2020 March Primary

The Presidential primary comes early to CA this time around - having been moved up to Super Tuesday on March 3rd.  Given the size of CA it is easily the biggest prize on offer on that day and will likely be make or break for more than one Democratic Party candidate still standing after South Carolina.
But, before we get to that, there are a few other items on the ballot that deserve our attention. 

Thankfully, there is only one statewide measure:

Prop 13:  It is yet another bond measure, asking for permission to issue 15 Billion in new bonds that will be repaid via the General Fund.  The entire fund is targeted for schools and colleges and while the numbering is pure coincidence, it actually does go some way towards mitigating the impact of the iconic Prop 13 from 1978 that limited property tax increases.  What I like about this measure is that it doesn't favor the richer neighborhoods and will help all school districts.
My recommendation: Vote YES

There are a bunch of propositions to vote on in San Diego County, but I am going to focus on just four of them:

Measure P - Poway School District Bond measure: I am opposing this measure since I think that Poway schools already benefit from strong property values.  Also, the statewide Prop 13 is already raising money for schools. Vote NO

Measure A: Voter Approval for Land Use Amendments to the General Plan
Measure B: Voter Approval for the Newland Sierra Development
I am going to discuss these two together since they are intimately linked.  Measure A is a mouthful and equally convoluted to make sense of. Basically, it comes down to this: Back in 2011, San Diego adopted a "General Plan" for land use and any amendments to this plan had to be approved by the County's Board of Supervisors.  This approach has been chugging along until the Supervisors approved the massive Newland Sierra project in the Vista/Oceanside area.  Opponents were able to collect enough signatures to force a ballot measure (which is B).  Measure A proposes to make this the normal approach - i.e., make a citizens vote required for any significant amendments to the General Plan.  My instinct was to vote against this measure since I feel that the direct democracy process in CA is running amok.  However, you know something is rotten in the state of Denmark when you see that the developer (Newland) has contributed over $8 Million in support of Measure B, making it the most expensive ballot measure in this Primary. Instead of laying out my reasoning in excruciating detail, let me just cut to the chase: Vote YES on A and NO on B. 

Measure C - Increase hotel tax for convention center expansion, homeless programs, etc

Let's keep this simple - tourism is the 3rd biggest money maker for the SD economy and the convention center is just too old to compete with other cities for the bigger events.  Even the crown jewel - Comic Con has been making noises about moving elsewhere.  Anybody who has been downtown in the last couple of years will be aware of the impact of the homeless population.  It's time to get these things done. Vote YES. 

Ok, this brings us to the big one - the Democratic Party Primary.  There are severely polarizing candidates on the list, none more so than the current front runner, Bernie Sanders.  Before I go much further though, I need to make a couple of points that are axiomatic for me: 

• Any Dem in the current pool - including Sanders - would be a vast improvement over Trump. 
• Three years and counting of Trump have been disastrous enough - American democracy may never quite recover from a second term.

Given the above, my rationale for picking the candidate is very simple - the one who has the best chance of beating Trump. 

It could be argued that as long as the economy (i.e., the stock market) keeps humming along, Trump is pretty much assured a second term.  I subscribe to this view, but until the elections are actually done, there is still hope. 

Turnout is key to this race - if enough of the Democratic Party constituency show up to the polls as they did in 2018 Midterms, it is very likely that Trump will be defeated.  The candidate has to energize the base and that might point to Sanders.  His supporters are fanatical - almost as much as Trump's base, but (just like Trump) his support does not seem to transcend his base.  The young people may be big Sanders supporters, but the ones that count in the polls (simply because they actually show up to vote) are the older voters. The older white male voter may well hold the key to this election.  For a while I thought Pete B could get it done, but before I could be convinced enough to endorse him, he has dropped out. I thought Bloomberg could be a good alternative - in no small part due to the relentless barrage of ads - then came his disastrous debate performances.  Biden started strong and then faded with a series of missteps, but the South Carolina Primary has breathed new life into his campaign.  I would be very happy to see Warren as our next President, but I am not convinced she can win.  Ditto for Amy Klobuchar  and she is somewhat less impressive than Warren anyway. 

In the end, we are back to where we started - with Biden. I think Trump had it right when he clearly believed that Biden would be his strongest challenger.  A Biden Presidency does not excite me - it's not something that I would find historic in any way.  However, it's chief achievement will be to deny Trump a second term and that for me will be sufficient. My endorsement goes to Joe Biden. 

Do we really need another Trump rant?

