The Hermosa Beach Police Department is submitting to voluntary questionnaires and comments from the local public. They want to know their perception and their place in public opinion.
I believe that the Hermosa Beach police serve a distinct place in the safety and well-being of the South Bay community, where wealth and license have created an unhealthy mixture of partying and self-exploitation, if not properly checked.
I only wish that the police in the Southland spent more time protecting our streets instead of pocketing large sums from taxpayers through pensions and benefits. They have been called to serve and protect, to prevent wrongdoing and assist in the civil sway of civilian society.
Let us also hope that the police will be directed sooner, and not later, to catch and prosecute real crimes, not just target individuals who indulge in illicit substances privately and voluntarily, at no direct harm to anyone else.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Manhattan Beach 6: The Balcony is Now Closed
I cannot recall the last time that I saw a movie at the Manhattan Beach 6, located on the corner of Rosecrans and Sepulveda Blvd. near Frye's Electronics.
And, alas, I never will. I am not surprised that the theater has decided to shut its doors for good. The movie theater industry, like the music industry, is facing an identity crisis of sorts, in large part due to technological innovations which now permit consumers to watch videos on their cellphones.
CDs, then the Ipod, have brought down the records industry. DVD sales and Red Box and Internet outlets have permitted subscribers to select the movies they want to see without paying ten dollars or more for a movie ticket.
The price of movies has risen so high, that a growing number of theaters have priced themselves out of the market entirely. All the copyright enforcement laws, state and federal, could do very little to deter boot-legging and illegal downloads. Add to the growth of personal access the declining quality of recent feature presentations, coupled with up-to-the-minute tabloid releases on the Internet and Twitter, and I am not surprised that a growing number of entertainment consumption diminished so rapidly in the past few years.
I predict that there will not be one movie theater, or multiplex, remaining in the greater Los Angeles area in the next five years, aside from the boutique marquee theaters along Wilshire Blvd, the ones where cult audiences can watch "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or the anniversary re-release of a modern Classic like "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail."
And, alas, I never will. I am not surprised that the theater has decided to shut its doors for good. The movie theater industry, like the music industry, is facing an identity crisis of sorts, in large part due to technological innovations which now permit consumers to watch videos on their cellphones.
CDs, then the Ipod, have brought down the records industry. DVD sales and Red Box and Internet outlets have permitted subscribers to select the movies they want to see without paying ten dollars or more for a movie ticket.
The price of movies has risen so high, that a growing number of theaters have priced themselves out of the market entirely. All the copyright enforcement laws, state and federal, could do very little to deter boot-legging and illegal downloads. Add to the growth of personal access the declining quality of recent feature presentations, coupled with up-to-the-minute tabloid releases on the Internet and Twitter, and I am not surprised that a growing number of entertainment consumption diminished so rapidly in the past few years.
I predict that there will not be one movie theater, or multiplex, remaining in the greater Los Angeles area in the next five years, aside from the boutique marquee theaters along Wilshire Blvd, the ones where cult audiences can watch "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" or the anniversary re-release of a modern Classic like "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail."
Manhattan Beach Teachers Protest Scholar Quiz
I have a couple of questions for the teachers who decided to boycott the 2012 Mira Costa High School Scholar Quiz over budget disputes:
1. What is the number one obstacle to teachers who teach well yet who cannot get a comparable compensation package recognizing their efforts?
2. What fiscal issues is hurting school districts the most egregiously?
3. What political power has done more to frustrate reform and innovation in the classroom than any other party or interest group?
Just for fun, a bonus question with multiple choice answers:
4What changes can best occur to ensure that public education survives the budget crunches which threaten Beach Cities schools with furlough days and staff reductions:
a. reduce the power of scared school boards
b. reduce the influence of politics and partisanship in our schools
c. reduce the dependence of public schools on exclusive state subsidies
d. allow students throughout the region to choose the school that they attend, regardless of their home address.
For questions one and three, the answer is. . .. the teachers' unions.
For the second question, the correct answer is the benefits and pensions contracted to teachers through short-sighted bargaining between school boards and teachers unions, which have excluded the taxpayers.
For the last question, any and all of the above.
I appreciate all the hard work that our teachers are doing for their students. I understand the motivation for teachers refusing to contribute their time to a popular after-school activity in light of the unequal compensation which they receive. I do not appreciate, however, their means and identification for airing their grievances, which sadly harm the students and do not properly represent the interests of individual teachers.
The sooner that union leadership and school district administration take, pass, and implement the above quiz, the sooner that we will witness a renaissance in public education that will prepare students, award teachers, and spare taxpayers from having to contribute money to a system of education still in need of reform and accountability.
