Rambling Introduction

To begin somewhere, it might as well be this way...

Like many others, I am inclined to absorb and to think about my situation, my environment, and the culture I'm part of. But it takes motivation to express these thoughts and observations. Otherwise it would seem wise to sit back and exempt oneself from the fray--the incessant conflict of a populous, contentious, spoiled and unsustainable way of life.
I have indulged in this sort of disengagement over the past seven or eight years during a marked cultural revolution in reverse. "Too much democracy" at home following the cultural revolution that began in 1966, has led the powers that be to engineer an apparent state of affairs enabling the declaration of military rule of the world (the so-called war on "terror") and end to notions of freedom at home (homeland security state).

Like many perhaps I have been somewhat intimidated by the resultant climate. We were fearful to speak our minds lest we labeled unpatriotic and dangerous. For example when the chief executive visits a foreign state and declares it "our greatest and most important ally", am I allowed to reject this view, am I free to voice support for the people that state declares enemies and oppresses. What if these people's desperate attempts at self-defense results in a designation of "terrorism" by our extremely biased political leaders? Do I still have the freedom of opinion and the freedom of speech to strongly disagree? Can I do so without hostile surveillance, without pejorative labels used to suppress my opinions? Without my name being added to a "No-fly List"?

Loss of hope is of course not an option. I've now lived long enough to see the pendulum swing both ways and I have a sense that things are now in rapid flux. And in the tradition of those who inspired me throughout my life I resolve to speak openly and with a charitable and forgiving heart.

Despite all this, I want to assure potential readers that this is not a political journal. Or at least state clearly that its politics extrapolate from my observation of the life I see around me and not from anyone else's doctrines or from media feeds.

The title Berkeley Flaneur is an adaption of a title used by the 19th Century French Romantic poet Charles Baudelaire. His title is Paris Flaneur. A flaneur, as I understand it, is someone who walks around in urban settings in sort of aleatory fashion and observes humanity as a sort of "kaleidoscope of consciousness" (Baudelaire). It is related in his thinking to the concept of a dandy--one who lives an aestheticized life and is by choice outside of the usual paths of career, family, and the duty of conformity. A flaneur may be a former dandy who is a little beat, and hopefully a little beatific.

I aspire to be a flaneur. I rarely travel by automobile, I mainly walk places and ride rails. I live a short walk from a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) train station which I often take to San Francisco where I ride MUNI trains. In 2005 I took trains from Oakland to Vancouver then across Canada to Toronto, Montreal, on to New York City and Boston. After a stay in my native Massachusetts I trained back from Providence to NYC, onto Chicago, Denver and back to California. All with very few miles traveled in cars or buses. I regard cars as the fastest engine for the ruin of the world. And my ultimate allegiance is always to the living world, not merely to priorities of mankind. At the urging of a spouse I learned to drive and got a license to use as an ID at the age of thirty-five. I'm no stranger to the joys and the stress of riding in cars, including one trip from Massachusetts to Oaxaca and back, but I have very rarely driven in my life. I say this not to sound self-satisfied as much as to plead my case on the judgment day.

And Berkeley is the place I have lived for the past nearly thirty years after one year of living in San Francisco. It is a curious microcosm of American society as well as something of an exception from it. Critical Mass, a group of bicyclists who protest the arrogant dominance of automobile traffic, ride down my street en masse once a month. And up this same street John Yoo goes to work each day at Boalt Hall law school. Yoo is the author of legal opinions used by the current administration to impose an imperial presidency, enact heinous programs of torture, and begin the massive warrentless spying on Americans we have today.
Anyone who thinks Berkeley is mainly comprised mainly of liberals and gourmands has another think coming. Things have changed. Among other things this journal will try to inform readers how radically they have as viewed from where I've been walking lately.