Railing against Trump, his team (enablers?), his narcissism, his ineptitude (not to mention, how little he cares about such claims), and indeed, his megalomania, is rather easy to do.  The talking heads on CNN do it for several hours a day, always breathlessly presented as “Breaking News” even when they had just reported the exact same thing two hours ago. And one hour ago. And 30 minutes ago.  Well, you get the picture.  I rarely learn anything of value from the “experts” who somewhat comically jostle for space behind a ridiculously small table (it’s not clear why the CNN bosses won’t spring for a slightly bigger table).  I still watch periodically though, because the other choices are Fox News – which I can stand for about 30 seconds without risking a dangerous spike in my blood pressure – and MSNBC, which is just an echo chamber for the far left.  A vicarious rant is also a lot easier on my psyche – I can simply turn off the TV or switch to ESPN when it gets a bit much.  Intellectual depth is not exactly the forte of these pundits and most of what passes for “analysis” are like empty sugar calories – it feels good for just a bit, but the feeling wears off quickly and you are left with a low.  Of course, superficial sound-bite expertise is not the cachet of CNN alone – it is pretty much the staple of all these “news” channels.

Back to our illustrious President, as he embarks upon the second (& one hopes, final) two years of his presidency.  Most of his detractors get almost apoplectic when they encounter yet another stupendously idiotic or inhumane tweet or are presented with another fact-free claim in service of his current agenda.  I, for one, believe that such reactions are just a waste of energy.  Every thoughtful American (& indeed any citizen of the free world) should be rightfully troubled by the schism in our society that Donald Trump seems determined to widen.  Too often has American moral authority played second fiddle to realpolitik, but never in greater measure than under Trump.  Whether it is the Saudis, or the Russians, whether it is the coal and oil lobby, or whether it is the immigrant-baiting policies promoted by White Supremacists, the reflexive approach seems to be to label their “political correctness” as simply too dangerous for the nation.  But still, I don’t think there is much value in living with the fear that the sky is about to fall down.

First, some historic perspective is useful.  Reagan is a hero to traditional Republicans, but he did not exactly have the surest grasp of policy or indeed, could be trusted not to make a mess when speaking off the cuff, in public.  As Seymour Hersh outlines in a recent essay in the London Review of Books, his advisors lived in terror that Reagan would make major foreign policy flubs if he was not forced to just read off of a script.  There is also plenty of precedence of the US coddling up to terrible dictators and regimes simply because it suited their purpose – democracy, human rights, and the rule of law be dammed.  In other words, Trump’s presidential incompetence is not unique and neither are some of the morally suspect policies that his administration promotes.

This is going to be heresy to the vast majority of you that have read this far, but some good may even come from the Trump presidency. It is undeniable that the number of women (& many of them first-timers) who ran for and won elected office is a direct reaction to Trump.  I dare say that the Me Too movement almost seems inevitable in the Trump era.  The trade war with China seems a bit juvenile (& pandering to his base), but China is making concessions and maybe it takes one bully to make another bully pay attention, or at least pretend to.  China is of course adept at playing the long game and may be content to make a few conciliatory noises while waiting for Trump to leave office.

There are many who would dearly like to see Trump impeached out of office.  I was one of them.  But now, I believe that that would only make him a martyr to the cause – he and his supporters will always be able to claim the mantle of somebody who was done in by the “deep state.”  This is a legitimacy that I would rather that he not have. 

The best way to exorcise ourselves of the Trump demons is to deliver a resounding defeat at the ballot box.  He must lose the 2020 elections and badly at that.  He needs to be consigned to the bins of history as an ineffective one-term President who didn’t deserve even that.  Trump fears irrelevancy more than anything else – and there is no more fitting way to exact some measure of consolation for having endured four years under Trump than for the voters to turf him out of office and render his entire term inconsequential.

What happened to work?

Nobody wants to go to work anymore.  Ok, maybe not nobody, but it sure feels that way.  It's one of the great ironies of our technology-fueled modern life that, while what we do for our livelihood ("work") has come to occupy more and more of our time and attention, it has simultaneously become less and less attractive and meaningful to many of us.  This is largely anecdotal, but it recently occurred to me that nobody I knew spoke positively about their work. It was always about insensitive bosses, incompetent co-workers, impossible schedules, politics, and on and on.  Perhaps cynicism is in fashion and at least some people may just be taking this stance because are afraid of seeming naive by expressing satisfaction in their jobs. I certainly allow for that and my trained coach's ear does register this undercurrent in a few people but, in my experience, they are in the minority.  The vast majority seems to go to work each day with a sense of futility - with no expectation of being fulfilled or enjoying what they are about to do.

A clarification is in order before I continue on - while I talk in general terms about work, I am really thinking of the modern day technology and service sectors. It stands to reason that almost every industry is feeling the impact of high tech (& in particular the efficiencies wrought by the internet), but I have limited exposure to many of those fields. 

