Here's my Christmas card to you. Selected YouTube videos of some of the best tunes I've posted to my Facebook page this year. You'll see rare live performances and hear some rare grooves. Plenty of r&b, funk, and soul, as well as some rock, Latin, and what all else. Now seems just the time to share some deeply meaningful song lyrics, so here goes, courtesy of the Motor City Mad Lad, Iggy Pop. "I've got a hard-ass pair of shoulders. I've got a love you can't imagine. And what I've got I double. I swear I'm keepin' out of trouble. I'm lookin' for one new value. I'm lookin' for one new value. But nothin' comes my way." So, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (belated) and best wishes for the new year, from our family's corner of Seattle. (This takes a minute to load).

Let's get this party started with a rare live TV performance featuring Tony Joe White, doing an alternate take of his big hit, "Polk Salad Annie."

Tina Turner at her sassiest, in '70, live with Ike and the Ikettes: "Bold Soul Sister." Who's that short white boy in the horn section, anyway?

Nina Simone's daughter, the singer Simone leads the Chicago jazz-funk-soul group Liquid Soul through this bracing live performance on CBS-TV.

The queen of reggae, with a great rock-steady tune from the 60s....

Rufus and Chaka Khan, live on NBC, early-mid 70s.

Speaking of ladies who kick it......

Not to mention these ladies, settin' Soul Train in motion....

A favorite funky female folkie.....

From N'Awlins, The Meters wrote the book on 60s r&b melded with funk. Art Neville - keyboards; George Porter - bass; Zigaboo Modeliste - drums; Leo Nocentelli - guitar.

Chuck Carbo's 1970 classic, also from the Crescent City.

From the "Bay Area Funk" compilation.

In my book, Memphis-based Stax Records was THE primo soul label. This Isaac Hayes cut: a gem.

The Godfather Of Soul, and his totally BadAss band on Soul Train in '73 - "Get On The Good Foot."

Klezmer funk, really. Modern-day Yiddish music folklorist and clarinetist David Krakauer hooks up with James Brown trombonist Fred Wesley and a bunch of others in this live in-studio performance. (Some of the camera work gets a bit dizzying.)

Straight outta Caracas in '94 these guys escaped mad Hugo's clutch. Don't chu wanna red jumpsuit like that?

The late Pakistani kawwali master. What a majestic voice, and what slammin'beats. Here with dance-floor production by Bollywood's own Bally Sagoo.

Motown dons a Lunar Dashiki thanks to great producer-artist Norman Whitfield.

From the classic '70 Chicago blues recording. Released in '72, produced by Clapton.

This instrumental classic by Freddie King has been covered widely. Including by a band known as the Bluesbreakers, with a young Eric Clapton. In this live TV performance, I love the way Freddie's band is moving & grooving. Not to mention the white-booted go-go dancers.

Electric slide gee-tar? Here's a real piece o' the rock, from J.B. Hutto, on a mid-60s Chicago blues compilation from the Vanguard "folk" label. His nephew Lil' Ed, of Lil' Ed & The Blues Imperials (Alligator Records), carries the torch today.

Chester Burnett, or Howlin' Wolf, was a blues great. Here's a rare filmed performance. Guitarist Hubert Sumlin adds some spice.

A Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame moment live on British TV. Fleetwood Mac, from their Time Of Testosterone. Peter Green singing, playing signature riff of song on his Gibson Les Paul. Floppy-haired turtle-necked Danny Kirwan with wrenching leads. Mick Fleetwood on drums, John McVie, bass. Love it, coz this just don't happen no more.

His real name was Ellis McDaniel and in '56 he sang: "I walked 47 miles of barbed wire; I use a cobra snake for a neck tie; I got a brand new house on the roadside made from rattlesnake hide; now come on take a little walk with me Arlene; tell me who do you love?"

Deep Latin soul of 60s vintage from percussionist and vocalist Willie Bobo.

Latin bandleader and pianist Joe Cuba gets kinda frenetic. Try not to bop to this.

El Timbalero! Modern-day salsa standard-bearer. Never misses.

You were just waiting for some Icelandic lounge jazz, right? Bjork, live on Rekjavik TV in '90.

Brother Jack McDuff on the Hammond B-3, breezin' in from Pittsburgh with some greeezy rare groove.

More rare groove - a blues-jazz kind of instrumental thing - from a fine Seattle band on a SF label, '93.

Toots & The Maytals, Bootsy Collins and The Roots, updating an old classic.

Fat Boy Slim w Lindy Layton. Just listen to this woman sing. And to the quavery trombone at end.

"Ain't nothin worse than some fool lying on a 3rd World beach wearing spandex psychedelic trousers, smokin' damn dope, pretendin' he gettin' consciousness expansion. I want consciousness expansion, I go to my local tabernacle and I SING, with the brothers and sisters."

The King of Okinawan pop-folk-rock, with Ry Cooder.

Boston's Remains were legendary one-hit wonders. "Don't Look Back" was featured on the noted "Nuggets" compilation of 60s punk rock and psychedelic oddities assembled by Patti Smith Group guitarist and rock historian Lenny Kaye.

Very groovy yet bone-crunching psychedelic hard rock tune from a San Antonio group, here enjoying their 15 minutes of fame. I remember this from AM radio in Chicago, back in the day, on "Ron Britain's Subterranean Circus," WCFL-AM.

The peerless country rock of the Flying Burrito Brothers with Gram Parsons; this song is also known as "Devil in Disguise."

A mello outro. The classic Charles Mingus tune, re-interpreted by one of my generation's great guitarists, here unplugged and fully Guru'd.

Looking west across Puget Sound from West Seattle, onto the Olympic Peninsula, at The Brothers. I snapped this shot a few weeks ago, taking an eight-mile walk north along Beach Drive and then back home to my neighborhood of Gatewood Hill. Why is it I never get tired of the Olympic and Puget Sound views? Must have something to do with the constantly shifting textures, shapes and colors. What a place to live!

Matt's earned media record dates back to the late 1980s when he helped engineer and shape high-profile media coverage for his then-employer - a coalition of suburban mayors concerned about O'Hare Airport expansion plans - on CNN, NPR, Chicago radio and TV, and in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, myriad community newspapers, and other outlets. Over the course of a long career in strategic communications, journalism and policy advocacy, Matt has not only worked at center stage, but more often behind the scenes with media for a wide range of clients and employers. More in Matt's in-depth bio.

This compendium includes some representative samples of: 1) placements he has helped to achieve through ongoing outreach and relationship-building with media; 2) - op-eds he co-wrote without a byline. The period covered is 2/07 to 12/09, during Matt's tenure with the Seattle-based West Coast transportation think tank, Cascadia Center For Regional Development, where he has served as a Senior Fellow doing writing, research, blogging and social media, media relations and providing strategic communications counsel.

Other portfolios: Matt's own published writing on a range of topics; additional speciality writing on transportation; and direct news coverage of Matt's work.

Matt can provide hard copy documentation of other earned media over the last 20 years. He can also provide details of exactly how he helped facilitate each of the following placements.

"Bruce Agnew In Radio News Segment On Eastside Rail And Trail," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 11/09

"Fast Train In The Fast Lane," KPLU-FM 89.3, Seattle, 10/09

"Cascadia's Bruce Agnew Discusses Electric Vehicles On Display At 'Beyond Oil'," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 10/09

Coverage Of 'Beyond Oil' 2009, KIRO7-TV, Seattle, 10/09

"Electric Car Pulls In For Quick Charge At Microsoft," KING-5 TV, Seattle 10/09

"Seattle Expected To Be Key Market For Electric Cars," Seattle Times, 10/09

"Bruce Agnew In News Segment On Bremerton-Seattle Foot Ferry Trial," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 7/09

"Light Rail Rolls And Commuter Rail Percolates," Lance Dickie, Seattle Times op-ed column, 6/09

Portland, Oregon TV Coverage Of Cascadia Rail Congress (KOIN, KATU, KGW), 5/09

"Portland, Vancouver, B.C. Mayors Pledge To Push For High-Speed Rail," The Oregonian, 5/09

"Regional Leaders Discuss High-Speed Rail," Daily Journal Of Commerce, Portland, Oregon, 5/09

"High-Speed Rail Dreams Depend On Dedicated Tracks," Seattle PI.com, 5/09

Federal Rail Administration's Karen Rae and WA State Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen - "Federal Funds May Enable High Speed Rail In Pacific Northwest," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 5/09

"Vancouver B.C. Mayor Gregor Robertson & Federal Rail Administration's Karen Rae Promote Cross-Border Passenger Rail," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 5/09

"High-Speed Rail Supporters Meet In Portland," Oregon Public Broadcasting, 5/09

"Stimulus Funds Wanted For Improved Rail Lines," Seattle Times, 5/09

"State Hopes For $880 Million For Rail," Centralia Chronicle, 5/09

"High-Speed Rail Could Run From Oregon To B.C.," Everett Herald, 5/09

"Cascadia's Bruce Agnew On NW Inter-City & High Speed Rail," Dave Ross Show, KIRO-FM Seattle 97.3, 5/09

"Seattle Tunnel Would Be The World's Widest," Seattle Daily Journal Of Commerce," 4/09

"Yakima Valley Fruit Growers Support Deep-Bore Tunnel On SR 99," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 4/09

"SR 99 Deep-Bored Tunnel Costs," Cascadia's Bruce Agnew On Dave Ross Show," KIRO-FM 97.3, Seattle, 4/09

"Cascadia's Bruce Agnew On Upsides Of Tunnel Decision," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 4/09

