Everything will be alright!
I think….
And, you know, I think therefore I am, or therefore it is…
I do believe in the power of thought (even if you might call it prayer) but I am also a realist. I know, there’s some conflict there, and maybe that’s why I’m not more rich, thin and handsome.
But without trying to channel Rev. Michael Beckwith, I will say I believe there is real power in group thought, be it for good or…not good. Also, the hundredth monkey principle. As a philosophically-inclined being located between heaven and hell, I search for signs, "evidence," to support what I hope will happen, without going out on too thin a limb.
Which is why I always come back to voting. The prospects, "the polls'' (often terribly unreliable, for numerous reasons), may not look favorable today, but the only thing that counts is the vote count after the polls close.
So, for example, will Donald Trump be voted into the White House again?
No.
Nevermind the polls, the reasoning, the tens of millions who voted for him the last time and worship him still, despite the same dirty tricks, lies and lawbreaking as now. (Actually, great journalism has uncovered so many crimes years after the fact, that it has now turned into a mountain.) I believe that as we get very close to election day, millions will think hard about what is at stake, what their future may look like under a Trump dictatorship (his words, not mine), grab their sandwich and water bottle and go stand in line for as long as it takes to cast their vote. We have seen it before, especially among black voters undeterred by voting restrictions aimed particularly at them. God bless ‘em.
And then, of course, we will have to contend with a cowardly loser whining that he won, it was stolen, again. Maybe this time his stormtroopers will even try to burn down the Capitol, like the British did in the War of 1812, or more recently like the Brazilian nut followers of Trump wanna-be Bolsinera. The Brazilian government cracked down hard, arrested 2,000, to send a message. Another example of where we need to look beyond our borders for good examples.
Can’t stay on the couch...
Good outcomes depend on good citizens willing to act. The same holds true for Santa Monica. For now, right now, we need a few courageous candidates for City Council to step forward and declare they will always represent the residents of this great city – the ones who live here now, not the imagined thousands developers and their elected allies are building for – despite the dirty tricks, lies and lawbreaking a candidate will have to endure. (To be clear: no lawbreaking has been formally alleged, none proven. I think we do need a Grand Jury investigation here, as there has been in other nearby cities. I think official digging for dirt could uncover a lot of …soiled hands.)
Yes, there is a flimsy "majority" on Council now, with "The Slate" of Parra, Brock and de la Torre mostly voting on behalf of residents, and often joined by independent Lana Negrete. But we have Gleam Davis, Jesse Zwick, and Carolyn Torosis, all voting in line with their pronouncements, that Santa Monica needs much more housing. (When the state population, and the Santa Monica schools, are all losing numbers like a one-time lottery buyer. (The characterizations above are mine, judgments based on statements and votes.)
The school district
In particular, the School Board. Still so hard to convince most SM voters they're the bad guys.
But, our school district still comes up high on test scores. Yes, but not as high as we used to. And are you OK that they destroyed our beloved Samohi campus by tearing down old buildings, that could have been repurposed, for one fifth the cost, with modern multi-million dollar behemoths that often don’t function properly?
Tell us about the air filters and tell us why you tore down the History Building – the History Building — when you didn’t have to, when even your master plan said, we don’t need another new building here. You completely ignored community groups and preservation experts — and your own six-figure studies — all begging, please take a pause, let us weigh in on this important historical issue. For years, until the strong 1932 earthquake, that building WAS Samohi, built on a hill (that the School Board master plan leveled) to take advantage of sea breezes long before air conditioning. Any of the 50,000 Samohi graduates who walked onto the campus now would look around in wonder, what happened to my high school? Where is it? How could this happen?
It's a long, complicated story, but let’s just say a large part of the explanation is that we voted them more than a billion (yes, with a B) dollars in school bonds, just to build buildings. It’s a given that almost all school bonds pass, because most people believe the money goes to better education. Not bigger buildings. I hear much sentiment in the community that the free ride is over. The district may ask for another quarter billion dollars, to finish their master plan. (Since we wouldn’t give them our historic Civic Auditorium, to become a basketball gym.) For so many more reasons than I have space to go into here, we need to change out that School Board in the next election.
The Muir Woods mural
But here’s one that’s timely. In the last week or so, scaffolding has gone up around the two long walls that face Lincoln and Ocean Park, on the corner building of the former Olympic High School, now renamed and reworked, for the Obamas. But I’ll bet $1,000 they know nothing about this long-simmering, planned in secret, failed plan. I’m betting that the US President who set aside more land for public use than any other president, would not be happy that the district neglected, to ruin, an environmental mural by a famous artist, only to paint their name on images there.
It looks, right now, like they are getting ready to paint something on those bare walls, and I will bet another grand it ain’t a reproduction of the famous Muir Woods mural that was there for 40 years, that literally thousands in the community, and more from around the world, said they wanted to see restored and preserved.
I have written to SMMUSD COO Cary Upton, and to the entire School Board, to ask them their intentions for this space, at one of the busiest intersections in Santa Monica. So many have said, it is a welcome respite from urban traffic and craziness, to gaze into a redwood forest.
Will the School Board start now to listen to the community? I have faith they will.
Charles Andrews wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really.
