Category: Manny Kagan

On a recent photo trip to the Embarcadero Area, where the pre-50th Super Bowl festivities were taking place (I wrote about it last week), I encountered a lot of police (men and women), whose jobs were to protect the public. They looked very friendly and helped to direct the influx of people to the special events. But later on, when I walked on Market Street, I encountered a different attitude. First, I noticed about 20 policemen on motorcycles, with their engines roaring. They were parked in perfect formation, and it seemed, they were geared up for something to happen. Just in front of them, stood 20 or so policemen on foot, with their batons in hand and about the same number across the Street. Suddenly, the first of the officers from the motorcycle group raised his hand and they started moving, one by one in a very disciplined manner, while the policemen on foot followed. They blocked a group of demonstrators who were moving toward Embarcadero, while protesting against police brutality. It was almost as though everything that was happening was being very well orchestrated. Every policeman knew where to be and what to do. Fortunately, nothing “exciting” happened. There was no confrontation, and after the demonstrators were ordered to move to the sidewalk, the tension dropped. I only knew about police brutality toward black people from the headlines in the newspapers and some images I saw on the news. I also encountered and photographed a “Black Lives Matter” demonstration in Union Square in November, 2014. In my view, any prejudices stem from being afraid of the stereotyped images of how “they”, whoever that would be, can hurt us.

 

Former Mayor Willie Brown (who is African-American), wrote an article in the February 7, 2016 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle, where he described his encounter at Ruth’s Chris Steak House with a group of members of two opposing football teams (before the Super Bowl). He wrote, “No sooner had I sat down than the maître d’ comes over and says, ”Mr. Brown, I seated five big black guys in one dining room, and three other big black guys who just came in are in the other dining room.” After visiting both groups Mr. Brown continues, “Given the guys’ size and outfits and crazy hair, I’m sure half the diners thought they were going to be robbed at any minute.”

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I never liked to go to demonstrations, especially when they had a political connotation.  Perhaps my aversion was a result of the demonstrations we had to attend while living in Riga, Latvia, which at that time was part of the Soviet Union.  There are no such demonstrations in the United States, but we have our share of people’s demonstrations to support different causes. I encountered one, an anti-abortion rally, a few weeks ago, and wrote about it last week.  A week before, I was at the Embarcadero to witness the preparation for the celebration of this monumental event.  The security was very tight with the representatives of different branches of government enforcement agencies.  I decided to leave the crowd to go back to Market Street.  A few blocks away, I encountered a big group of policemen.  Some were on motorcycles, with their engines roaring, some were ready for “action”. Two more groups of the policemen waited, with their batons in their hands preparing for the invisible confrontation, on both sides of the street.  And then I saw the reason for this tension: a demonstration protesting the December 2^nd police killing of African-American convicted felon Mario Woods after he slashed someone with his knife.  In the “American Free Press” online, I found that “Over the past 35 years in America, an estimated 324,000 blacks have been killed at the hands of fellow blacks.”  There is a lot of effort spent on protecting human lives.

Some of the cases get more attention and criticism than others.  But where is the silver lining?  On January 24th, on the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, there was a story titled “Potential Threats as Big as the Game” by Evan Sernoffsky.  According to the FBI, “If someone wants to commit an act, they are going to commit an act.  There’s only so much that we can do.”  Meanwhile, a lot of money has been spent and many people are involved to save our lives.  This could make perfect sense, until you get the bigger picture.  On the same date in the “Insight” part of San Francisco Chronicle, I read an article by Leland H. Faust “In Our Scary Times, We Can’t Lose Sight of the Real Threats”.  The article points out, “Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, fewer than 50 people have died in the United States at the hand of Jihadists.”  She continues, “There were some 164,000 homicides due to firearms between 2001 through 2014.  Drunk drivers killed more than 170,000 people, during that same period.  50,000 people drowned and more than 60,000 pedestrians were killed.”  She points out that “Beyond commonsense precautions that do save lives, here are a few smart measures we can take to restore our sense of proportion and preserve our core values:  Name the problem, Remember Je suis Charlie.  Respect First Amendment rights.  Practice resolve, Protect human rights.  Speak out against un-American ideas.  Recognize that all lives matter.”

