2024 March Primaries - San Diego Edition

First, the good news:  the 2024 March primaries do not feature a Prop related to dialysis clinics.  This can't last of course, but let's be glad for the reprieve, however short. 

This election has a relatively short list of issues and offices and given that it is a primary, you are likely to see some of the same candidates again in November, for the runoff.  So, this should be relatively painless - let's dig into it. 

Presidential Primary

Yes, it is probably largely inconsequential, but you should probably cast your vote in this race anyway. This one is not quite an open primary - you can vote for a GOP candidate only if you are a registered Republican, but you don't need to be a registered Democrat to vote in their primary.  If you happen to be a registered Republican, I recommend a vote for Nikki Haley if only as a protest (Trump is going to win easily), but otherwise, just Vote for Biden (even though we all wish he had let somebody else run). 

US Senate

This one offers two primaries for the price of one.  First there is the primary to select the candidates to finish off the remaining two months of Diane Feinstein's term (that started in 2018) and there is the one to take over her seat outright (a term that would start in Jan 2025).  The slate of candidates for the two elections overlap considerably, as might be expected.  It is also hard to imagine that the same candidate wouldn't win both elections. In CA, primaries for the US Senate are open, which means that you can vote for any candidate, irrespective of your registered party affiliation (or indeed, even if you have none).  The top-2 vote getters in the primary will duke it out in Nov and given the number of prominent Democrats in the field, it is safe to assume that two Democrats will be fighting it out in Nov for both of these positions. 

The field is crowded, but the three names stand out on the Democratic side: Adam Schiff, Katie Porter, and Barbara Lee. All three are in the House from various CA districts.  

Adam Schiff is likely the one with the most name recognition - having been one of the Trump impeachment managers (to mostly strong reviews).  However, he is also the one that comes across as the quintessential Washington insider, whose positions have shifted (albeit not drastically) with the political winds. 

Katie Porter is the youngest of the three and rose to prominence with her vigorous and no-nonsense questioning at congressional hearings, but has also been dogged by scandal. 

Barbara Lee, meanwhile is the oldest of the three, but also the one that has remained remarkably consistent in her convictions and voting record (she is the only member of the House to have voted against military action in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11).  Her personal story is also easily the most remarkable one. 

On the GOP side, the most prominent name is Steve Garvey, whose is an ex-Dodger and ex-Padre, but has been mired in scandal for much of his post-baseball life.  He is also a two-time (2016 & 2020) supporter of Donald Trump, which is pretty much the kiss of death in CA.  While he is currently polling in third place (behind Schiff and Porter), I don't see him gaining enough support to make it to the Nov runoff. While I would like to see a race between Barbara Lee and Katie Porter, I doubt we are going to get that.  But, that's not going to stop me from making the following recommendation: Vote for Barbara Lee. 

US House (District 50)

The incumbent, Scott Peters, will win this safely-Democratic seat.  Given that he seems a competent and decent congressman, there is really no good reason to vote against him.  Vote for Scott Peters. 

State Assembly (District 76)

This one probably registers somewhat close to home for many in my immediate friends circle, given that many of us know one of the prominent candidates - Darshana Patel - quite well.  She has served on the Poway school district board for a few years now and has managed to garner the endorsement of the SD Democratic Party over her main challenger - Joseph Rocha. Dr Patel's biography is certainly noteworthy, but pales in comparison to the struggles that Joseph Rocha has gone through - one of which was completing high school while being a homeless Senior, after his parents threw him out for coming out as gay. 

In all candor, I probably would have recommended a vote for Rocha if I didn't know Darshana Patel somewhat personally. I going to be very surprised if we don't see these two candidates again, in the Nov runoff.  For now, Vote for Darshana Patel. 

SD County Board of Supervisors (District 3)

This one pits old friend, Kevin Faulconer vs the incumbent Terra Lawson-Remer.  Some of you may recall Faulconer's time as SD Mayor, which started off well, but is possibly best remembered for the mishandling of the Hepatitis-B outbreak and the failure to keep the Chargers in town. If you needed additional reasons, he actually voted for Trump in 2020 (after refusing to do so in 2016).  Vote for Terra Lawson-Remer. 