"Bored Tunnel Technology Helps Option Advance," KUOW-FM, Seattle, 1/09

"Cascadia's Bruce Agnew Discusses Deep Bore Tunnel To Replace Alaskan Way Viaduct, On Dori Monson Show" w guest host Frank Shiers, KIRO-AM 710, Seattle, 12/08

"Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement, AM Radio Coverage," KOMO-AM 1000, Seattle, 12/08

2008 'Beyond Oil' Conference Media Coverage, Compendium, 9/08

"Are Privately-Operated Highways In Your Future?" KPLU-FM, Seattle, 6/08

"Ever-Rising Expense Of Driving About to Take A Toll On All Of Us," Joel Connelly, Seattle P-I, 6/08

"Cascadia's Bruce Agnew & Microsoft's Mark Aggar - Tolling, Traffic Technology & Public-Private Partnerships," Dave Ross Show, KIRO-AM, Seattle, 6/08

"The Big Story At Six: Regional Tolling Comes To Puget Sound," KIRO-AM 710, Seattle, 6/08

"Linking Speedier Ferries To A Cleaner Sound," Kitsap Sun, 5/08

"Conference Lifts Chamber Manager On Passenger Ferry," Peninsula Daily News, 5/08

"Foot Ferry Of The Future," KOMO4-TV, Seattle, 5/08

"What Austin Can Teach Seattle About Civic Planning," Puget Sound Business Journal, 4/08

"Drivers Ready To Pay Saturday When Highway 167 'HOT Lanes' Open," Seattle Times, 4/08

"A Lot to Gain From Passenger-Only Ferry Service," San Juan Journal, 4/08

"Railway Corridor From Snohomish to Renton To Keep Tracks," Seattle Times, 4/08

"Make Eastside A Proving Ground For Innovative Transportation Ideas," Seattle Times 3/08

"Imagine A Network Of Foot Ferries: Our Century's 'Forward Thrust' For Puget Sound," Seattle P-I, 2/08

"State Ferries: A Future Focus," Seattle P-I, 2/08

"Dave Ross Interviews Bruce Agnew On Eastside Rail," KIRO-AM 710, Seattle, 1/08

"Eastside Rail Forum Sketches Ideas For Commuter Line," Seattle Times, 1/08

"Watch For Plug-In Cars In Tacoma," Tacoma News Tribune, 12/07

"Tunnel Idea Emerges," Puget Sound Business Journal, 12/07

"Tunnel Returns to Debate Over Viaduct Options," Seattle Times, 12/07

"Defeat Of Transportation Package Spurs Talk Of Commuter Rail Line Along BNSF Corridor," Woodinville Weekly, 12/07

"Cascadia: Eastside Corrdior Can Support Interurban Rail," KUOW-FM 94.9, Seattle, 11/07

"Report: $37 Million Option for Eastside Train," Seattle Times, 11/07

"Regional Transport: Much Can Be Done Right Now," Puget Sound Business Journal, 11/07

"Preserve Eastside Rail Line for Snohomish Transit Link," Seattle Times, 10/07

"Roads, Fuel, and Funding," Tacoma News Tribune, Sunday op-ed, 10/07

"Less Gas Tax Revenues, More Tolls," Tacoma New Tribune "Inside The Editorial Page" blog, 10/07

"Rails And Trails Could Easily Co-Exist On Eastside," Puget Sound Business Journal, 10/07

"Group Pushing For Expansion Of Passenger-Only Ferries," KPLU-FM Seattle, 7/07

"Foot Ferry Network Urged For Metro Puget Sound," KIRO-AM 710, Seattle, 7/07

"6 p.m. News Coverage Of Water Transit Event," KIRO7-TV, Seattle, 7/07

"Momentum Building For Return Of 'Mosquito Fleet'," KING5 TV/KONG-6 TV, Seattle, 7/07

"Could Plug-In Cars End The Age Of Oil?" Crosscut, 5/07

"Fans Of Plug-In Cars Build Their Power Base," Seattle Times, 5/07

"Visions Of A Northwest Hybrid Car Future Abound," Seattle P-I, 5/07

"Plug-In Cars Are Close: Let's Address The Obstacles," Everett Herald, 5/07

"Green Wheels Spinning For Venture Backers," Puget Sound Business Journal," 5/07

"Beyond The Prius: Plugging In To Green Transportation," Seattle Times, 4/07

This archive includes many of Matt's transportation pieces from Cascadia Prospectus, the blog of Cascadia Center, the Seattle-based think tank where he has worked as a Senior Fellow the last three years. Also included are Matt's transportation pieces in other publications, including Crosscut, The Seattle Times, and The Oregonian. Related: Matt's journalism portfolio (mainly non-transportation topics); Matt's earned media work; in-depth bio; and consulting services.

FUNDING OVERVIEW

"How To Pay For The Roads Still Traveled," Crosscut

"Smart Spending On Transportation Will Benefit U.S. Economy," Cascadia Prospectus

"LaHood, Obama, Congress Face Transportation Challenges," Cascadia Prospectus

"West Coast Mobility Solutions Key, Speakers Say," Cascadia Prospectus

"R-51 A Crucial Down Payment," Seattle Times

TOLLING

"SR 520 Funding Gap Now Pegged At $2.38 Billion," Cascadia Prospectus

"Time To Go 'All-In' On Tolls," Crosscut

"Flexible Tolling: The Key To Solving Our Congestion," Crosscut

"Tolls And Other Traffic Management Ideas Are Coming Back," Crosscut

"WashDOT's Paula Hammond: Tolled Express Lanes Key," Cascadia Prospectus

"U.S. Traffic Congestion Tab Of $87.2 Billion In '07; Record Costs To Seattle Region," Cascadia Prospectus

"Bay Area Looks to Future With Regional HOT Lane System," Cascadia Prospectus

"The Viaduct Decision's Next Step: Tolling," Crosscut

"En Route To A Bay-Area HOT Lane Network," Cascadia Prospectus

"Tolling Wyoming? Howzzat, Podnah?," Cascadia Prospectus

"Include I-205 In I-5 Columbia Crossing Mobility Council Planning," Cascadia Prospectus

Columbia River Crossing: A Bridge To The Future," The Oregonian

"Metro Portland, The I-5 Bridge Tolls For Thee," Cascadia Prospectus

"State Treasurer: Very Difficult To Fund 520 Bridge Without I-90 Tolls," Cascadia Prospectus

'Toll-Booth-Free Tolling On SR 520 And I-90," Crosscut

"HOT Lanes Advance In Houston, On I-10 'Katy Freeway'," Cascadia Prospectus

"Highway Congestion Pricing Advances On The West Coast," Cascadia Prospectus

"Steady Progress On Congestion Pricing, Tolling," Cascadia Prospectus

"Washington Legislature Advances Tolling For Puget Sound," Cascadia Prospectus

"Tolling, Finance Innovation Vital For Infrastructure Growth," Cascadia Prospectus

MILEAGE TAX/WIDE-AREA PRICING

"What Is It About Mileage Taxes Obama Doesn't Understand," Crosscut

"Mileage Tax Gets Boost From Peters, Mineta Institute," Cascadia Prospectus

"LaHood: Mileage Charge, P3s, Expanded Tolling All Possible," Cascadia Prospectus

"West Coast States Ramp Up Joint Transpo Agenda," Cascadia Prospectus

"State Rep. Carlyle: New Era Of Transpo Funding, Strategy, Looms," Cascadia Prospectus

"Vehicle Mileage Tax Push Alive And Well," Cascadia Prospectus

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

"Ready To Try Public Private Partnerships Yet?," Crosscut

"A Hard Road To Travel In Minnesota," Cascadia Prospectus

"No Federal Bailout: States, Regions Confront Transpo Funding Woes," Cascadia Prospectus

"Steve Heminger, Robert Poole: Context Trumps Ideology On Public-Private Partnerships," Cascadia Prospectus

"Chicago's New Parking Deal Accents Tricky Terrain For P3s," Cascadia Prospectus

"Obama's DOT Pick To Face Surface Transportation Crisis," Cascadia Prospectus

"A State Agency Eyes Public-Private Transportation Funding" Crosscut

"Sea-To-Sky Highway Under The Microscope," Cascadia Prospectus

"Sexy, Sexy Infrastructure," Cascadia Prospectus

"Private Capital Eyed For Transit, Roads," Cascadia Prospectus

"Public-Private Partnerships Boost Infrastructure In B.C., Canada," Cascadia Prospectus

"Puget Sound Mobility Requires Public-Private Partnerships," Cascadia Prospectus

GREENING TRANSPORTATION

"Global Car Fleet Growth Requires Electrification," Cascadia Prospectus

"MIT Tech Review: The Wait Will Be Worth It For Plug-in Hybrids," Cascadia Prospectus

"Microsoft's Rob Bernard On 'Zero, Shared and Efficient Miles'," Cascadia Prospectus

"Buzz Keeps Building For Electric Vehicles And Plug-in Hybrids," Cascadia Prospectus

"What's The Goal: Green Vehicles Or Gas-guzzler Subsidies?," Cascadia Prospectus

"Paul Roberts On The Promise Of Plug-in Hybrids," Cascadia Prospectus

"Plug-in Electric Vehicles Get A Charge," Cascadia Prospectus

"Greening The Highway From Baja To B.C.," Cascadia Prospectus

"New Study: PHEVs Could Help Slash Greenhouse Gas Emissions," Cascadia Prospectus

"Wanted" 'Alternative Fuels Highway' - Not 'Hydrogen Highway'," Cascadia Prospectus

