Despite Media Focus - It's Easier to Get Out of China Than Into US

News stories about Chinese dissident attorney Chen Guangcheng focus on his escape to the US Embassy and the quick arrangements to allow him into the US.  But for most Chinese, getting out of China is the easy part.  Getting into the US is much more difficult. 

The Statue of Liberty story is embedded in Americans' brains  - the one that says people struggle to escape oppressive regimes to be welcomed with open arms by the US.  The story gets reinforced by news articles like Chen's.  For me this story got turned upside down in 1989 when I was teaching in Hong Kong for a year.  I found out that  getting out of China or Hong Kong was the easy part.  But visas to the US were extremely difficult to get. 

If you are an internationally known dissident, like Chen or Feng Lizhii, who recently died I just learned, it's different.  In these cases a US visa is readily available, while the dissident is having trouble with their own countries.

Back in the early 90's, I was told on several occasions by US consulate and embassy officials that people applying for visas must prove that they have sufficient ties in China  to ensure that they will return when their visa expires.  For a male, under 40, I was told, this was impossible to prove.  Essentially, they were saying that males under 40 could not get visas to the US.  This wasn't completely true, but unless the applicant had very good connections, he wasn't going to get a visa. 

In one case, UAA had accepted an exceptionally good Chinese student, someone I'd met  in Beijing.  We got him housing, we had tuition covered, an assistantship for him - his expenses were covered.  We sent letters of support to the Embassy.  He was turned down and missed the fall semester.  I was able to visit the Embassy on a trip to Beijing and talk to the head of the Visa section and assured him this was all good.  Only then was he able to get his visa and start in the winter semester. (And after getting an MPA from us and a PhD in North Carolina, he returned to Asia to teach.)

After 9/11, student visas got harder for everyone.  Many potentially great international students have gone to Britain and other countries because the obstacles to getting into the US are so daunting.  From a USAToday story last year

Cost, distance and lingering fears about visa denials in the post-9/11 era have helped make the USA less attractive to foreign students, threatening a lucrative market that is a source of brain power and diversity for U.S. colleges. [emphasis added]

The American Embassy, in the early 1990's was in the heart of a bustling Beijing neighborhood.  An active street market was right across the street, taking advantage of relatively wealthy foreigners going to the embassy.  It was pretty cheeky since they sold lots of illegal knock-off products that the US was continually trying to curtail.   A decade later, the neighborhood around the embassy was totally blocked off.  Windows on nearby buildings had been boarded over.  The line  to get into the embassy started about 1/4 mile from the entrance.  Once cleared (Americans didn't have to wait in line here) you walked through a fenced off no-man's land.  It reminded me of going into East Berlin in the height of the Cold War.  But this was to get to the US Embassy.  After waiting in line for long periods, walking the quarter mile dead zone, Chinese then had to stand around more and wait until they were called.  It didn't matter if you were elderly.   It was positively degrading for Chinese.  Everyone was treated like a potential terrorist.  It makes going through US airport security seem like a Disney ride.  A great way to say "Welcome to the US."

It's true there were periods when masses of immigrants came to the US - but never without a backlash.   But it's also true that there were many times when people escaping starvation or oppressive, even genocidal regimes, were turned back by the US.  Chinese were banned from immigration from 1882 until 1943.  Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany  faced a State Department that resisted giving out visas.  Some ships kept going until they found a port in Cuba or South America where the passengers could land.  Sometimes they were forced to return to Germany and for many that meant annihilation in concentration camps. 

I would imagine  that this Statue of Liberty story is well embedded in the minds of the rabidly anti-immigration folks have no idea how difficult it is to get into the US. They imagine hordes of immigrants, legal and illegal, being welcomed with open arms.  It just ain't so.  (Yes, there are many people crossing the borders illegally, but in part because of the legal barriers and in part because of the demand for cheaper and more compliant labor.  And recent studies show that net flow of Mexicans to the US is now zero. Some anti-immigration activist may claim their efforts led to this and they could be right.  It's not clear yet.)

The Point?

This post is just a reminder that there are so many things we believe that aren't exactly true.   So much uninspected 'truth'  is embedded in our brains that it's hard to spot.  Just ask yourself, once a day, about something you read or realize that you believe,

• "How do I know this?"  
• "Is this something I have the facts to prove or is it something I've just always, uncritically accepted as true?"

