Take La La Land … Please
Oct 28th, 2009 | 31 responses
If there was ever any doubt why California is known as la la land, I offer these stories ripped off the wires.
1) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was heckled recently when he crashed a Democratic Party fund raiser, vetoed a bill authored by one of his hecklers and despite the fact the Legislature approved the measure unanimously. Here’s the veto message. Now follow the first letter in the left margin of each line. Here’s the set up as compiled by the Wall Street Journal. In Left Coast politics, this passes as Hollywood humor. You be the judge.
2) — Alex Kozinski is an insatiable jokester even sitting as the chief judge of the U.S. 9th District Court of Appeals. He sent emails to fellow jurists, law clerks, prominent attorneys and journalists that the Los Angeles Times described as silly to politically oriented to raunchy. The Judicial Council of the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals took no action. Kozinski was admonished earlier this year in a separate case for being “judicially imprudent” and “exhibiting poor judgment” by placing sexually explicit photos and videos on an Internet server that could be accessed by the public. Kozinski “apologized for any embarrassment to the federal judiciary,” said his lawyer Mark Holscher. No lame Polish jokes, please.
3) — Paparazzi are blamed for a rash of burglaries at homes of Hollywood celebrities. No, not the photogs, but groupies who see the pictures and read the stars’ Twitters, Facebooks and blogsites. Blair Berk, a well-known Hollywood attorney who represents some of the victims, blamed the paparazzi for “creating a very real danger in terms of mentally ill stalkers and criminals,” she said. Nonsense, says Frank Griffin, the veteran paparazzo and head of the Bauer-Griffin photo agency. “You have to blame somebody, and you can’t blame the ones who stole, can you?” he said. “You have to blame the villain.” Don’t jump to conclusions, folks.
4) — Los Angeles Police detectives arrested four teenagers in connection with burglaries at the homes of Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson and Audrina Patridge. The group studied television shows, celebrity magazines and websites picking out clothing and jewelry they wanted. Then they figured out where the celebrities lived and, after casing the homes, broke in and took what they wanted, detectives allege. “This is a no-brains caper. There’s not a lot of self-awareness,” LAPD Det. Brett Goodkin said. The Los Angeles Times interviewed students at Indian Hills High School where the teenagers attended. “I’ve heard them girls are rich now,” said Alex Badolato, an 11th-grader. An administrator said one of the arrested teenagers was a “spectacular student” who had won scholarships. Them girls aren’t the only ones making news.
5) — An old white guy is on the 10 Most Wanted criminals list in the San Diego FBI office for robbing four banks since August. The geezer is described as white, 60 to 70 years old, about 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighing about 150 pounds, with a medium build and gray facial hair. He was wearing a gray tweed jacket, a dark shirt, dark pants with dark shoes and a black hat. Three cheers for the AARP candidate for its monthly publication “Modern Maturity.”
6) — Finally, The New York Times takes a lengthy look at the latest off-the-chart bill that would legalize marijuana — not just for medicinal purposes but for everyone. We quote: “State lawmakers are holding a hearing on Wednesday on the effects of a bill that would legalize, tax and regulate the drug — in what would be the first such law in the United States. Tax officials estimate the legislation could bring the struggling state about $1.4 billion a year, and though the bill’s fate in the Legislature is uncertain, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated he would be open to a “robust debate” on the issue.” Said one San Francisco resident, “For a lot of people, it’s just another brand of beer.” Can’t wait to read the governor’s veto message on that one.
California may be broken, its teenagers and geezers taking the law in their own hands, its judges slipping dirty jokes to one another and the rest blowing smoke, but you have to admit, where else can one live on a daily diet of the absurd.
31 Responses to “Take La La Land … Please”
[...] See original here: Take La La Land … Please [...]
[...] Take La La Land … Please The Moderate Voice 3) — Paparazzi are blamed for a rash of burglaries at homes of Hollywood celebrities. No, not the photogs, but groupies who see the pictures and read the … See all stories on this topic [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Hans Spee, TMV. TMV said: Take La La Land … Please: If there was ever any doubt why California is known as la la land, I offer these stories … http://bit.ly/54JPl [...]
Obviously Boeing wasn't about to select Long Beach or anywhere else in California to set up its second 787 assembly line. California's business climate is no better than Washington state's these days, I bet.
(South Carolina wins the second 787 assembly line.)
[...] the original post: Take La La Land … Please Filed under: Object Tags: breaking-news, california, celebrities, democrats, homes, internet, [...]
Small correction: LA is “la la land”. You'll notice most of these stories come from there…
What does Boeing have to do with this post?
The Governator wants to sell pot to make up for short revenues? Now THAT is funny..