Keep Powered Scooters Off City Bike Paths," Seattle Times

TELEWORK, & TECHNOLOGY

"More Telework Means Major Savings, Increased Productivity," Cascadia Prospectus

"Telework: An Employee Retention Tool," Cascadia Prospectus

"Translink Touts iMove Web Site As Congestion-Busting Tool," Cascadia Prospectus

"Slow But Steady 'Telework Revolution' Eyed," Cascadia Prospectus

TRANSIT

"Hurray For Mass Transit, But It's No Silver Bullet," Crosscut

"Time For A Bus-fare Reality Check," Crosscut

"Puget Sound Foot Ferries Migrate To San Francisco," Crosscut

"Expanded Passenger Ferry Service Could Ease Region's Traffic Congestion", Sunday opinion section cover, Seattle Times

"Murray Seals Deal On Fast Foot Ferry Trial For Bremerton-Seattle," Cascadia Prospectus

"Beyond 'Roads Versus Transit'," Cascadia Prospectus

"Low-wake Passenger-Only Ferry Plan Advances In Kitsap," Cascadia Prospectus

"Hot Rod Foot Ferry Wows In Seattle Demo," Cascadia Prospectus

"Willamette River Ferry Transit For Portland: Pipe Dream Or Not?," Cascadia Prospectus

"A Turning Point Approaches For Fast Foot Ferries In Puget Sound," Cascadia Prospectus

"Los Angeles County To Expand Bus Rapid Transit," Cascadia Prospectus

"Fewer Bus Routes, More Frequency," Cascadia Prospectus

"Get On Board With Eastside Commuter Rail," Cascadia Prospectus

DEEP-BORE TUNNEL TO REPLACE S.R. 99 ALASKAN WAY VIADUCT IN SEATTLE

"Fruit Growers Urge Deep-Bore Tunnel Option For SR 99," Cascadia Prospectus

"State Senate Bill Intro'd to Replace Viaduct With Deep-Bore Tunnel," Cascadia Prospectus

"Gregoire: Tolling 'Very Likely' For New Deep-Bored Tunnel," Cascadia Prospectus

"Gregoire Advisor: Tunnel 'Probably Most Viable Option' For Replacing Alaskan Way Viaduct," Cascadia Prospectus

"Consensus Grows For Deep-Bore Tunnel Option," Cascadia Prospectus

"Viaduct A Key Through Traffic Route; Tunnel Best Replacement," Cascadia Prospectus

"Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement: Keep Tunnel Option Alive," Cascadia Prospectus

"Pressure Buids To Keep Tunnel Option Alive," Cascadia Prospectus

"Cascadia-Arup Report: Deep-Bore Tunnels @ $200M-$700M Per Mile," Cascadia Prospectus

"A Deep-Bored Tunnel To Replace The Alaskan Way Viaduct," Cascadia Prospectus

"From Wuhan To Barcelona To Pittsburgh, More Deep-Bored Tunnels Are On the Way," Cascadia Prospectus

Following is some web-posted coverage by newspapers, blogs and radio of Seattle-based policy analyst, writer and communications consultant Matt Rosenberg. This portfolio reflects only one aspect of Matt's communications work, as a newsmaker, and only the last several years of a long career. Other portfolios are of web-posted newspaper and magazine articles and commentaries authored by Matt, plus speciality writing on transportation, and earned media resulting from Matt's behind-the-scenes work for his employers and clients. More here about Matt, and his consulting services. Reach Matt at oudist (at) comcast (dot) net.

RECENT NEWS COVERAGE OF MATT'S WORK AND WRITING

"Road Tolling May Be A Necessary Evil for Vancouver," Metronews.ca Vancouver, 12/7/09

"New Cascadia Blog Article Highlights Telework Benefits," TMCNet, 10/16/09

"Ask Not For Whom The Road Tolls," Puget Sound Business Journal "Biz Talk," 9/30/09

"Traffic Congestion Down, But Costs To Commuters Still Up," Seattle PI.com, 7/9/09

Matt, Talking Highway Corridor Tolling With Dori Monson, (transcript and mp3) KIRO-FM 97.3 Seattle, 6/3/09

"Road Tolls: More Than Just 520 Bridge," MyNorthwest.com, 6/3/09

"Will More Washington Roads Take Their Toll On Drivers?" Seattle P-I.com, 6/1/09

"Is Cascadia's Train Coming In?" Crosscut, 5/12/09

"Training Pants For The 21st Century Motorist," Grush Hour, 4/3/09

"Ready To Try Public-Private Partnerships Yet?" Kitsap Sun, The Commute, 4/2/09

"Partnerships A Solution For Transportation Funding?" Seattle PI.com, 4/1/09

"Oregon Will Move To Tax Cars By The Mile," Crosscut, 12/30/08

"The Week In Transportation - October 25th Edition," Los Angeles Times, Bottleneck Blog, 10/25/08

"Down The Road," King County Executive Ron Sims' blog, 9/5/08

"The Bus Crunch," Seattle Transit Blog, 8/6/08

"Getting Bold About Bus Fares," Seattlest, 8/6/08

"Ready For Our HOT Lane Test?" Tacoma News Tribune, Inside The Editorial Page, 4/28/08

"Tracks To Remain Open On Trail-Rail Corridor," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 4/14/08

"Congestion Pricing: What It Isn't," Seattle Times, Bruce Ramsey, Ed Cetera blog, 4/10/08

"What Skills Does It Take To Be A Good Blogger?" Tacoma News Tribune, Online In The South Sound, 11/29/07

"River-Oriented Transit," Orphan Road, 8/1/07

"Issues Of Commuting, Trade, The Focus Of New Blog," Tacoma News Tribune, Online In The South Sound, 5/29/07

"With Race Obsessed," Joanne Jacobs (leading education blog by former San Jose Mercury News opinion columnist), 4/12/07

"What's Wrong With Seattle Schools?" Olympia Business Watch, 4/3/07

"Web Site Invites Political Dialogue," Seattle Times, 9/11/06

See 10th paragraph, re ACLU Suppression Of Internal Dissent, Slate, 5/24/06

"See 9th paragraph, "Seattle Writer Matt Rosenberg Reviews The Reviewers Who Whistle Through The Glamorization Of Terror," Slate, 3/17/06

"Senseless In Seattle" item, James Taranto, Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal, 6/16/05

"Bloggers To Boeing: Your Journal Needs Work," Puget Sound Business Journal, 3/18/05

"Urge To Rant Propelling Blogs To Status Of Mainstream Media," Seattle Times, 2/14/05

"First Amendment Thrives In State," Mark Trahant, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/9/05

"Where Blogging Is Getting To Be Really Big," Steve Outing, Poynter Online E-Media Tidbits, 12/17/03

"Blogs And Freedom: The Big Story," Jeff Jarvis, Buzz Machine, 12/17/03

"Racial Justice Issues Spur Two-Day Forum," Seattle Times, 1/25/03

"Monuments To Ignorance," Edwin Feulner, Scripps Howard News Service, 8/16/01

"Red Alert" item in Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal, 7/6/01

Here are some examples of Matt's work in professional journalism, presently limited here to articles and commentaries he has authored for newspapers and magazine, which are also available online. Last updated, 2009.

SOME RECENT PIECES (transportation, more)

Time To Go 'All-In' On Tolls," (Crosscut)

"Flexible Tolling: The Key To Solving Our Congestion" (Crosscut)

"Ready To Try Public Private Partnerships Yet?" (Crosscut)

"What Is It About Mileage Taxes Obama Doesn't Understand" (Crosscut)

"How To Pay For The Roads Still Traveled" (Crosscut)

"Time For A Bus-fare Reality Check" (Crosscut)

Columbia River Crossing: A Bridge To The Future," (The Oregonian)

"Hurray For Mass Transit, But It's No Silver Bullet" (Crosscut)

"Putting Politics Ahead Of Kids" (Seattle Times)

"It Isn't Racism That's Oppressing Seattle Public Schools Students, It's Inflexibility" (Crosscut)

"Thugs On Parade" (City Journal)

"Ample Water Potential, But a Leadership Drought: Toward a 21st Century Regional Water Policy for Central Puget Sound" (White Paper, Cascadia Center, Discovery Institute)

"It's Clear: Plan Today For Water Tomorrow," (Sunday op-ed) (Tacoma News Tribune)

"Blue City Conservatives - Meet Seattle's Biggest Closet Cases: The Republicans Next Door" (Seattle Weekly)

"Why Adopt? Couples Share Their Stories" (Parent Map)

SELECTED OP-EDS AND COMMENTARIES

Urban economic development
"Capitalism May Rescue Troubled City Turf" (inner city development) (Seattle Times)

"Jumpin' At The Junction" (West Seattle's boom) (Seattle Times)

"Bremerton Searches For Life And Leadership" (economic development/op-ed) (Seattle Times)

"Bremerton's Grand Plan To Revitalize Its Core" (economic development/op-ed) (Seattle Times)

"Kitsap Kicks It Up: ...Peninsula's 'Downtown' Aims To Pull Itself Out Of The Doldrums" (Sunday opinion section cover) (Seattle Times)

"Muckleshoot Tribe Pumps Up Auburn Economy" (Puget Sound Business Journal)

Social services
"Lending A Hand To Hard-luck Kids" (transitional living and guidance for formerly homeless minority teens) (Seattle Times)

"A Double Shot Of Lukewarm Logic" (proposed Seattle latte tax) (Seattle Times)

Crime, public safety
"Grasping For Answers In The City Of Fear" (Mardi Gras '01 riots in Seattle, policing) (Seattle Times)