OK, back to my main thesis.  Of course, there are numerous reasons for this state of affairs.  One prominent one is that many people are engaged in jobs that they themselves feel are useless - i.e, not really contributing to the company or indeed, society at large.  People engaged in such jobs are convinced that nobody would be able to tell the difference if they or the job disappeared overnight. David Graeber, a Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics, went so far as to formally define such jobs and propose a theory around it. Eschewing normal academic restraint, he somewhat provocatively terms them "Bullshit Jobs." He originally proposed this theory in a 2013 article for the online magazine Strike! and then developed it into a book length treatise in 2018.  The motivation for the book was additional "research" that the author did since the original essay (which caused a minor international stir when it came out).  I haven't made it through the entire book yet, but I can safely say that you will get the essence of the argument from the essay. Graeber presents some startling survey numbers. Somewhere between 37-50% of respondents in various western nations felt that their jobs did not make any meaningful contribution to the world! The bare number is eye-popping enough, but then consider that the vast majority of doctors, nurses, policemen, teachers, fire fighters, sanitation workers, etc are unlikely to think of their jobs as "pointless." This then suggests that the percentage of people engaged in other jobs who don't believe their work has any value is much higher than the overall average.  Declaring your job to be a "Bullshit" one is rather definitive, but even without that, workers report that an increasing part of their jobs are not related to their primary responsibility (& hence, lacking purpose).  The author quotes from the US edition of the 2016-2017 State of Enterprise Work Report:  American workers reported that from 2015 to 2016, the amount of time that they spent on their primary work responsibility fell from 46% to 39%. Admittedly, some of this is probably just bellyaching about some process that the employees do not want to follow and indeed, it is impossible to be a 100% efficient in the allocation of time when the team is large enough.  However, a number like 39% ought to cause everybody to take notice.

Prof Graeber clearly has labor-friendly views, but even dedicated capitalists shouldn't really be surprised by his thesis.  Human beings are intrinsically driven to create value, to have an impact. The march of science and technology have ensured that mere survival is not the driving force for humankind at large.  It's not enough for us to just get through each day - we all want to know that we are making a difference.  Daniel Pink summarized this very ably in his 2010 book - Drive - The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. There he coins the acronym, "MAP" - "Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose" for what motivates workers.  In our context here, the key is the last one - "Purpose." Pink's claim (bolstered with various studies) is that we are not going to be motivated if there isn't a strong sense of purpose behind our job.  It only gets worse if we harbor the conviction that our job is essentially pointless, let alone merely lacking a strong purpose.

Another contributing factor to the sense of malaise that many people feel about work is the impact of, for want of a better phrase, Silicon Valley.  While the actual geographical location and its most recognizable denizens are very much a part of what this phrase captures - it is quite a bit more than that. It's the internet, it's ubiquitous wireless connectivity, it's the hyper pace of technology startups that have done away with the traditional sense of what means to build up a successful business.  What this has done is to strip away the sense of family and community that companies had tried to foster.  We were all in it together - if one family member was in trouble, we would take care of them.  Now, it is almost entirely about yourself and doing whatever it takes to advance, or failing that, protect what you already have.  Because, that's what everybody else is doing, isn't it?

 

Lab Rats is an entertaining and irreverent take on the management culture promoted by various Silicon Valley oligarchs.  This is a follow-up to the author, Dan Lyons’, previous book about working in a internet-era start-up: Disrupted. Dan admittedly goes on a bit of rant and he pulls no punches in describing the “profits-first” and “people-last” philosophy of the Silicon Valley types.  He draws a sharp contrast between the approach taken by the entrepreneurs of the past – the likes that ran HP, IBM, Ford, and indeed, my erstwhile employer, Qualcomm, and those of the darlings of today – Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, etc.  Being familiar with this sector, his stories were not a total surprise, but the audacity and sheer hubris displayed by these new age business experts is still breathtaking in scope.  Lyons reserves particular ire for certain management techniques such as "Agile" and "Lean Startup" and gives multiple examples of how these (and other such) techniques have come to literally destroy the lives of many employees.  Agile, for instance, was developed as way to get better predictability for software projects, but instead has evolved into one of the hottest management fads (particularly in Silicon Valley), applied to every aspect of a business. My own experience with Agile, is that, for software projects, it is indeed a better approach than the traditional ones.  However, even within that, blind adherence to "rules" and "process" is counter-productive and as with everything else in engineering, the tool has to be adjusted to the needs of the team and project (& not the other way around). For anybody who still thinks the Silicon Valley approach is the way to go, this book is mandatory reading. There is a chapter on the "Holocracy" methodology that is over-the-top funny.  As part of his reporting, Dan attended an Holocracy workshop run by its founder, Brian Robertson. He calls it the "closest thing to pure madness that I have experienced."  I literally burst out laughing many times and this chapter alone is worth the price of admission. 