This isn't easy to do.  I'd strongly recommend James Loeven's  Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong as a starting point.  I avoided the book for years thinking the title was too sensational.  It isn't.  It's just a very good and very readable book.  And it will wake up liberals and conservatives alike. (And people who don't fit those labels too.)

"In the role playing game known as The Real World, 'Straight White Male' is the lowest difficulty setting there is."

In the post If Republicans don't get women, then it's also true that Democrats don't get white males.  I tried to point out that while white males are far more likely to hold positions of power in the United States than non-whites and females, most white males don't feel particularly powerful.  The issue isn't that white males have all the power, but they have fewer obstacles on the way to power.  Or, as some have put it, more privileges.

John Scalzi at Whatever wanted to explain this idea (of more privileges) without using the word privilege.  He did it well by writing about life as if it were a role playing game.  I understand the basics of such games because my son indoctrinated me years ago.  My daughter sent me the link.  Thanks to both of you.

A little into his post, he sets up the ground rules. 

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.
Now, once you’ve selected the “Straight White Male” difficulty setting, you still have to create a character, and how many points you get to start — and how they are apportioned — will make a difference. Initially the computer will tell you how many points you get and how they are divided up. If you start with 25 points, and your dump stat is wealth, well, then you may be kind of screwed. If you start with 250 points and your dump stat is charisma, well, then you’re probably fine. Be aware the computer makes it difficult to start with more than 30 points; people on higher difficulty settings generally start with even fewer than that.

Read it all here.

Anchorage Gets Jolted Just After 7am (4.6)

Some quakes you wonder about - "Was that a quake?"

Not this one.  The room jerked hard as if startled.  And then it was over, maybe a few seconds.  No damage here, but it definitely got our attention.

[I changed the title from 4.8 to 4.6.  The original USGS maps - below - said 4.8.]

UPDATE 7:23am  From the US Geological Survey Earthquake Page

Map from USGS

Map from USGS

The 3:02 UTC is 7:02 Anchorage time. It felt much stronger than what I associate with 4.8 [4.6] but that's probably because it was very close - it says (12km - 7miles) south of Anchorage.  That begs the question - where do the measure "Anchorage" at?  Downtown?  The airport? 


To put this into context, here's a list of earthquakes today in Anchorage from the Alaska Earthquake Information Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.  The give the 7:02 quake a 4.6. 

Screen shot at 8:20am 5/16/2012

157 Earthquakes Shown on This Page:
Local Time	Magnitude	Region
07:56 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	1.28 ML	in the central region of Alaska
07:42 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	1.96 ML	in the Kenai Peninsula region of Alaska
07:22 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	Unknown	in the central region of Alaska
07:12 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	1.44 ML	in the central region of Alaska
07:02 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	4.61 ML	in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska
05:21 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	1.84 ML	in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska
05:13 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	1.72 ML	in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska
04:57 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	1.28 ML	in the central region of Alaska
04:44 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	2.13 ML	in the central region of Alaska
03:20 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	Unknown	in the central region of Alaska
03:06 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	2.59 ML	in the Cook Inlet region of Alaska
02:29 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	3.07 ML	in the Kenai Peninsula region of Alaska
02:21 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	0.82 ML	in the central region of Alaska
01:49 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	1.07 ML	in the central region of Alaska
01:35 AM AKDT Wednesday May 16th, 2012	0.50 ML	in the central region of Alaska

This historic summary is from the same page as the second map.

Tectonic Summary Seismotectonics of the Aleutian Arc The Aleutian arc extends about 3,000 km from the Gulf of Alaska to the Kamchatka Peninsula. It marks the region where the Pacific plate subducts into the mantle beneath the North America plate. This subduction is responsible for the generation of the Aleutian Islands and the deep offshore Aleutian Trench. Relative to a fixed North America plate, the Pacific plate is moving northwest at a rate that increases from about 55 mm per year at the arc's eastern edge to 75 mm per year near its western terminus. In the east, the convergence of the plates is nearly perpendicular to the plate boundary. However, because of the boundary's curvature, as one travels westward along the arc, the subduction becomes more and more oblique to the boundary until the relative plate motion becomes parallel to the arc at the Near Islands near its western edge. Subduction zones such as the Aleutian arc are geologically complex and produce numerous earthquakes from multiple sources. Deformation of the overriding North America plate generates shallow crustal earthquakes, whereas slip at the interface of the plates generates interplate earthquakes that extend from near the base of the trench to depths of 40 to 60 km. At greater depths, Aleutian arc earthquakes occur within the subducting Pacific plate and can reach depths of 300 km. Since 1900, six great earthquakes (M8.3 or larger) have occurred along the Aleutian Trench, Alaska Peninsula, and Gulf of Alaska: M8.4 1906 Rat Islands; M 8.6 1938 Shumagin Islands; M8.6 1946 Unimak Island; M8.6 1957 Andreanof Islands; M 9.2 1964 Prince William Sound; and M8.7 1965 Rat Islands.