"The 'Silent War' Against Black-On-Black Violence" (Seattle Times)

Public education
"Why Some Walk Away From Seattle Public Schools" (Seattle Times)

"Seattle Public Schools An Academic Crapshoot" (Seattle Times)

""Technology Can't Bridge Seattle's Educational Gaps" (Seattle Times)

"Gripes, Hopes And Fears: Seattle Students Sound Off" (Seattle Times)

"School Reform's Missing Piece" (charter schools) (Seattle Times)

"Charter School Foes Are Running Out Of Excuses" (Seattle Times)

"Parents Who Raise Readers Open Door to Success" (Seattle Times)

"Don't Blame the Schools for Enforcing Boundaries" (Seattle Times)

"It Makes Sense To Help Sub-PAR Teachers" (Seattle Times)

Race
"Moving Race Discussion Beyond Cries Of Racism" (Seattle Times)

"Confronting White Guilt" (Seattle Times)

"Community Doesn't Need More Racial Posturing" (Seattle Times)

"The Stereotypes That Feed Seattle's Racial Tensions" (Seattle Times)

Culture, political and otherwise
"Woe To The Moderates On The UW Campus" (Seattle Times)

"Shame On Fremont For Its Tribute To Lenin" (Seattle Times)

"Lessons In Art Of Survival For Bellevue Museum" (cutting-edge "art" falls flat) (Seattle Times)

"Comparing Seattle To The City By The Bray" (Seattle Times)

"The Worm At The Core Of Cuba's 'Little Seattle'" (Seattle Times)

"Altered Consciousness In The City By The Bay" (Seattle Times)

"Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should" (technology run amok) (Seattle Times)

"Shun The Commercialism That Numbs Your Kids" (Seattle Times)

Local, regional, state politics and policy

"R-51 A Crucial Down Payment" (Seattle Times)

"Expanded Passenger Ferry Service Could Ease Region's Traffic Congestion" (Sunday opinion section cover) (Seattle Times)

"Carrying The Torch For Seattle's Lady Liberty" (Seattle Times)

"Keep Powered Scooters Off City Bike Paths" (Seattle Times)

"Uphill Battle In Bremerton" (Seattle Times)

"Sidran's 'Rocky Road' Runs Through The Eastside" (on '01 Seattle mayoral candidate & near-victor Mark Sidran) (Seattle Times)

"Meanwhile, The Auditor Keeps Democracy In Line" (Accountability Agenda Of WA State Auditor Brian Sonntag) (Seattle Times)

"More Money, Support Needed For State Parks" (Seattle Times)

Civic Engagement, Open Government
"Knocking Down Barriers To Civic Engagement," (Seattle Times)

"District Elections: Yes, To Shake Up The Council" (Seattle Times)

"City, County Must Close Lobbyist Disclosure Gap" (Seattle Times)

"Seattle Needs to Take The E-Government Plunge" (Seattle Times)

National & international
"Challenging Perspectives On AIDS and Gay Men" (Seattle Times)

"Gun-Control Advocates Should Change Their Tune" (Seattle Times)

"It's Time To Put An End To The Carnage Of Pit Bulls" (Seattle Times)

"Speaking Of Job Growth...." (Kerry vs. Bush on the economy) (Seattle Times)

*North Korea: Heads Up, Seattle (Seattle Weekly)

"The Bloody Hands Of The Weathermen" (Seattle Times)

"Risk in Iraq is Doing Too Little, Too Late"(Seattle Times)

"Global Democracy Needs Continual Push" (Seattle Times)

"Renton-based Mission Confronts Brutality In Sudan" (Seattle Times)

"Challenges For A Nation Poised Between Two Worlds" (Seattle Times)

Why blogs matter
"The Blogs Of Freedom" (Iraqi bloggers) (Seattle Times)

"Bill Cosby and the Blogosphere" (how blogs "give legs" to an "off limits" story) (National Review Online)

"Blog On!" (the growth of news and commentary blogs in and around Seattle) (Seattle Magazine)

SELECTED NEWS ARTICLES - ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, REAL ESTATE

"Bad Blocks" (urban blight) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Sometimes It Pays To Be Destructive" (demolition business) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"No Place To Park" (downtown Seattle's parking shortage) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Mechanized Parking May Ease Land Crunch In Future, (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Public Property Blight Poses Challenge For City" (rundown city properties) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

SELECTED NEWS ARTICLES - BUSINESS

Cashing In:...PGA Championship A Windfall For Economy" (Puget Sound Business Journal)

TECHNOLOGY & INTERNET

Customers Begin To Demand More of Technology" (personal technology, mobile) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Get Ready For The Online Explosion" (e-commerce, incl. B2B) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Popularity of Internet Won't Peak For Years" (Internet metrics, usage) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Venturing A Risk" (venture capital, hi-tech) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Investors Look For Strong Management, Product" (venture capital/hi-tech) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Research Firms Aim to Reveal The Online Mind" (market research) (Puget Sound Business Journal)

CONSUMER

"Early Investing Helps Avoid College Sticker Shock," (Puget Sound Business Journal)

"Medical Advice Via The Internet Is Good Rx" (Phoenix Business Journal)

FAITH

"A Candle That Burns Brightest At Home" (teaching spirituality to children) (Parent Map)

TRAVEL

"Where The Waters Meet" (Enjoying California's "Mendonoma" Coast) (California CEO)

"Dropping In On B.C.'s Laid Back, Counter-culture Hornby Island" (Seattle Times)

"Dream Getaways" (see "Riding Off Into The Washington Sunset," "Winding Your Way Down The Oregon Coast" and "South Willamette Valley Wine Country") (Seattle Magazine)

"Finding Northwest Spirit On South Sound Tides" (Seattle Times)

MUSIC
(Features, plus concert previews and reviews)

"Love Or Confusion?," (review of Hendrix tribute concert in Seattle) (iFeminists.net)

"Tim McGraw Serves Up Spice Faith Hill Lacks" (TacomaDome concert review) (Seattle Times)

"Bellevue Man Stretches Limits Of Pedal Steel Guitar" (Seattle Times)

"One With The Drum" (Japanese taiko drumming group, Kodo) (Seattle Times)

"She's Free As A Bird - Ndegocello Won't Be Caged Into A Single Style" (Seattle Times)

"Ozomatli's Coming - Get Set to Sweat" (Seattle Times)

"Galactic Orbits Its Funk Around A New Orleans Sound" (Seattle Times)

"The 'Blues Highway' Detours to Winthrop" (Winthrop Rhythm And Blues Festival) (Seattle Times)

"What's A Texas Banjo Picker Doing Playing Rock On Hood Canal?" (Danny Barnes) (Seattle Times)

"Alison Krause Knows Her Way Around A Ballad" (Seattle Times)

"No Surprise To Robert Bradley's Rock 'N Roll Success" (Seattle Times)

"Wolff: An Appeal Beyond The Inner Circle Of Jazz" (Seattle Times)

Additional Matt consulting links

About Matt.
News coverage of Matt's writing and work.
Matt's earned media work.
Speciality writing on transportation.
Consulting Services.

Before delving into local news coverage as a Seattle freelance writer, and later, Seattle Times opinion columnist, Seattle-area news and opinion blogger, and Seattle-based transportation writer, Matt learned the local news business in suburban Chicago, covering three towns for a long-established chain, Lerner Newspapers. He covered the police and business beats, city government, public education, economic development, surface transportation, environmental issues including the O'Hare Airport expansion controversy, plus county, state and national politics of importance to his territory, and also wrote a wide variety of community-based features. In addition to penning local news and feature articles, he wrote police blotter items, opinion columns and editorials.

Matt continued writing, mainly op-eds and policy analyses for daily and community newspapers and trade journals during a 10-year stint working in public policy and strategic communications. In 1998 he resumed work in journalism, producing several hundred articles and opinion columns for a range of publications in the Seattle region, Washington state and nationally.

Following are samples of Matt's local online news and opinion writing and photography, from newspapers and blogs in the Seattle region.

Seattle-area Blogosphere
"Blog On!" (the growth of news and commentary blogs in and around Seattle) Seattle Magazine

Spot News
"Crawling Through The Wreckage" Sound Politics

Transportation, Infrastructure
"Hurray For Mass Transit, But It's No Silver Bullet" Crosscut

"Time For A Bus-fare Reality Check" Crosscut

"Flexible Tolling: The Key To Solving Our Congestion" Crosscut

"Keep Powered Scooters Off City Bike Paths" Seattle Times

Economic Development
"Bremerton's Grand Plan To Revitalize Its Core" Seattle Times

"Bremerton Searches For Life And Leadership" Seattle Times

"Kitsap Kicks It Up: ...Peninsula's 'Downtown' Aims To Pull Itself Out Of The Doldrums" (Sunday opinion section cover) Seattle Times

"Capitalism May Rescue Troubled City Turf" (inner city development) Seattle Times

"Jumpin' At The Junction" (West Seattle's boom) Seattle Times

"Muckleshoot Tribe Pumps Up Auburn Economy" Puget Sound Business Journal

"Bad Blocks" (urban blight) Puget Sound Business Journal

Cashing In:...PGA Championship A Windfall For Economy" Puget Sound Business Journal

Social Services, Non-Profits
"Lending A Hand To Hard-luck Kids" (transitional living and guidance for formerly homeless minority teens) Seattle Times

"Blue City Accountability" Sound Politics

"Renton-based Mission Confronts Brutality In Sudan" Seattle Times

Politics
"Uphill Battle In Bremerton" Seattle Times

"Sidran's 'Rocky Road' Runs Through The Eastside" (on '01 Seattle mayoral candidate & near-victor Mark Sidran) Seattle Times