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On a recent photography trip downtown, I encountered a huge demonstration against abortion.  The next day, I found information about the event online and in the San Francisco Chronicle.  Apparently, some people drove over 30 hours from the Midwest as far as Tulsa, Oklahoma to demonstrate their stand against abortion.  One of the reasons for the demonstration was because Congress voted to defund Planned Parenthood in January, due to some release fabricated “undercover videos”.  Another reason was that it was the 43^rd anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade, the court decision that legalized abortion in the United States.  Many protesters were young men and women carrying the same placards stating “I Am The Pro-Life Generation.”  On the sidewalk, there was a small group of women and a few sympathizing men with their own homemade placards.  One of them stated, “Women Make Moral Choices”.  My question is, “How do we know which choice is or is not moral?”  Online, I learned that morality (from the Latin word “moralitas”, meaning “manner, character, proper behavior”) is a differentiation of intention, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper and those that are improper”.  Since moral teachings are primarily based on the religious doctrines (even the word originates from Latin), I decided to find out what the Torah, which is the basis for the three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, teaches about choice.  “I have placed life and death before you, blessings and curse, and you should choose life, so that you will live, you and your offspring” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Sounds straightforward.  Choose life!  The Torah also has the Ten Commandments, which were given to the Israelites by God at the Biblical Mount Zion as a moral compass for their life journey (which translated from Hebrew as “the ten words”, or “ten matters”).  One of them clearly states, “You shall not kill”.  At the same time, the Torah has a number of stories that involve killing.  One of them is about the High Priest Aaron’s grandson Phinehas, who because of their immoral behavior kills another Israelite man and his mistress.  Phinehas’s action was rewarded.  “And it shall be for him and his offspring after him a covenant of eternal priesthood, because he took vengeance for his God, and he atoned for the Children of Israel (Numbers 25:13).  Through the generations, the Jewish wise people taught that the Torah (which means “Instruction”, “Teaching”, but also “to shoot an arrow” or to hit the mark”) needs to be interpreted.  (The same goes with the Christian Bible and the Quran).

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Restaurants’ menus are often divided into four groups of food; appetizers, soup and salad, main courses and dessert. All four groups are prepared based on the recipes of the ingredients, which are grown on the farms.
In the United States, farm and ranch families, which operate the majority of the agricultural production, comprise of just two percent of the U.S. population. Mexico’s agricultural industry accounts for more than 18% of the nation’s employment, not counting the Mexicans who work in the fields of our country. Last week, I wrote about our dining experience at the ACRE restaurant in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. After having dinner there two nights in a row and befriending the owner and his staff, the next day we were invited to visit the farm to see from where they grow the food they prepared for us. The current owners bought 25 acres of a mango grove three years ago, which was damaged during a hurricane. Our tour guide was Kevin Luzande, a young and talented chef, who while living and working in different restaurants in Los Angeles, also owned a hydroponic farm, there.

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. To have hydrophonic farms you need to build a specially designed building. There, plants grow vertically year-round, immune to weather, under optimal conditions (In San Francisco you can find such a farm at 1549 Custer Avenue). I first learned about this technology from the book “Abundance” written by Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler. In the book, the authors describe different technological innovations in various spheres of our lives, including agriculture, which create abundance for a sustained growing population.

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There is nothing extraordinary about going on vacation to Mexico. But Mexico is an extrordinary country. If not for a historic fluke, we would be living in Mexico today. The Mexican-American war ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. As a result, Mexico ceded to the United States area, which consists of present day California, Nevada, most of Arizona and half of New Mexico. The annexation of Texas occurred two years earlier. The length of the border with the United States is 1,954 miles (no wonder Donald Trump wants to build a wall – it can be very profitable business). But even the remaining part of Mexico is huge. It is almost= three times the size of Texas, about half size of Russia, slightly smaller than China and more than twice the size of the European Union. Besides many natural resources, Mexico has beaches, which are popular tourist destinations. In the past, we visited Cabo San Lucas, which became very developed and touristy in recent years. This year, my wife Elfa got a time-share exchange for a week in December in San Jose del Cabo, at the Grand Mayan Resort. We visited this town before on day trips on previous vacations to another “Cabo” (which means “cape” in Spanish); but as we were staying in San Jose Cabo on this trip, we had time to explore and to discover the area. Our resort was located toward the end of the hotel strip bordering the beach of the Sea of Cortez, which is beautiful but has dangerous surf. Therefore, swimming and typical water activities were not permitted. However, there is something very unusual there – a bird sanctuary. It was located a fifteen minutes walk from our resort on the beach and it was magical (particularly, if you like to watch and photograph birds, like I do).

Every morning I would go on very long walks, and since there were not many people and activities on the beach, the birds served as good models. Before coming here, our friends who come here every year gave us some recommendations. One of them was to visit Villa Valentina, which was developed by a husband and wife team, and in the last 20 years, has become one of the extraordinary places on my list. It is a compound consisting of a small hotel, coffee shop, art gallery and a marvelous antique store. The family members all run it. One day, I came here at the end of my walk to have a cup of tea and I met delightful owners Daniel and Juliet.

There are many restaurants here offering typical Mexican food, especially in the old town, which is a conglomerate of galleries and jewelry stores, all catered for the tourists. But one day I stumbled into a health food store. There I learned about Flora Farm, where we could have lunch, but it was a ten-minute drive, on a dusty, unpaved road.

Interested? Have a referral? Please contact Manny Kagan at Manny@Pacbay.net /415-225-7920 today! 

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