Entertaining though the book is, it is hard not to feel depressed about the situation that Lyons describes.  He may be cherry-picking, but these are real people with real lives to lead and real families to support. 

What is one to do?  Some will simply quit the rat race.  Some may take the second option that Hamlet so famously grappled with and take up “arms against a sea of troubles”.  Occupy Wall Street and its sister protest movements come to mind.  The grand gesture though, is not for everyone.  Most of will just soldier on and hope for the best.  

I don't purport to have the answers, but I do believe there is a way to deal with this. Many of our identities are tied up in our work and therein lies the cause of most of this angst. This may sound counter-intuitive, but putting some distance between ourselves and our jobs is the first step to recognizing what it is about the job that is still meaningful to us. Even if we question the value of the job itself, the satisfaction of a job well done is hard to deny.  Taking the time to clearly understand what our personal values are and making sure that we stay true to those (as much as we can) is a fundamental step.  While it may sound grandiose, each of us has a purpose in life - it could be something monumental like "cure cancer" or it could something like "take care of my kids."  For some, it could be something as simple as brightening up the days of the people around them by simply smiling at them and having a positive attitude.  You would be surprised how much of an impact such a person can have. Whatever be it for you, the key is that it is your life purpose, and it will be your North Star to a more fulfilled life.

What I describe above is not easy - we have to be willing to break out of the same stories we have told ourselves time and again. The hard truth is that the answers we seek lie within and not in the world around us or the circumstances we happen to find ourselves in. It may feel self-indulgent, but it is OK to ask for help.  Many people seek out a coach to help them through this, but you may be somebody who can do it on your own.

It has been ingrained in all of us (Ayn Rand followers excepted, of course) that being selfless is the highest moral code. But in fact, when we are not in right state – physically or mentally – we are not of much use to anybody else.  You have heard this in the safety advisory of every flight you have taken: “First put on your mask before helping those around you.”  There is much wisdom in that.  

Total Effort

By the end, tears were rolling down my face.  As I finished the last chapter of Shoe Dog, an autobiographical account of the creation of Nike by one of its co-founders, Phil Knight, I felt that I had re-lived the entire journey with him.  Everybody has heard of Nike, of course, but Phil Knight is almost a mystery man when measured against how much we know about the legendary founders of other famous companies. The same could probably be said of the story of Nike itself.  Why did I find the story so compelling? Perhaps the fact that Phil Knight was an avid runner created a connection right away.  Or perhaps it was that the story is set in the world of sports and the luminous talents that Nike is associated with.  Ultimately, a passage in the book itself suggested the answer, but more on that later.

For most of us, Nike is about its athletes.  Everything about the brand seems to be inextricably linked with the stable of transcendent sporting talents that they have sponsored over the years. So, it came as a surprise to read in Shoe Dog that Phil Knight didn't really care to pay athletes to endorse Nike products and had to be practically forced to do so.  I normally steer clear of  "celebrity" autobiographies.  For one, I am suspicious of their motives (mostly feels like a vanity project), but more pertinently, I wonder what I would gain from them.  But, I got Shoe Dog as a birthday gift and one day, for some reason, I picked it up and started reading it.  And, I couldn't put it down.

The history of Nike, as reported by its founder, reads like an exciting thriller - all manner of twists and turns, near-death experiences, high adrenaline risk, tragedy, and triumph.  Phil Knight did have a ghost writer, but I felt that it his voice coming through loud and clear in the book.  His words and actions (as outlined in the book) seem completely consistent with the personality that emerges from the book - one does not get the sense that he is sugar coating or air brushing anything.  He is (famously) guarded about this personal life (although the important stuff is there), but he doesn't hold back on any aspect that is related to Nike. 

What comes through shining brightly is the focus and strength of belief one has to have to create something like Nike.  Today, their success seems inevitable, but that was hardly the case for the vast majority of their existence.  Over and over again, Phil Knight (& early members of his team) had to fight the odds just to stay afloat.  When we look at a big success (or failure) from the remove of time or space, we tend to see only the large contours.  But, to truly appreciate what it took - one has to see all the little wrinkles and the accretion of small layers that led to the edifice.  Only by noticing the details can we appreciate the all-consuming passion and effort that it takes to create a Nike.