Judicial Candidates

Thankfully, most of the candidates are running unopposed.  The two exceptions are for Office 41 and Office 43 of the Superior Court. While these are nominally non-partisan elections, the affiliations of the candidates in both races is rather obvious if you look at their endorsements.  For whatever reason, in both races, the Republican-leaning candidate has much of the establishment support which alone is sufficient for me to oppose them. The bios of their opponents reinforces this reflex. Here are my recommendations: 

Office 41: Vote for Jodi Cleesattle

Office 43: Vote for Koryn Sheppard

SD City Attorney

This is an open seat and the fight is between two Democrats: Brian Maienschein, who got termed out of the State Assembly (the same seat that Patel and Rocha are fighting for), and Heather Ferbert, who is the chief deputy City Attorney.  Maienschein got mostly good reviews as an assemblyman, but the thing that caught my attention is that he hasn't practice law in the longest time. So what is he doing in a fight for the top legal advisor to the city? Vote for Heather Ferbert. 

SD City Council District 5

I wish all of the races were this easy to call: Incumbent Marni Von Wilpert is running unopposed.  My recommendation? Surprisingly, it is to Vote for Marni Von Wilpert. 

Prop 1 - Bonds for Mental Health and Homelessness

I struggled with this one. Homelessness is quite possibly the biggest crisis being experienced by CA cities and has remained stubbornly intractable. This is actually a two-part prop.  The first part authorizes the diversion of a portion of the funds from the "Millionaire Tax" initiative (passed in 2004) from local (county) control to state control and a further restriction on the how another portion of the same funds must be used locally. The second part gives the state the authority to issue bonds worth around $6.4 Billion to be used for building more mental health facilities and affordable housing.  It sounds like a lot of money, but the additional housing is only expected to make a 3% dent in the state's unhoused population. I am glossing over a number of the details of course, but I found myself switching positions with every new piece of data/commentary about this prop.  The one that finally resonated with me (somewhat) is that status quo is not acceptable and while this prop may not go far enough, it does attempt to drastically shake up the situation.  Vote YES. 

SD Mayor

I left this for the last, not because it was difficult to call (it wasn't), but because I wanted to end with a line from a write-up about one of the long shot candidates (Danny Smiechowski).  We will get to that in a minute, but first the pertinent stuff: The race is between incumbent Todd Gloria and three others, including the aforementioned Danny S.  Jane Glasson, has the distinction of not being endorsed by the SD Republican party even though she is the lone Republican in the field, while Genevieve Jones-Wright is a public interest lawyer who has positioned herself to the left of Gloria. Danny S mostly touts his accomplishments as a triathlete (his campaign website features a slideshow of him in various races) and has about a zero chance of winning.  Todd Gloria has not exactly been very successful in tackling the challenges of homelessness and our crumbling infrastructure, but he has done enough to deserve another term.  Vote for Todd Gloria. 

Which brings me to the favorite line I encountered as I read up on these races and the candidates.  The entry for Danny Smiechowski in the KPBS Voter Hub concludes this way: "His Instagram account includes several pictures of him exercising, sunbathing and dancing in a see-through thong."

Go Vote!

Noir, Mostly - TV Show Recommendations, #1

This list being compiled in Aug 2021 and has shows that I have seen over the last 12-18 months.  Some of them debuted during this period, but many were from an earlier period. 

For each show, the channel it is available from is mentioned in parenthesis after the name of the show. After that I provide a brief description of the show and (maybe) what I found interesting about it. 

As the title of this blog entry suggests, most of the shows in this compilation fall in the noir category, but there is a sprinkling of "general/drama" types of shows as well.  The shows are listed in no particular order. 

(1) Death in Paradise (Britbox): This show is set in the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie, that is a British protectorate and is essentially a light hearted take on the classic locked room mystery.  There are 10 seasons so far (with the 11th one in production).  Most episodes are stand-alone cases (always a murder), although there are a few that span a couple of episodes. The crime solving team is a small local police force which is lead by an Inspector sent from England. The show has had four Inspectors - all of them white males - so far, and the conceit is that they all have some quirk that's played for comic relief, but possessing an unique ability to make sense of ostensibly disconnected set of clues - a la Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple.  After muddling around for a while, the inspector has an epiphany that allows him to solve the case and the episode ends with a denouement back at the scene of the crime with all the suspects gathered around, in classic Agatha Christie style. 

The earlier seasons have more interesting cases and the show does get a bit repetitive towards the latter seasons, but it is always entertaining. 

