California Chrome, Champ of the Rising California Generation
If you’re young and from California, you should be rooting for the Kentucky Derby champion, California Chrome. The horse is emblematic of the rising generation of Californians in three ways. 1. He’s a native. In fact, California Chrome is the first California-bred horse to win the Derby in more than a half century. That’s history, […]
Donald Sterling Is Los Angeles
Late in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film Pulp Fiction, Marsellus Wallace—a criminal boss played by Ving Rhames—banishes prizefighter Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) from Southern California. “You lost all your L.A. privileges,” Rhames says with lethal menace, and Willis quickly leaves the Southland on his motorcycle. If only it were that easy to kick Los Angeles Clippers […]
How About a Clean Rainy Day Fund?
Gov. Brown and other advocates of a rainy day fund explain the concept as though it were simple. Put aside money in good times for a rainy day. Then why don’t they just propose a rainy day fund? By that I mean: why don’t they propose a rainy day fund that’s just a rainy day […]
5 Ways to Save the Kashkari Campaign
When I was 7 years old, my parents put me on a plane by myself from Beijing, where we lived to the Bay Area, so I could spend the summer with my grandparents there. At my grandfather’s suggestion, I started reading the San Francisco Chronicle because, while it might not be the best paper in […]
In Today’s California, the Dude—Once the Quintessential Outsider—Has Become the Mainstream
Are we becoming a state of Lebowskis? Jeffrey Lebowski, better known as the Dude, is arguably the most successful fictional Californian of the past two decades. Created by the Coen brothers in their 1998 film The Big Lebowski, and embodied by the actor Jeff Bridges, Lebowski became a cult favorite for being an outsider (in […]
Who Was That Fellow on the Train?
Did I see a unicorn? Or was that really a California petition circulator being paid hourly? I was riding the Gold Line, one of the Metro trains in Los Angeles, in Little Tokyo with my son last month when I was approached by a petition circulator, carrying a clipboard full of statewide ballot initiatives. The […]
Can We Get Over Our Campaign Finance Obsession?
California’s prisons are constitutionally overcrowded. Our unemployment rate is higher the national average. Even changes in our school funding leave us shortage of the national average for K-12. Our underinvestment in higher education has led to a decline in the percentage of adults who are college graduates. Our tax and regulatory regime is uncompetitive with […]
Partisanship Must Be Harnessed, Not Fought
News item: Pete Peterson, the Republican candidate for California Secretary of State, has 30 percent support, and a big lead, in a new Field Poll. Reaction: As readers of this site know, I’m a big fan of Pete and his work on civic engagement in local communities around California. He’d make a terrific Secretary of […]
Can Good Government and First Amendment Groups Win Back the Public Trust?
It’s clear, with the charges against noted campaign finance advocate Leland Yee, that good government and campaign finance reform groups that gave him awards have lost the public’s trust. I call upon them need to take steps to win it back. It’s also clear that, given Yee’s strong support among First Amendment advocates, press freedom […]
The Governor Should Move to the Delta
When you’re faced with two different thorny problems, sometimes the best way to make progress is by combining them. I’m talking to you, Jerry Brown. Your first problem involves water. Residents of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta—California’s most vital estuary and source of water—fiercely oppose Brown’s plan to build tunnels that will divert water from north […]