"We have 5 options before us that we’ve talked about all weekend."

"For a decision-making or policy making body, the Open Meetings Act defines a meeting to be:

a gathering of members of a governmental body when . . . more than three members or a majority of the members, whichever is less, are present, [and] a matter upon which the governmental body is empowered to act is considered by the members collectively . . . .32" (link to Alaska's Open Meeting Law)

The Alaska Redistricting Board had five options before it when it met Monday, May 14, 2012.  All were different ways of dividing Southeast Alaska into four house and two senate districts.  The posted agenda was:

1. CALL TO ORDER
2. ROLL CALL
3. APPROVAL OF AGENDA
4. LITIGATION UPDATE
5. EXECUTIVE SESSION*
6. BOARD ADOPTION OF REVISED SOUTHEAST DISTRICTS
7. ADJOURNMENT
*if needed

They were on item 4 when I got there a few minutes late.  There was no executive session.  So I heard all of agenda item 6 - Board adoption of revised Southeast districts.

There was almost no discussion on the options.  Three board members were in the meeting room and two (McConnochie and Holm) were there by phone.

The Board has been good about mentioning the Open Meetings Act every now and then and the Chair has on more than a few occasions pointed out that no more than two Board members can talk about Board business outside of a meeting.  It's not easy, especially when people are working close together, to avoid three or four people who happen to talk about the districts, say, when they go back to get a coffee in the office.  The meetings have been VERY open.  I complained early on about lack of good notice about the meetings.  But for people who know where to look, it's easy to get onto the email list or check the Board's website.  And the Board has done a stellar job of making meetings accessible - by phone and online.  They even got the Superior Court hearings in Fairbanks available by phone.

But I couldn't help wondering how the Board could come to their decision to choose Option A with so little discussion.  And some of the things that were said also raised questions in my mind.

Early in the Item 6 discussion the Chair, John Torgerson, said:

I know we talked about all five of them over the weekend, but option A is the one that we seem to be -- you seem to be gravitating toward, and me, I guess.

[Quotes from the meeting are taken from the transcript of the meeting posted here. My notes were pretty close, but the transcript is precise.]

PeggyAnn McConnochie had the floor long enough to say that the Supreme Court's decision had caused consternation, that it wasn't right or reasonable, that she didn't like any of the options available, but she thought Option A would satisfy the Supreme Court, though it wouldn't satisfy Alaskans.

And then she moved to adopt "Plan A."  Jim Holm seconded it.

That was it.  None of the other members had spoken.  Chair Torgerson had to interject:

" Like I stated earlier, we do have before us five options, so if anybody wants to well, maybe just for the record we should talk about those options under discussion of the motion. I think it certainly would be germane."

Why for the record?  Why not because you need to understand all the options before you can choose one?  The Board did a lot of stuff 'for the record' when they were testing the Constitutionality of the private party plans and their own plans when they came up with the Amended Proclamation Plan.  It sounded very staged.  Like they'd made a list of things they would need to get on the record at the public meeting.  This sounded similar to me.

Taylor Bickford then went through each of the options.  Mostly it was descriptions, things like,

"Option C is another plan that looks at instead of taking north Juneau out of the Borough, taking south Juneau out of the Borough. So again 31 is identical to what we have seen in previous board plans. District 32 is south Juneau and it runs through Excursion Inlet, Gustavus and goes up to grab Haines, Skagway and that area. 34 then is basically Sitka, Wrangell, Petersburg. And then again Ketchikan is the Borough plus Prince of Wales Island. The deviations for this plan are on the next sheet. The overall range for the region is 1.88 percent.  Any questions about that option?

There were no questions and he went on to Option D.

People were explaining, not asking questions, not debating.  Everyone seemed to know that Option A was the answer and now, with Torgerson's request to put things on the record, they were reciting what they knew.  The only question was Holm's "Another issue would be Socio-Econ Issues.  Do we have to consider that in Option A?"  This came after Attorney Michael White discussed compactness and contiguity.  It seemed more like a prompt than a question. (Compactness, contiguity, and socio-economic integration are the three key state constitutional criteria.)

