It's hot out where a lot of people are right now. The northern latitudes have plenty of extra summer thanks to climate change and those greenhouse gases.
So what better time to get some web-surfing in with a couple of my favorite surf songs of the past? With a bit of choice video to go with it, courtesy of those who post on You Tube. Hope you enjoy. First up is the title track to the original 1966 Bruce Brown documentary, "The Endless Summer" the story of a group of guys who travel the world for a perfect wave.
Next up is what should have been a huge hit from 1963 by The Beach Boys. Oddly enough it was never released as a single from their album "Surfer Girl". ***********************(from Wikipedia "Catch a Wave" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love for the American rock band, The Beach Boys. It was released on their 1963 album Surfer Girl. This song was recorded on July 14 and 16, 1963. This song is notable for the use of a harp played by Mike Love's sister, Maureen. The lead vocal was originally thought to be Dennis Wilson's, but in actuality, it is that of Mike Love with a heavy cold. ***********Also, the video has a definative look at the sites and sounds and motions of 1960's surf culture.
(Upton Sinclair, author of the American literary classic, "The Jungle", and dozens of other books on political, media, and corporate corruption campaigns for governor of California on the radio as the Democratic Candidate.)
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) was a rare bird in American politics--a literary writer by trade. He had risen to fame as the author of a damning indictment of the Chicago meat-packing industry. "The Jungle" became a huge success and help push through the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1907--the first time that the federal government began inspecting meat and poultry products to guard the public health. The Act created the United States Food and Drug Administration, much to the howls of protest by the meat-packing industry, whose incredibly unsanitary conditions were previously brushed aside despite consumers being poisoned and workers in the plants themselves testifying to all sorts of food contamination from using sick animals or mixing inedible substances into canned meat.
President Theodore Roosevelt, whose "Rough Rider" troops had suffered from disease and even death from tainted meat shipped to them in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, met with Sinclair in the White House after reading his book. He redoubled his efforts and sent Department of Agriculture officials to Chicago to check out the claims in the novel. Sinclair--who earlier gained access to the giant slaughter pens run by Armour Meats and other corporations, took careful and copious notes and interviewed workers and sympathetic managers--was vindicated.
Although Sinclair's main reason for writing the book was to call attention to the plight of over taxed and seemingly disposable workers in the meat-packing industry, his book troubled the average person in America more for its depiction of rotten beef and sausage in the stores. Nevertheless it was a victory for the progressive movement of that time.
Our story now shifts to 1934. Franklin Roosevelt (Teddy's fifth cousin) has been elected President two years earlier. The national mood was ready for another round of reform and regulations, if anything more so. Sinclair has been a prolific writer for the past quarter-century, literally churning out dozens of articles for his own and other magazines, as well as novels and book-length pamphlets attacking all the major institutions of the United States, from the churches to the press to big business and even higher education. (Sinclair himself had worked his way through City College of New York, writing pulp novels of little political content.) He was living as a celebrity with his wife in Pasadena and Beverly Hills, a Socialist Party member making friends with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein (the latter was a visiting professor at Cal Tech in Pasadena).
Sensing that the high unemployment numbers (and the lack of concern among many business leaders satisfied to invest in the jobless) was creating a void the regular political candidates in the state capital, Sacramento, weren't filling, Lewis entered the race.
He lost the race, after a very promising start where he received more votes in a primary than any candidate in state history, due in no small part to a concerted effort by big money interests in Southern California's agriculture, manufacturing and movie business. Their efforts, which featured unlimited money and secretive organizations sending out often fabricated and out-of-context negative attacks on Sinclair, were highly effective.
Some historians see the 1934 race in California as the model for the modern "dirty" mass-media campaigning we see today, and will likely see more of now that corporations and billionaires can spend whatever they like against a candidate and the public will not likely know whom these purveyors of"free speech"--speech monopolized on radio and television and the main Internet ads--really are.
Big business was not Sinclair's only enemy. The Communist Party of California denounced the EPIC program as "social fascism", especially after the candidate began to modify and moderate it. The Socialist Party also aimed fire at Sinclair's reputation for switching political parties. And FDR was wary of supporting a candidate who was further left than he was on economic issues. Even Lewis' son David thought he was wasting his time. But the big blows came from business leaders, with MGM Studios boss Louis B. Mayer--the highest paid executive in the USA in 1934-- and the heads of major Otis Chandler and W.R. Hearst newspapers in California.
For more on how the anti-Sinclair/EPIC campaign happened see the first comment in this blog. And thanks for stopping by and forgive me this rather long blog.
(left) US Immigration Official examining a Chinese emigrant at Angel Island. The facility was operating from 1910 to 1940.
In 2009, The Angel Island Emigration Center celebrated its reopening as a
tourist site, renovated but also preserved to reflect the original examination rooms where so many future Americans were detained for questioning and medical checks. The Chinese and other Asian emigrants faced tougher odds to get into America than their occidental counterparts who came in the same manner off of first-and-second class ships calling on the port of San Francisco.
From The Angel Island Immigration Station Website.
"Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, millions of people — in numbers which have not been seen since — came to America in pursuit of a better, freer life. On the east coast, most of the huddled masses were met by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. On the west coast, between 1910 and 1940, most were met by the wooden buildings of Angel Island. These immigrants were Australians and New Zealanders, Canadians, Mexicans, Central and South Americans, Russians, and in particular, Asians. There, during this period of the great migrations, they would meet with a reception quite unlike that given to European immigrants on the East Coast. The reasons for this reception, and the story of this journey, as usual, have their roots in the past."
Chinese immigration began with the California Gold Rush. Chinese emigrants faced discrimination but many persevered until the Economic Panic of 1873 started a great deal of fear amongst white and non-Asian settlers in California against Asians.
