When I was four years old my parents would sneak me into Shelley's Manhole to hear Milt Jackson's quintet or guitarist Bill Evans. Musicians were welcome at our house the next afternoon, Sunday, for a loose day of barbecue and low-key jamming where I learned my first chords and my first stories of Los Angeles' racism. More than one band lost a player driving through the wrong community trying to get to a gig while touring. A joint would typically be "found" in a clean car pulled over for no reason. The band would be forced to spend money bailing out a player, or finding a pick-up player to complete a date, and some of them, including Herb and Lorraine Geller, moved to Europe to find someplace receptive to jazz culture and respectful of musicians. -more-

Assassination Nation

How do we know that America is one of the world's leading gun-loving nations? Consider: four of our sitting presidents (nearly one-in-ten) have been killed by gun-wielding assassins. Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963) all died from an assassin's bullet. Ronald Reagan (1981) is the only president to survive an assassination attempt. -more-

Amid tariff chaos, Donald Trump assured us: “I know what the hell I’m doing.” -more-

Outrage is mounting after 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers were executed by Israeli forces in northern Rafah on March 23. Despite Israel’s initial claim that the convoy approached without warning lights, cellphone video—recorded by a now-dead paramedic—shows the ambulances had their lights on when troops opened fire. Bodies were later found in an unmarked mass grave alongside the ambulances, some with hands and feet bound, and gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Human rights attorney Diana Buttu called the massacre “the height of dehumanization.” This attack brings the death toll of medics killed by Israeli forces to over 400. The Israeli military, facing undeniable video evidence, now claims the grave was dug to protect bodies from wild animals—an explanation met with disbelief. -more-

The ongoing genocide in Gaza—and the escalating brutality in the West Bank—defies words. Each day brings new horrors: airstrikes, starvation, and the massacre of a trapped civilian population. And yet, no global power appears willing—or able—to stop it. A few nations raise their voices, but they lack the influence to make a difference. The powerful remain deaf, blind, and mute. -more-

Insider Trading by Traitorous Insiders?
In the wild week of Wall Street's stock-market mayhem, the question haunts me: Did Donald Trump tip off his kids and colleagues that he was about to suspend his imposition of global tariffs? He would have had advance knowledge of the likelihood this action would trigger a potentially historic reversal of Wall Street stocks. This insider knowledge could generate massive fortunes when the bottom-heading stocks were liberated. -more-

Jewish students at Columbia University took a bold stand on Wednesday, chaining themselves to campus gates in protest of the university’s role in the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student now held by ICE in Louisiana. Khalil, a legal permanent U.S. resident, was arrested on March 8 at his university-owned apartment, and his green card was revoked. Protesters demanded transparency from Columbia’s administration, suspecting university trustees—possibly new President Claire Shipman—of providing Khalil’s information to the Department of Homeland Security.

Student protesters, including members of Jewish Voice for Peace, emphasized that their actions challenge the false narrative that anti-Zionist protests are antisemitic. As one Jewish student noted, “You cannot weaponize antisemitism to harm our friends and peers.” The protest also underscored a broader concern: Columbia’s crackdown on dissent, which has disproportionately targeted Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students.

Despite the rain and the threat of arrest, students continued their demonstration overnight. Columbia security and New York police forcibly removed them, cutting their chains. Yet their message remains clear: Columbia must be held accountable for endangering students and collaborating with government repression. The fight for Khalil’s release is not just about one student—it is about standing against the silencing of political activism on campus. -more-

One of the most frustrating moments in sports is when a star player folds under pressure. In football this happens when a famous QB throws an interception at the end of the game, or an ace running back fumbles on what would have been the winning play. In baseball this happens when the star pitcher walks in the winning run. In basketball this happens when the team captain insists calls for the ball and then misses what would have been the winning shot. -more-

Most of the American public probably equates mentally ill people with homeless people, with prisoners in orange jumpsuits, or with "deranged" people getting into and out of a van and living in an institution. That is a stereotype, and it usually lacks factual basis. Mentally ill people often live troubled lives, but this doesn't mean we are less than regular people.

I am 60 years old, and I have lived with a psychiatric condition my entire adult life. To begin with, it is probably better than average that a man diagnosed with schizophrenia (and that's my initial diagnosis) can even make it to this age and not suffer from dementia or be on his last legs of living. According to some sources, life expectancy for a schizophrenic man is age 59.