Honorable Mention: Burn Notice (Amazon Prime & Hulu): This show originally aired on USA Network and features an ex-spy doing special "projects" with a small group of buddies.  A "caper" show, always stylish, set in Miami.  

(2)  Shetland (Britbox): A moody, atmospheric show set on the remote Shetland Islands, with multiple cases per season and each case typically running across two episodes.  The stories are always interesting and like some of the finer detective stories, are mostly character driven.  The locale is almost as much a draw as the stories themselves. 

(3) The Brokenwood Mysteries (Acorn): Murder mystery show set in the fictional New Zealand town of Brokenwood.  Great cast, interesting stories, and of course, New Zealand! What's not to like? 

(4) Jonathan Creek (Britbox): Amateur "consultants" (think Miss Marple) qualify as a sub-genre in my book and this falls in that category, with an interesting twist - the eponymous Jonathan Creek is a practicing magician who is called upon to solve murders that always seem to involve some sort of sleight of hand.  Alan Davies does a great job in the lead role, but the show does lose some of its freshness in the later seasons, especially after a new actor takes over his (female) sidekick role.  The show ran from 1997 to 2004, so can be a bit dated on today's HD screens. 

(5) Shakespeare and Hathaway (Britbox): The title refers to the partners in a PI firm located in Stratfford-upon-Avon.  There are some references to the bard thrown in and it seems to have been shot on location (which is always fun) and the stories are mostly entertaining. 

(6) Line of Duty (Britbox): This is a much more serious cop drama, featuring, somewhat unexpectedly, the Anti-Corruption unit of the British police. There have been six seasons so far, with a single case spanning the entirety of each season.  While each season is stand-alone, there is a common thread that runs through all of them and was (seemingly) brought to a conclusion at the end of season 6.  This show has become something of a cultural touchstone in England. 

(7) The Mallorca Files (Britbox): This is something of an European collage - two detectives - she is from England and he is from Germany - paired into a team in the tiny police force of the Spanish island of Mallorca (Nadal's home town).  Don't dwell too much on why they are there and enjoy the beautiful sceneries and playful chemistry between the lead actors. Only two seasons so far. 

(8) Zen (Britbox): In Italian.  Only three episodes of this show set in Rome, but well worth watching for the stylish lead detective and his (quasi) partner. 

(9) CB Strike (HBOMax): Ongoing series based on the books written by JK Rowling under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith.  She started on these after she was done with the Harry Potter books and chose to use a pseudonym since she wanted the books to succeed on their own merit rather than ride the Harry Potter coattails.  But even though the secret was out rather quickly, she has persisted in sticking with the pseudonym.  She is a gifted writer, but the books follow the same ballooning in size as the Harry Potter books do.  The series has 5 books so far, and we are up to 900+ pages in book 5.  I read the books before watching the show, but you don't really have to.  The mysteries are sufficiently complicated and the writing is wonderfully detailed (getting more and more so as the books progress), but you get the feeling that she is painting by the numbers and whodunits are not really her natural milieu.  But what keeps bringing you back is the chemistry between the lead pair - both in the book and in the TV series, where both of them are most excellently cast. 

(10) Wallander (Prime, etc): Another series based on books, this one is based on the Henning Mankell books.  There are two versions - the more well-known BBC production starring Kenneth Branagh in the title role and the somewhat more obscure (original) Swedish version.  The BBC version can be found on various outlets, including Amazon Prime, but the original Swedish version takes some digging to find.  I am a bit partial to the Swedish version (if you can find it), but that could also be because Kenneth Branagh grates on me just a tad bit.  His Poirot (in a movie version of the Christie classic - Murder on the Orient Express) had me gnashing my teeth.  David Suchet is Hercule Poirot for me - everybody else is an also-ran.  Just like nobody else can quite be Sherlock Holmes other than Jeremy Brett. 

(11) Scott & Bailey (Prime, HBOMax, etc): Yet another BBC cop drama, this time with two female lead detectives.  Mostly a classic police procedural, the detectives have messy personal lives which intrude into their professional lives, as is de rigueur with all such shows.  The characters are interesting enough to make you care and you get the feeling that much of policing is like this. 

