Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Comebacks



There's nothing easy about being a competitor. Doesn't matter whether you are talking sports, art, journalism, or business. So let's talk sports.

Tonight is Latino Heritage Night, which in San Francisco means it's Carlos Santana Bobble Head Night, naturally. He's a local, Carlos.

But here we are eating home-made spaghetti sauce. This is tomato season, and my young artist is capturing that in her paintings.

All of us baseball fans in the city by the bay are hurting big-time because last night the Giants lost to the Rockies in Colorado in 14 innings, 6-4 on a game-ending grand-slam HR, quite a traumatic event.

As of tonight, it looks doubtful the Gigantes can make the playoffs. But in baseball, as in life, comebacks sometimes occur in unexpected ways.

We can at least hope.

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Thursday, August 20, 2009

The View From Hunter's Point



There is a neighborhood in San Francisco where tourists never venture.



It's an old Navy base, long since turned over to the city, called Hunter's Point.



The area includes a Superfund site, a polluting power plant, lofts where artists do what artists do, and some of the best views in the Bay Area.



The area has been, since World War Two, predominantly African-American.



On a drive through the place today, I was struck by how peaceful it has become.



There still are problems, horrible problems, including violence of tragic proportions. After all, the death of one young man represents an ineffable loss for all of us. But there also is beauty and hope here -- all of the things we as humans yearn for.

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Saturday, August 08, 2009