"Jerry Brown's Oakland: A Work In Progress" Rosenblog

Race
"Moving Race Discussion Beyond Cries Of Racism" Seattle Times

"Confronting White Guilt" Seattle Times

"Community Doesn't Need More Racial Posturing" Seattle Times

"The Stereotypes That Feed Seattle's Racial Tensions" Seattle Times

Law Enforcement, Public Safety
"The 'Silent War' Against Black-On-Black Violence" Seattle Times

"Seattle Needs More Police, Not More Police Oversight" Sound Politics

"Seattle Could Take Lessons From New York, On Crimefighting " Sound Politics

"ICE Initiative Raises Bar For Locals, Feds" Sound Politics

"State Supervision Fails Again: Another Dead Cop" Sound Politics

"Time For A 'Susan Lynn West Law'" Sound Politics

"Car Thief Cop-Killer Had 20 Convictions" Sound Politics

"The Face Of Evil, In A Courtroom" Sound Politics

"Seattle Police Response Comes Under Fire - Again" Sound Politics

"Crime-Plagued Vancouver At Crossroads" Rosenblog

"Is There Any Fixing Vancouver's Gastown?" Rosenblog

"Anomie In Ashland" Rosenblog

"Uptight Gringo to The Rescue In Santa Ana" Rosenblog

Education
"Why Some Walk Away From Seattle Public Schools" Seattle Times

"Seattle Public Schools An Academic Crapshoot" Seattle Times

""Technology Can't Bridge Seattle's Educational Gaps" Seattle Times

"Gripes, Hopes And Fears: Seattle Students Sound Off" Seattle Times

"Break Seattle School District In Four," Sound Politics

"Putting Politics Ahead Of Kids" Seattle Times

"How To Start Fixing Seattle Public Schools" Sound Politics

"Seattle Gets NEA Grant for 'Culturally Relevant' Teacher Training" Sound Politics

"It Makes Sense To Help Sub-PAR Teachers" (Bellevue School District tries to aid at-risk teachers) Seattle Times

Local Flavor

"From Manny's To The Shedd, Via Chicago Sardine Authority" Rosenblog

"Seattle's Best Hot Dogs, At Matt's," Rosenblog

"Malay Satay Hut Rules!" (Casual, outstanding Malaysian restaurant in Seattle's International District) Rosenblog

"Mount Rainier, From Under The Aurora Avenue Bridge" Rosenblog

"Seattle September Sunset" Rosenblog

"In Seattle's Muck And Mire" (Low tide at Alki Beach) Rosenblog

"Touring Like A Local: West Seattle's Lincoln Park" Rosenblog

"I Ain't Got No Big Itch For Greenlake" (Seattle's Greenlake Park, and namesake neighborhood, from the perspective of a local, and a tourist) Rosenblog

"Cruising For Produce On Vashon Island" Rosenblog

"Marrowstone Musings" (Vacationing on Marrowstone Island, in Puget Sound) Rosenblog

"Washington State Ferries: The Good Wait" Rosenblog

"Northeast Tacoma's Hidden Gem: Dash Point Park" Rosenblog

"Finding Northwest Spirit On South Sound Tides" Seattle Times

"Family-Friendly Hike To Barclay Lake" (An excellent day-hike within driving distance of Seattle) Rosenblog

"Touring Like A Local: The Magic Of Mountain Loop Highway" Rosenblog

"Index, Washington Needs A Shot In The Arm" Rosenblog

"Middle Fork On My Mind" (A hike along the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River - and a trip back in time. Blame it on Ray Charles) Rosenblog

"God Bless America, And Western Washington" (A July 4 weekend photo essay of a Hood Canal circle tour) Sound Politics

"Whoppin' Good Eats In Southwest Washington State," Rosenblog

"Dropping In On B.C.'s Laid Back, Counter-culture Hornby Island" Seattle Times

"The Best And Worst Of Vancouver" Rosenblog

"Best And Worst Of Vancouver: Part Two" Rosenblog

"Lessons In Art Of Survival For Bellevue Museum" (cutting-edge "art" falls flat) Seattle Times

Carrying The Torch For Seattle's Lady Liberty" Seattle Times

"Something Smells About The Chinese Corpses On Display In Seattle" Rosenblog

"Shame On Fremont For Its Tribute To Lenin" Seattle Times

"Love Or Confusion?" (review of Hendrix tribute concert in Seattle) iFeminists.net

"What Makes Salsa Salsa?" (Layla Angulo concert at Triple Door), Rosenblog

"Tim McGraw Serves Up Spice Faith Hill Lacks" (TacomaDome concert review) Seattle Times

"What's A Texas Banjo Picker Doing Playing Rock On Hood Canal?" (Danny Barnes) Seattle Times

"Bellevue Man Stretches Limits Of Pedal Steel Guitar" Seattle Times

"Chicago, Chicago" (Promontory Point, Hyde Park, the Nile Restaurant, the Gold Coast) Rosenblog

"Rosenblog's Chicago Restaurant Guide, Vol. 2" (El Nuevo Leon, Gene & Georgetti's, The Mirabel, more) Rosenblog

"Notes From Chicago" (Art Institute, Wrigely Field, Lincoln Park, The Mexican neighborhood of Little Village; Los Candiles restaurant) Rosenblog

"Savor The Flavor Of Chicago's Puerto Rican Epicenter - Humboldt Park" Rosenblog

"The Sphinxes See All, From Chicago's Willoughby Tower" Rosenblog

"Making The Most Of The Oregon Coast: Newport" Rosenblog

"Salem? Fuggedaboudit!" Rosenblog

"Boring: Not For Long" (Boring, Oregon) Rosenblog

"Where The Waters Meet" (Enjoying California's "Mendonoma" Coast) California CEO

"Hello, Coronado" (on the "disintermediated" tourism ethos; Playa Coronado flava; historic landmark hotel pix) Rosenblog

"San Diego's Point Loma And Ocean Beach" (big high views of S.D.; history; nature; a great hippie 'hood; foodie fun) Rosenblog

"Living Large In Orange County" (recreational sociology + Laguna Beach tidepooling, Dana Point) Rosenblog

"Touring Like A Local." (San Francisco's neighborhoods - not its' stale tourist attractions - are what make for a great visit. Same deal in Seattle) Rosenblog

"A Polebridge State Of Mind" (the less-seen scene in Glacier) Rosenblog

"Montana's St. Ignatius Frescoes, And Mission Falls" Rosenblog

"Mystery Blogger Stalks Grand Rapids" Rosenblog

"Beach Pole-Vaulting In Grand Haven" Rosenblog

RELATED:

Here is Matt's professional bio, as well as speciality blogging and writing on transportation, and earned media resulting from Matt's behind-the-scenes work for his employers and clients. Another portfolio is Matt In The News.

(copyright 2009 Matt Rosenberg)

Who's really that important?

Certainly not you

All photos by Matt Rosenberg, copyright 2008

Waikiki Beach was still dusted with the last night's late March snow when we arrived. That'd be Waikiki Beach in Washington's Cape Disappointment State Park, (left). A loop route takes you back out either way into Ilwaco, Washington. It's a fishing village in the state's far southwest corner, perched at the nexus of the mighty Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean, on the famed Lewis and Clark Trail.

Offshore are harvested Dungeness crab, salmon and halibut, while northeast is Willapa Bay, known for fresh oysters. Big tankers going between the Port of Portland and the ocean traverse this stretch of the Columbia; and the harrowing bones of many lesser ships lie scattered in the deep, roiling waters. Ilwaco is just a few miles south of the city of Long Beach and eponymous peninsula, a worthy if overrun vacation destination favored by some Washingtonians.

After exploring the state park, head to the Port Bistro at the east end of Ilwaco's waterfront promenade and prepare for a heaping slice of foodie nirvana. The intimate space is graced with water views taking in the marina and Cape, plus white tablecloths, hammered brass counters and muted pastels, with sightlines into the kitchen. Your well-behaved kids will be welcome.

A clam chowder far exceeded the serviceable yet goopy norm proffered at so many Northwest establishments. A medium-thin, fresh-made creamy broth was kissed with white wine and garlic, and studded with achingly fresh whole Willapa Bay clams cooked open in their shells, and potatoes, bracketed by thick, savory slices of garlic toast. Another fan of the bistro's chowder is Seattle Times travel writer/blogger Brian Cantwell.

But there's quite a bit more. An exquisite special of fresh Ahi was dusted with cumin, and plated astride a red pepper puree and a smooth, avocado and green chile-spiked creme fraiche. Lissome bites of halibut with chipotle sour cream, fire-roasted tomato salasa and julienned green and red cabbage informed the fish tacos, served with a white rice timbale and black beans. Our daughter's burger was savory and perfectly cooked, as were the accompanying Yukon Gold fries. A homemade truffle, sorbet and biscuit assortment - shared by all for dessert - was revelatory.

It's certain we'll find our way back to Ilwaco to delve further into Cape Disapointment's beaches, trails, Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, lighthouses (right), the town's waterfront shopping district, and the Port Bistro's menu. It features light and inventive salads with market-fresh regional ingredients, local fish and seafood appetizers and entrees, as well as meat and vegetarian dishes.

Some of the choices on the current, spring menu:

Read more on the bistro in this 2007 feature and 2006 review, both in the Daily Astorian.

We happened upon the Port Bistro en route to a week-long stay in Manzanita on the north Oregon Coast, having decided to spend the previous night on the Long Beach Peninsula in Seaview, at the Shelburne Inn bed and breakfast.

