The Sun Always Shines on the California Empire
The sun has set on the British Empire. Its successor, America, is showing signs of decline. But one empire still has plenty of battery life: California. This is true even in the capital of the old empire. When I visited London last week, the newspapers were full of stories about the United Kingdom pulling the […]
Reading Arnold’s Mind
After some years in storage, the Fox & Hounds mind-reading machine is back, and pointed at a familiar target… I am sick and tired of the whole media talking about how I’m just like Trump. Some of them are even surprised I didn’t endorse the guy. What a bunch of foreheads! I tried to ignore […]
Beth Garrett, RIP
The terrible headlines said that Cornell’s president, the first woman to head the university, had died of cancer at age 52. The news hit hard not only in New York State but also here in California. Many of us Californians were lucky enough to know Beth Garrett. She was a star in academic world, and […]
Is Fresno California’s Taco Capital?
Can tacos save Fresno? Greater Fresno, with 1.1 million people and growing, is in the process of becoming California’s next big metropolitan area (it’s already fifth—after L.A., the Bay Area, San Diego, and greater Sacramento). But, perhaps because of its poverty, it still has the low civic self-esteem of the smaller town it used to […]
Can Everyone Sign Up for the Kamala Harris Expedited Initiative Service?
It is nice to have friends in high places, especially if you’re an initiative sponsor. But why does Gov. Jerry Brown get faster service than other initiative sponsors do from Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris? It happened again this weekend. Late Friday, the California Supreme Court stepped in to save a compromise ballot initiative that Brown […]
How Riding the Rails Can Change Cities and Lives
What will the railroad bring us? That was the question Henry George sought to answer for California in his famous 1868 essay, “What the Railroad Will Bring Us,” on the eve of the transcontinental railroad’s completion. The renowned political economist’s vision—that the railroad would help make California a global giant of business and trade—was so […]
McCarthy, Hunter Head Into the Trump Abyss
Kevin McCarthy and Duncan Hunter said things in the past week that could be used to destroy whatever future the Republican Party has left in California. Those statements involved Donald Trump. Hunter endorsed him, and perhaps that wasn’t surprise, given the abhorrent policies that the two have proposed on immigrants. But the McCarthy, the House […]
Brown Boxed In By His Own Failed Initiative Policy
The governor has a problem—his own ill-conceived changes to the initiative process now are creating problems for his own initiative. A Sacramento judge ruled recently that the governor’s amendments to a sentencing reform initiative were improper. Instead of amending the measure, Brown changed it so much – and with problematic timing – that he should […]
Brown Gets a Taste Of His Own Extortion
In the days ahead, you may hear Gov. Jerry Brown or his fellow Democrats (or even anti-tax groups on the right) accuse Assembly Republicans of extortion. If you do, you can ignore the charge – and savor the irony. The Republicans are toying a familiar extortion tool for which Brown bears special responsibility. That tool […]
No City Is Immune From an Identity Crisis
Can you imagine Southern California without Hollywood? Or the Bay Area without Silicon Valley? No? History suggests that the identities of cities and regions are more fragile, and their central industries more perilous, than we care to admit. (Just ask former Detroit autoworkers.) So it’s well within the realm of possibility that Los Angeles’ entertainment […]