Category Archives: California History

Bernie Sanders Bundled Up

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“When we stand together there is nothing,
nothing, nothing we cannot accomplish.”
Bernie Sanders

  • Local Artist Jonas Never
    Mural of Senator Bernie Sanders – Culver City, California

In my youth, I was never a fan of politics. Mostly because, I once worked for a Fortune 500 Corporation as their PAC Administrator. I experienced firsthand how major organizations dole out large sums of money to politicians they buy with their PAC funds. This job highly enlightened me to the true inner workings of politics.

My view of politicians changed dramatically, when in 1993 I saw Bernie Sanders, Independent Vermont Senator interviewed on CSPAN. I had never heard of Sanders before, but he caught my attention that day.  He was the first politician I ever saw who was honest and real, which is never two words that are used simultaneously when describing a political figure.

In the past several decades Sanders has never wavered in his viewpoint against wars, helping veterans, private health care options for veterans, improving our healthcare system and attempting to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor. Funny, how half of America despises the only politician who can’t be bought and never changes his moral values and conduct.

My late husband was a disabled Vietnam veteran. As a wife/caregiver, I always followed any and all news about veterans. Back in 2013, I was watching closely a Veterans Bill that was being turned down by both Democrats and Republicans.  At the time, Bernie Sanders was the chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee. Sanders was working tirelessly to get this bill passed. An important bill that would help all veterans.

Meanwhile, during the fight over the bill, national news broke that Veterans across the country were waiting months on end for appointments and the wait times were being hidden. Up to 40 veterans in Phoenix died while waiting for appointments. Hundreds never even got onto a list. And retaliation was the order of the day for those who tried to blow the whistle.

It turned out that nationwide, the VA was coping with the spike in demand by delaying appointments and treatment, manipulating schedules, falsifying records and possibly engaging in fraud. An interim report from the VA Inspector General on May 28, 2014 found it was taking an average 115 days for veterans in Phoenix to get primary care, as opposed to the 24 days shown on official records and 1,700 people seeking appointments were not on any list at all. The IG called the Phoenix problems systemic and said he had opened investigations at 42 VA health centers. On June 9, the VA reported that 57,000 veterans at its facilities were waiting more than 90 days for an appointment, and another 64,000 were not on a waiting list although they had sought care.

My husband and I were not surprised by the news reports concerning the deaths and wait times. We had experienced personally these same problems with the VA for years.

From the moment the scandal broke in April 2014, it took Congress less than four months to produce a new law, a split second by Capitol Hill standards. That it happened at all, and so fast, was a testament to the determination of Sanders and his partners to surmount the red-blue divide in American politics.

In the end, both votes were close to unanimous, a 420-5 in the House and 91-3 in the Senate. Obama signed the VA bill August 7, 2014. The new law, helped ensure that veterans have access to the care that they’ve earned.

Before this bill passed, my husband and I were stressed dealing with the VA and their lack of medical care. I would often wait hours on hold, get disconnected and worse yet, couldn’t get a needed doctor appointment for my husband. After the bill passed, I saw a dramatic improvement in the respect my husband received along with improved medical care and response times from the VA. The biggest improvement was the use of non-VA medical care my husband desperately required.

I truly believe, without Bernie Sanders determination to help veterans, the problems at VA medical facilities would have never improved and more deaths would have occurred.

Most people only know Sanders as that old crazy Independent Senator from Vermont who ran for president in 2016. But, that all changed when Bernie showed up at the 2021 Biden Inauguration dressed in casual attire wearing a heavy parka and hand-made wool mittens from a Sanders fan.

As of today, that image of Bernie bundled up has not only created countless memes and late night jokes, the senator seized on the opportunity to reprint the image on different products that he began selling on his website, Berniesanders.com the following day. The merchandise all sold out in less than 30 minutes, and Bernie has raised over $1.8 million for charities in his home state.

“Jane and I were amazed by all the creativity shown by so many people over the last week, and we’re glad we can use my internet fame to help Vermonters in need,” Sanders said in a written statement.

My son knows how much respect I have for Bernie Sanders, so this past week, he texted me a photo of a mural that a local artist created of Bernie.

I probably will never have the honor of meeting Mr. Sanders. So, being the die-hard Bernie fan that I am, I drove to Culver City and got the next best thing. A photo of this giant, magnificent fresco of my hero, Bernie Sanders bundled up.

Shine On

Sweet Smelling Memories

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“The sense of smell can be extraordinarily evocative,
bringing back pictures as sharp as photographs
of scenes that had left the conscious mind.”
Thalassa Cruso

  • Trail riding with Jimmy circa 2001

It’s amazing to me how our sense of smell can trigger a memory, even as far back as our childhood.

The part of the brain responsible for our sense of smell is the limbic system and is related to feelings and memory.

Smells we experience can bring up memories about people, places, or events related to these sensations.

The last few days my sense of smell has been in overdrive. The savory smell of a chicken roasting in my neighbor’s kitchen. Then, the smell of sautéing onions with garlic creep through my window. The evening smell of the ocean breeze as it blows in the scent of night-blooming jasmine.

There’s an area in the wetlands of Marina del Rey that is covered with wild oat grass. I’ve often driven by this area at dusk, and every time, I can smell and breath in this intoxicating smell of the wild oat grass. I wish someone could bottle this smell and sell it. They’d be rich.

This favorite scent of dewy wild oat grass brings me back to a quieter much gentler time. It takes me right back to my evening horseback rides of my youth on the Southern California wide-open trails. Such sweet smelling memories.

