It’s a Monday. That means a slow news day. Since I don’t want to blog about my weird dream concerning driving my vanpool in a bus where I couldn’t get back in time from a midday activity to pick everyone up, here are some news articles of interest. I dare you to find a connection between them.
- From the “OERM in the News” Department: The Daily Breeze is reporting about an interesting discovery during a remodel of a French Normandy style house in the Pt. Ferman area. No, not a body. No, what was found was a section of wooden rail ties, which turned out to be the remains of a buried piece of track that a century ago carried the Pacific Electric Red Car on the Point Fermin Line. This line traveled south along Pacific Avenue to take people to Cabrillo Beach, making a jog into the Point Fermin neighborhood (then only sparsely developed) and hooking north onto Paseo del Mar, where the trolley turned around. Where does OERM come in? Let me quote the article:
John Smatlak, who has researched the PE lines and is affiliated with the Orange Empire Railway Museum, has been researching the line, which ended with a sight-seeing stretch known as the “Triangle Trolley Trip.”
Smatlak is working with the Port of Los Angeles, which is weighing the possibility of extending the milelong waterfront Red Car line south to Cabrillo Beach.
- From the “The Right Way to Drink Coffee” Department: Don’t like going into Starbucks because you think it is too liberal leaning. Is the company from Seattle just a front for that Obama propaganda. Perhaps you should visit the Conservative Cafe in Crown Point IN. The Tribune Syndicate is reporting on this Starbucks-beater. This is a coffee-house with a decided conservative theme. Ann Coulter books sit stacked by the fireplace and a picture of President Reagan hangs on the wall. Fox News plays on all the televisions and stock market quotes scroll along an electronic ticker above the cash register. Blends available include the radical right blend, the cafe’s strongest roast. The other blends are conservative, moderate and liberal — the latter of which is described as a “Colombian decaf with no substance.”
- From the “But They’ll Never Admit It Publically” Department: According to the SF Chronicle, a new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people — about half — have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity. The results also show that stereotypes about body size can be misleading, and that even “less voluptuous” people can have risk factors commonly associated with obesity. Somehow, I don’t think they will stop harping on the obese, though.
- From the “Is a Shul a Shul” Department: The SF Chronicle is also reporting on a new synagogue in the Richmond District of SF. The new home of Congregation Beth Sholom at the southwest corner of Clement Street and 14th Avenue is evidently quite a stunning building, which suggests nothing so much as a giant menorah in a silvery frame. The “menorah” is the sanctuary, a bowl-shaped form of sandy windowless concrete the width of four adjacent houses. It sits atop a one-story base of offices clad in zinc-plated aluminum panels; there’s a small courtyard and then, backed against Clement, the panels climb to enclose a box the height of the sanctuary that contains a small chapel and kitchen beneath event rooms. The concave sanctuary has seating that climbs up either side of the “bowl”; at the bottom is where services are conducted and the rabbi and members read from the Torah. It truthfully sounds like a fascinating building. Has anyone seen it? Has anyone visited it?
