Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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I am an assistant professor at Columbia Business School. I am a father, a husband, an uncle, and a son. I am a forty-year-old man, and last week I found myself crying in front of a group of complete strangers. In a video that has since gone viral, I stood on Columbia University's main campus and pleaded with my employer to protect me and help me protect the thousands of Jewish students whose lives and safety have been entrusted to us by worried parents all across the United States. I pleaded...
Last Tuesday, Santa Monica City Council Woman Caroline Torosis delivered a scripted speech about cash bail. She said that she has "Seen first hand" how cash bail "destroys families." No she hasn't. She's reading from a script she didn't write. Caroline Torosis said that cash bail "criminalizes poverty." No it doesn't. It criminalizes criminals. Caroline Torosis said that cash bail resulted in "either below or similar to historical average" failure to appear in court. That is lawyer speak for...
For those waiting for the show, you're about to be disappointed. US President Joseph R. Biden, in his trip to appears to have convinced Benjamin Netanyahu, to punt. No Gaza invasion despite the buildup of tanks and troops. "Let's be clear: President Biden and his administration are the only things holding Netanyahu back from absolutely leveling Gaza," said one armchair analyst on Twitter. "While Biden has rightly stood firm with Israel, he has also called for restraint, reflection, and everyone...
Steve Hilton wonders how California has gone so far in the wrong direction. "California has gone from the pinnacle of the American Dream to the place that everyone can't wait to leave. How did that happen in a matter of decades?" he writes. Here's my brief take: 1. Election of Newsom, an empty shell of a handsome spokesman, who turned California into a piggy bank and playground for the special interests who own/control him (see below). 2. Election of Soros-backed DAs (Gascon, Boudin, others)...
Dear Council, This article reporting on the Rand conference on "homelessness" is revealing. Round-and-round we go, as criminals prey on us, threaten us when we step out to walk the dogs, trespass, and senselessly steal anything and everything (below, this addict, holding either a weapon or a butane lighter for his drugs, steals our dog's ball in broad daylight. Why, my dog Bonnie asks? Because he's here. Sorry, Bonnie!). Not as bad as breaking into our garage and stealing electric bikes (not...
We obtained the latest tax return for the Humane Society of the United States, a national organization that raises money to save homeless animals. The tax return, covering 2022, shows HSUS wasting millions. Despite its name, HSUS is not affiliated with local humane societies. And it generally only gives about 1% of its money as financial grants to pet shelters–which once again appears to be the case in 2022, based on reported grants. Here are more highlights from the 2022 tax year: CEO Kitty B...
Dear Mayor Davis, Councilmembers and City Attorney Sloan, The purpose of this open letter is to express grave concerns regarding the constitutionality of item 5-K agendized for the upcoming September 26, 2023 City Council meeting. The name of the item is "Adoption of a Resolution Amending and Restating the Civility at Public Meetings Policy set forth in Resolution No. 10642 (CCS)." The item seeks the addition of the City's Statement Against Hate to the existing civility policy. The Statement...
As we are starting to see Dr. Anthony Fauci in the news again to tout the benefits of masking, we should take the time to follow his directives on this during the past several years. At the beginning of Covid, he went back and forth on the usefulness of masks. In January, 2020 he said they don't work. He doubled down on this two months later when he said people shouldn't be walking around with masks because they're not providing the perfect protection that people think it is. Interestingly, the...
The University of California Ethnic Studies Council, which claims to represent all 300 ethnic studies faculty on UC campuses, is vigorously promoting a proposal for a UC ethnic studies admission requirement, whose course criteria are intended to set the standard for ethnic studies courses statewide. That proposal, if approved, would force virtually every high school student in the state to take an ethnic studies course whose content would be determined by UC faculty "experts" who believe...
I'm always thinking about the next topics to address in my periodic submissions to the Observer. Upcoming candidates include the insanity of the road diet, the hulking, creepy "The People Concern" campus on Cloverfield, and the ridiculous and unacceptable amount of emergency vehicle siren/air horns noise in Mid City. Look for those submissions soon. Monday night, Sept. 18, I took a walk downtown for the first time in weeks. Those walks commonly provide me with ideas to be explored. Monday night...
Dear Mayor Davis & Honorable members of the Santa Monica City Council, I hope you're having a pleasant Labor Day Weekend. In case you're unaware, I wanted to inform you of a major crime wave that's hit Montana Avenue businesses in Santa Monica this weekend. Last night, several businesses, including the restaurants Margot's and Bardonna and a Pinkberry franchise were broken into, vandalized and looted. And today, at least one other occurrence happened when a woman (shown in the photos below)...
September 7, 2023 - The Los Angeles County Health Department is telling us they "have been seeing a gradual and consistent rise in COVID-19 transmission" over the past few weeks. This alleged information, unsupported by any reliable data, is accompanied by various recommendations, including a plug for the latest iteration of the Covid vaccine. After three-and-a-half years of recommendations from the health department, headed by a non-doctor, non-epidemiologist - none of which stemmed or in any...