Honorable mention: Prime Suspect - The hugely popular (& critically acclaimed) BBC show dating back to 1991, featuring Helen Mirren in the lead role.  In 2007, it made Time magazine's list of Top 100 TV shows of all-time.  Highly influential show in the police procedural genre, well worth watching.  A very compelling spin-off is Prime Suspect: Tennison that goes back in time to tell the origin story of Jane Tennison (the name of the character played by Helen Mirren in the Prime Suspect series). 

(12) Unforgotten (PBS Masterpiece): This BBC cop show is a take on the cold case genre. Each season deals with a single case and starts with the discovery of a long-hidden corpse, followed by a set of seemingly disconnected vignettes.  The stories of the people in these vignettes continues to develop while the cops (the same team is featured in all 4 seasons) are still struggling to identify the body and soon it becomes apparent that these disparate sets of individuals are somehow linked to the body and the murder.  There are small hints of the personal lives of the lead detectives, but the focus is largely on the crime and the people involved in it. 

(13) Professor T (PBS Masterpiece, in Belgian): One of my favorite shows of recent times, in the "amateur idiot savant" genre (think Monk).  The titular Professor T is Jasper Teerlinck - a professor of criminology at Antwerp University.  He is brilliant, of course, but with several personal/psychological issues that makes dealing with the real world a significant challenge.  The cases are interesting and the solutions seem to feature less mumbo-jumbo than is typical for this genre. The cast is wonderful and in particular, the lead actor, Koen De Bouw (who is apparently an esteemed actor in Belgium) is exceptional. He brings a compelling verisimilitude to the role that recalls Tony Shalhoub as Monk. The series was so successful that it spawned a BBC remake of the same name, but set in Oxford and the lead role played by Ben Miller, who plays a very similar character as the original Inspector in DIP.  I like Ben Miller, but I highly recommend sticking with the Belgian original and enjoying Koen De Bouw's performance. 

(14) Crimes of Passion (PBS Masterpiece, in Swedish): A stylishly rendered show with a trio of very attractive lead characters, driven by the lone female in the group. The show was made in 2013, but set in some previous period (I could never quite tell exactly what the period was supposed to be, but I learnt from Wikipedia that the episodes were based on the books of the Swedish writer Maria Lange, which were published in the '40s and '50s).  The stories are set in Bergslagen in south central Sweden and the locations are pretty spectacular. Six episodes in total, each of almost feature-length. 

(15) Thou Shalt Not Kill (PBS Masterpiece, in Italian): A somewhat melodramatic Italian cop show featuring the stunning Miriam Leone (who was Miss Italy 2008) in the lead detective (Valeria Ferro) role.  It's set in Turin and features some wonderful views of the city and surrounding areas. The early seasons are strong, but it does lose a bit of steam towards the latter ones. The lone wolf style adopted by Valeria Ferro strains credibility after a while, but there is enough style to paper over the porous substance.  Each episode has a stand-alone case, but there is also a backstory mystery that runs through the entire series.  This backstory is only hinted at in the early episodes, but pretty much takes over the show (much to its disadvantage) in the latter seasons. 

(16) Rocco Schiavone (PBS Masterpiece, in Italian): A gritty cop show, with a very compelling (& highly flawed) eponymous main character, set in the northern Italian town of Aosta, where the cold and mountains are as much a part of the show as the main characters.  The lead actor (Marco Giallini) is a pleasure to watch and also has a past that seems to be always on the verge of catching up to him. Unlike most American (or British) shows, it manages to avoid over-sentimentality as it progresses towards its logical conclusion. 

(17) The Devil's Throat (PBS Masterpiece, in Bulgarian): A murder mystery that brings in the tangled history of Bulgaria's treatment of muslim immigrants (mostly from Turkey) - a history that I was totally unaware of - and features more beautiful scenery.  There is much intrigue and several twists and turns with a fairly satisfying ending. 

(18) Silent Hunt (PBS Masterpiece, in German): Set in Munich, the lead detective is a somewhat crumpled loner, with a towering reputation amongst the police. In true German style, the stories don't always have neat endings, but are all the more believable for that reason.  You may be left with a lack of closure though - we only get to see 8 of the 10 original episodes (I haven't been able to figure out the reason for this) and there is a hint of a storyline that runs through many of the episodes that remains unresolved at the end of the 8th episode. 

(19) Trapped (Netflix, in Icelandic): Two seasons so far.  Each season features a single case that takes 10 episodes to resolve.  Excellent cast all around and highly recommended, even if you are only a casual fan of Scandinavian noir. 

