TOTALLY DISGUSTED
Not all people. Not the overwhelming majority of them. But the worst just continue to sink even lower. And therein lies danger.
I still believe like a Pollyanna that all people at their core are good and want to do good and be liked and even loved. I believe that all people understand at some level of their consciousness that we are all connected, every person worth as much as the next no matter what their trappings of gender, religion, work, wealth, race, intelligence, abilities, you name it.
Some of you who would agree would put it this way: we are all children of God. An explanation I could get behind... after a fashion... philosophically and probably not the way you mean it. But I would mistrust you until I knew more because lately, in this country especially, too many who claim to be God-fearing (now there’s a telling expression) Christians have given Christianity a really bad name. I would lovingly advise that, since you believe in Hell, you might want to step back and take another look what you stand for.
THE BAD GUYS
Are the ones who, I believe, have lost touch with their connection to humanity. They’ve come to believe that it’s them against the world and that their own survival depends on how much they can accumulate. (And it’s never enough.) They have come to be uncaring about the destruction in their wake. They have abandoned their own humanity and sold their souls. They are not even close to the majority but they do number in the millions in this country. And like the mad dog you can’t reason with, we must protect ourselves from them, which is really hard because they have marshalled so much money and political power. I have finally had to recognize that some mad dogs are as big and bad and intransigent as T. Rex (not the band), and I now believe that…
WE MUST KEEP OUR AIRPORT AN AIRPORT
I know I will be pilloried, but consider that I have never really weighed in. I always thought spending so many millions to try to fight the US Government (FAA) was folly because they will do what they want in the end. We are a pesky gnat. But we won! (Sort of. Did we?) When the legal ruling left it an airport until 2029 I kind of chortled and backed off the hot-button issue; that’s a long way off.
I supported LC and voted for it, primarily because I don’t think an airport should be nestled among houses. Someday Harrison Ford won’t be able to hit the golf course and some unlucky homeowners will be having him drop in unannounced for dinner (all of them BBQ’d to a crisp, likely). It’s a disaster waiting to happen. The noise is a problem, the pollution from jet fuel even worse. And of course for years we were giving away bagsful of money to fortunate businesses there who somehow got leases you usually have to obtain with a mask and a gun.
YOU WANT A PARK?
You’re never going to get a park. Why not!? We have it in writing. It’s law.
That 227 acres is worth billions. Billions. Developers have been salivating uncontrollably for decades, and have probably already lined up their Council candidates for 2028. They will find a way. They always do. Because of all I wrote above: the bad guys are insane with greed and will do anything for a few hundred million bucks and are not about to let our petty laws and feckless representatives get in their way.
I always knew that, but was pushed to speak out now by a disturbing op-ed in Sunday’s LA Times by Steven Sharp that makes it clear the disinformation campaign has already begun, 10 years early. You should read it. I’m not going to break it all down. But I will tell you that Sharp, as co-founder and editor of Urbanize LA, is a very visible foil for big urban development. He also works for Kindel Gagan, “public affairs advocacy…we represent some of the largest commercial and residential developers in Southern California on complex developments seeking multiple entitlements.”
But before I thought about his pedigree I was struck by the phrases he used. Regarding the ability now to build a park, in his fourth sentence he asks, “is that really what’s best for Santa Monica?” Shades of Islas, another guy telling SM what they should do. He calls the “opening of a 227-acre site on the Westside… a once-in-a-generation opportunity -- housing has to be part of the equation.”
He misrepresents our daily influx of 150-200,000 visitors. He writes that “even well-compensated tech employees… either can’t find or can’t afford housing” near their SM jobs. Baloney. If you’ve got $4K/mo for rent, and most of them do, you can have your pick. He fibs about the cause of the traffic patterns plaguing us. He chides us for already having more access to parks than Angelenos, by almost half.
Most telling, as most of this ilk do, he interchanges Westside and SM as it suits his narrative. And finally at the end he makes his blatant pitch: “setting aside a portion of the [airport] for housing is common sense, no matter how politically difficult it may be.”
Get lost Steven Sharp, and all your low developer friends in high rise places.
Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 33 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com