I had carried around this vague notion that it was the "Be Like Mike" campaign with Michael Jordan that really launched Nike as a world wide brand and I was waiting eagerly for the chapter where Phil Knight would surely talk about partnering with some of the greatest athletes of our time - Jordan, Tiger, Kobe, Federer, LeBron.  But instead, the athlete that he talks about most was Steve Prefontaine (or "Pre" as he was more commonly known) - the middle distance track athlete from Oregon. Nike couldn't officially sponsor Pre since he would have lost his amateur status, so they "hired" him as an employee.  Pre was a household name in Oregon right around the time that Nike was trying to break into the big time and Knight dwells in some detail about their relationship and how Pre inspired him (& Nike).  The story ends in tragedy, though - Pre died in a car accident at the age of 24.  He was driving the MG convertible that he had bought with his first Nike "salary."

Knight closes the book talking about another personal tragedy and it is here that he finally mentions how much some of those famous athletes mentioned above mean to him.  Once again, I was struck by how unexpected the relationships were - they were less about the endorsement deals and more about the personal connection he had with each of these athletes.  This chapter really resonated with me - perhaps because many of these athletes have loomed large in my own sports fandom.  His loyalty to "his" athletes is unswerving and it doesn't seem to have a lot to do with their on-field success. He describes how Tiger Woods was the first one to call him during his (Phil's) personal tragedy and goes on to add, "And I will never stand for a bad word spoken about Tiger in my presence." My eyes welled up re-reading that now, as they did several months ago when I read them for the first time.

I rarely mark passages in books because, for me, writing anything in a book is tantamount to defacing it, but I had to make an exception with this one.  Phil Knight has a way of distilling his thoughts into really powerful passages that immediately resonated with me.  As a life long sports fan, I have spent many, many, hours watching, reading, and generally obsessing about sports.  Rarely did I feel this time was wasted and, in fact, feel sympathy for people who do not (or cannot) appreciate sports.  However, I have never been able to satisfactorily capture why this is so. This passage from Shoe Dog does it for me:

"This, I decided, this is what sports are, what they can do.  Like books, sports give people a sense of having lived other lives, of taking part in other people's victories.  And defeats. When sports are at their best, the spirit of the fan merges with the spirit of the athlete, and in that convergence, in that transference, is the oneness that the mystics talk about."

Watching Pre run a race in his trademark all-out style, Phil Knight muses about what made Pre such a compelling athlete to watch.  He suggests that, "No matter the sport - no matter the human endeavor, really - total effort will win people's heart."  That actually does a pretty nice job of capturing why Phil Knight's story had such an impact on me. 

The Day Before

Two years ago, on the eve of an historic election, there was a palpable sense of dread - a foreboding of a completely shocking turn of events: The possibility that Trump, despite bucking every bit of conventional wisdom in politics and being spectacularly unqualified for the job, could actually win.  Perhaps in a bid to pacify myself, I predicted that Hillary would win.  But I was wrong and the reverberations of that unexpected result continue to rumble through America and indeed, the world.  I tried to achieve some level of catharsis with this post after the elections, but perhaps I was even being too sanguine then.

After almost two years of overheated rhetoric and divisive politics from a President that seems to stumble from one scandal and indictment to another scandal and indictment, I must admit that I am looking ahead to another election exactly 6 years from today - Nov 5, 2024, when I can be reasonably sure that Trump will not be on the ballot.  If Trump has won a second term, he likely spent a lot of time on the campaign trail making that election also all about him, but at least after Nov 6th, 2024, he will truly be yesterday's news.

But, we have to get past tomorrow first and yes, I am trying not to think about it as much as I can.  I am already preparing myself for the potential for another painful election night and steeling myself to wait it out for two more years.  But sometimes all the self control in the world cannot help and you just want to scream.  How blatant can you get? The biggest existential threat to the mighty United States is a ragtag group of impoverished migrants almost 800 miles from our Southern border?  And wait, it gets better - they are walking here!  THAT IS SCARY!!! Of course we have to deploy the military.  Yesterday the military was laying down barbed wire across the border and today our President comments, "Barbed wire, properly used can be a beautiful sight."  Now, that is presidential.  Shall we festoon the Statue of Liberty in barbed wire too?  Maybe tear down the museum on Ellis Island and put in a golf course.  A shame to waste the beautiful views of the NY skyline to memorialize such a destructive part of our history - immigration.

Trump is not even bothering to hide his racism anymore - Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams, candidates for FL and GA governorships, respectively, are "unqualified for the job." which of course is a dog whistle for, "Hey look, they are black."  Trump is such a narcissist that he has openly stated that he is making a special effort to defeat the Democratic Senator from Montana, Jon Tester - simply because Senator Tester had the gall to point out the ethical and moral deficiencies of Trump's White House physician, Ronnie Jackson, for the post of VA Administrator.  Forget the fact that Dr Jackson had absolutely no experience in running anything, let alone a vast bureaucracy like the VA, but how do you ignore the voluminous allegations against him of repeatedly being intoxicated while on the job? But never mind, Trump lost that fight and so Jon Tester has to pay.

