Wish You Were Here

Today I'm proud to be a Californian because I live in a state that has ruled that each of us has the constitutional right "to establish a legally recognized family with a person of one's choice."

The first time I saw him I knew we'd be friends. I was at my first Texas high school football game. Though September, the summer heat lingered, making it at least 90 degrees in the stands. The spectacle of the entire population of Alice, Texas, both Anglo and Mexican, joined in one loud roar of support for their team was something I had never experienced in my "regular" life on Naval Air Stations.

The cheerleaders were yelling their cheers in heavily south-Texas accented dialect. I thought it was hilarious, but I joined in, thrilled at hearing myself participate in such a conventional thing.

Then I saw him.

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License To Wed?

While Citizen Voice bloggers Alma, Chuck and I were chatting about the San Diego mayoral and city attorney races on Tom Fudge's radio show, "These Days" yesterday, the tide for same-sex marriage was turning.

By the time the three of us walked back to the KPBS Green Room (which isn't green at all) CNN was announcing that the California Supreme Court had just declared the ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional. Chuck's Blackberry was going crazy, sending him headline news via text, along with a playful proposal from his partner. As soon as I could connect my laptop with the wireless in the building, Chuck was racing around the Internet Superhighway, anxious for more details.

As a divorce attorney he was fascinated with the 172 pages of paperwork associated with the new ruling. As a gay man, he was thrilled with the possibilities. The video below shows Chuck's reaction to the ruling minutes after it was announced.

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Where Were You?

"In the hallway at KPBS, talking to our editor Nicole Lozare." 

Twenty, 30, 40 years from now -- that's how I'll answer the question about how I heard yesterday's news about the California Supreme Court's decision in In Re Marriage Cases.  Alma, Trina and I had just finished an appearance on These Days with Tom Fudge at 10 a.m. I knew the decision from the court was due at 10:00, and turned on my Blackberry as soon as we left the studio to check the news.

As we were talking I looked down and saw the alert from the New York Times: The ban had been overturned.

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Remembering the Fires…

I want to start this post with a story. Once upon a time, there was a young blogger who was originally from Kansas. He grew up with tornados, floods, droughts, snowstorms, and the like. But then, out of love, he moved to San Diego. He survived his first earthquake thinking it weird but fun. He saw mudslides, and thought that was REALLY odd. But, he didn't know true terror until his first firestorm. A firestorm that almost made him pack up everything and leave San Diego forever. That blogger was yours truly...

Just the other day, Google honored KPBS with a special video about their use of Google Maps during the San Diego fires. I wanted to share this video with you, if I may.

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Village Philosophy

If all the Birch Aquarium's fish, cucumbers, seastars and horses too, could field trip it down the hill for a look around the Village of La Jolla -  they'd fit right in. Weird species share the same habitat, are sometimes oblivious to each other and sometimes eat the other. Some La Jollans don't even believe they live in a village, but rather an art and bauble selling marketplace.

We all recognize the silky-shirted, rich guy breed of La Jollan. And who doesn't know to give wide berth on La Jolla side streets when you see giant sunglasses peeping over steering wheels? But what about  the walk-to-work single mother or the old vacuum repair guy, the eyeglass repair guy, the Korean wine guy, the world-travelling-scone-making-poker-player guy and his muscle powder, mogul neighbor friend? The only things more numerous than the well-fed koi fish around La Jolla are the eccentrics.

There's a woman working on behalf of Promote La Jolla who finds nothing particularly odd about her battle against homeless people who sit on benches (O! karma! be gentle, she knows not what she does.) No need to mention the seal-loving, children-haters or the children-loving, seal-killers. La Jolla has got nothing if not character. Here's one of La Jolla's kindest characters - the sort of person that makes the place a Village.

- Citizen Voices blogger Chris McConnell is a bookseller, freelance writer, former high school English teacher and odd jobber who lives in La Jolla.

Just Because They Say It Doesn’t Make It So

Anyone who has had a family member in recovery will recognize this phrase, and as I watched the media's manipulation of last week's presidential primaries, I couldn't help but think it aptly applied in that case as well.

Have we become a nation of co-dependents who believe everything we hear without questioning the agenda or the pathological state of the pundit who's uttering it? It may be that we are so beat up by nearly eight years of completely unsubstantiated statements out of the White House,  "Mission Accomplished", WMD's, etc., that we are unable to decipher fact from fiction.

Ever since KPBS gave me the opportunity to become a Citizens Voices blogger, I've felt the responsibility to investigate the source of everything I read, or hear on TV, whether it's on John Stewart  or CNN or Fox. That often means researching the writer, and then the writer's affiliations, and finally, who's behind those affiliations. I can get lost in Googleland, just trying to track down the back-stories.

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Reconsidering Steve Francis

Has your first impression of someone ever turned out to be wrong? 

I hate admitting such things -- like the time in high school I misjudged an intelligent and well-connected scion for a nerd with nothing interesting to say.

It may be time to say again, I was wrong. After reading Chuck's post about Steve Francis -- the independently wealthy mayoral candidate funding his own campaign -- I thought, "Why does this man (Steve, not Chuck) think he can step into the public sector and do well?" 

It drives me kind of nutty when successful businesspeople try to impress voters with their cash and business acumen. 

Admitting I wrote off Steve Francis may not be the same as admitting I was a near-sighted fool in high school. Then again, it may be better to slow down and give some credit where it's due.

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Citizen Komplain

Start up a conversation with your neighbor about your local government and it will quickly become a whine session about what the city isn't doing right. Right?

Do you really know how your city works? You may have a teenager who is required to perform a certain number of community service hours in order to graduate from school, but what have you done for your city lately? Dialogue is great, but I'm so sick of the whining.

Complaining is only worthwhile when it leads to action.

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Beyond Electability

"Bored Now."  That immortal quote from Willow Rosenberg pretty much completes my thoughts on the state of the race to be president. Voters from two more states voted on Tuesday to decide, or not decide, who might represent the Democratic Party in November.

If it were a fight about issues, I might be interested. If the two remaining candidates had competing visions for the future, the race might earn some attention. Rather, if anything, the primaries have become a battle of electability, and that doesn't serve the country well.

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Floyd Morrow, Taxes, and Elections

In local news, Democratic San Diego mayoral candidate Floyd Morrow appeared on These Days this morning. Mr. Morrow pulled no punches with the interview, and was rather scathing in his attack on the corruption, in his eyes, of some of the other candidate's campaigns. He also spoke wanting a city-wide health care system as a stepping stone to universal health care. Once again, I still can say nothing bad about this candidate. He wants affordable housing, to help the people of the county, and isn't being shoved in my face by the mass media. Overall, it was an interesting interview.

In other news, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are both urging for the 18 cents of taxes to be removed from gasoline for the tax season. Well, today they heard about it from economists around the world. All of them screamed, "NO! What are you thinking!?"

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