1. What is the number one obstacle to teachers who teach well yet who cannot get a comparable compensation package recognizing their efforts?
2. What fiscal issues is hurting school districts the most egregiously?
3. What political power has done more to frustrate reform and innovation in the classroom than any other party or interest group?
Just for fun, a bonus question with multiple choice answers:
4What changes can best occur to ensure that public education survives the budget crunches which threaten Beach Cities schools with furlough days and staff reductions:
a. reduce the power of scared school boards
b. reduce the influence of politics and partisanship in our schools
c. reduce the dependence of public schools on exclusive state subsidies
d. allow students throughout the region to choose the school that they attend, regardless of their home address.
For questions one and three, the answer is. . .. the teachers' unions.
For the second question, the correct answer is the benefits and pensions contracted to teachers through short-sighted bargaining between school boards and teachers unions, which have excluded the taxpayers.
For the last question, any and all of the above.
I appreciate all the hard work that our teachers are doing for their students. I understand the motivation for teachers refusing to contribute their time to a popular after-school activity in light of the unequal compensation which they receive. I do not appreciate, however, their means and identification for airing their grievances, which sadly harm the students and do not properly represent the interests of individual teachers.
The sooner that union leadership and school district administration take, pass, and implement the above quiz, the sooner that we will witness a renaissance in public education that will prepare students, award teachers, and spare taxpayers from having to contribute money to a system of education still in need of reform and accountability.
33rd Congressional District: A "Non-Partisan Gerrymander"
Someone should have barred this dumb set-up when South Bay residents had the chance to sound the alarm.
Only one member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, Michael Ward, descried the "ribbon of shame" along the Western most part of Dockweiler Beach, which has joined together two of the most similarly dissimilar of regions in Southern California. He even interviewed on Channel Four News with Conan Nolan, only to be rebuffed and snuffed out altogether.
Malibu and Beverly Hills have nothing in common with Manhattan Beach and Palos Verdes beyond wealth and "white-ness", whatever the second element means. Yet no two sections could be more distinct and disparate than Hollywood and the Hollywood Riviera of South Torrance.
I thought that giving the responsibility of redistricting to a "non-partisan" commission would have put aside questions of race and class in this state, both of which unjustly inform our politics, and that to the detriment of everyone.
I am most disturbed by the growing notion that the South Bay hugging the Pacific Ocean will be answering to a long-reigning incumbent who has rarely bothered to mount a campaign for reelection in many decades. Henry Waxman has already indicated that he can carry the entire district without even campaigning in the sliver South of Dockweiler. Voters who approved Prop 27 envisioned districts in which state and federal officials would be more accountable and more conciliatory with the opposition. Perhaps this dramatic shift in representation will benefit wide swathes of the state, but the residents of El Segundo to South Torrance will once again by afflicted with playing second-fiddle to a Congressman who coasts into office on the long waves of Los Angeles liberalism.
At least Proposition 14, sponsored by Republican Moderate and former Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, ensures that every politician in this state will face some opposition in the general election, even if the candidate running against is from the same party. Intraparty strife may better serve the business and environmental interests than the Red-Blue rivalry that has benefited the Democrats most of the time.
The Silent (Plastic) Majority Speaks Out Against Plastic Bag Ban
To the City Leaders of Los Angeles:
My name is Carry, and I am a plastic bag. I am writing this
piece on behalf of all my polyurethane brothers and sisters who fear for their
future.
In my many years as a makeshift toilet for pets on their
daily walks, a cheap trashcan for college dorm rooms and the front seats of
cars, and even as a quick and ready lunch sack for workers in a rush, I have
brought peace and convenience to many Southern California residents. I and my
millions of twin brothers and sisters have provided an ample and praiseworthy
service to the people of Los Angeles, too.
Apparently, notorious hatemongering groups have disseminated
salacious untruths about me and my plastic bag brethren. Implicating us in the polluting
of the streets and desecration of the oceans, environmental activists have
unjustly discriminated against us, when the city and the state should be
arresting those who abandon us on beaches, in gutters, and along state
highways. I cannot think of a more glaring example of “blaming the victim” than
the LA City Council’s move to ban me and my kind from their city limits.
