Happy 6th!

 Party for Oliver at my house on Sunday...

Fire

This image doesn't even begin to capture the scene from my back door. Fire smoke has coated the Bay Area. The sun is actually bright red -- too bright for the camera in my cellphone to record. Smoke hangs heavily in the air.

This is an ongoing disaster. Many people have died and many more have lost their homes.

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Family Weekend

My youngest daughter Julia with her Aunt Carole, my youngest sister, at today's Goucher College "Family Weekend" -- thank you Carole!

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Weekender

Another relentless news week, which is wearing us all down. But today starts KQED's weekend news staffing -- now we are a seven-days-a-week operation. I am in the background, not on the weeknd staff officially, but the de facto copy editor in the background.

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Wednesday News

Aidan and Dylan drove me to brunch today, actually it was early afternoon. We went to the Moonlight Cafe on Bernal.

I am so blessed to have children who wish to spend time with me.

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Weekly Report

The accumulation of bad news lately has made me grow tired. Or maybe I am just old. But walking to and from work has become more of a burden lately -- it takes twice as long as it used to. On the other hand, I have been meeting and hiring more young people who want to be journalists. That is a very nice thing.

This is somewhat amazing, given how low paid we are and how many dangers lurk for those of us who try to practice this craft. Think about it -- lawsuits, death threats, insults, being called the 'enemies of the people' by he who purports to be our President. He who doesn't even know what play those words are lifted from. He is an uneducated idiot.

Yesterday I met John Yoo. the UC Berkeley professor who is best known for writing the memo justifying President George W. Bush's use of torture against Al-Qaeda suspects. It was a great pleasure talking with him, as he is one of the most thoughtful intellectuals I have met in a long time.

He invited me to speak at his constitutional law class. I doubt I will do that because I have completely quit driving. But I enjoyed our talk.

Most people, I realize, do not know me, in the political sense of that term. They do know know I am not a liberal, conservative, nor a radical. They do not know that I am none of those things at all. They do not know the thing that I am.

The best news I got this week is that my sister Carole and her husband Tom will be able to visit my youngest, Julia, on 'family weekend' soon at Goucher College, just outside Baltimore.

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National Unity

NFL players and other athletes all over this country are protesting Trump's insulting comments Friday night about what "loyalty" is. Thank God for them.

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