(20) Hide & Seek (PBS Masterpiece, in Russian): This show is so Russian in character that I had pegged it as such even before I looked up what language was being spoken.  Once again, a single case runs through the entire show, which starts with the kidnapping/disappearance of a child. 

(21) Wild Bill (Britbox): We come full circle with another Britbox show. Seems like the "Americans in Britain" genre is having a moment.  There is Ted Lasso on AppleTV of course, and then there is this one - Wild Bill. It features Rob Lowe in the role of a big city police chief from the US that is brought over to a largely rural town (the original "Boston" as it happens) in England.  His job is to cut down crime and layoff a whole bunch of local cops by using his "algorithms" to fight crime. Not surprisingly, it's not quite as simple as that and he deep into solving murders with a decidedly local twist.  One season with 6 episodes so far.  

Enough of cops, murder, and noir.  These next few are (largely) crime-free dramas that we enjoyed watching over the last year or so: 

(1) Seaside Hotel (PBS Masterpiece, in Danish): This features several seasons of the same (rich) group of Danes that holiday at the same seaside hotel every summer, before, during, and after WWII.  The cast is charming, the locations are stunning, and the real world in the form of the war and Nazis is allowed to intrude. 

(2) 800 Words (Amazon Prime): Set in a small (fictional) town in New Zealand, featuring an Australian father and his two kids who move there to get a fresh start in life. Often funny, sometimes moving, and always entertaining.  The title comes from the lead character's job - he is a columnist whose columns are all exactly 800 words long. 

(3) All Creatures Great & Small (PBS): This is a very recent remake/re-telling of the beloved James Herriot books.  There is of course a much older original version that hews somewhat closer to the books, but this new version takes a number of liberties with the storylines (much like "Bosch" on Netflix does with the Michael Connelly books).  This is not necessarily a bad thing and I found the new version much more enjoyable, compared to the few episodes of the original that I have watched (& found largely boring).  Only one season so far and I am eagerly awaiting the next one. 

(4) Pointless (Britbox, etc): It's no secret that many of the successful game shows on American networks - Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, The Weakest Link, etc are British imports. There is, in fact, a mind-boggling array of game shows on British TV, even just in the Quiz/Trivia category.  One such is Pointless, in which the challenge is to come up with the most obscure answers to questions that have multiple correct responses. I am a big fan of trivia/quiz shows and I really enjoyed this one.  This is a long running show and there are over 1300 episodes to get through.  Enjoy! :-)

Not everything that meets the eye

There are essentially two views of cops and law enforcement - the largely anodyne depictions of prime time network shows ("Law & Order", "CSI", etc) and the more gritty, raw depictions of cable channels ("The Shield", "Luther", etc). The main difference is only stylistic though - the underlying premise is that the "good" ones are driven by the desire to serve and get to the truth, and that they will always prevail over the "bad apples".  The popular mythology that the police are here to protect and serve is well established. 

However, even a casual perusal of the history of policing makes it abundantly clear that the truth is, in fact, the diametric opposite - the raison d'etre of the police has always been to keep the less fortunate amongst us "in check." 

What started out as the night watch (in the early 1600's) in the big cities on the eastern seaboard (Boston, New York, Philadelphia) eventually gave rise to the first formal police department in 1838 (in Boston).  In the south meanwhile, what started off as slave patrols morphed into local police departments.  In both cases, the police were entirely staffed by white men, whose main charter was to keep the labor force - slaves in the south, factory workers in the north - under the control of their masters.  The rich, as they are wont to do - all around the world and throughout history - outsourced the dirty work to hired minions. For much of the early decades the local police departments were nothing more than enforcers for the local mob bosses (who were of course the political bosses as well). 

In the early 1900s, there was an attempt to professionalize police departments around the US and while some positive changes came in (for instance, policemen would be hired through a dedicated process and not simply be appointed by the Mayor and his henchmen), it also created the modern police bureaucracy.  The main purpose however, was still to keep labor from getting too restive and the police were routinely called into bust union activity.  In response to persistent charges of brutality and calls for increased accountability, police forces closed ranks and unionized themselves.  This has to be one of the more ironic twists in this saga - the police today use the very same tool to avoid accountability that they were supposed to destroy - unions.