On the way back home to Seattle from Manzanita, again traversing the Astoria-Megler Bridge across the Columbia, we set off in the direction opposite Ilwaco, east toward Cathlamet, declining the opportunity shortly thereafter to eat under a mossy-roofed picnic table at the Dismal Nitch rest area, seen (left) with the bridge in the background. The spot, where Lewis and Clark's exploration party sat out a storm for six days in 1803, was later home to a dock for the Astoria ferry until it was demolished upon completion of the bridge in 1966.

Continuing east on State Route 4, we came upon Duffy's Irish Pub, a funky roadside gem. Confronted with signs announcing smoked salmon chowder and red beans and rice, plus Irish stew and homemade pie, resistance was futile.

What food! What atmo. What a back story.

Chef and owner Al Salazar in the 70s and 80s ran one of Portland's premier live music venues, the Pine Street Theater, and for 30 years operated Salazar's restaurant in Zig Zag, near Mount Hood, Oregon.

He later opened Duffy's 1.0 in Portland, but seeking the country life, bought an old and then-badly-neglected road house in tiny Gray's River, Washington, that he remembered as a vibrant joynt from childhood hunting trips with his father. Purchased by Salazar in 1996, Duffy's 2.0 finally opened in 2001 after extensive renovations and a major go-round with the Environmental Protection Agency over rendering the river's edge drainage field sufficiently salmon-sensitive.

It's a homey feel outside, what with the antique ornamental outhouse perched above the town's namesake river (below, right).

Inside are vintage lamps, wood everywhere, a pool table, Christmas lights, and on the cluttered small live music stage, Pine Street Theater rock concert posters covering ceiling and walls. They're hyping shows of yore by West Coast-based acts such as Camper Van Beethoven, Los Lobos, The Wipers and Fetchin' Bones.

Kids are allowed in the dining room, while it's adults-only in the bar, where Guinness and a host of other fine beers and Northwest wines are served. There's a back deck for use in warmer weather, looking directly onto Gray's River.

Our lunch was relished by all four in our group; two parents and our often-finicky-eater kids.

An impressive if meal-sized opener was - as at Port Bistro - a made-to-order, light-touch chowder, this one liberally studded with moist, superbly-flavored morsels of smoked salmon. Perfectly moist, freshly-baked cornbread redolent of melted butter came on the side. Also starring in the Sunday repast were red beans and rice with grilled sausage, a Reuben with mustardy, eggy homemade potato salad on the side, a half dozen breaded pan-fried Willapa Bay oysters, and finally, homemade apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream. Other choices include the afore-mentioned Irish Stew, catfish, grilled T-bone steaks, burgers, and daily specials.

Service was warm, informative, attentive and prompt. A steady stream of lunch customers kept the kitchen busy.

Everything was fresh and made to order. It's hard to recall a more satisfying yet relaxed meal out.

Places like Duffy's are exactly why you want to get off the Interstate highways and meander a while. Especially in the Pacific Northwest, where there's no better way to go local than trawling through the great landscapes and the great, off-the-beaten-path eats.

Port Bistro, in Ilwaco Harbour Village, 235 Howerton Way, Ilwaco, WA; 360-642-8447.
Duffy's Irish Pub, 3779 State Route 4 West, Gray's River, WA; 360-465-2898.

TECHNORATI TAGS: ILWACO, WASHINGTON, GRAY'S RIVER, PORT BISTRO, DUFFY'S IRISH PUB, CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT STATE PARK, LEWIS AND CLARK, COLUMBIA RIVER

Some restaurants attach old farm implements to the wall for rustic flavor. In Polebridge, Montana - a small settlement just outside the northwest reaches of Glacier National Park - the very same sort of rusty gizmos lie in a natural habitat on the grass between Polebridge Mercantile and the Northern Lights Saloon. There the menu includes buffalo tips, elk and salmon burgers, microbrews and to-die-for homemade peach-blueberry pie a la mode -- all accented by a piquant and varied soundtrack. Also strewn about outside are barstool seats liberated from their legs. A cadre of mellow, leashless local dogs, including one with three legs, and a big black fellow named Underfoot, seem to be in charge, by default.

There's a communal volleyball court; picnic tables used by saloon and store patrons; and an outdoor soundstage behind the Northern Lights, where local kids cavort in their skeleton-patterned jammies during concerts and the sound crisply pumps from Mackie speaker towers which belie the ramshackle surroundings. Between sets, you may see a tipsy urbanista find succor in, and photograph with enthusiastic declamations, a shuttered outhouse. Small wonder the "Montana Sucks" initiative is underway, though it's destined to fail. Time to walk through a nearby meadow with your beer to a campfire circle and grok the mountains looming to the north against the dusk. Electricity in Polebridge is by generator only. The roads aren't paved and the locals like it that way.

Polebridge is off the grid in more ways than one. The scenic heart of Glacier, along Going To The Sun Highway, is jaw-droppingly beautiful, as we learned last summer. But it's jammed to the gills. Polebridge is a respite along a road less travelled, 25 miles north of the main western entrance to Glacier in the town of West Glacier. During Glacier's high season last week we didn't encounter more than a few dozen people in town, and far fewer on the trailheads from Bowman Lake.

Your first stop in town should be Polebridge Mercantile, an old-fashioned general store and bakery where notoriously scrumptious cookies, breakfast pastries and sandwiches on homemade bread are made daily. Here's a picture I took of the Merc.

My wife and I stayed in a cozy cabin with a backwoods chic interior, that sleeps five. The kitchen was first-rate, likewise the mountain views from the covered front porch. The generator was on a 60-minute timer switch, to be re-set as needed. Polebridge is along the North Fork of the Flathead River, seen below in a photo I took looking north from Inner North Fork Road just above the Polebridge Ranger Station.

Six miles up the road from the ranger station is Bowman Lake, from where several hiking trails start. There's a campground, a low bank grassy waterfront, and a pebbly beach. The few visitors who shared Bowman Lake with us lazed about on the shore or idled on innertubes, reading. The latter is probably best for extending hanging out at the lake, as flies on shore in summer are big and hungry. Here's the backdrop.

Comfortable and secluded lodging options in the vicinity of Polebridge can be identified online. Two noteworthy choices for larger groups come via the Vacation Rental By Owner network, which I've used successfully a number of times. They are Lupine Meadow Lodge and this "Wild and Scenic River Vacation Home" inside Glacier. An excellent Glacier vacation resource is the Glacier Country Montana site, for lodgings, acitivites and more.

TECHNORATI TAGS: MONTANA, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, POLEBRIDGE, POLEBRIDGE MERCANTILE, NORTHERN LIGHTS SALOON, BOWMAN LAKE

In the wake of CBS's firing of shock talk jock Don Imus for calling members of the Rutgers womens' basketball team "nappy-headed hos," there have appeared a series of seemingly well intentioned op-eds, editorials and blog posts correctly noting his words of disrespect to the black women on the team pale in comparison to the sexist vitriol spewed by black rappers. Jason Whitlock wrote a widely-cited piece in the Kansas City Star. Constance L. Rice covered similar territory in the Los Angeles Times; as did S. Renee Mitchell in The Oregonian; Johnetta Rose Barras in the Washington Post; and Derrick Z. Jackson in The Boston Globe.

All well and good, up to a point. But an even greater and less easily challenged affront to African-Americans is the paternalistic liberal notion that society's machinery still comprises an oppressive force negating the power of free will and the individual, dooming many black children and families to dysfunction and failure. The forces of "white oppression" are under the microscope this week in Colorado Springs at the eighth annual White Privilege Conference.

What we really have here, now, is not racism or privilege.

It is an instrumental racialism.

That is, an enforced political orthodoxy advanced by a minority of race-hustling blacks and a larger cohort of guilty white liberals and public employee union members, which seeks to explain minority failings in education, income, crime and family cohesion in terms of "institutional racism" and "white privilege." This racialism is not merely rhetorical: it is rooted in a push for maintaining and building public employee union membership; painting modern-day American blacks as perpetual subjects of the clientized state, ministered to by variegated counsellors, intake workers, program managers, administrators and especially, "culturally competent" teachers bent on having little Arthur and Shanika rap and graffiti paint their way to a diploma. "Multiple intelligences," don'cha know?

Small wonder that recently the union representing Seattle public school teachers went Code Red on the state legislature - unsuccessfully, it seems - for failing to drop state reading and writing test requirements for high school graduation because said standards allegedly doomed minority students to failure, even with four retries guaranteed under state law.

In the aftermath of the predictably-played Imus affair, and the contemporaneous racialism of Seattle's school board and administrators, the real issue which emerges has little to do with Snoop Dogg or Fifty Cent and their blithely vituperative encomiums to hos in the hood. The central need is to dispel racialism, and stress black self-determination, which has a compelling history in America going back to the still-racist post-slavery decades and continuing up to and through the civil rights era, even as Great Society social welfare programs and racial quotas gradually proved the folly of double standards and low expectations.

Calling out the fraud of modern-day racialism in the U.S. is precisely where the post-Imus rap critics fall short.

Into this void lately have stepped a few, such as Bill Cosby and Juan Williams - and then, last weekend, Joe R. Hicks, former head of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Hick's Washington Post Sunday op-ed is simply titled, "Drop The Race Card," and should be required reading for all professing an interest in race, racism, or racialism in the U.S. today. Not so coincidentally, Hicks is Vice-President of Community Advocates, Inc., a Los Angeles-based organization with a refreshing and right-on approach to race relations.