I am obviously just venting here, but then I have held back for almost two years now and something had to give. :-)  Let me close out with a few, somewhat more germane musings about the midterms.

Most indications (& I say this with some trepidation) are that the GOP will lose the House, but keep the Senate and may even increase their majority there.  Some commentators have been wondering why Trump is barely doing anything to avoid loses in the House and instead, is focusing almost entirely on the races for Governor and the Senate.  To me, the logic is not so inscrutable.  Trump cares about the Governorships because they control redistricting efforts and that's one way the parties have been holding on to power. He cares about the Senate because the Senate has to approve all his appointments including the judiciary, with potentially another Supreme Court seat (Ginsburg) coming open during his tenure.  And since all that matters to Trump is Trump himself, he needs the Senate to be controlled by the GOP should a Democratic House ever see fit to impeach him. 

As for the House, in a perverse way, Trump may believe that a Democratic controlled House may
actually be better for him.  They are likely to of course oppose most of his legislative priorities and he can safely blame them for any lack of progress. And he will have somebody to run against in the 2020 elections.  On the other hand, if he has had 4 years of complete control of all branches of the government, then who is is going to rail and rant against?  For, if there is one thing we know for sure about Trump, it is that he prefers the politics of blame and hate.

Despite that sobering logic, I still want the House to change hands.  If that happens, be prepared for a spate of congressional investigations and gridlock for the next two years.  Trump reduced to impotent babbling will be a wonderful sight to behold.  Could the pollsters be wrong and the Senate also fall out of GOP control? One can but hope.

2018 Midterm Elections - Voting Guide

Much as I have been trying to avoid politics in the superheated environment that Trump has unleashed, it's time (perhaps a bit too late) for another edition of my voting guide.  This is easily the most anticipated (with hope and dread, in equal parts) midterm elections that I can recall, but being a CA voter gives me limited influence at the national level, at least when it comes to being a swing voter.  We are reliably blue and far be it from me to buck that trend.

While much of state level and national level seats may be foregone conclusions in CA, there are still a few elections that are of interest.  And then there are the local ballot propositions, of course.  As always, I am going to start at the national level and make my way down the ballot.

US Senate: Due to California’s open primary, both candidates that qualified for the US Senate seat are Democrats - Dianne Feinstein, the long time incumbent, and Kevin de Leon.  I am actually somewhat ambivalent on this.  On the one hand, I am not a big fan of these long time senators - they almost end up being lifetime appointments unless something dramatic happens.  Add to that, the rather compelling personal story that Kevin de Leon brings to the table, and I was very much leaning towards going with him.  However, what gives me pause is that the other CA senator (Kamala Harris) is already a first-timer and is likely contemplating a Presidential run in 2020.  CA already has a weak voice in the Trump administration - I don’t want it to weaken further by adding another newcomer to the Senate.  Vote for Dianne Feinstein.

Governor: Gavin Newsom (Dem) vs John Cox (Rep).  Outcome is almost a given - Gavin Newsom is going to win.  Might as well vote for him, unless you want to make some kind of statement.  Vote for Gavin Newsom.

Lieutenant Governor: Sort of like the VP at the national level - the person who takes over if the Governor cannot carry out the duties of the office for any reason.  Again, we have two Democrats running - Eleni Kounalakis and Ed Hernandez.  Ed Hernandez has solid credentials.  Kounalakis touts her tenure as an US Ambassador in the Obama administration.  Those are bit suspect since these diplomatic postings are often handed out as rewards for the big fund raisers.  Vote for Ed Hernandez.

Secretary of State: Alex Padilla (D) is the incumbent and by all accounts is doing a good job.  His opponent’s main argument is that the CA voter rolls need to be cleaned up. That’s a bit weak.  Vote for Alex Padilla.

I am going to cut to the chase for the rest of the offices - I recommend a vote for the Democratic party candidate down the line, except for Insurance Commissioner.  For that, I recommend Steve Poizner - he of the SnapTrack fame.  He held this position before and is, somewhat uniquely, running as an independent.  Vote for Steve Poizner.

One more race deserves a mention: Superintendent of Public Instruction - basically, the person in charge of our public schools.  Technically, it is a non-partisan office, but one of the candidates (Tony Thurmond) has the support of much of the Democratic party establishment.  His opponent, Marshall Tuck, also has broad support, but he seems to be a Charter School guy.  I am not a big fan of that.  Vote for Tony Thurmond.

Now for the state wide propositions:
Prop 1: A $4 billion bond to pay for affordable housing, including $1 billion for veterans housing.  Housing prices in CA are a critical problem and the arguments against this prop are some rather nebulous hypotheticals.  Vote YES.

