California Pluses
Took a nice drive up the coast this morning. Got a paper and some caffeine. Found a bench in La Jolla and took in the sights. Joggers went by. A couple of SCUBA classes did their stuff. Some open-water swimmers, with and without wetsuits, braved the ocean. Some pelicans groomed themselves and some seals just lay there like beached tubs of lard. It was sunny. No jacket was required. For the first weekend in January it was a bit nippy, but that might just be my weakened condition.
Yesterday was similar. I went down to Pacific Beach to walk the beach walk with some friends. There were many joggers, surfers, kite surfers and wind surfers all doing there things. It was another typical California weekend.
Except for the newspaper. Today I bought the New York Times. As usual, it was well-written and covered topics of interest. It just brings up the recurring question of east-coast media domination and why the most populous state in the Union can’t produce a newspaper worth paying for. I read the S.F. Gate online, and occassionally wade through the L.A.Times’ registration and pop-ups, but won’t pay for the print version of either. San Diego’s Union-Trib is just a joke, both online and in print. I’ve lived in California for most of my life and in the Pacific time zone for 29 out of my 39 years. I have to admit that the failure of any large media of quality to settle in California (or the west in general) gets to me. Constant reinforcement of Northeast stereotypes of white christmas and public transportation systems. Tolerance of television newsreaders claiming to be speaking “live” when their information is obviously three hours behind internet reporting (and in some cases their own network’s special reports). But I digress and obsess.
It was a typical winter morning – a bit nippy, shoes and long pants seemed to be preferred. I took pictures yesterday, but they aren’t developed yet, so here are some recently scanned pictures taken around Christmas at Huntington Beach in the early 1980s (I was testing out some new camera equipment). Ahh, an old-fashioned Christmas. No snow, no northeastern stereotypes, but the holiday season as it really is, and should be.