I asked Board Member Brodie right after the meeting how the Board, considering the Open Meetings Law, had come to their decision with so little discussion.  Randy Ruederich answered for him.  I think he said something about Taylor Bickford (executive director) and PeggyAnn McConnochie (board member) working on the maps over the weekend.  I asked Brodie again later and he said he'd also worked on maps and came up with something similar to Option A. He also mentioned concern about how the plan didn't take into account Native Alaskans and their needs.

The Board is under a short time frame to get this out.  They had a weekend and needed to get some work done.  I have no problem with that.  They needed some maps to choose from.  But the choosing, and the discussion around choosing should have happened at the meeting on Monday.   It's possible that they sent out maps to the other members as they worked on them, or  that PeggyAnn McConnochie, who worked on the maps, called all the other members one by one, and explained the benefits of Option A.  

But what exactly did Torgerson mean when he said,

"I know we talked about all five of them over the weekend, but option A is the one that we seem to be -- you seem to be gravitating toward, and me, I guess."

From this comment and from how ready they were to just vote for Option A without any discussion, it would appear there was a lot of discussion over the weekend.  Maybe he meant "You and me" when he said 'we,' and not the whole board.  But everyone seemed ready to vote without the discussion.  Torgerson seemed to feel he needed to get some discussion on the record before they voted.  There's a good chance that what they did technically complied with the  Open Meetings Act - that there were never more than two members talking to each other at the same time about redistricting.  Perhaps the Executive Director and the Attorney talked with two Board Members at a time.   If in the end, they do that enough so that they all agree on the best option and the Chair knows that and which option they agree on, does that still meet the spirit of the open meetings act? Especially if factors they considered in making their decision aren't discussed in the open meeting?

For instance,  there was no mention at the meeting that Rep. Peggy Wilson (R) would no longer be paired with Rep. Kyle Johanson (R).  Or that Alaska Native Rep. Bill Thomas (R) of Haines would now be paired in a district with North Juneau Rep. Cathy Munoz (R).  I didn't catch that until I read Tuesday's Anchorage Daily News.  (The Southeast map wasn't detailed and the individual district maps weren't available. Plus I don't know Southeast well enough to catch this on my own.)

But knowing this, Bickford's comments about trying to keep North Juneau in the Borough now make more sense.  So does attorney Michael White's comment about how losing the Native Influence district and pairing Native incumbents would be looked at by the Department of Justice (who have to pre-clear the plan's compliance with the Voting Rights Act.)

The Supreme Court had told the Board to redo the Southeast districts without considering the Voting Rights Act, only the State Constitution.  So in order to make the most compact possible district, presumably, the pairings changed. And, I'm guessing, the new pairing was one of the reason for the gnashing of teeth by the Board about the impact on Native Alaskan representation.  (Maps of the previous and the latest version of Southeast districts are here.)

But they didn't mention that Option A paired two Native incumbents (Rep. Thomas and Sen. Kookesh) with other incumbents. (Kookesh* already had been paired in previous plans.)   Presumably they all knew about this, but it wasn't discussed at the meeting.  Or if they didn't know, why weren't they asking more questions?

I don't know how much information, if any, that affected the decisions wasn't heard by the  five or six members of the public listening to the Board that day.  PeggyAnn McConnochie, the Board member from Southeast, who seems to have spent the most time on this, has been one of the most hardworking and task oriented members of the Board. 

But since the Board so obviously did have a lot of communication over the weekend, the lack of an explanation of how they worked over the weekend, inevitably leads observers to attempt to fill in the gaps.  It would have been good for the spirit of the Open Meetings Act if they had explained what the process had been that got the Board ready to vote with minimal discussion, except for what the Chair wanted on the record. 

[After completing this post, but not yet having posted it, I found a relevant sentence in the Board's Notice of Compliance with the Supreme Court's Order of May 10:

At that meeting [Monday, May 14], the Board reviewed and considered five different configurations of the Southeast districts prepared by Board staff with individual Board member input over the weekend.

I would say the board reviewed the five configurations, but it sure seemed like they'd already considered them.  It is worded to show compliance with the Open Meetings Act, but doesn't answer my question about why they all seemed to so ready to vote for Option A with no discussion, and how the discussion they had, prompted by the chair, really had no give and take people normally have in a discussion.]


