Black History Month Skateboarding Lesson

Chuck Askerneese and Marty Grimes in this photograph i made circa 1976, riding the banked walls of the Kenter Canyon school yard is a great example of skateboardings early roots and it’s cross cultural experience on several levels. These guys were RADICAL and skated with a style unlike anyone else on the Westside of Los Angeles, obviously surf inspired like all skateboarding was back then, but there was something different... i am posting this in particular as we close out BLACK HISTORY MONTH, as you should all know African American Skaters since the 70s have always contributed to the progression of skateboarding, and Marty in a way that the original Zephyr team “Z-Boys” recognized the first time they saw him.

Marty and I both attended Paul Revere Junior High at the same time. The school still sits at the point where the boarders between Brentwood, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades all meet. I lived nearby and Marty was bussed in from South Central Los Angeles. Paul Revere was without a doubt one of skateboarding cultures GROUND ZERO spots for moving the activity off the flat ground on to banked walls. Moving film exists of people riding the walls there from the 1960’s, and most of those hallowed, once again rough, walls call still be ridden to this day.

As a child of the 60s and 70s civil rights were something that i knew were extremely important, integration for the betterment of society now may seem obvious to most, but it wasn’t a given for many, and sadly in the current environment may still have its detractors. As a lovely holiday card read, that i got a few years ago from a friend in Pittsburgh, and still sits on my window sill, says in huge letters “All people are created equal” and then in small type below “EXCEPT those people that think people weren’t created equal, those people are assholes.” I love this card for calling people out. I believe this sentiment so much my whole life, and am stoked i was able to help Marty get the first “WHO’s HOT” profile, for a Black skater in the original SkateBoarder Magazine in 1977, Jay Adams mom actually wrote it! Some years later I made a photo of Chuck Treece at Tom Groholski's ramp in New Jersey, and pushed for it to be on the cover of THRASHER magazine, the 1st photo of a Black skater ever on the cover of a major skateboarding publication.

The rest is history and black skaters are now helping to write it more than ever!

This photo appears huge in the MY RULES book... #Film #SurfSkateStyle #Style #Embankment #Asphalt #SchoolYard #KenterCanyonSchool #WLA #DogTown #OG #BlackSkaters #OldSchool #innovator #ZBoy #Zephyr #ZFlex #BankSkating #SurfSkating #Skateboarding #AfricanamericanSkateboarders #Ride #Fun #speed #Culture

Rumble #24

old news but still an important perspective...

RUMBLE #23

Michael is joined by comedian and writer Katie Halper. They discuss the Senate impeachment trial, Fiddler on the Roof, the weaponization of identity politics, colonoscopies and the dangers of anti-Semitism.

RUMBLE #22

Old news but still important perspective

RUMBLE #21Martin Luther King Jr.'s Democratic Socialist Dream

Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy has been sanitized by mainstream American society, erasing his fierce anti-capitalist and anti-war advocacy. Before he was assassinated, King was forcefully denouncing the "three evils" in America -- racism, militarism and a corrupt economic system -- and arguing that these three evils were all tied together. For this MLK Day episode, Michael Moore shares audio clips and quotes from King that will not be celebrated on the evening news.

"SUBWAY graffiti making a comeback"

Dig It!



I have yet to see a full car piece myself in more than 30+ years

LIGHTNING: Globally estimates range from 6,000 to 24,000 deaths per year

Africa, a Thunder and Lightning Hot Spot, May See Even More Storms
By Shola LawalFeb. 10, 2020

from the New York Times:

Africa is experiencing bigger and more frequent thunderstorms as global temperatures rise, according to researchers at Tel Aviv University.

The continent already has many of the world’s lightning hot spots, with storms that can be extremely destructive and, sometimes, deadly. This month, for example, a conservation group reported that four rare mountain gorillas had been electrocuted by lightning in Mgahinga National Park, Uganda. In a calamitous episode in 2011, a lightning strike on an elementary school in the same country killed 20 children and injured nearly 100.

Mass casualties like that are rare. But meteorologists wondered at the time whether thunderstorms were becoming more common in Africa in the era of climate change.