In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This was kept on the books for sixty years, with some modifications for family members related to someone in the United States or a few select occupations such as diplomats, professors, clergy men, merchants etc.
Japanese emigration was also regulated by a “Gentlemen’s Agreement" between the two governments in 1907. In 1917 an “Asiatic Barred Zone” barred citizens and colonial subjects in southeast Asia and India from emigrating to the United States. Previously, only the Chinese had been excluded.
(From the same Angel Island Website) "Circumventing the Chinese Exclusion Act became a first order concern for most immigrants from China...Many Chinese immigrants resorted to buying false identities at great cost, which allowed them to immigrate as either children of exempt classes or children of natives. In 1906, the San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed municipal records which created an opportunity for the city’s Chinese residents to claim that they were born here and therefore were American citizens. As citizens Chinese could bring their children to this country, and on return visits to their ancestral villages, claim new children had been born to them. Some of these were “paper sons” or less frequently “paper daughters” — children on paper only without a direct family connection. These paper children were in effect “slots” which people could sell to allow new immigrants to come to this country."
"To counter this practice, Immigration inspectors developed grueling interrogations, and by 1910 they had refined this procedure. The immigrant applicant would be called before a Board of Special Inquiry, composed of two immigrant inspectors, a stenographer, and a translator, when needed. Over the course of several hours or even days, the applicant would be asked about minute details only a genuine applicant would know about — their family history, location of the village, their homes. These questions had been anticipated and thus, irrespective of the true nature of the relationship to their sponsor, the applicant had prepared months in advance by committing these details to memory. Their witnesses — other family members living in the United States — would be called forward to corroborate these answers. Any deviation from the testimony would prolong questioning or throw the entire case into doubt and put the applicant at risk of deportation, and possibly everyone else in the family connected to the applicant as well. These details had to be remembered for life. Because of return trips to China, the risk of random immigration raids and identity card checks on the street, a paper son often had to keep these details alive throughout their life."
All foreign-born people faced rigid quotas after the 1924 Emigration Act. The Act gave higher quotas, however, to nations like Great Britain, France, Scandinavian nations, etc.
Finally, the Nationality Act of 1965 superseded the 1924 act (and abolished all quotas affecting Europeans). Chinese Americans and other Asian emigrants have made great strides in education and upward-mobility ever since. A 100th Anniversary celebration of Angel Island and its role in American history will be held in San Francisco on Friday, October 23.
Most people know that California is the largest state by population (37 million and rising) in the United States. It has often been said that what happens in California will remake the nation. It has been boasted that "The Golden State" by itself has one of the ten largest economies in the world.
That's why any major proposition put forward to direct vote of the population can have a major effect on America and the world. The most recent of these is Proposition 23, an effort sponsored by a Texas oil money and supported by the far-right "Tea Party" movement could, if passed, pose a major setback to a cleaner global environment.
A little history: in 2006, California's GOP Governor Arnold Swarznegger, signed AB 32, a bill that would roll back total emissions from the state to 1990 levels by promoting more renewable and "green" technology, by instituting a "cap and trade" energy policy and promote non-carbon solar, biofuel and wind technologies to the point that these alternative fuels wills represent 33 percent of all energy use by 2020.
What Proposition 23 would do is to suspend this bill's provisions for cleaner air and reducing climactic impact by petroleum and coal based technology. It would suspend such laws until the total unemployment rate in the state falls to 5.5 percent (it currently stands at 12 percent). Almost 74 percent of the funding for this proposition comes from out-of-state oil companies Tesoro and Valero, and Flint Hills Resources, a petrochemical company owned by Charles and David Koch, Kansas billionaires who have pumped millions in big money into dozens of political causes this year
Here's Governor Swarznegger's take on the Brothers Koch.
They’re not interested in our environment; they are only interested in greed and filling their pockets with more money.
Although the "No" forces have a narrow lead, some polls show this Proposition might still pass, a serious setback to putting less junk in the atmosphere for kids and elderly people to breathe and making global climate change worse.
The fact is California's decision here does have an impact on the global future. And it also sends a message that at least 15 percent of America's population serious about changing the future of our children for the better.
This is not strictly a "liberal" movement--many Republican leaders including the GOP candidate for governor, Meg Whitman, oppose 23. But the traditional American fear of "government intervention" serves the interests of the oil and gas companies who want to hold back this law from taking full effect.
One can only hope Californians will not let a down economy blind them to a better future.
Here are some more details on this important measure and the bad effects that will occur if it does pass.
Here's more on the bill from the Earthjustice website.
Financed by Texas oilmen, Proposition 23 would suspend A.B. 32, which has put in place the nation's strongest standards governing greenhouse gas emissions. If it passes, this deadly proposition could have impacts that cascade across the state of California, nation and even into the international community. Here's a quick look at what Prop 23 could do if it passes:
• Kill Clean Energy Jobs: More than 500,000 Californians now work in clean tech jobs in the state, and since 2005, California green jobs have grown 10 times faster than other sectors of the state's economy.
• Pollute Our Air, Endanger Our Health: Prop. 23 would let oil companies and other polluters off the hook by suspending requirements to clean up their acts, drastically increasing air pollution and public health risks.
• Keep Us Addicted to Costly Oil: At the exact moment when California's wind, solar and other renewable energy technologies are starting to reduce our energy costs, Prop. 23 would protect polluters and send a message that the United States cannot keep up with Japan, Europe and China, who are taking the lead in renewable energy production.
• Undermine Environmental Laws: Not only would Prop. 23 indefinitely repeal A.B. 32, it would also threaten dozens of other regulations in California—laws that Earthjustice uses every day to clean up pollution in the state.