Over the years of living within the outpatient mental health treatment systems, I have seen many people with similar disorders to mine drop like flies before they reach this point. I have not heard of schizophrenic men being able to live independently at this age, in some cases at any age. I have subsidized housing, and I collect Social Security and some SSI. Beyond that, it is up to me to fend for myself. I maintain contact with mental health vendors, who keep me medicated and who provide emotional support. I have some family, and they are loyal and caring.

I am married. However, I moved out of the home I shared with my wife of twenty-seven years, because at the time my judgment was badly impaired and I was following a set of delusional thoughts, AKA, a "delusional system". My prescriber didn't believe it was safe to raise my antipsychotics to the level I wanted. Yet, if I make dumb decisions that impact my life circumstances because I'm delusional, that's really not safe. The prescriber seemed to dismiss or not think of the concept that I could make poor decisions that could impact on the course of my life.

I am a semiprofessional writer. And I believe this means I have been published, and I can make a little bit of money at it, yet I can't do this for a living. Writing is a very, very competitive field, and everyone wants to be a writer. Yet, I am a writer, and I've had a good degree of success.

My credibility in the writing field may not be acknowledged beyond the local street papers for which I write almost every month. The editors of the street papers are familiar with me and know who I am. However, it could be hard to convince many editors that I create this material on my own. The presumption could be that someone is fixing up the writing or perhaps doing all of it and putting my name on it.

Not so.

I can't read minds and I can't be a fly on someone else's wall. Thus, I don't know whether the above notion is merely my imagination or whether there is some truth to it. I can tell you that becoming a writer has been quite therapeutic and has yielded a lot of mental clarity to me, and I've needed that clarity. When dealing with newspaper editors, you would think you're dealing with some of the most intelligent and most grounded people. And they are. And it has rubbed off on me.

As a 60-year-old "mentally ill" man, I note with much unhappiness, the disrespect is everywhere. Those who work in the treatment systems frequently don't regard us as equals. Medical doctors don't give the same level of care. In retail situations, such as picking up medications at a pharmacy, some pharmacy workers are not sure I can pay the copay, and they behave accordingly. Other pharmacy workers are sharp and are aware that I have intelligence.

I was a patient of a circulatory specialist, and I was being sold a pair of compression socks. The physician's assistant flipped out when I pulled a Mastercard out of my wallet.

In a previous living situation, a recent one, I would go out to my car to smoke, and a few of the many people driving by would hurl insults out the window of their pickup trucks, directed at me. Years ago, in a group therapy setting, the task at hand was to bake a cake for members to eat. The counselor did not give me credit for being able to bake a cake from a cake mix without supervision.

Society's agenda for mentally ill people is to keep us maintained and to prevent us from being a nuisance to the greater society. The "powers that be" don't want to see mentally ill people have money and power because they are afraid of the consequences of misuse.

But we deserve to have good things in our lives as does anyone. And we don't have that. We live in supervised and institutionalized situations. This is no fun.

In short, mentally ill people are an unacknowledged minority. Yet we lack the stance of self-righteous anger when disrespected. And we haven't organized nearly as much as other groups. I attribute this to the impairment of psychiatric conditions and the disabling effect of medications. -more-

The akathisia comes and goes. It is at its worst two to three hours after taking antipsychotics. But sometimes, the episodes of unbearable "motor restlessness" (as one psychiatrist termed it) have been hard to predict. Akathisia has been my acquired normal since 1984, the first year that I was consistently medicated. To describe it: It is a feeling that I want to jump out of my skin or jump out of my seat and do a crazy dance. It is an agonizing and unusual type of physical suffering. For many years I was able to eliminate this sensation through mindfulness. But in the past ten years mindfulness hasn't worked, and I've gone down a notch or two, into just tolerating it and waiting for it to wear off. It seems unavoidable and it is the normal consequence of antipsychotic medication. But the alternative is worse. -more-

Worth Noting:

Council returns from recess with Special Council meeting at 4 pm on Adoption of Cal Fire Map, Adoption of Fire code Amendments followed with regular meeting scheduled to start at 6 pm. -more-

Worth Noting: -more-