Disaster Nationalism: A Politics of Cleansing Violence

...d to ailments such as cardiovascular disease rather than to the conditions making people vulnerable to the disease. If one wasn’t tuned in to politics, one might have been aware of losing a loved one, of misfortunes piling up, of the quality of life generally getting worse, without having a face to put to the crime. In those circumstances, resentment might either remain below the threshold of awareness or settle on a personal or political scapegoa...

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Masters of Carpentry at Japan House

...k of respect for the craft of carpentry. As I’ve learned from my furniture making hobby, carpentry requires a combination of physical stamina, a sense of design and a hand/eye finesse similar to playing a musical instrument. Nishiyama noted that we consider the trades as lesser than going to college and this attitude needs to change. In particular, the complex joinery involved in Japanese temple architecture demonstrates a high level of skill and...

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Goodbye 2024

...and gloom stuff. I have no memory of this gathering but put a bootleg podcast of Art on this evening to drown out the fireworks and keep the animals calm. I worked all day in the woodshop making frames for a friend’s gallery show so I too will be heading to bed early. No Club Los Globos for us tonight. Best wishes to all for a happy 2025....

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That Sugar Film

...both of which this film has in abundance. Show me don’t tell me is a film making mantra seared into my brain during the brief period I took classes and edited with Jean-Pierre Gorin (Full disclosure: my inner Gorin drives Kelly crazy and makes me a grumpy, no-fun movie going companion.) That said, what won me over to That Sugar Film is that its heart is decidedly in the right place. The strongest scenes were during visits to two disadvantaged com...

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Yes on 15! Vote for Nithya Raman for CD 4!

...ying taxes based on outdated values. For instance, Walt Disney Studios in Burbank pays taxes on an assessed value from 1975 allowing them to dodge around $3.5 million in taxes every year. Prop 13 was sold as a way to keep older people on fixed income from being taxed out of their houses. This is partly true, but the real impulse behind Prop 13 was to shift the tax burden away from the wealthy. I was in junior high in a public school when Prop 13 p...

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