plant life leave you feeling blue and unimpressed.

I have no idea what caused the massacre of the beautiful calla lilies that once roamed free on Strawberry Hill. I miss them every time we decide to visit Stow Lake. The end result certainly does not justify the brutality or absence of the beautiful plants.

Prop 8

We feel very strongly that everyone wishing to commit to another through marriage be given the right to do so through the freedoms of our country. It is confusing why religion and state can not see their lines as clearly as we can. We can support the discrimination that the local government has obliged for so long now.

This is an issue that has deeply affected us over the last year in California. It has been a difficult decision whether or not to sign an official marriage license.

We have decided that once everyone in California is allowed to marry we will sign an official marriage license, until then we have donated our marriage license fees to www.gettoknowmefirst.org.

Also check out: http://equalityforall.articulatedman.com/home

bicycles only

As a car owner and operator in San Francisco I am making a plea to please designate bicycle only streets in the city. Even one main north south running and one main east west running street would make a HUGE difference. There they are manually transporting themselves without polluting my air or harming my earth and in return we run into them with large fast moving machinery.

The city makes bike lanes, but the transitions from one street to an avenue force the bicyclist to weave across busy intersections to stay on route. I am ready to sacrifice more parking spaces to accommodate those energetic enough to bike. And seriously, we all know that the bike population would instantly double if they weren't subjected to the constant threat of death by dumb car driver.

So as a car owner, who has not been on a bicycle in over five years, please give them their own lanes. Support clean air, lower insurance rates, and healthy knees.

Oklahoma blows into the future

On the way home from a particularly windy walk with the dog I was listening to KQED. The program I tuned in during was News Hour with Jim Lehrer, a segment about students in Oklahoma studying wind energy. How brilliant! A state driven by gas money, rich in farmland, and mostly overlooked until their football team rolls through the midwest each year. [Very difficult for a family with roots growing back to Cornhusker territory.] Oklahoma State University brought a fresh perspective to a their technology department and after twenty minutes I am even convinced I should be looking to join their program. Universities spend so much time and money recruiting from far and wide, here this university took a look at what would benefit the students in their own state and ended up developing a program that is going to benefit the whole country. I am so impressed.

Often it is the school system that moves too slowly. It usually takes major commercial industry to slowly shift the curriculum. However it should be the universities that lead the innovation to a new level. The classroom is the place to dream big, to experiment with the endless possibilities new ideas bring, and to branch out the learning experience from your specific field of study to overlap with industries only beginning to shape themselves.

Bravo Oklahoma for seeing a future in your land, for taking the chance within your university to further a new avenue of commerce within your state, and for giving people the tools to prosper without having to migrate to new fields of wealth. The new wind technology program gives accreditation back to wind energy, states with full confidence that we as a nation know that value in it's future, and secures that the students emerging from your program are going to be tomorrow's experts in the field.

And although I will still be yelling "Go Big Red!" on game day whenever I think of Oklahoma I will know that one day I will live in a healthier, safer, more economically secure country because the state took a chance, and they did so with full confidence.

For more information on the radio program that spurred today's bluview visit: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/social_issues/gn_toughchoices/