Prop 2: Another bond to pay for homes - this time a $2 billion bond to pay for homes for the mentally ill, who are also homeless.  The twist is that the bond would be financed by the proceeds of the “millionaire” tax that voters approved last year. Specifically, from the portion that is earmarked to help the mentally ill.  It is well established that mental illness is alarmingly common among the homeless and this seems like a worthwhile effort to fight that.  The opposition is very limited and their arguments don’t really hold up to deeper analysis.  Vote YES.

Prop 3:  The third bond prop on the ballot, this time a nearly $9 billion bond to pay for water supply related projects.  It seems to be a well written prop and once again, the arguments against it don’t really wash with me.  Vote YES.

Prop 4: Bond to pay for improvements to non-profit children’s hospitals.  Vote YES.

Prop 5: The first of the non-bond measures on the ballot and a hotly debated one. It is essentially a tweak to the infamous Prop 13.  Current law allows somebody over 55 (or with a severe disability) to buy a new house and carry over the tax basis of their first house.  This is obviously a windfall for anyone who has seen their property values soar, but can’t really cash in since moving means losing the low tax basis of their current house.  However, there are some strict limits on where the new house can be and, most importantly, it can only be done once.  Prop 5 wants to eliminate those restrictions and essentially allow unlimited transfers of the original cost basis.  The supporters advance some interesting arguments - that, on the surface, seem quite persuasive. But, when in doubt, follow the money (& this won’t be only prop for which you will hear me say this), and it is clear that this measure is a boon to realtors and is being heavily bankrolled by them.  The arguments in favor are rather questionable (IMO), and anyway, my inclination is to go against the side that the big money is supporting.  Vote NO.

Prop 6: Ah yes, the gas tax repeal effort.  My gut reaction was to vote against this one because a gas tax tends to be regressive (it hurts the lower income folks way more than it does the higher income folks).  However, our roads and bridges are in bad shape and *everybody* is negatively impacted by that.  Vote NO.

Prop 7: Ok, time for a silly one.  If passed, this prop would give the legislature the permission to make Daylight Savings Time permanent (all year round) or just not have Daylight Savings time at all.  Somewhat appropriately, I am writing this on the eve of the end of Daylight savings time.  While changing all the clocks in the house, twice a year, is a bit of a pain, it also adds just a bit more interest to my life.  :-) More to the point, I am mad that somebody would waste my time with a silly prop like this.  Vote NO.

Prop 8: If you have turned on your TV any time in the last few weeks, you have seen an ad against prop 8.  This fight over this prop has already become the most expensive on in CA history, but here is the kicker - the vast majority of the money is being raised by the No on 8 campaign.  The prop has to do with the price that can be charged by dialysis clinics.  It seems a rather niche one, but incredibly, something like $110 million has already been spent on this prop.  The No folks seem to be all the ones that you would trust - Nurses, Emergency Room physicians, and so on.  But again, follow the money and you quickly find that most of the No money is coming from the private operators of dialysis clinics. The actual prop seems quite reasonable to me and I am going to ignore the strong opposition to it.  Vote YES.

Prop 10 (Prop 9 was thrown out by the CA Supreme Court): Expands rent control authority of local governments.  Rent control measures have a bit of a checkered track record. This prop does not actually bring in new rent controls, but allows local governments to enact them, if they see fit.  The real test is whether you believe rent controls are a good thing or not.  I am personally not very sure one way or the other.  But, the arguments against 10 seem rather specious.  As such, I am going to support this one.  Vote YES.

Prop 11: Require private emergency ambulance employees to stay on call during their scheduled breaks: Don’t really see much of a downside.  Vote YES.

Prop 12: Establishes new standards for the confinement of farm animals.  This is a hot button issue for me. The arguments against this prop are mostly that it doesn’t do enough. Perhaps, but I had rather start with something. Vote YES.

US House: I am in the 52nd Congressional district and Scott Peters (D) currently holds that seat.  I am sticking with him.  Vote for Scott Peters.

I am not going to comment on the other districts, except to say that if you are in the 50th, you get to have the satisfaction of throwing the unrepentant fraudster, Duncan Hunter, out of office. Please don’t lose that opportunity.

State Assembly (District 77): Brian Maienschein (R) has been representing this district since 2012 and seems pretty reasonable and committed. Stick with him.  Vote for Brian Maienschein.

Superior Court Judge: Normally, I have no clue about the various judge candidates, but this time, there is an actual face off between Matt Brower and Gary Kreep to be a Superior Court judge. I have actually heard enough negatives about Judge Kreep to recommend against him.  Vote for Matt Brower.

Local Measures:
A: Not worth debating about.  Vote YES.

