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04 Oct 09

Cracks in the Future - Bob Herbert - NYTimes.com

The death of higher education in California ... and across the nation.

www.nytimes.com/...03herbert.html - Preview

education California budget cuts nytimes

04 Jul 09

Californians are sinking themselves | Salon

This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends ... not with a bang but a whimper.

www.salon.com/...index.html - Preview

California budget cuts politics

Dreadful things are about to happen: Hundreds of thousands of children will lose their healthcare. Five thousand state workers will be laid off. Massive cuts will decimate education at every level. Social services will be slashed. Two hundred and twenty-nine parks, out of a total of 280, will be shut down. Even some of the state's landmarks may go on the auction block to raise money.
Yet as their state prepares to go over the cliff, California's citizens seem weirdly oblivious, or resigned, or numb.
If California, like most states, required only a simple majority to pass its budget, the disagreements between these camps could be worked out; after all, the Democrats control the Legislature. But California requires a two-thirds majority, which gives the GOP, now dominated by anti-government, anti-tax ideologues, veto power over the process. The result is deadlock.
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- Compounding this problem is California's notorious initiative process, which allows voters to bypass the Legislature
- it has gone out of control, abused by powerful interests who hire people to collect signatures and ram through bills that no ordinary citizen can be expected to comprehend
- the most momentous initiative was Prop. 13, which slashed property taxes. By voting for Prop. 13, while not demanding a reduction in public services, Californians were in effect saying they wanted to have it all: low taxes and social services, subsidized public education, infrastructure and the other things provided by government.
- This was, in effect, a mass outbreak of cognitive dissonance, an up-yours delivered to government with the public's left hand, while its right hand reached out for Sacramento's largesse. Now, 31 years later, the bill has finally come due. There is no free lunch. If you want good roads, parks, decent schools (California's schools, once the best in the nation, are now among the worst) and adequate social services, you have to pay for them.
- Why can't California do politics as well as it does technology, biotech, movies, music and social justice movements?
- Beyond the state's dysfunctional system, the short answer is the rise of the hard-right GOP. Pushed far to the right by ideologues like Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Grover Norquist and their ilk, California Republican lawmakers have staked out an absolutist line against taxes that makes governance nearly impossible. Lawmakers who believe and act on Reagan's famous line that "government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem," are walking oxymorons. Why expect anti-government Republican legislators to resolve a budget crisis when that crisis will result in their goal: the destruction of government? The floundering Governator may not be an extremist, but he remains in thrall to the members of his party who are.

25 May 09

Golden State Bailout - Op-Ed Contributor - NYTimes.com

IS California too big to fail?

www.nytimes.com/...22mathews.html - Preview

bailout California recession

IS California too big to fail?

22 Apr 09

Recommendations on Propositions, May 19, 2009. League of Women Voters of California

ca.lwv.org/...index.html - Preview

vote propositions California

14 Dec 08

Sea Ranch: Utopia by the Sea - NYTimes.com

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sea ranch California architecture

CHARLES MOORE called Sea Ranch his “Mother Earth.” All I could think of when I stepped into Unit 9 was that the little rat had kept the best place for himself.
Like the weather, houses set a tone. And it was an exhilarating one in Barn Dance, one of 17 Binker Barns designed by William Turnbull, who died in 1997 and designed the houses to be replicated around Sea Ranch. As soon as my husband, Roger, and I opened the wooden door — artfully carved in quilt-like patterns — we knew we’d hit pay dirt.
The house is poetry in wood, a beautifully fashioned breakfront in architecture. Built like a barn, with plank walls and crisscrossing beams with exposed bolts, it felt like a totally chic abstraction of Nebraska, with an airy central space soaring to the roof and a staircase winding up to an interior bridge leading to the bedrooms.
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- The nicest agency to deal with is Ocean View Properties (707-884-3538; www.oceanviewprop.com; $200 to $250 a night for William Turnbull’s Barn Dance).
- Sea Ranch Escape (707-785-2426; www.searanchescape.com) has the largest collection of prime rentals by classic architects, including Unit 9 ($468 to $525 for two nights ) and the real Esherick house ($761 for two nights).