Tuesday, January 13, 2009
I am not making this up
According to a story in yesterday's New York Times, President Bush's stand-in at Sunday's Inauguration rehearsal was Army Sgt. Bruce Cobbeldick. This cannot be mere happenstance.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Julie
The headline in today's Davis Enterprise read, "Farewell, Julie," over a 1999 photo of six mayors of Davis, Julie Partansky in the foreground. "Oh," I thought, "Julie's leaving Davis; that's a surprise." Then I read the story's subhead: "Former Mayor Partansky, a seminal figure in Davis politics, dies at 61." Of stage 4 lung cancer, diagnosed just five weeks ago.
Fey, funny, talented, dedicated Julie. For me, she occupied that more than a casual acquaintance, less than a friend place, our circles overlapping owing mostly to our mutual connections to others: Davis' progressive, lefty politics, or sometimes at the synagogue. I didn't see her often, but when we'd encounter one another at the Co-op, or downtown someplace, or at the Farmers Market, we'd always say hello and chat for just a brief moment. She had the sweetest smile.
Julie was ridiculed, maligned, dismissed by many in our town, but her seemingly whimsical or impractical ideas have been shown to make perfect sense: a dark-sky ordinance to keep light pollution from blotting out the stars; riding our bicycles instead of driving. Her first foray into the public eye came because she protested the city's plan to pave the alleyways that bisect several blocks here in my Old North Davis neighborhood. "We like our alleys," Julie said. "We have flowers planted there, and vegetables. Leave them alone." She won that battle, keeping the alley behind my house from becoming a shortcut speedway for cars. It was the alleys that launched her campaign for City Council.
She didn't have pots of money, she didn't have influential connections, she wasn't a career politician, using her city council seat as a launching pad to bigger and better things. She just loved this town, cared about its future, could see where rampant growth would take it, and in her own quiet, determined way, she kept the council, and us, focused on what mattered. I never heard her be mean. She just knew what was right.
So long, Julie; you left us way too soon.
Fey, funny, talented, dedicated Julie. For me, she occupied that more than a casual acquaintance, less than a friend place, our circles overlapping owing mostly to our mutual connections to others: Davis' progressive, lefty politics, or sometimes at the synagogue. I didn't see her often, but when we'd encounter one another at the Co-op, or downtown someplace, or at the Farmers Market, we'd always say hello and chat for just a brief moment. She had the sweetest smile.
Julie was ridiculed, maligned, dismissed by many in our town, but her seemingly whimsical or impractical ideas have been shown to make perfect sense: a dark-sky ordinance to keep light pollution from blotting out the stars; riding our bicycles instead of driving. Her first foray into the public eye came because she protested the city's plan to pave the alleyways that bisect several blocks here in my Old North Davis neighborhood. "We like our alleys," Julie said. "We have flowers planted there, and vegetables. Leave them alone." She won that battle, keeping the alley behind my house from becoming a shortcut speedway for cars. It was the alleys that launched her campaign for City Council.
She didn't have pots of money, she didn't have influential connections, she wasn't a career politician, using her city council seat as a launching pad to bigger and better things. She just loved this town, cared about its future, could see where rampant growth would take it, and in her own quiet, determined way, she kept the council, and us, focused on what mattered. I never heard her be mean. She just knew what was right.
So long, Julie; you left us way too soon.
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