 

The calls for police reform continued to come at regular intervals, but nothing really changed well into the 60s and 70s, when the police were called in to suppress the civil rights and anti-war activities of that era - and they responded with characteristic brutality.  Through the 90's and beyond, corruption and racial discrimination scandals have erupted in one big city police department after the other with clockwork regularity. 

The modern day police brass may make a lot of PC statements, but under that veneer, things have only gotten worse. A case in point is the increasing militarization of big and small town police departments.  This is the consequence of the, now infamous, 1033 program which requires the Pentagon to transfer surplus military hardware to local police departments. The original rationale was almost logical - help the police in their 'war on drug'.  However, the results have been predictably disheartening - small and big town police departments are now bristling with military vehicles and weapons that only serve to further terrorize citizens when the police deploy them in overwhelming displays of force.  Shock and Awe on the homefront.  This is exactly what happened in Ferguson, MO - the manner in which that police department responded to protests that broke out in the wake of the 2014 killing of the unarmed black teenager (Michael Brown) at the hands of a white police officer so horrified the nation that President Obama signed an executive order suspending the 1033 program.  From 1990 through 2014, this program had caused more than $5 Billion in military gear to be transferred to municipal police departments across the country.  Predictably, in 2017, Trump signed an executive order reinstating the program. 

As an immigrant of color (or maybe just as a person of color), any encounter with any law enforcement officer (let alone a cop) is fraught.  I understand implicitly that the burden of proving my "innocence" or "lack of threat" is on me and the cop considers it well within his (yes, it is still mostly men) rights to assume that I am up to no good.  This is very difficult (if not outright impossible) for white americans to understand - their trust in the cops as protectors is indeed justified.  When Trump recently praised police officers as "great, great, people", who have been, "letting us live in peace," he was exactly correct - with the minor caveat that the "us" he was referring to are the people with the money and power - that are also overwhelmingly (and not coincidentally), white.  His choice of words were also (unwittingly, I am sure, given that this is Trump - that past master of linguistics, the one with all the "best" words) revealing in their own right: In stating that the police are "letting" us live in peace, he was implicitly endorsing the belief amongst a significant fraction of the law enforcement community that we are all just being allowed to thrive under their benevolent guardianship and how dare we challenge this by asking for any accountability or transparency?  

Probably the most famous line from A Few Good Men, is the "You can't handle the truth!" retort from Col Jessep (played by Jack Nicholson), but what follows is particularly telling.  He continues: 

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it." Enough said.

Calls for "defunding" the police have started to gain momentum and Trump and his supporters have seized upon it with predictable glee.  It's easy to scare people into thinking that the protestors are advocating for a lawless world where we would all essentially be in a real life version of The Purge. (Actually, I am pretty sure that that prospect is exactly what scares the living daylights out of rich elites, but let's leave that for another day.)  

Don't fall for this scare tactic! "Defunding" doesn't mean there won't be a police department or law enforcement officers.  It simply means that we, as a society, need to rethink what we want our police to do.  They have become the ultimate Swiss Army knife of civic society - called upon equally to attend to natural disasters and domestic abuse.  This is unfair to the police and to us as citizens who are paying for this service.  The police are trained to keep the peace and solve crimes, not respond to homelessness or mental illness.  "Defunding" the police is a call to restructure how we spend our public safety dollars.  If you are still worried about ending up with a smaller police force, perhaps you will take some comfort in the study after study that has shown that more police does not lead to less crime. Or conversely, that a smaller force does not lead to increased crime. 

I will close with the example that is being bandied about a lot these days - that of Camden, New Jersey.  In 2012, Camden dissolved its police department en masse (although about 25% of the officers were re-hired after a new set of hiring policies were put in place).  At that point, it was one of the most violent cities in America, with a murder solve rate of about 14%.  The force was rebuilt from the ground up and crime has now dropped by more than half and their murder solve rate is above 60%.  Why do I highlight this statistic amongst so many others? Well, because most murders are solved only when citizens come forward and help the police with witness statements and cooperate, in general.  The sharp spike in the solve rate points to a very key (and otherwise intangible) factor - the huge increase in trust that the citizens of Camden now have in their police.  Isn't that a worthwhile goal for all of us to have? 

This Moment in Time

We seem to be poised at the edge - there is a sense that society itself is unraveling at the seams.  As protests over the killing of George Floyd fill our cities, it feels like something is about to give.  The worst of our collective expectations after the election of Donald Trump have more than come to pass. 