B: Similar to A.  Vote YES.

C: Seems like a common sense proposal - money reserved for pensions should not be reassigned to other stuff.  No real opposition against it.  Vote YES.

D: Forces certain elections to happen in the Nov (General) ballot rather the June (Primary) ballot.  This is generally a good thing since some dodgy measures (and candidates) sometimes squeak through in the June ballot simply because hardly anyone is paying attention to that election.  Could be a bit wasteful in some situations, but on balance, I am inclined to support it.  Vote YES.

E: The first of the two “What shall we do with the SDCCU (formerly Qualcomm) stadium land” measures. Measure E has also been called the “Soccer City” initiative, for the main group that is supporting this measure. This measure promises to bring a Major League Soccer (MLS) team to San Diego and throws in a bunch of parks along with a new stadium, retail space, and residential units.  It is structured as a 99-year lease, but the lessee would be allowed to purchase a sizable chunk (79.9 acres) of the land. There are reasons to like this measure, but upon closer examination, there are a number of rather sneaky aspects.  The measure actually doesn’t compel the lessee to do any development (although the odds of nothing happening are rather low), but more importantly, it doesn’t mandate any sequencing of the various promises.  The private group behind this measure would be free to do the more commercial aspects first and punt the more public spirited ones down the line.  At its core, it seems mostly like a land grab to me. Vote NO.

G: This second of the two stadium land proposals - also called the “SDSU-West” initiaitive.  This one allows the city to sell a substantial portion of the land to some entity (most likely SDSU) to put in developments that would benefit SDSU.  This one has fewer sneaky-seeming provisions and also promotes the ostensibly noble goal of growing San Diego’s biggest public university - SDSU. However, it’s not without issues.  A big one is that the funding sources are not clear. However, if both measure E and G get over 50% of the vote, then the one with the higher Yes votes will win the day.  I’d rather not see E squeak through just because enough folks did not vote for G.  Vote YES.

J: Mandates some transparency requirements for bidding on city contracts.  More sunshine, the better.  Vote YES.

K: Removes some loop holes in the term limits statute.  Always good.  Vote YES.

L: Raises the pay of the Mayor and some of the other elected officials: It’s reflexive to to object to a pay raise to any politician, but a closer look at the numbers tells a different story.  These legislators are basically being paid a pittance, largely because they were too afraid of public backlash to vote themselves a pay raise. Even if this measure were to pass, the salaries would be well within reasonable limits.  And it’s not like this would be a permanent benefit - these are all offices with term limits.  Vote YES.

M & N: Measure with no significant opposition.  Just vote YES.  And yes, I am tiring of reading and analyzing another prop. 

No wasted words

          Most mornings, I drop Arjun off in a cul-de-sac from where he can walk down to his school.  This is a very popular drop-off area for many parents and as such, the intersections are somewhat chaotic with cars stopping and kids crossing the streets. One recent morning, as we approached the last intersection, I noticed his good friend Victor crossing the road in front of us. I was a bit surprised since we had never encountered Victor over the 8 months that I had been dropping Arjun off at that spot - and you tend to see the same cars and students almost everyday. I exclaimed, "Hey, Victor is here too!" But there was no reaction from Arjun - he didn't respond or make any attempt to catch up to his friend. Now, I was not entirely surprised by this - Arjun is a somewhat phlegmatic sort, not given to idle persiflage (I had promised Abhi some Wodehousian flourishes in this blog).  Even figuring out what projects and homework are due on any given day is a diabolical variation of Twenty Questions - eliciting Yes/No responses is hard enough, but you also need to judge the reliability of each response.  I just shrugged off his apparent lack of enthusiasm.
Then, remarkably, the same thing happens the very next day: I see Victor crossing the street in front of us at the exact same spot. I go: "Wow, there is Victor again!" Again, not a peep from Arjun - he just sort gives me a look. I am a little miffed now - isn't he carrying this don't care, indifferent teenager act a bit too far? I continued: "All these months I have been dropping you here and we never once see Victor.  Then two days in a row we see him in the exact place - that's a crazy coincidence!  Don't you think?"  Still not so much as a shoulder shrug from Arjun - just a look.  Now I begin to think that he is just messing with me - maybe this is not a surprise for him?  I go: "Unless you guys planned this! Is that what's going on?" I was feeling a bit clever as well for having figured it out - this would explain it all! It seemed like I had finally hit a nerve  - Arjun turned towards me and in a calm drawl: "Well...that's not Victor. So..."

"NOT Victor? Why didn't you tell me yesterday itself? Why did you let me keep thinking it was Victor?"

"Well, I kept expecting you to figure it out yourself."

Turns out Victor takes the bus to school and the chance of encountering him anywhere else was exactly zero.