 Shine On

Sowing Seeds

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 “Keep on sowing your seed.
For you never know
which will grow. 
Perhaps it all will.”
Albert Einstein

Most of my fellow Blogaholics are too young to remember one of this countries scariest early domestic terrorist and dangerous white supremacist, Charles Manson.

Manson was an American criminal and cult leader. Early in 1967, he formed what became known as the “Manson Family”, a quasi-commune based in California. His followers, not him personally, committed a series of nine murders in 1969. The motive for the murders was intended to start a race war.

Another well-known supremacist was leader, David Eden Lane. In March 1985 Lane was arrested in Winston-Salem, N.C., and charged with conspiracy and racketeering, along with 22 other members of The Order, a white supremacist terrorist organization also known as The Silent Brotherhood, or Bruders Schweigen. The charges were for The Order’s 1984 machine-gun assassination of a Jewish talk radio host in Denver, Alan Berg, and its robbery of $3.6 million from an armored car in Ukiah, Calif.

Lane was caught only after the FBI arrested Order member Tom Martinez, who became an informant as part of his plea bargain. This was the first step in the FBI takedown, known as “Operation Clean Sweep,” that landed most members of The Order in prison and effectively ended the organization’s criminal activities.

Lane was additionally accused in 1987, of violating Berg’s civil rights by helping to assassinate him, a federal charge. Lane was also charged with sedition, conspiracy and civil rights violations in what was widely known as the “Fort Smith  sedition trial.” Thirteen other prominent white supremacists were also charged in a conspiracy to overthrow the government that allegedly ran between July 1983 and March 1985.

While both Manson and Lane did not pull the trigger, prosecutors said they played a large role in the planning of the murders they had committed by their followers.

White supremacy is not new to our nation. It has dominated in this country both before and after the American Civil War and continues today. Since the first white supremacist group, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in 1865, the United States has an expansive list of the different types of racial elitist groups operating in the U.S.

Some academics argue that outcomes from the 2016 United States Presidential Election reflect ongoing challenges with white supremacy. As of 2018, there are over 600 white supremacy organizations recorded in this country.

Christopher A. Wray, the head of the FBI said on July 23, 2019 at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the agency had made around 100 domestic terrorism arrests since October 1, 2018, and that the majority of them were connected in some way with white supremacy. 

In an October 2020 assessment by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf declared that white supremacist violent extremists “have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years.”


What we witnessed on January 6th is laden with white supremacists. Rioters wearing shirts with, “Camp Auschwitz and 6MWNE” which is a cry from racists, 6 MILLION DEAD JEWS WAS NOT ENOUGH. Hats and banners with these slogans are proof of white supremacists.

Not all Republicans and Trump supporters are white supremacist. In my point of view, all of the violent MAGA people at the capital attack are full blown white supremacists. These MAGA people stated clearly by carrying their confederate flags and confirming their white supremacy wearing proudly their merchandise with racists slogans.

Now, Republicans such as Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) were among the politicians to spread the baseless conspiracy theory as well as their leader President Trump are attempting to pin the blame on Antifa and other radical organizations. The FBI has stated emphatically that there is NO EVIDENCE Antifa was involved in the Capital Attacks.

For centuries, leaders around the world have affirmed, the swiftest way to bring down a country is to divide the country. The act of dividing potential allies and communities who could come together to rise up is one of the oldest and most effective tricks in the book. A key tool for countering such tactics is learning from the stories of how previous organizations and coalitions have avoided the pitfalls of divide and conquer.

Divide and conquer is a strategy used by the oppressors to break down the relationships and unity between subjugated (often racial) groups struggling for justice, freedom, and liberation, in order to maintain the status quo.

Often tactics used to divide and conquer is creating a narrative that blames each group for the other group’s problems. This works to foster mistrust amongst groups and to cloud the systematic inequalities of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy.

Bribery is another tactic. This works to align some groups with the elite over other subjugated groups. The resources offered are never close to the original goals of the movement.

While all this violence and chaos ensues in the country, Trump continues to do what he has done since elected, which is to try to divide and conquer Americans for cynical gain. It’s all about winning, and everything else be damned.  Over the past five years, he has sown the seeds of racism, xenophobia, and religious bigotry. Everybody knows it, even his most staunch supporters who showed up at his January 6th political event to provoke violence. As long as he is standing in front of his adoring followers, where he can spew his special kind of wink and nod, dog whistle, cultural political rhetoric, he is fine.

I challenge our Republican representatives to name one thing Trump has done to unite the country. 

There is no denying, Trump has laid bare to all of us, who and what he embodies. Trump has yet to denounce what his MAGA people did January 6th. Trump may not have pulled the trigger that killed people during the raid on the Capital, he may not have used exact words to attack the Capital, but his support to MAGA people was loud and clear. To ensue violence and stop the confirmation of our election of our new president because in his words, it was stolen from him.

Trump has been placing a wedge between this country for over five years. A wedge that divides republicans from democrats. That divides race and religion and most importantly a wedge that attempted to divide our beliefs in our democratic society.

Ironically, Tuesday Trump held a political rally in Alamo, Texas to celebrate the “Trump Wall” he created. He bragged how successful his presidency was in building this wall.

I find it extremely telling that Trump chose his wall as his legacy. A wall to divide people. How ironic it is that days before he leaves office we have a new wall. A wall around all of our Capital buildings to protect our democracy not from foreign extremists but from homeland radicals.

Trump must be held accountable for what he has done to this country. Just like Manson and Lane, he has done damage without physically causing violence, deaths, division and threatening our democracy, but by sowing seeds.

 Shine On