The answer, according to the new research, published in January in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate, is yes. An increase in temperatures in Africa over the past seven decades correlates with bigger and more frequent thunderstorms, the researchers found.

If the finding holds up, that could mean more fatalities and more economic damage. “Lightning is the No. 1 killer when we talk about weather in tropical countries,” said Colin Price, professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Tel Aviv University and the study’s lead author.

There is no organized data for lightning casualties that covers all of Africa, but a 2018 study of eight countries put the number of deaths at about 500 per year. Globally, estimates range from 6,000 to 24,000 deaths per year.

Africa faces elevated risk for reasons that go beyond the relatively high frequency of storms on the continent.

Poor urban design and infrastructure, for example, can worsen flooding during heavy storms, according to Alistair Clulow, a professor of agrometeorology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. That, in turn, can make lightning strikes more deadly because water conducts electricity.

Rural communities also face risks. Farmers and herders work in the open, which makes them more vulnerable during storms. Houses in rural areas often lack plumbing or wiring that can act as grounding against lightning strikes.

Global data on the economic impact of thunderstorms is patchy, but a 2008 assessment by the National Lightning Safety Institute in Louisville, Colo., placed the annual costs in the United States at $5 billion to $6 billion. That includes forest fires and damage to structures from lightning strikes, and flooding from heavy rains.

Dr. Price and his co-author, Maayan Harel, looked at 2013 thunderstorm data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network, determined which climate-related variables had the most influence on storms and then used those variables to build a model that created a simulated history of thunderstorm activity over Africa from 1948 to 2016.

The project took seven years. Their next study will look at thunderstorms in Southeast Asia, another tropical hot spot.

Because of data limitations and differing methodologies, there is no consensus, for now at least, on how climate change will affect thunderstorms, or whether more thunderstorms would necessarily mean more lightning strikes.

A study in Nature Climate Change in 2018, for instance, forecast a decrease in lightning as the world warms. One of the authors of that paper, Declan L. Finney, a meteorologist at the University of Leeds, said it was important to keep an open mind about how predictions could change as scientists refined their methods.

“There’s still a lot of uncertainty, but this work is useful in contributing to that discussion,” Dr. Finney said of the new study.

Researchers agree, though, that simple measures like developing systems to warn people of impending thunderstorms and installing grounding systems in buildings could go a long way in avoiding deaths and injuries. Thunderstorm patterns can’t be changed, Dr. Price said, “but we can give people protection.”

go to original article for links.

RUMBLE #20

The failures of liberal half measures, compromise and "third way" politics has opened the door for right-wing demagogues to take power. It has also re-awakened a militant and energized left to combat both the wackadoodle right and the tepid center. We're seeing this play out in American politics and the 2020 Democratic primary.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is a scholar, author and activist. Her writing and speaking has incisively and ferociously exposed the failures of capitalism and the necessity of a fierce struggle to overcome it. She joins Michael to discuss how the hell we got here and how we liberate ourselves.

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"Five Years Later, Do Black Lives Matter?"
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/09/black-...

"How Real Estate Segregated America"
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/artic...

Read about and order Keeanga's books here:
http://www.keeangataylor.com/books.html

Follow Keeanga on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/KeeangaYamahtta

RUMBLE #17

Almost 10 years after Obamacare was passed, medical bills are still the leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S., 30 million Americans are uninsured, and those who have insurance are dealing with the most expensive health care costs in the world. Michael is joined by political satirist and journalist Francesca Fiorentini to discuss healthcare in America and the state of political satire.

RUMBLE # 10 with RALPH NADER

Michael Moore and Ralph Nader have a complicated relationship. So during his trip to D.C. to witness the impeachment of Donald Trump, Michael was surprised when he bumped into Ralph while visiting the office of Flint's representative in Congress. They ended up having their first real conversation in nearly 20 years. Ralph agreed to let Michael record it for this podcast.

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Ralph Nader and Mark Green's new book "Fake President" is here:
https://www.indiebound.org/book/97815...

Read more about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact here:
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Follow Ralph here:
https://twitter.com/RalphNader