California will be like the tobacco states I guess..selling something they shouldn't and making a killing, literally. Considering how the Fed feels about pot, it's like he's announcing he's going to hold vigorous debate on pulling out of the Union. Just what we need, an expensive drug war between the Fed and California.
What's next?
[...] info by The Moderate Voice « My Anniversary Senators agree to extend tax credit for first-time homebuyers, [...]
Don't forget that last year, there was an attempt in San Fransisco to legalize prostitution. I bet that the taxes on sex and drugs (I think rock n' roll is already taxed) would be more stable than their current scheme.
“What does Boeing have to do with this post?”
California has shed jobs because of its anti-business climate, which is more real than many myths and legends (“laid back” lifestyle, etc.), mostly made up or hyped by “transplants” who have moved to California from elsewhere.
“The Governator wants to sell pot to make up for short revenues? Now THAT is funny..”
What's funny are two things: a) the naivete' of so many (which would be dispelled in many subsequent cases by drug tourism and related criminal activity involving outsiders); b) the dependence and expectation of revenues, ridiculous behavior, similar to what already has often happened with things like lottery and casino revenue (“for education”) in a number of states. In other words, additional mismanagement problems ensue, rather than some instant, magic cure for systemic failure.
[Disqus is hiccuping]
“California will be like the tobacco states I guess..selling something they shouldn't and making a killing, literally. Considering how the Fed feels about pot,”
Sil, ObamaCo has deliberately, explicitly made a gesture of appeasement in cases similar to this (with medical marijuana, itself a front for legalization — I wish proponents would simply be up-front and honest).
Each drug must be viewed separately and individually, because each drug is different — the blanket-total-legalizers are out of touch with reality. Marijuana is at the forefront (and probably the only drug, really) as a candidate for legalization, or at least decriminalization. There's plenty of weight to the “should” just as there still is a “shouldn't” in the case of legalizing, selling, and (typically) taxing the stuff. Where myth supplants reality is in people's expectations that a) legalization would eliminate existing problems and create no new ones; b) that this would be an instant, permanent fiscal salvation of mismanaged state finances.
Another quick correction: San Francisco was trying to decriminalize being a sex worker — not prostitution, per se. It would still be illegal to buy sex, just the brunt of the legal issues in prostitution cases currently come down on the side of the prostitute. If a sex worker, for example, reports being raped, robbed, or beaten (which is horribly common), she is often booked for being a prostitute while the police never even look for the man who raped/robbed/beat her. The proposed legislation was also designed to alleviate the legal burden from trafficked children and young women, who inevitably bear the brunt of any legal action/arrest instead of the johns.
In other words: it may sound crazy on the surface, and who knows if the proposal would have worked, but it certainly didn't come from a place of “yay prostitution!”, it came from a place of compassion for those who are at risk.
“California will be like the tobacco states I guess”
Hey Sil — I'm not sure what part of the country you live in, but I live in the Bay Area, and let me assure you, it most certainly is already like this, it's just not taxed. Go up to the backwood hills in many of the northern counties and there is just about as much pot as can be imagined. Acres and acres of meticulously manicured plants. Huge mansion-size grow rooms. It's fairly clear that the whole situation would be safer for everyone if this particular drug were legalized — legalization takes out all the danger, all the need for guns and gangs, etc, all the need for sleezy drug lords or covert grow houses. As long as you have laws stipulating that you can't drive, operate heavy machinery, etc, while stoned, there really is no more danger than smoking cigarettes — some would argue less danger, since it's very rare to find a pot smoker that smokes as often or as much as even light cig smokers. Give the old hippies and cancer patients their weed.
“LA is 'la la land'.”
Anyone in the Bay Area (or from it) will be happy to remind people of that, as well as about “Tinseltown.”
However, be aware that just as in the rest of the world outside the USA (“Hollywood! Beach babes! Oranges!”), much of the rest of the USA outside California also thinks of Southern California when “California” (or the silly “Cali,” which is the name of a city in Colombia, not a state in the USA) is on their minds and in their words.
“It's fairly clear that the whole situation would be safer for everyone if this particular drug were legalized”
Not the kind of problems with house fires as in Vancouver (BC), but a much-longer history of outdoor dangers, including guns, booby traps, and non-peaceful people guarding their acreage in the redwood country (which includes the Santa Cruz Mountains and sites south, not only north, of San Francisco).
The immigrant labor force and using the National Forest lands for additional growing sites is more recent.
First, Santa Cruz is most certainly considered northern California — I didn't mean north of me, I just meant “northern”. Otherwise, yeah, I agree with what you're saying (I think). If growing pot were legal, you wouldn't need all the booby traps and gun-toting folks hanging out in national parks. People could just buy a plot of land and grow some plants. I think it would also be much easier to disseminate information on safe indoor grows if it were legal. You wouldn't need to illegally tap into the power grid (which is one source of grow fires) because you wouldn't need to hide it. In addition: hemp!