*Senators Kookesh and Stedman were mentioned in the meeting.  But this was in the discussion on truncation.  Should their district be truncated or not since one incumbent was in essentially 80% of his old district (no need for truncation) but the other had lost most of his old district (which would require truncation)?  I learned after the meeting that the whole discussion was moot since both their terms expire this year and so they automatically both have to run in November 2012. 

Redistricting Board Concert Approves SE Metes and Bounds

I knew today's meeting, if they had one, would be short.  So I stayed home and listened to it online.  That meant it was easy to record.

Here's audio of the meeting. It's really short. The board's been at this for over a year now and they are getting a little loosey-goosey.  I don't know that's a bad thing as long as they are serving the public interest.

The audio begins with a short concert by Chair Torgerson as he waits for board member Jim Holm to get on line. Basically they then approve the Metes and Bounds for the four districts in SE that they approved yesterday.  No one says they have actually read what staffer Eric Sandberg has done.  These are pretty tedious descriptions of the districts.(You can find below the 2002 description of House District 1 - Ketchikan.)

I'm trying this new audio site, but not sure how to embed the audio. This link takes you to their site where you can hear the audio.

 I've tried to embed a player here, but it doesn't seem to be working on my computer, at least not in preview.  Maybe when I actually post it, I'll see it.  Let me know if you can see it and use it and your browser and operating system (mac, pc, etc.).  Thanks
[UPDATE: I've got it working in Safari, but not Firefox which says the needed plugin isn't available.] [UPDATE 2:45 - Ivan at Chirbit emailed me where to find the embed code. It should be working now just fine.]
[UPDATE Nov 1, 2021 - You can't listen to it here, but the link at the bottom of the image works.  It's a good example of what I mean by "loosey-goosey". ]




Check this out on Chirbit

House District 1 – Senate District A – Ketchikan House District 1 includes all uplands and islands bounded by a line beginning at the northernmost point of Coffman Cove City, southeasterly along the city boundary to the western shore of Clarence Strait, south to an intersection with the mouth of Eagle Creek, easterly to the centerline of Clarence Strait, southeasterly along the centerline to a point due west of Lemesurier Point, east to Lemesurier Point, east across Union Bay to Union Point, east across Vixen Inlet to the eastern shore of Ernest Sound, northeasterly along the shore to the head of Santa Anna Inlet, easterly along a nonvisible line to the common boundary of the Wrangell-Petersburg and Prince of Wales-Outer Ketchikan Census Areas, northeasterly along the common census area boundary to Grant Creek, easterly to Burroughs Bay, southerly to Ketchikan Gateway Borough, southerly and westerly along the borough boundary (around Gravina Island) to a point due east of Grindall Island, west to Grindall Island, west along its south shore, west across Grindall Passage to the shore of Kasaan Bay, west along the shore to Kasaan City, north and west around the city boundary to Thorne Bay Road, north along the road to Thorne Bay City, west and south along the city boundary to its southwestern most point in Kasaan Bay, southwesterly through the water to the centerline of Twelvemile Arm, southwest along the centerline of the arm, to and including Cat Island, west to the mouth of Harris River, west and north to its headwaters, west along a nonvisible line to Black Bear Lake, west following its northern shore to a linking creek to Black Lake, north along a linking creek to an intersection (just south of Big Salt Lake) with Big Salt Road, north to North Island Road, northwest to National Forest Development Road 23, north to National Forest Development Road 30, east to Logjam Creek, north to Sweetwater Lake, north al ong the lake’s western shore to Barnes Lake, east along the lake’s southern shore to Coffman Cove City, east along the city boundary to point of beginning.

Signs of Spring And Photoshop Fun

Despite the chill still lingering, it's spring and we can tell from these two pictures I took yesterday.

There's no snow left in the parking lot, but this visitor can't find a parking place.

The rest are all the same picture with a little photoshop enhancement.  This was one of three dandelions blooming in my front yard. 

From top to bottom: 

• Stamp 

• Glowing Edges

• Colored Pencil and 

• Bas Relief

filters in Photoshop. 