Bearing in mind Imus' flaying and the press lynching of white Duke University lacrosse players finally absolved of race-driven charges of raping a black woman, Hicks observes:

...what links both cases is the rank racial opportunism in both Imus's firing and the Duke rape case, in which the Durham County district attorney shamelessly used race in an attempt to railroad three young men for his political purposes. Remember the Michael Richards episode? In that case, America's civil rights establishment -- led, as usual, by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton -- mobilized in an effort to sell the premise that a down-on-his-luck comedian had somehow become a barometer for our nation's race relations.

What remains of the once-proud civil rights movement justifies its existence by contending -- despite widespread progress -- that black people continue to live marginalized and victimized lives. This oft-repeated theme was the base for the ugly stew that was the reaction to Imus's slur, and it was the operating theme for Nifong as he set about attempting to ruin the lives of three innocent men.

Several decades ago, when I was head of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, I would have joined with Jackson and Sharpton with little reservation to call for Imus's demise. But somewhere along the way since then, reality intervened and I began to reject the view that America is a racist, hostile environment for people with my skin color. Further, I began engaging in the unforgivable sin -- rejecting the orthodox civil rights view of blacks as victims.

...(there is) an agenda of racial opportunism that promotes the view that blacks are powerless victims of white racism. In this view, blacks are always in need of government intervention to save them from white hostility.

....As comedian Bill Cosby has observed: "There are people that want you to remain in a hole, and they rejoice in your hopelessness because they have jobs mismanaging you. However, your job is not becoming victims. We have to rise up and fight on all levels to succeed." Amen, brother Cosby.

Hicks saliently notes prosecuting attorney Mike Nifong's re-election campaign succeeed because he played to black constituents and white "progressives" appeased by his ultimately baseless rhetoric against the white Duke suspects. In a similar though less dramatic vein, everyday white progressives in places such as Seattle regularly condone violations of the dignity of blacks by silently letting pass the loud assertions that blacks are still victims needing special dispensations from society and government.

Our nation's liberal urban centers are still a long way from eschewing the cheap hustle that is racialism. But the tipping point now comes closer at a slow, steady pace.

TECHNORATI TAGS: RACE, RACIALISM, DON IMUS, SEATTLE SCHOOLS, JOE R. HICKS

More On The School Indoctrination Plan, And The Theoretical Underpinnings

On its Web site, the Seattle Public Schools Office of Equity and Race Relations details what it expects of the students from four Seattle high schools who are being sent to the eighth annual White Privilege Conference April 18-21 in Colorado Springs. The SPS white privilege conference "expectations" document states that for student attendees, ensuing goals should include: "educate youth and people who work with youth about issues of privilege;" and, "support and develop youth leadership for social and economic justice." White privilege, as I discuss in a Seattle Times op-ed today, is about the pernicious cult of individualism and self-determination.

It's always a pleasure to work with my friends at The Times, where I published a regular guest op-ed column for three years, from April of 2001 to May of 2004. I'm using this post and the one immediately preceeding it to go a bit further than the space in the weekday op-ed allowed. Social justice, for those who haven't yet been boxed about the ears with the term, is a popular liberal ideal rooted in advocacy of equalized outcomes among different racial groups and social classes. Beneath the focus in Seattle Public Schools on white privilege and institutional racism is an emphasis on disproportionality, the crucial antecedent to demands for social justice. Disproportionality analysis crudely assumes that all racial groups should be incarcerated, disciplined in school, graduate from high school and college, own homes, earn above a certain level, and so forth - in direct proportion to their percentage of representation in the populace as a whole.

When this brittle dogma fails to comport with reality, seers and sages announce disparities as evidence of systemic bias, institutional racism and white privilege, with little or no examination of underlying behavorial and individual factors.

Following such pronouncements come loud but hollow demands for social justice, based on desires for more proportional and managed outcomes. If it sounds like pining for socialism, that's because it is. The roots of our predicament run directly to academe, and to the state's university system, among many others nationwide - where in the social sciences so-called "critical theory" pedagogy is used to deconstruct every less-than-egalitarian outcome as societally determined, and as fodder for class-based redistributionism.

Now it has filtered down into urban school systems to explain away disparate outcomes based on disparate inputs.

Politicized junk science must lean heavily on advocacy. Using school students as messengers for a racialized politics of low expectations is the last refuge of scoundrels.

But that is how things are done in Seattle right now. Accordingly, the SPS document for White Privilege Conference student attendees further states:

We are sending students to this conference with the expectation that they will apply what they learn to their school setting in Seattle. Throughout the conference we have scheduled specific check-in times to debrief what we are learning. Following the conference, students are expected to attend a workshop to discuss how to apply what they learned to projects in their schools on Tuesday, April 24th from 6-8pm, location (to be determined). Additional meetings for project planning and implementing will be set by each school group independently. In the spring, students from all of the schools will again meet to share what they’ve accomplished at an Equity Summit.

Equity is not dispensed from a bully pulpit. It is earned. By the individual.

The time spent indoctrinating Seattle Public Schools students on "white privilege" would be far better spent on remedial tutoring in core subjects for those students who need it. Of course that would involve getting foursquare behind the ideas of self-determination and personal responsibility, rather than Blaming Whitey.

TECHNORATI TAGS: SEATTLE, WHITE PRIVILEGE, SOCIAL JUSTICE, DISPARITIES, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

As David Postman first reported in the Seattle Times, the union representing Seattle Public Schools teachers has written to Seattle state legislators that they are perpetrating "institutional racism and institutional classism" by failing to drop state testing requirements in reading and writing for high school graduation, until $12 million can be secured for improved class sizes, curriculum and teacher training. State legislation is already pending to extend beyond 2008 to 2010 the state math proficiency graduation requirement. In their letter, the Seattle Education Association states:

Between 40 and 45 (percent) of children of poverty, many of whom in Seattle are children of color, are not passing the reading and writing sections of the WASL. These sections will not be set aside; these children will be denied a diploma. There is no concerted funding initiative to support the needs of the students not meeting reading and writing standards. There is currently no active bill to set aside using the reading and writing (Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests) as the graduation requirement for the 40 (percent) of the Students of Poverty and Students of Color who are not meeting the standard.

This pure and simply is the definition of Institutional Racism and Institutional Privilege. (Seattle Education Association) and (Seattle Public Schools) are working to eliminate the horror of Institutional Racism and Privilege wherever we find it. The members of SEA also are fighting for a system that provides equity in the results for children and young adults, not a system that sorts children of color and children of poverty and relegates those children to lives of poverty. Seattle legislators have long held the mantle of progressives, of liberals, of men and women who care about the voiceless people. Please find your voice again and stand with the school employees, parents and students of Seattle.

The teachers union's use of the term "voiceless people" is a giveaway: despite compensatory rhetoric elsewhere, they see underachieving students of color as mute, weak and incapable of raising their academic performance and meeting a 10th grade testing requirement for graduation for 12th grade (itself a badly diluted standard). "These children will be denied" a diploma, they write. There is no hope, no chance. Failure is inevitable.

Phew. The WASL is not a perfect test, but it is a useful yardstick and more to the point, meets requirements imposed on all states under the bi-partisan federal No Child Left Behind Act, intended to help ensure schools are making measurable progress toward imparting core academic proficiencies to students. Our state legislature has already seen fit to allow up to four retakes in any subject area for a student who fails any part(s) of the WASL. Even then, alternatives including scores on other standardized tests may suffice for meeting graduation requirements.

So, Seattle teachers and state legislators: many minority students are so incapacitated that they "will be denied" a diploma because FIVE TRIES on passing 10th grade tests in math, reading and writing for 12th-grade graduation (you read that right) aren't enough? What about the majority of minority students who ARE already passing the reading and writing WASL sections? Why not commission a study on the underlying factors in their success? I hate the term "no-brainer," but truly, there it is. So much easier to talk about failure and racism, conveniently pigeonholing blacks - especially - as helpless.

Even if our family does have to suck up the very reasonable cost of an excellent private school, this sort of moonbattery is one reason why you couldn't budge me from Seattle. The limits of tolerance are being stretched daily. I disagree with strident suburban conservatives who say the city's done; for families, and for the sane, so stick a fork in it. It will be fascinating to see the political Velvet Revolution here, if and when it occurs. The initial stages could only be a few years out. Politicized, race-obsessed dysfunction in Seattle Public Schools will prove to have been a primary cause because of its symbolic heft, but "kitchen table issues" such as police staffing, municipal pension obligations, taxes and skewed city budget priorities will be drivers as well.

As for the latest WASL dust-up: The recipe for helping struggling students succeed is fairly simple: funnel dollars paying for administrative bloat and non-competitive ancillary labor in our public schools into longer school days and longer school years for underperforming students. Establish more uniform and rigorous academic curricula. Insist on a far louder, clearer and stronger public message from the Seattle Public Schools on parental involvement, and specifically the parental engenderment of values and a home environment which gird love for learning.

To dance around these essential needs for lagging minority students - as the union and leagues of cowed Seattle "progressives" do - strikes me as a flagrantly deleterious act of institutional racism.

TECHNORATI TAGS: SEATTLE, TEACHERS UNION, WASL, TESTING, MINORITY STUDENTS

After the first five days of our San Diego sojourn last month, we headed up to Orange County; synonymous with upscale affluence, conservatism and plastic surgery. There are several television "reality" shows set in Orange County, and one ensemble drama. I am not going to link to them. However, in fairness, we should note that Hollywood, not far to the north, is known for liberalism and plastic surgery, so I think the reconstructive urge is bipartisan.

