Isn’t a bird shed usually called a coop: Bird’s Surf Shed

It is indeed a giant shed

1091 W Morena Blvd. San Diego

The place has been around since 2011 but the guy who owns it, “Bird”, has a story that goes back a touch further. https://birdssurfshed.com/bird-huffman-story/

You can find Bird hanging around the shop, which doesn’t matter all that much if all you want is to look at, or buy, boards, because they have plenty of stuff to look at or buy. Most of which don’t really require any explanations.

The space is big enough, stocked enough, and curated enough, that it merits a visit no matter your intentions.

BDDW by Tyler Hays

New York, London, LA

1032 N. HIGHLAND AVENUE, LOS ANGELES, CA

I first learned of BDDW through a friend of mine in Philly. That was more than a decade ago and it was instantly evident then, and is true now, that they simply make cool stuff.

I chose the words “cool” and “stuff” carefully.

To say BDDW is a furniture design shop would overlook the house bottled liquor. To say it is an art gallery would forget the hand crafted turntables. At BDDW they hand paint puzzles and then hang them on the wall.

I’ll describe it in a way that would offend anyone who loves the place, but makes BDDW easier to understand for anyone unfamiliar: Imagine Wal Mart… no Target, except instead of carrying a whole world of brands and designers, you have this huge variety of stuff, all from one brand, one designer, and none of it sucks.

Or… Tyler has done something similar to Ralph Lauren, minus the clothes (for now). In other words, Like Ralph, Tyler has imagined, and then created, an entire world. Tyler’s world is just a bit heftier. A touch more Carhart and a little less limousine.

I’m a big fan of the grandfather clock that appears to be a tall, simple, squared-off column of hard wood with a row of round light bulbs near the top containing filaments shaped like numbers to display the time. Or a leather overlaid turntable built into a wood slab coffee table. Like I said before, cool stuff.

SOLE FOLKS

SOLE FOLKS

4317 Degnan Blvd Leimert Park, LA

The Leimert Park neighborhood is generally considered the heart of the conscious Black community in Los Angeles. It is also incredibly cool. Some might say those two are the same thing but in that world of cool, SOLE FOLKS is the coolest of the cool.

Sole describes itself as a design incubator rather than a shop, and they are true to that, but what they put on the shelves is fully baked. The varsity jackets, sweatshirts and T’s don’t just look good, but everything is thought through and infused with freedom. And Justice. And the kind of cool that doesn’t require irony.

The clothing and the signage on the wall are very tied to the physical neighborhood where it exists, and those ties extend even further with a classroom and studio in the back. Sole conducts entrepreneurship classes for young people ages 16-25 focused on product development. I don’t know what, if anything on the shelves came from those classes… Which I’m saying is a good thing.

Students for Fair Admissions Inc. has NEVER been about fairness.

For nearly 178 years it was legal for colleges to racially discriminate. In 1954 the supreme court ruled that racial discrimination in schools was unconstitutional but did not set a firm timeline by which discriminatory policies must end. Most colleges did not begin making efforts to integrate till the mid 1960’s. In 1978 the Supreme court ruled that setting racial quotas for college admissions was unconstitutional. It was allowed that the race of the applicant could be considered, but that there could be no reserved seats based on racial identity.

Affirmative action by racial quota was only possible, though not widely utilized, for 24 years.

Today at least 578 colleges, including all the Ivy League, consider legacy (being the child or relative of an alumni) in their admissions.

Yale was founded 322 years ago and has approximately 180,000 living alumni. Yale did not regularly admit Black students till 1964. The current student body is 7% Black.

In 2023 Yale received 50,060 applications but only admitted 2,503, which is a 5% acceptance rate. The acceptance rate for legacy applicants was 14%.

Students for Fair Admissions Inc, the organization that has been systematically suing colleges for considering race in college admissions, has never brought a lawsuit against legacy admissions.

Below is a sampling of the most recent admissions numbers and associated acceptance rates for legacy applicants:

Harvard 61,221 applicants, 3% accepted. 16% legacy accepted.

Yale 50,060 applicants, 5% accepted. 14% legacy accepted.

Princeton 38,019 applicants, 6% accepted. 31% legacy accepted.

