MetaFilter posts tagged with ca and California

"it’s one thing to survive, and another to live."

zarq — Wed, 01 May 2013 13:05:20 -0800

This past September, Jessica Ann Lum won a "Best Feature" award in the student-journalist category from the Online News Association, for her Master's project: "Slab City Stories." Less than four months later, on January 13, 2013, she passed away. She was 25. "Jessica loved to tell people’s stories. This is hers." CJR: More of Jessica Lum's work. Also of interest: Mission Bike Portraits From 2009: Online posts help cancer patient share feelings. Ms. Lum was diagnosed with terminal Stage IV metastatic pheochromocytoma in 2008. Her article archive at UCLA's Daily Bruin includes: 'Journalism’s richest experiences are created by the people.' Additional Obituaries * The Daily Bruin * The Sacramento Bee * Daily Californian Slab City Slab City, CA is a makeshift town created by squatters on a former Marine base-turned-squatter-RV-park in the California desert. It was previously covered on MeFi back in 2004. "Slab City Stories" was featured on NPR back in October. The community posted an obituary announcement for Ms. Lum in January: "The piece she did on Slab City is what brought her to us, the residents of Slab City. Her sensitive engaging pictures and recounting of residents’ own stories endeared her to us. She earned our full respect. Respect that is not freely given to many media groups that enter our gates. She lived with us for weeks at a time more than once to truly get a feel for who we are. She was not like other media visitors that blasted in looking for a quick buck, taking quick shots, manipulating the ”stories” into the director’s preconceived staged “documentary”. … We would like her family to know: She will be remembered as one of our kindred spirits."

"Abused people go one or two ways: They either self-destruct or make a difference, you feel me? I’m gonna make a difference."

zarq — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 14:28:51 -0800

'In 2002, five years before journalist Chauncey Bailey was murdered by members of Your Black Muslim Bakery, (Previously) a woman identified only as Jane Doe No. 1 stepped forward to report decades of sexual abuse, welfare fraud and violence by the bakery's leader, Yusuf Bey Sr. She was prepared to hand over to Oakland police DNA from her three children -- evidence that Bey had impregnated her, the first time when she was 12. This was a risky move, but the woman had powerful motivation: her daughter, then 18, had alerted her that Bey was trying to abuse her -- his own child. Now, Jane Doe No. 1 has decided she no longer wants to be nameless. Her name is Kowana Banks and she is the first of Bey's victims to speak publicly.' Video interview. Transcript. (Via) This post recounts experiences of rape and sexual abuse. Topics may be disturbing to some readers. 2007 essay by the late Christopher Hitchens: Brutality by the Bay: The faith-based thugs of Oakland's Your Black Muslim Bakery.

California Dreamin'

jaduncan — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 03:08:05 -0800

California rejects top rate tax increase, removes all state funding for CA libraries. Funding cut for "literacy programs, InterLibrary Loans, and miscellaneous expenses such as librarian training programs and books." Library Journal goes into more of the technicalities.

Pretty Trash

codacorolla — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:40:04 -0800

"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that a rubbish dump being created would, in the space of a century, become a protected area. Yet that is exactly what happened to what has come to be known as Glass Beach, just outside Fort Bragg in California." Tourist information, and a wiki link. Another glass beach, from the comments (hyperlink added):

There's a beach like that round my place, in Asturias, Nothern Spain. It's called "El Bigaral" o "Playa de Los Cristales". There used to be a glass factory nearby which used the beach as landfill. The pieces of glass were mixed with the sand material, being eroded and polished by the sea. I really find it a big irony of nature, because as you already know, glass is made of silica, in the end, sand.

Sea Glass Journal provides locations for more sea glass hunting.

Hasta la vista, Gertrude Chataway.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:56:54 -0800

Veto is a four-letter word (google quickview, here's the PDF):.Governor Schwarzenegger of California, at odds with the state legislature but ever the poet, vetoes Assembly Bill 1176 with a nice little acrostic.

Firestorm 2003

rschram — Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:04:00 -0800

Santa Ana Speeds the Spread of So Cal Fires
Five separate fires are burning in San Diego County, including several densely populated suburban areas. Dozens of homes have been burned. Marine Corps Air Station Miramar has been affected, including an FAA air traffic control installation. 16,000 people in the South Bay lost electricity when a major distribution line went down. Many San Diego firefighters went up to Camp Pendelton yesterday. (1, 2)

Wet Spot — Mon, 04 Nov 2002 18:14:27 -0800

California Coastal Records Project. Rich guy with a helicopter and a digital camera posting high-resolution pictures on the internet of every mile of the California coastline, 500 feet at a time. (Related Washington Post article.)

an allegedly phallic tree

onegoodmove — Thu, 16 May 2002 17:38:25 -0800

an allegedly phallic tree Would you agree to dismemberment for neighborhood peace?