After the shocking election result of 2016, the uneasy peace that many made with it was that we would be ok unless the nation came face to face with a real crisis.  Trump seemed ever so eager to fulfill that prophecy, careening from one manufactured crisis to another.  But somehow, he seemed to make it through without serious damage to his political fortunes. Many of us continued to wring our hands and bemoan our helplessness as the Trump administration (quite possibly one of the more incompetent cabinets ever assembled by a President) unleashed one senseless move after the other.  We debated the possibility of Trump winning another term while marveling (in frustration) that he remained viable. 

Much ink has been spilled on analysis and exposes (for a person with a disdain for books and reading in general, Trump's tenure has been a boon to the publishing industry), but the reason his prospects remained bright simply came down to the cynical calculus of self-interest.  True, there was much moral outrage, but how many people actually vote their morals? Despite all the hand wringing about Trump's actions, how many of us have experienced a materially negative impact? It's like the war on terror - it's happening in far away lands, fought by young men and women who are disproportionately from underprivileged circumstances, and return to a nation that has all but forgotten them. 

 

And then came Covid-19.  As the first reports of another viral infection originating in the far east started filtering through, it was easy to view them merely with academic interest.  Many of us recalled the SARS epidemic. Then there was MERS and Ebola. None of these made any meaningful inroads in the US and I am sure many of us made the implicit assumption that this time would be no different. But, seemingly overnight, it all changed and the disease has spread with a ferocity that we have struggled to come to terms with.  The experience has been entirely unique. It is safe to say that most of us have never lived through such an extended lock-down period.  There was almost a fairy tale quality to it.  We didn't quite know how to behave or how we should feel about it.  The movie Contagion was much discussed in the early days and I have to admit, watching it now, it did have almost a documentary kind of feel about it.  But, it is Groundhog Day that more accurately captured the sensation of our lives - without the regimented schedules (which we so loved to rail against) of our quotidian lives, there was no sense of the passage of time. Time seemed to simultaneously stand still and fly by at breakneck speed.  Many of us had the epiphany that it was only by the things that we did (& had to do) did we register the  passage of time. 

There are some that agonize about the confluence of an unprecedented pandemic, its economic fallout, and angry protests breaking out all over the country.  But, in fact, they are all connected.  The economic fallout is of course the direct result of the lockdown in response to the spread of Covid-19.  The killing of George Floyd and the anger and pain that has burst forth is of course unrelated to Covid-19, but the lockdown and a general sense of dread seemingly from an ineffable source added an edge to the anger and pain.  And that edge is what is different about this latest round of protests over institutional racism that, most recently, can be traced back to Michael Brown in Ferguson, with multiple stops in between. 

And what do we see Trump doing? Raving and ranting as always, throwing blame around and taking no responsibility whatsoever.  There is no sugar coating it - he is a racist and his only interest is self-interest. Trump couldn't care less that he and his administration are causing (almost) irreparable damage to American society, its people, and to its place in the world, as long as it furthers his personal agenda.  We are squarely in a moment of reckoning - are we going to unravel from here or is the system resilient enough to withstand these body blows and still remain standing? 

There have been many a great civilization that seemed invincible in its time.  The sun never set on the British empire, until it did. In 1700, India accounted for 27% of global GDP and a full quarter of the world's textile trade.  The US has been the indispensable power for more than a century now, but is this the start of a slide into irrelevancy?  American exceptionalism has always turned on the well justified notion that despite all its manifest flaws, the world is simply a better place when the US is the accepted moral authority.  And if you didn't care about that, well, we have the weapons to blow you out of existence.  Under Trump, there is not even a pretense of retaining that mantle of moral authority.  China is fast becoming the dominant economic force in the world and most of the world is armed to the teeth.  So, what remains of the US role? 

I always thought that the 2000 election that brought in Bush the younger (along with Cheney and the rest of the Neo-Cons) was one of the most consequential elections of my lifetime.  With Al Gore in the White House, how different would our response to 9/11 have been?  And how different would the world be today if that had happened? But, all of that will pale in comparison to the implications of the elections coming up this November.  If Trump is not defeated at the polls - and it really has to be a veritable blue tsunami that sweeps him and his enablers in the Senate out - the protests and strife that we see today will seem like a walk in the park. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, the very survival of this country - its soul at any rate - hangs in the balance. 

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.