Columbia 60,879 applicants, 4% accepted. Legacy rate not available.

Brown 50,649 applicants, 5% accepted. 12% legacy accepted.

Dartmouth 28,3366 applicants, 6% accepted. 10% legacy accepted.

U Penn 54,588 applicants, 7% accepted. 22% legacy accepted.

Cornell 69,195 applicants, 7% accepted. 37% legacy accepted.

Stanford 56,378 applicants, 4% accepted. 16% legacy accepted.

Colleges are allowed to reserve seats for the children and relatives of alumni. For most of their histories, colleges barred or restricted the admission of Black students resulting in a predominance of legacy applicants being white. Thanks to the persistent legal work of Students for Fair Admissions Inc. colleges may not consider race in college admissions.

Again, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. has never sued to end legacy admissions.

Their work has never been honestly about fairness.

Anti DEI legislation is a direct attack on racial and sexual equality in America

Over the past two years 24 states have proposed or passed anti DEI legislation. I have read 12 of these proposals and in each case their justifications rely on mischaracterization and/or outright lies regarding what DEI offices do and make unfounded conjectures about what effect their closing will have. Each insinuates that DEI programs are the source of division and inequality and that outlawing such will naturally help create equality.

I have worked directly with DEI offices at several colleges for more than a decade and hold a degree in higher education DEI work, granted by one of the nation’s top schools of education, where I studied directly under scholars whose work is the basis for DEI offices across the country. I am relatively well informed regarding DEI work on American college campuses.

Some of the oldest institutions on the north American continent are colleges and universities. Nine American colleges have been continually operating since long before the United States declared its independence. For example, Harvard is almost 150 years older than the United States. Much of what the United States has become throughout its evolution, culturally, economically, and legally, has been thanks to the work of colleges and universities.

This includes American attitudes and policy regarding race. For most of its existence the United States has legally allowed, supported, or even dictated explicit discrimination against people who are not white.

Discriminatory laws have been in place, in large part, because non white people have always been physically present, and many of the functions of American life and economy have been dependent on both the removal of, and the subjugated participation of, non white people. Discriminatory processes and norms grew and developed as the nation grew and developed to the point where much of those processes appear natural and require little to no thought or effort. This is in large part why the changing of those laws did not happen peacefully, or with sweeping consensus.

Untangling the centuries of discrimination, both legally and culturally, takes not only time, but conscious effort. That is the sort of work engaged in by offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). These offices normally create support and programming based on the peer reviewed research of experts independent of politics or industry. DEI work goes beyond race discrimination and includes work to undo homophobia and misogyny.

There may be some well founded critiques of some DEI offices or officers, or some disagreement about the best ways to combat the various forms and effects of discrimination, but a critique is not the same thing as passing a law making current efforts illegal. If critiques rely upon, or even include, demonstrable lies or mischaracterizations, we should at minimum question the validity of the critique, but as a standard, reject passing any associated law or policy.

Stewart Surfboards

Stewart

2102 S. El Camino Royal, San Clemente, CA

Bill Stewart shaped and or painted surfboards for Ocean Pacific and Hobie, before opening his own shop in 1978. Since then his Stewart brand boards have spread around the world. You can buy them in almost any used board shop, online exchange, or even at his shop which has been in its current location for almost 30 years.

The rafters of the shop hold old boards, just like almost every other old surf shop, but what are most notable in his rafters is the airbrushing. Those are his. Bill did that. It is kind of his thing.

He has all the other stuff too, just like everyone else, and just like most of the brands from his generation, you are not likely to get a board shaped by him. He has employees for that.

Rugby World Cup

Ireland was ranked #1 in the world and the All Blacks came into the tournament looking not just vulnerable, but disappointing. Irish fans flooded Paris, singing their songs so loud that the sound drowned the haka out.

New Zealand found a way to scrape out a win in the final minutes and crushed the hopes of a million smiling eyes.

France, having beat the All Blacks in the tournament’s opening match and boasting arguably the best current player in the world, faced a Springbok team previously bested by the Irish. Playing in Paris, the South Africans still found a way to barely win the game.

What a tournament it has been and it comes to a conclusion this Saturday and I cannot wait.

NZ vs SA