We stayed with one of my many, many sisters in-law - this is what can happen when you marry into a Catholic family (lots of sisters-in-law, not visiting Orange County). She lives in Laguna Niguel, in a lovely townhome. On our first evening there, my wife, kids, I and our gracious hostess were joined for dinner by a blogosphere friend I'd not yet met in person, Michael Brandon McClellan. He's a local guy from just up the road who came home to practice law after school Back East. Michael is retiring his current blog, but he also writes political pieces for top-tier publications such as The Weekly Standard and Tech Central Station. Much food, wine and conversation followed, and before we knew it, five hours had flown by. Get your SoCal self up to Seattle soon, Mike.

The next morning we hooked up at Dana Point Harbor with an old friend from our Chicago/Evanston days, who's been living in San Juan Capistrano for 10-plus years with her husband and three kids. She used to play jazz drums for fun and is still great to talk to; she's not too crazy about living where she does, feeling she has nothing in common with the housewives of Orange County. Upgrading is all they talk about, she reports; faces, bodies, houses, husbands.

Appearances do seem to matter greatly. (Inland) Laguna Niguel and its seaside neighbor Dana Point are planned to within an inch of their lives. In Laguna Niguel especially, I noticed lots of gated and limited access, walled communities. Everything scrupulously clean, and environmentally correct. Upscale versions of old Red folksinger Pete Seeger's famous "little houses made of ticky-tacky." The upside is it's clean and fresh and sunny and pleasant. There's also a nicely landscaped county park bordering Dana Point Harbor and the ocean.

Although, a tattoo parlor with a Spanish Mission roof just doesn't feel right to me. Nor did the sign outside the chain grocery urging patrons not to sign ballot measure petitions because it will only encourage the signature gatherers. I'm perfectly capable of blowing off a petition peddler, a beggar or even a cookie-hawking Girl Scout (with a smile of course) if I so choose. I'm pro-choice, though; I don't want to be hectored about it by the local thought police. Another beef: the fancy pants grocery store sold me some butter that turned out to be black with mold around the edges. A leading California brand of butter, as it happens, which I've never found so descrated when purchased here two states to the north. To paraphrase Martin Mull, I got so downhearted, I threw my drink across the lawn. (OK, there was no lawn - we were staying in a high-density townhome complex, as I mentioned).

So there we were, hanging about the bayside of the breakwater, a stone's throw from the Ocean Institute in Dana Harbor. Public visits are on weekends only. The Institute also offers excursion boat tours. Here's one coming back to port.

On the other side of the breakwater is - as you might imagine - the Pacific Ocean; that's Dana Point on the right.

Planned development there has sparked controversy. A legal challenge was mounted on behalf of the Pacific pocket mouse and the California gnatcatcher, whose habitats were thought threatened by the restless churn of capital. It turns out that luxury homes are nonetheless going up on the headlands, but not as many as originally planned. There are marvelous public beaches and parks in town; and, plenty of other cliffside homes above the harbor. As you can see. Must be fewer pocket mice and gnatcatchers there.

The surf was high when we visited.

For lunch we went to the most down-to-earth joynt you could imagine, a little takeout window place, with outdoor tables only, and had some spectacularly good and dirt-cheap Mexican food. If you're driving through SoCal, you owe it to yourself to get to Aurora's Taqueria at Pacific Coast Highway and El Encanto in Dana Point. Our large group ordered all kinds of things: potato tacos with salsa verde; marinated steak, steak, roasted pork, chicken and fish tacos; pork and chicken tamales; sopes (a kind of round, recessed cornmeal conveyor of heaped goodies); huaraches, or mini-tortillas, with varied fillings; and fresh ceviche tostadas. We did not, to my great regret, sample the tortas (special Mexican sandwiches) or the coctel de camarones. Next time, certainly.

The next day we spent partly in the town of Laguna Beach, up the coast just a bit. Here's a panoramic view, one more digipic captured with my trusty Canon Power Shot A95, edited with Apple iPhoto and hosted via my Photobucket.com account.

This guy was catching his dinner.

The tide was out, and so the tidepoolers, too. This is our family's idea of a seriously good time.

Lunch at the old-timey locals' spot, Greeter's Corner, was wonderful: achingly fresh grilled sea bass. Some onlne reviewers don't like the place. Our fish rocked, as did the setting, and service. If only the Russian Mafioso at the next table hadn't kept bribing his squalling brat of a daughter with desserts. It didn't work.

Anyway. The OC, I like ya. Better than any TV show. And I'll be back.

TECHNORATI TAGS: ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, DANA POINT, LAGUNA NIGUEL, LAGUNA BEACH, TOURISM BLOGGING

Our second day in San Diego, while my wife confabbed with mortgage lenders, the kids and I explored city's western reaches, along the Pacific, far away from our downtown nest. We took a cab - but could have taken the trolley - to the Old Town Transit Center, where we caught the #28C bus to Cabrillo National Monument at Point Loma. There, from high atop the bluff you look back east across the bay at San Diego's skyline. Of course, I had my digicam.

Point Loma's history is bound up in naval defense. Still today, Pacific Air Fleet craft on maneuvers from nearby Naval Station Coronado are a constant presence. At the monument's national park complex, museum exhibits detail the journeys of Spanish Catholic conquistadores in Mexico and what's now the southwestern U.S., including the discovery of Spanish captain Juan Cabrillo and his crew by the local Kumeyaay Indians after those foreign agents of a foreign deity landed and christened San Diego as San Miguel.

Here's Juan in statuary with the city skyline to the southeast across the bay.

A nature path leads one-and-one quarter miles down the bluff side, and if you visit in your own vehicle a road leads to what's described by the park service in their brochure as "one of the last rocky intertidal areas open to the public in southern California." The bluff uplands at Cabrillo National Monument are known for gray whale sightings on the ocean side; you'll want to bring strong binoculars and some patience to the viewing platform just west of the Old Point Loma Lighthouse. That restored structure was used for its original purpose from 1855 to 1891, then fell into disrepair before being restored. It's open to visitors, with rooms rendered in authentic historical detail, and historical text and photos on early lighthouse keeper families. Here's the view looking northwest back toward the lighthouse from closer to the bayside bluff's edge.

The grandness of Point Loma is simply the place itself, where strong breezes and warm sun complement sweeping views of the city, naval base and planes, ships in the bay, Coronado Bridge, the 10-mile-long Silver Strand spit at Coronado's southern end, and the ocean. You're somewhat boggled to eventually recall you're still within San Diego city limits.

After viewing an excellent 25-minute film on tidal critters and conditions, we headed from Point Loma back past the vast hillside military graves of the nearby Fort Rosecranz National Cemetery to the San Diego hippie haven neighborhood of Ocean Beach. From the national park, we caught the 28C back to Rosecranz and Nimitz, where we transferred to the #923 bus to Ocean Beach. Along Cable Ave. we debarked at Newport Street, the palm-tree lined main drag of the neighborhood, leading right down to the beach.

Ocean Beach, or OB as some call it, is intensely laid back - if such a thing is possible. You may wander into The Newport Pizza and Ale House one afternoon, as we did, and find a bunch of young patrons with complicatedly disheveled hair engaged in a sinewy melodic jam utlizing acoustic guitar, tablas and wood flute, while gourmet pizzas pop hot out of the ovens. Yes, there's a hostel across the street.

However, just a few doors down comes a subtle reminder that even San Diego's Trustafarian Good Vibes hub is home to blatantly heterosexual carnivores lacking the PC gene. That'd be way-surfadelic Hodad's, where I ate the truly penultimate double bacon cheeseburger, and where along with walls full of vanity license plates from all over the U.S., a sticker on the counter at the cash register proclaims "Straight Pride," showing a generic man and woman holding hands.

BurgerLust ensued - and hey, I used to write about great cheap eats for The Seattle Times, so I'm no pushover. Hodad's monster sported finely shredded lettuce, ethereal bacon, cheese, sliced tomato, ridge-cut pickle slices, meaty sliced sweet onions, mayo and ketchup bracketing two fat char-grilled quarter pound all beef patties on a triple-decker bun. Spritz on some California "Just Chili" chili sauce tableside and carefully engineer your conquest. Even so, you're gonna wear some of it on your face and forearms, no way around that. Do not under any circumstances fail to order some "frings," a combo basket of superb onion rings and battered fries.

At the beach, Ava absorbed the universal aura of the Sand God. Her brother is out of the frame, building something.

Kids cavorted with kelp, as they are wont to do. Dolphins came and went; surfers surfed.

The North San Diego County branch of the Twelve Tribes (dolphins in previous lives) made a showing in their multi-hued bus.

These "mature, middle-aged ex-hippies" are unabashedly religious, communitarian, hard-working and non-materialistic. Me and my family; we need our space, our bathrooms and our personal computers. But these folks know how to breathe deeply, walk slowly, and savor a sunset, so they're probably several steps ahead of the game.

We bought some scrumptious organic grapefruit from them at the Ocean Beach Farmer's market later that afternoon, along with some transcendent strawberries from a Carlsbad vendor. Then took a long walk down the long pier, and just hung for a while.

You might even stop in at Ocean Beach Pier Cafe right on the pier for some mango pancakes, a lobster omelette, lobster tacos or clam chowder. They say the food's good, but there are flies.

From Newport Avenue and Cable Street, the #923 will take you back downtown.

You're either on the bus, or off the bus.

TECHNORATI TAGS: SAN DIEGO, POINT LOMA, POINT LOMA LIGHTHOUSE, OCEAN BEACH, SURFING, HODAD'S, NEWPORT PIZZA AND ALE HOUSE, TWELVE TRIBES, OCEAN BEACH PIER CAFE, TOURISM BLOGGING