THE BIG MOMENTS AND FRESH AS FRESH CAN BE

OSCAR SHINES

    Everyone sees it their own way. I liked the politics of it. The big stage saw big moments of poignancy.

     Patricia Arquette's rally plea for equality for women and ecological sanitation in the developing nations scored points. It's something to see Meryl Streep standing, pointing and seemingly saying "You go girl!" 

     The overwhelming standing ovation for the emotionally staged Glory was topped only by John Legend and Common's powerful acceptance that repudiated racism and the over incarceration of blacks.

      Powerful were the tears of Selma's Martin Luther King,  David Oyelowo, as Glory filled the Dolby Theatre.

     Moving were the comments of Graham Moore telling how unfair it was that Alan Turing could not stand on a stage as he did. Moore won for adapting the Turing story into The Imitation Game. The brilliant Turing, an inventor of an early computer that broke the Nazi code in WWII, died of an apparent suicide after the war when he was exposed as being a homosexual.  Moore said he too considered suicide when he was 16 because he felt he was weird and different.

     There were plenty of candid and emotional moments at the microphone.

     It was stunning to see Julie Andrews emerge from the wings after Lady Gaga performed an incredible 50th anniversary tribute to Sound of Music.

      It was probably surprising to some to see the vocal skill and range of Gaga, who is better known as a costumed rocker. I've been a Gaga fan for a few years and have taken a few barbs from friends. The worst criticism of her are those who say she's a Madonna knock off. There is no way Madonna could have nailed the Sound of Music like Gaga. Nor could she perform as brilliantly with Tony Bennett as Gaga, who is a skilled musician, composer and artist. But I digress.

     All in all some major political and sociological planks got a good showing at Hollywood's big party. 
    For the record I think Neil Patrick Harris performed well, but some of the writing was shallow, self indulgent and weak. I'm sorry Richard Linklater didn't win for his epic production Boyhood. And while I raved about Birdman, I don't consider it film of the year. But hey, it's show biz!

FRESH

     One afternoon the next door neighbor where we were staying on Oahu asked if I could help him with a fruit tree.

   He had tied rope around a bundle of bananas and asked If I'd hold the end as he cut. The effort would prevent the fruit from crashing through other limbs and onto the ground.  It worked as they were undamaged.

  Within minutes, we were enjoying fruit as fresh as it could be.

COOKING LARGE

   Delivering the Paella at Tolosa's pick up party. Yum!

   See you down the trail

SOMETHING TO REMEMBER

THE DAY OF ARRIVAL
A MOMENT OF HISTORY

       It took three courageous and bloody tries, but on this day in 1965 25,000 marchers reached the state capitol in Montgomery Alabama.  In may ways it was the day that Civil Rights for African Americans, Negroes or Colored people, as were the predominate terms of that age, was made emphatic.

       My father and I made a point to watch the NBC Evening

news everyday during those troubled days of 1964 and 1965 as the US struggled with racism and segregation.  We had

seen police dogs and fire hoses turned on marchers and even the news reporters. We had followed the turbulence and violence, beatings and murders and simply could not understand how those scenes were even possible. Such hatred!  Even though Civil Rights legislation passed in 1964, Alabama, Mississippi and other pockets in the south, refused to grant full rights to people of color.

        Then in March of 1965 the march from Selma to Montgomery ripped into the heart and fabric of America. Twice Alabama troopers and mobs set upon and beat those

who were on their way to the same state capitol building where just two years earlier Governor George Wallace 

said "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

         After the failed second march thousands of other Americans, many of them clergy and church people, Christian, Jew, Quaker and Catholic flocked to Alabama to bolster the efforts.

Copyright unknown. Fair use image of historic moment depicting

John Lewis, an unidentified nun, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Bunche, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Fred Shuttlesworth. This is from Selma, the beginning of the third March to Montgomery.

      The other historic intervention came when President 

Lyndon Johnson, outraged by the violence of Alabama during the second march, introduced a Voting Rights act on March 15, 1965. He also provided national troops to ensure the safety of the marchers to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and 

walk through Montgomery to the capitol building, where 

the confederate president Jefferson Davis had been sworn in.

The symbolism was powerful

FBI Photo-Montgomery Alabama, March 1965

       When, finally, Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered his

"How Long, Not Long" remarks in Montgomery, the American Republic came to grips with the great evil of racial hatred, 

though as we know, it still haunts and bloodies the American Dream.  Yet, that day was a signal that a Federal government and an American citizenry were committed to justice and equality.  

        In those days of hatred and madness, courage and faith

prevailed. Though, we also note that evening Viola Liuzzo, a volunteer from the north was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan.
       We never really arrive, it seems. The dream requires the 
best and courage from each generation.

DAY BOOK

WHIMSY

The wood sculptures and bird houses are the work

of Cambria artist Richard Lee.

Selling the message.  Point made!
See you down the trail.