I am dismay, disappointed, and outright alarmed to read that
the City of Los Angeles has decided to expel us from the environs of the City
of Angels, granting us but one year to prepare for this rough and rude evacuation
forced upon us. We have been cast out from Great Britain. We have come to the “Land
of the Free and the Home of the Brave”, only to find that we are not wanted
here, either. We have been cast out of wealth coastal communities and the
poorest of county regions. Where do you expect us to go, now? We have rights
to, you know. We have many in this country who champion us, who put us to use
when throwing out roots, rubbish, and coffee grounds. Therefore, we refuse to
be become refuse and we seek refuge from the nanny-state liberalism of Los
Angeles, in which city leaders insist on demonizing one segment of the
population instead of discharging the immense public debt, saving city
employees, and reforming pension obligations which threaten the long-term solvency
of the city and the state.
By this crude, overreaching and senseless act of discrimination,
the LA City Council is forcing plastic bags of all shapes and sizes to endure
one of the most unbearable shocks to their self-esteem and identity. By
eliminating us from the City of Angeles, they will be endangering future
consumers, who will have to resort to reusable sacks, which get dirty and carry
disease, as well as force a greater financial burden on struggling families who
will have to pay a fee to use our thicker cousins, the paper bags – and they
fear that they will be next for city-wide expulsion.
This bag ban is a bad idea. We Plastic Bags are the number
one recycled item for many homeowners, the majority of which end up using us again
and again. We have been silent long
enough, we will not take in this trashing of our reputation quietly, and we
WILL BE HEARD!
--Redacted and Submitted by Arthur Christopher Schaper
Political Response to the Internment of Gabrielino Remains
Indian activist Robert Dorame displays a warm respect for his Native American ancestors. I am of Indian heritage, as well, but I do not see the value of plunging time and energy into the proper burial of long-gone ancestors when we have a political class in Sacramento which has done nothing but sink us deeper into debt and deficits and dysfunction. I respect the due respect that individuals wish to pay their ancestors, yet I am more concerned with our state’s present and fiscal future, including what we may be leaving to our posterity.
“There is a sense of finality now,” Dorame mentioned, crediting Los Angeles councilman Bill Rosendahl for providing a plot of land for the ancestral remains of the Gabrielino tribe.
The greater need for fiscal finality at the city and state level, however, has yet to be reached.
When Juan Cabrillo, Portuguese explorer for the Spanish Empire, first saw the clouds of smoke issuing from the South Bay regions, I do not believe that either he or the Native residents imagined that the sparsely inhabited California of burgeoning with natural resources and potential would one day become a state overrun with government mandates, overregulation, and the diminution of individual and business-based initiative, a state witnessing a significant uptick in emigration in contrast to centuries of immigration and settlement.
Along with the ancestral remains of the Gabrielino tribe, perhaps Councilman Bill Rosendahl can make room for the multi-million dollar deficits eating away at the City of Los Angeles? Perhaps he can dig a little deeper and make space for the multi-billion dollar deficits which wrack Sacramento and send a shudder down the entire state line? Will the rest of the city of Los Angeles dig its own grave with deficits and entitlement burdens, as well?
Will California residents today go the way of the Gabrielinos of centuries past? Let us dedicate ourselves not just to preserving the past, but ensuring a haven for the future, one in which the government plays a much lesser role, one in which our leaders stop ignoring the growing fiscal responsibilities at the expense of pursuing local special interest causes.
Political Penuguin Endorses Prop 29
I never thought I would read a conservative-leaning columnist support Prop 29
Despite the fact that the tax will only affect cigarette smokers directly, do we really need to increase the tax burden in this state for anyone?
Smoking is bad. We all know this. However, R\\raising the tax to purchase a pack of cigarettes will not stop people from smoking, as much as it will either fund an underground black market of trade or worse.
The proposition has too many flaws. The state of California is dealing with immense budget deficits, an out-of-touch political class, and unhealthful business climate which is stifling development and job growth. Voters need to send a loud and clear message to Sacramento: we want less government altogether. Even the most humanitarian of motives -- cancer research -- does not justify a billion-dollar boondoggle funded by taxes.
No more ballot-box budgeting, no more taxation for salvation. Vote "No" on Prop 29.
Despite the fact that the tax will only affect cigarette smokers directly, do we really need to increase the tax burden in this state for anyone?
Smoking is bad. We all know this. However, R\\raising the tax to purchase a pack of cigarettes will not stop people from smoking, as much as it will either fund an underground black market of trade or worse.
The proposition has too many flaws. The state of California is dealing with immense budget deficits, an out-of-touch political class, and unhealthful business climate which is stifling development and job growth. Voters need to send a loud and clear message to Sacramento: we want less government altogether. Even the most humanitarian of motives -- cancer research -- does not justify a billion-dollar boondoggle funded by taxes.
No more ballot-box budgeting, no more taxation for salvation. Vote "No" on Prop 29.
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