To the Editor: I’m hoping that this brief email get’s to the correct people in the city government and that it doesn’t fall on deaf ears. As a 16 year resident of Sunset Park, and a business owner, I’ve built my family and business in our lovely city. In particular, I purchased my home on Maple Street because of the beauty and shade the mature ficus trees offered. Tree coverage is the once thing you cannot really buy - only time and patience will provide. So you will understand that I was hor...
Santa Monica has some of the strictest rent control in the country. But did you know that the rent control in Santa Monica is selective? Some buildings in Santa Monica have rent control and some buildings do not. It's interesting to note that the rent on the brand new buildings in Santa Monica is not controlled the same way that the rent on small mom and pop buildings is controlled. For example: I live in a small mom and pop building which is strictly rent controlled. My friend used to live in a...
August 28, 2023 - The wildfire that gutted Lahaina has claimed many human and animal lives. In a tragic new story, parents found their 14-year-old son's body. He had died while hugging his dog. Unfortunately, as with any disaster, there are those who seek to exploit emotions to raise money. Today and yesterday we saw a fundraising ad for the ASPCA on Facebook. The ad claimed the ASPCA is "on the ground in Hawaii assisting with animal search and rescue efforts" and "searching for displaced animal...
Dear Editor, Around July 3, the City Attorney's office issued a biased and distorted press release with claims claims which were just lot of malarkey, driven by the malicious aim to sully my reputation, conceal mismanagement within the City, and shamelessly endorse the City Attorney and a law firm. This deceitful maneuver is intended to shift the focus of the public away from the City's misconducts, which has led to a surge in drug usage in parks and other public areas, a rise in criminal...
Wildfires. Hundreds of lives lost. Thousands of homes destroyed. Millions of people without power. Billions of dollars in damages. Everyone seems to opine on where to point fingers for the mind-numbing fires we are enduring across our state. But the following fires here in California show a common denominator in each tragedy: - In 2003, San Diego Cedar Fire investigators determined that fires broke out in three areas, scorching 273,000 acres, caused when San Diego Gas and Electric power lines...
City staffer made unilateral decision to affect the composition of policymaking body which is supposed to be comprised of seven councilmembers and two housing voucher holders, including one with lived experience of homelessness To those who follow Santa Monica politics it is no surprise to hear that a city employee took it upon themselves to make a policy decision without direction from a policymaking body like the Council or the Housing Authority Board. City activists refer to such...
Dear Mayor Davis and Members of the Santa Monica City Council, I am writing to express my deep concerns over the proposed plan to address our homelessness issue by constructing multi-million-dollar accommodations in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. Not only is this approach economically imprudent, it would likely be ineffective in achieving our overarching goal: providing safe and stable housing for every homeless person in our city. I would like to present an...
My open letter to SM City Council and School Board on the quarter billion $+ plan to acquire the Civic Auditorium: Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education, Santa Monica City Council, Mayor Gleam Davis Dear Members of the SMMUSD Board of Education, City Council, and Mayor Gleam Davis, I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of Santa Monica and a parent of two school children in the SMMUSD. The proposed plan to purchase and repurpose the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium is...
For quite some time---maybe, even, years---I've been working out in my head a piece dealing with a curse that arrived in Santa Monica at 9:49 AM on May 20, 2016. At that moment---cheered on by people who had had a hand in its gestation and birth, including (now convicted felon) Mark Ridley-Thomas, the now conveniently exiled hapless Eric Garcetti, and last but not least, the now blessedly-disappeared Pam O'Connor, Sheila Kuehl, and Kevin McKeown---the first train from downtown L.A. pulled into t...
August 9, 2023 - The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health appears to have given up on getting addicted residents off of drugs. In a recent press release warning of the potential presence of the veterinary anesthetic xylazine in illicit drugs, the Department included one sentence in a 700-word press release that advised people not to use illicit drugs. The next six paragraphs described ways to "minimize the risk." Nowhere in the press release did the Department list phone numbers, websi...
Under the current postmaster general the cost of stamps keeps going up, service keeps going down, the post office is drowning. Louis de Joy has, in 4 years, never missed an opportunity to perpetrate the dismantling of the United States Postal Service. Meanwhile, the critical federal government battle to contain inflation can not count on postmaster general de Joy's help in this national initiative to avoid recession. The soaring cost of living is not imagined, prices for everything from gas to...
Since its inception, the Two Sides North America Anti-greenwashing Campaign has eliminated literally billions of instances of paper-related greenwashing in the United States and Canada, and its engagement with large utilities, banks, insurers and other organizations during the first half of 2023 has added to this success. During the first six months of 2023, 21 additional companies representing approximately 90 million customers have removed greenwashing messages such as "Go green, Go...
Diane Feinstein will resign no later than August 15th, an inside source close to her children reports. The 90 year old Senator from California doesn't seem able to follow the proceedings in the Senate. She is in a wheelchair. An inside source, someone close to the Feinstein family, tells me that the Senator from California is no longer capable of performing her duties at the US Senate. There are serious concerns about her health. Cal. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he will appoint a black female....