Sure, oranges and Hollywood and beaches are certainly connected to California as a whole in the minds of many. I was just making a joke, and pointing out the misnomer: the term la-la land comes from LA — get it? LA-LA?
I understand the origin of “La-La Land.”
* * *
“First, Santa Cruz is most certainly considered northern California — I didn't mean north of me, I just meant 'northern'. “
I understand. I said that the redwood country “includes the Santa Cruz Mountains and sites south, not only north, of San Francisco” and didn't only refer to the redwood country (which means “northernmost” California, though redwoods are as far south as Lucia!) but also to the National Forests.
Northern California ranges from the Oregon border (the northernmost parts, beyond Cape Mendocino, which actually are part of the Pacific Northwest and should be part of Oregon) all the way to the Transverse Ranges. (I draw the “border” at the best place, along a central river in the Transverse Ranges with inverted vegetation, chaparral on the northern bank and oak-grassland on the southern, the Santa Maria-Cuyama River, then extending eastward toward the division between the southernmost Sierra Nevada and the Tehachapis.)
California, in fact, could easily be partitioned into three or four states, or involve even more partition (land cessions to Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon).
http://www.csupomona.edu/~jskoga/splittingcalif…
http://books.google.com/books?id=OEqiYRm-ohMC&p…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/us/14visalia….
http://www.csupomona.edu/~jskoga/splittingcalif…
http://www.phrelin.com/3Cals/Rationale.htm
http://www.jeffersonstate.com/
* * *
“People could just buy a plot of land and grow some plants. I think it would also be much easier to disseminate information on safe indoor grows if it were legal. You wouldn't need to illegally tap into the power grid (which is one source of grow fires) because you wouldn't need to hide it. In addition: hemp!”
Hemp, first and foremost — image Hemp for Victory, waves of it, in the Central Valley. Hemp has befallen to “medical marijuana” as the front for legalization and recreational use of marijuana lately.
The activists should be as honest as you are about it. Just legalize it or decriminalize it.
The fires in places like Vancouver (house fires) raise other concerns, too, from hazard and carelessness involving electrical overloading and lamp-related heat. (Growers there began working with water-jacketed lamps 15+ years ago — there were multiple homes burning down each month during the worse earlier times.)
California is a mammoth agricultural producer (leader in many categories) already, and is an ideal place for marijuana growing. (That fantastic star outdoors outdoes any lamp we can construct and operate here on earth.) I'd love to return there and put my gardening skills to work once again. (I grew plants at home while growing up there, and the only other gardening I did was to work with a couple of guys on an indoor project once in the Seattle metro area.)
In my previous posting, I provided a number of links about partitioning California. For brevity, here:
If readers go to page 9 of the following PDF, a serious and still-contemporary analysis, you'll see a proposal for a north-south partition of California (which is almost always considered; occasionally you'll see an east-west, urban-rural partition, instead) that makes both north and south about equally rich or poor. (It's also the easiest to implement as it involves a single straight line as the new state boundary.)
http://www.csupomona.edu/~jskoga/splittingcalif…
Legalizing Marijuana in California (and the rest of the country) is NOT as la-la crazy as some might think.
From the March 13, 2009 Time Magazine article: Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?
From a Wikipedia article on marijuana:
If only unemployed homeless weirdos smoked marijuana it wouldn't be a $35 BILLION a year industry. What's weird IMO is the government NOT taxing the money generated by it.
caveat:
I do not smoke marijuana. Forty years ago I did (quite a lot actually) but that was then… Since then I've raised a family, had a productive career and now I play a lot of golf. I'm not opposed to marijuana or those who use it, I've simply other priorities… other things that keep me occupied. When my body forces me to slow down I'll probably try it again.
Legalizing marijuana is the one legalization objective that makes sense, and would solve a host of problems as well as offer substantial tax revenues to Sacramento and the counties. However, it would not simply solve problems, but create and or introduce new ones as well (regulation and taxation; drug tourism, inter-state smuggling, organized crime related to the latter, etc.), and would never be the panacea (including for tax revenues, which likely would be over-estimated as well as misspent and overly relied upon) that proponents typically believe and profess so naively. Just think it through rationally, just as with the 1992 document I provided a link to previously, about the partitioning of California into two states. Just be rational about it. Regulation as well as taxation, and prevention of new problems, including possible state border backups due to neighbor-state highway drug inspections and closure of uncontrolled roads across state lines, should already be in people's forward views if legalization is considered.