Redistricting Board Picks Southeast Map Option A

The Board adopted Option A to submit to the Supreme Court. Last week the Supreme Court ordered that the Board's Amended Proclamation Plan would be used as the Interim Plan for the 2012 elections, but the Board had to revise the Southeast Alaska districts, constructing them solely considering the Alaska Constitutional requirements and NOT the federal Voting Rights Act as they had done the first time.  The Board had 5 options before the meeting which I posted earlier today. (Actually I missed the fifth and originally posted that there were only four, but all five maps were there.)

PeggyAnn McConnochie, the Board's only member from Southeast Alaska, who had worked on the previous maps of Southeast and this one over the weekend, expressed strong displeasure with the Court's ruling and with the new map itself.  From my notes, this is one of several times she conveyed her displeasure with what she felt she was forced to do:

We’ve been told something by Supreme Court that I think is neither right nor reasonable - not considering Native districts, Native communities, etc. 
Does Option A fit the Supreme Court’s standards?  Yes.  Do I like it?  Absolutely not.

Here's Option A.

Here's Southeast the way it was before the Supreme Court told the Board to redo it.

[UPDATE 3pm:  I should have mentioned the Board expects this to get to the Supreme Court tomorrow and that parties will have until Friday to comment.]
[UPDATE 5pm:  The Board's website now has links to maps for each of the four redrawn districts.

MAPS

House District 31

House District 32

House District 33

House District 34 ]

Here are my rough running notes of the meeting. BEWARE - there are inaccuracies and omissions but you should get a sense of what happened. The transcript should be up soon on the Redistricting Board's website. May14 Alaska Redistricting Board Meeting ROUGH Notes

Southeast Maps - Redistricting Board Offers 5 Options

Below are the four [five] maps the Redistricting Board is proposing in response to the Supreme Court's order to use the Amended Proclamation Plan as the Interim Plan - with changes in Southeast Alaska districts.  I haven't had time to look at these closely.

[UPDATE 11:56am:  I looked too quickly this morning and didn't see the 5th option.  The Board adopted Option A.  Look for new post on the meeting soon.]


Alaska Redistricting Board Southeast Maps The Board meets today at 10:15. You can watch online here. Or, if you're in downtown Anchorage, you can stop in their office at 411 W. 4th, Suite 302.

Tenor John Nuzzo And Anchorage Children's Choir

I've learned that hearing opera singers in small venues is amazing, so Sunday we went to UAA's stunning little recital hall  - Michael Hood, wherever you are, thanks! - to hear John Ken Nuzzo sing a collection of songs in Italian and Japanese. (According to Wikipedia, Nuzzo's father is Italian-American and his mother is Japanese.)  After the first pause he came back without his bow tie and the audience loosened up a bit as well.

After Nuzzo's performance there was a brief break and the Anchorage Children's Choir came onstage.  He's been working with them this week and he and they seemed to be having a great time together.  Here's a brief excerpt of them singing Finiculi Finicula.  

 

 He's been spending a lot of time recently doing concerts in Japan and work related to Tsunami relief. 

Mothers Day Gift That Keeps Giving for 50 Years

It was the late 1950s.  I was, maybe, 14 or 15.  I didn't have a drivers license yet.  I walked about a mile and a half to the big, block-sized nursery on National and Barrington.  (It's long gone and built up now.)  I found a cymbidium orchid plant with three blooming spikes.  It was spectacular.  It was stretching my budget - I have no idea any more how much it was - but I had enough money and bought it. 

Then I had to get it home.  It was in a 12 or 15 inch rubber pot full of dirt and lots of long green leaves hanging all over and three spikes of orchids.  I just hugged it to my belly and walked the mile and a half back home.  I can't say that I remember much, but it was hard to see.  This potted one below gives you a little idea of what I was carrying.  This one was just starting to bloom in my mom's backyard in February when we were there. 


And that's just one spike.

The one above was also from February.  My mom had cut the spike and brought it inside.

That trek back from the nursery was at least 50 years ago.  My mom has separated the plant a number of times over the years, plus she's received others.  But whatever month - this year it bloomed in February, not May - my mom lets me know 'your cymbidium' has a spike.  Then it's budding.  And finally, it's blooming. 

I have to give my mom a lot of the credit for the longevity of these plants.  Plus the fact that her L.A. near-the-beach location provides perfect moderate, damp weather.  This is probably is the best gift I've ever given in terms of its longevity and its role in the relationship between my mother and me. 

I did send my cards out early last week and when I spoke to my Mom this morning she said she'd gotten it.  But you can't wish your mom "Happy Mother's Day"  too often. 

Happy Mother's Day