I'm on vacation but will be back the Tuesday after Labor Day.
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Normally, when a major clean-up effort for a polluted site is announced-- an effort which will bring to bear the resources of both the local and federal government-- environmentalists are happy. But this is Orange County, where the eco-friendly have often seen their green hopes fade to grey (and then get paved), so the announcement yesterday at Aliso & Wood Canyons Wilderness Park that the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers will be joining the county to detox and otherwise improve Aliso Creek was greeted with suspicion by enviromentalists.
"They promised us we would have an opportunity to bring in our own scientists for a second opinion or a peer review for this super project. And — wham, bam — we have a press conference announcing it," said Penny Elia, chairwoman of the Sierra Club's Save Hobo Aliso Task Force.Representatives from the Surfrider Foundation, another environmental group, said they were waiting for more information.
Latest Los Angeles Times piece: my unperfect Spanish. Awright, pochos and wabs: go at it! And gabachos: how important is it to learn Spanish in these days of reconquista? Also, enjoy an oldie-but-goodie interview in the Utne Reader that appears in this month's edition!
Couldn't help but take a gander at the latest Honk! column in the Register, which is a must-read for anyone who can get past the fact that writer Jim Radcliffe looks far too happy to be a local transportation columnist. Unless, of course, it's driven him barking mad, in which case the grin makes sense. The column's title promises a Biblical smackdown, with Radcliffe as Moses (only more smiley):
Fact of the week: The Register has reported that the planned 16-mile extension of the Foothill (241) Toll Road will cost an estimated $875 million (in 2008 dollars) to construct. Which, thankfully, is accurate.But when all costs are included – like for environmental research and a $120 million deal to get a sister toll road not to sue – the projected bill is $1.1 billion. Not included are to-be-determined financing costs.
Check out the Register's March 24 article re: the toll road's legal troubles. Clare then-Climaco (now Venegas), TCA spokesperson-turned-Lincoln-Club-head had this to say:
Because of skyrocketing construction costs, toll-road officials say each month the project is delayed adds about $3 million to the price, although construction is not scheduled to begin until 2008
That raises Radcliffe's estimate of $1.1 Billion to $1,496,000,000. And let's not even consider the fact that the $875 Million figure has been around for years now - but with today's gas prices, how can that possibly be? Won't every single construction vehicle be more expensive to get to and from the site? Won't every single piece of construction material be more expensive to deliver to the site? How can the Transportation Corridor Agencies POSSIBLY expect us to still believe that the construction cost for the Foothill-South will be a mere $875 Million?
I'm more than willing to take your opinions on this one - especially if you're TCA spokesperson Lisa Telles.
Usually when a regular columnist for one of the major news magazines begins to chew through the restraints of received ideas and government press releases, it is, to borrow a phrase from Samuel Johnson, "like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all." Jonathan Alter's latest column in Newsweek illustrates the point.
Well, it turned out that the critics were largely right. Not only has the president done much less than he promised on the financing and logistics of Gulf Coast recovery, he has dropped the ball entirely on using the storm and its aftermath as an opportunity to fight poverty. Worker recovery accounts and urban homesteading never got off the ground, and the new enterprise zone is mostly an opportunity for Southern companies owned by GOP campaign contributors to make some money in New Orleans. The mood in Washington continues to be one of not-so-benign neglect of the problems of the poor.
"I don't think anybody's getting the Bush strategy," historian Douglas Brinkley, director of Tulane University's Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization and the author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, tells Frank Rich in Rich's Sunday New York Times column.
"The crucial point is that the inaction is deliberate — the inaction is the action." As [Brinkley] sees it, the administration, tacitly abetted by New Orleans's opportunistic mayor, Ray Nagin, is encouraging selective inertia, whether in the rebuilding of the levees ("Only Band-Aids have been put on them"), the rebuilding of the Lower Ninth Ward or the restoration of the wetlands. The destination: a smaller city, with a large portion of its former black population permanently dispersed. "Out of the Katrina debacle, Bush is making political gains," Mr. Brinkley says incredulously. "The last blue state in the Old South is turning into a red state."
County Supervisor Tom Wilson's most recent e-newsletter (Fifth District Report) contained the following juicy tidbit:
The City of Laguna Beach and the Laguna Beach Chamber of Commerce are hosting a Save Trestles- Bluewater Concert Series on Thursday August 31st from 8-11 p.m. at Club M (680 South Coast Hwy). Cost is $10 pre-sale and $15 at the door. For more information please call 949-842-2260 (Rick Conkey).