Side note: the California State Legislature Assembly Office of Research, in that 1992 report, partitioning the state to equalize the financial effects on the two new states, noted also that “a new state encompassing the 27 northernmost counties (mostly north of Sacramento) would be financially viable.” This includes the area of the state primarily in most people's minds when growing dope is considered. This is a claim of viability without consideration of marijuana legalization and taxation, so this is a case where the role of tax revenues but also the concentration of the industry and the interference with transit is paramount.
Er…I don't know if your little geography lesson was for the greater good, but if it was meant for me — um, I *live* here. I've lived here for 30 years. I'm pretty well acquainted with the lay of the land. But, thanks?
“I don't know if your little geography lesson was for the greater good, but if it was meant for me — um, I *live* here”
It was meant for those who could use it (open replies to you, on an open forum).
I grew up there, and also spent a year in San Diego and “did seven years” in LA (lived in Orange County, worked in LA County). I'm actually familiar, in my post-1992 travels outside California, with other places, more so than natives, at times, but the case of California is one of extra familiarity.
The following is an example of partition advocacy that is in need of some geography (and other study).
http://www.frankjgruber.net/doc/BreakingUpCalif…
(Not Statham's ideas, which merely are debatable, but the actual author's.)
” if your little geography lesson was for the greater good”
Actually, in more ways than one, if you really want to know. Not to educate readers merely about California and the various (especially the best) suggestions for partitioning it. But also for the “greater” good insofar as the equity-of-financial-consequences-or-results rational approach used by California's own government, in its 1992 report, also applies to ideas of partitioning or consolidating, i.e., to ideas of rationalizing and re-designing, the collection of states we have elsewhere, throughout the USA (not, that is, limited to separating peninsular from mainland Florida or eastern from western Texas, or the heart of the state from the Panhandle, but to reconstituting states and boundaries everywhere, east and west USA).
“Sil, ObamaCo has deliberately, explicitly made a gesture of appeasement in cases similar to this (with medical marijuana, itself a front for legalization — I wish proponents would simply be up-front and honest).”
******
Not sure exactly what you're inferring here but I assure you my stance is against legalization for the same reason I'm against gay marriage. I don't think normalizing using drugs is a good thing for our country. It's important that we legislate to relflect moderation in extreme behaviors. There will always be exceptions but the important thing is to KEEP them exceptions and not the condoned rule.
Well, that's a point similar to what I've made, which is to be realistic about this, and to expect new problems as well as the resolution of old problems. Drug tourism and smuggling (and entry by organized crime into the new legal marijuana market in California, as a source to export the drug elsewhere in the USA) is an obvious problem. I take issue with those who confuse libertarianism for licentiousness or the anarchism inherent in immature or in standard-free behavior or conduct, which places such “libertarians” not with real libertarians but with their radical-left values-free counterparts (which is where they have placed themselves, by their choice). Not everything is as blithely “victimless” as is dishonestly claimed.
I actually have wanted marijuana legalized for ages because to me it's less harmful than alcohol or than tobacco (standard question: Would either of these two drugs be more likely than marijuana to receive FDA approval?), and we'd solve more problems that we'd create by legalizing it. (Taxing it should be viewed simply as a possible bonus, in part counteracted by regulation or other controls that would have to be set up and enforced.) Plus, I would love to put my gardening skills to productive(!) use.
“Not sure exactly what you're inferring here “
Front for legalization (hemp, medical marijuana): Self-explanatory.
Appeasement on medical marijuana, and by extension, to legalization or decriminalization:
http://pubrecord.org/law/5807/holder-unveils-fo…
Related (examples):
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/19holder.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/mar/19/local/m…
“It’s time to carve up the Lone Star State into five 'mini-Texases'—'Texas Tots,' if y’all will—pursuant to an arcane but historically important provision in Congress’s Joint Resolution for the Annexation of Texas in 1845. [...] Needless to say, five 'mini-Texases' would give today’s Texans and tomorrow’s mini-Texans significantly more clout in the national political arena. Think of it: Ten Senators (hopefully, all conservative Republicans, but not necessarily or perpetually so) instead of a meager two, who really care about the Lone Star State! And a corresponding enlargement of the Electoral College impact of citizens from what is present-day Texas! It could be fun; it could be politically profitable—that is, for the people of present-day Texas as a whole, and especially for Texas Republicans; it certainly would be interesting. And, we submit, it would even be constitutional.”
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_5ieXw28ZUpg/SfFUijhyl…
Incidentally, regarding California and others' Congressional districts, while I have advocated rational criteria for redistricting using natural features, as well as contiguous Census districts and ZIP codes, for example, another source is the following, which uses a different, rational approach.
http://rangevoting.org/SplitLR.html
(I don't agree with its advocacy of a “sliding scale” or “range of values” for votes, though it is intriguing.)