San Fran...welcome change to Pleasanton...the view of the bay from my desk, the energy of the people and at dusk--the lights and motion on Market St.
Amazing amount of resistance everywhere...a way of being when mass integration is underway.
Books:
a. Leadership and Self-Deception -- a quick and good read.
b. Finishing up, Buddhist Practice on Western Ground. This provides interesting information in relation to how Asian and Western cutlures process and are directed by very different thoughts on how one **is** within their culture, e.g., community vs. individual, duty vs. rights, togetherness vs. standing alone. It helps me to understand the nuances in peoples behaviors and what drives their decisioning.
c. Re-reading Whay Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria. The last book has a reasonable analysis of African American adolescent race identity and the various phases. I originally read this when Jefferson was entering high school and now find myself rereading many of the books on the African American youth experience as I prepare for the emerging conceptual Frederick. The books themselves speak to the traditional family in the sense, black parents--black children / white parents--white children . . .not who we are, but there are salient points that remind me of those things I take for granted and at times minimalize but are present in my children's lives that they face and deal with actively on a daily basis.
I had forgotten how wonderful the BART experience can be, specifically it allows for time to read...which based on the last few days has been very much missed.
We watched three documentaries over the weekend.
a. Children Underground which is about a population of homeless children living in a Romanian subway station. Disturbing...the passivity of the people walking by...these are not adults, but children. Even more so, the interviews with the parents of these children--clearly they prefer that there children live on the streets. What culturally makes this acceptable and how does a human being become so indifferent as to not be outraged?
b. The Inner Tour. This is about, "Just months before the second Intifada (uprising) began in 2000, Israeli director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz (with his Israeli and Palestinian co-producers) filmed a group of West Bank Palestinians on a three-day bus tour to Israel, where many of the passengers once lived. Their weekend trip becomes an extremely charged journey of deep emotional distances and contradicting realities as the travelers interact with ordinary Israelis and visit places that they feel simultaneously rooted to and alienated from. Their contemplative observations of and encounters with the country they are visiting lie at the heart of this piercingly resonant documentary." In parts it is very difficult to watch but also differs from some of the other Israeli/Palestinian documentaries. This does not focus on zones under fire--it has the same feeling that documentaries illustrating after WWII, when survivors tried to return home only to find their homes inhabited and having no documents to claim their property. It's a rare perspective to view in this conflict.
c. Shaolin Ulysses: Kung Fu Monks in America. This was very enjoyable. From the monk who sees his role to reach the community with Buddhism and Kung Fu, to other monks who have no interest in Buddhism but just martial arts (ex-monks now) and just the impressions of these individuals who have trained since childhood in Shaolin, China to come to the US and be amazed by the diversity, freedom, opportunity to be/do whatever--this was wonderful. Along the lines of watching someones facial expression when they see the ocean for the first time.