LA City Council approves China Shipping SEIR p. 2 Carson tax measure to appear on November ballot p. 5 A virtual take on Romeo & Juliet p. 18
Born Into This:
Bukowski at 100 By John Dullaghan, Guest Writer
“Born into this” is the refrain of one of Charles Bukowski’s most enigmatic poems, Dinosauria, We. It is prophetic and dark; it seems like it was written for today by one who saw the future more clearly then than we do now. — The Editors Illustration by Mayon Hanania
[See Born, p. 14]
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Published shortly before his death in 1994, it describes a world where “the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree,” “where the jails are full and the madhouses are closed,” where “fist fights end as shootings and knifings” and “where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes,” all before graphically showing the earth’s final destruction, which today seems more real and probable than when the poem was written. In Dinosauria, We, Bukowski is descriptive and predictive, sensing numerous rumblings that would become future cataclysms. It is written in the spare, haiku-like style that he had evolved to by the end of his life. It is annihilation and beauty, all at once. The fact that Bukowski recognized horror when he saw it perhaps goes back to the world that he himself was born into: one where he was neither understood nor loved, enduring weekly beatings by a tyrant father, while his mother looked on (for Bukowski’s full account, read Ham on Rye). And what model of reality might this create in the mind of the child, and later, the adult? The kind where you’re comfortable with conflict but not intimacy; where aggression and depression come easily; where you’re wary of others, preferring to be alone; and where, beneath the surface, there churns such a constant, grinding feeling of unease that you’ll opt for anything — booze, sex, gambling — just to feel good again. This was Bukowski’s reality and one that many of his readers also know.
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
could loom so large in the midst of such national chaos. If you want to help put an end to gerrymandering in American politics, you’ll get the most bang for the buck by donating to challenger Brandy Chambers in her race to unseat a five-term incumbent whom she came within two points of defeating in 2018. That’s according to Sam Wang, a Princeton neuroscientist turned election nerd, turned anti-
Aug. 20 - Sept. 2, 2020
Brandy Chambers is running to represent Texas’ 112th District in Congress. File photo
that are also ripe to be flipped, making Texas one of several Southern states where multi-level shifts toward the Democratic Party are underway. Virginia, which was solid red in 2004, is now solid blue from top to bottom, and now other states, from Texas to North Carolina, seem poised to follow a similar trajectory—if Democrats are smart enough to see the opportunity before them, and seize it. That’s why a lowly suburban state house district
While all eyes in politics are focused on the Democratic National Convention, suburban Dallas may not look like the center of American politics. But in one crucial sense, a slice of it is precisely that: Texas House District 112, centered in Richardson, is the tip of the spear in the battle against gerrymandering nationwide. It’s the most flappable of 11 prime seats, of which only eight are necessary. And those 11 state house districts significantly overlap with nine congressional districts
[See History, p. 10]
COVID-19 deaths and infections in the US as of Aug. 19, 2020: Deaths: 175,491 • Infections: 5,667,040 California: Deaths: 11,527 • Infections: 640,420
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