Malibu morning picture of the day - Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Dear Family, Friends, and Gentle Readers,

Didn't make it into the office Monday, so sorry if you were missing your Malibu picture, but here it is today as we wind up into  the 4th of July Weekend ...

Morning overcast as is normal for June. When it burns off, as it has been, it's been mildly hot (80s on the coast). Here's a 2nd look.

Hey, a few months ago on a Saturday I was taking the train down to Long Beach to visit a small museum of Pacific artwork.

While there, I happened to pick up the OC Weekly newspaper. The theme for that issue was to celebrate various Orange County citizens who had made significant contributions as entrepreneurs, businesspeople, or distinguished themselves with talent.

As I flipped through, something jumped out at me. I took the issue home and decided I'd take some pictures of the pictures just to document something to myself. Here are the pictures:

I won't re-report names; you can go to the OC Weekly website and find that issue if you want, but we've got a surfing champion athlete, a couple of art curators-bloggers, a screenwriter/author, a restauranteur, and a business dealmaker. Six AAPI faces out of a field of about 36, and they're featured in a pub that is NOT an AAPI-themed magazine or AAPI-themed issue of publication. They're photogenic, they're relatively young, but not overly glamorized or fetishized.

And this is a good thing. It seemed that the only AAPI people you ever saw in this kind of pub was on the back pages along with the tag: "Date Asian Girls!" (Your mind can fill in the rest.)

So to be a person considered on your own terms of professional accomplishment where the ethnicity you happened to be born was NOT the your entry point to being focused upon in being profiled, is some progress I'm glad to see for these folks. Nice job OCW for not paying attention to race or ethnicity, even if that issue had the vibe of reading a college alumni magazine. (I know that vibe well because I write for a college magazine once in a while.) Just when the world makes you a bit more cynical, you see some progress and it doesn't seem so bad.

Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Love,
Pops