Apparently the Supervisors voted 4-1 to pass the resolution, so I went back and listened to that particular meeting to see if maybe that odd man out was Wilson, which would explain his contradictory behavior. Instead I found the one nay vote came not from Wilson, but from Supervisor Lou Correa. Good for you, Lou. So what's Wilson doing, supporting the toll road on one day and advertising for a Save Trestles event the next?
Your guess is as good as mine.
FINAL THOUGHT: As the TCA is a Joint Powers Authority, it takes members from local City Councils, OCTA, and the Board of Supervisors. Tom Wilson sits on both the Foothill/Eastern TCA (the guys specifically in charge of Foothill-South) as well as the BOS. Natch.
The 24th is also the day of the Orange County Race for the Cure - namely the cure for breast cancer. The Race, held at Fashion Island in Newport Beach, is part of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation's vicious paramilitary action against malignant mammaries.
The Kids are encouraging friends and fans to join them on the day, including Irvine-based experimental hardcore band Thrice and the Syrentha J. Savio Endowment, a hip young non-profit that raises cash for those women unable to afford chemo or other medications. How hip are they? They've already got a MySpace, baby.
Thrice donated proceeds from their third album, The Artist in the Ambulance, to the Savio Endowment and have raced for the cure before. Also in attendance will be what was once the band Hot Water Music (named after the Bukowski novel), members of which have now recombined into The Draft.
So here's the deal: you wanna see the Cold War Kids, you gots to walk the 5K. That and some minor details:
...right before the beginning of Nigger Wetback Chink: "White Power".
You may remember this Arnold Schwarzenegger commercial from the recall election, which described how Sacramento works: "Here's how it works. Money goes in. Favors go out. The people lose. We need to send a message. Game over." Well, if you thought you were sending a message by voting for Schwarzenegger, you were wrong. Because in the land of Governor Schwarzenegger, it's still Game On.
In this morning's San Diego Union-Tribune, Bill Ainsworth reports that "Schwarzenegger has carried on the political tradition of providing favors – in the form of coveted state appointments – to generous campaign donors."
Among Schwarzenegger's appointees to the board was defense contractor Brent Wilkes, who has since resigned. Wilkes has been identified as a co-conspirator in the case of convicted former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Wilkes has not been charged.
During the 2003 campaign, he served as county finance co-chairman for Schwarzenegger. Wilkes, his wife, Regina, and his company, ADCS Inc., contributed $77,400 to Schwarzenegger.
Among the legislation opposed by the Western Growers was last year's SB 700, which required farmers to obtain pollution permits for certain diesel powered field machinery. Previously, agricultural interests were exempt from the emission rules that require permits for other industries and Central Valley air quality was greatly compromised as a result.
Agricultural interests gave Arnold's campaign committees more than half a million dollars.
Bob Stern, former general counsel to the Fair Political Practices Commission, said there is nothing illegal about the builders' contribution but that the timing "looks bad."
[…]
By shelving the eight-bill package, Perata not only cured a legislative headache, he pleased development interests that have been generous campaign contributors both to him and Schwarzenegger.
Perata's campaign committee to support five bond measures on the Nov. 7 ballot has solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars from developers or real-estate interests, while Schwarzenegger's campaign committees have collected more than $5 million from developers over the past year, state records show.
Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, said the building industry has become increasingly powerful since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office."Let me put it this way: The governor is the tractor, and they're working the gears," Florez said. "And you can quote me."
With the first anniversary of the nightmarish devastation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans by Hurricance Katerina (with the assistance of the Bush administration) looming, and the major news media already gearing up for their fifth anniversary of 9/11 extravaganzas, the UK newspaper The Independent directs our attention to another black mark on the calendar.
A miserable milestone was passed the other day. America's (and Britain's) disastrous war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the US involvement in the Second World War. Yes, this conflict has outlasted a war that ended with total victory over Nazi Germany. Hitler declared war on the US on 11 December 1941. Exactly 1,244 days later, on 7 May 1945, Germany surrendered. The US invaded Iraq on 19 March 2003, and this weekend it is 1,267 days later, with no end in sight.Sticklers among you will have noted that the interval between the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Japanese surrender on 2 September, 1945 was 1,364 days. But even that record will tumble at the start of December. And if you do measure Iraq against the longer American war with Japan, the contrast is even starker. Victory in the Pacific was even more conclusive than in Europe. It produced no post-war entanglement with the Soviets and no Berlin airlift. The Iraq war unfolded the other way round: Baghdad fell barely three weeks after the invasion. Since then, however, it's been downhill all the way.
