Wiener Family Holiday Letter 2006

Dear Friends (and blog readers),

Fifty years from now, when history textbooks will be written by those with a vague understanding of 9th-grade geometry, 2006 will be remembered as a point of inflection. Like Jethro Tull once predicted would happen to a train, the spread of evil across the nation and the world did not stop, but it did slow down. [Sentences deleted in light of Letter's prospective interviews with the federal government].

Meanwhile, states continued to amend their constitutions to outlaw gay marriage, but those who waste the nation’s time on such vitriolic demagoguery met defeat for the first time, and in Arizona of all places. Others continued to react, defensibly, to the Supreme Court's Kelo decision by moving to ban the use of eminent domain for private economic development. Many activists tried to capitalize on the public’s disgust with corporate welfare by coupling such bans with crippling restrictions on environmental regulations, but the good people of California and Idaho saw through the ploy.

But we here at the Holiday Letter don’t want to waste your time telling you things you already know. We want to waste your time telling you about ourselves.

In the Wiener household, 2006 will always be known as The Year Our Fourth Cousin Emunah And Her Allergies Kept Us From Finally Getting A Dog.

In addition, Karen and Bruce became empty-nesters, after 29 years with at least one child at home (26 with two). This fall, they celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary at Incline Village in Lake Tahoe. Said Bruce, “You know, things were actually pretty good before you came along.” More on him, and Karen, later.

Matthew, whom many of you may remember from previous letters as Bubba, graduated from Los Altos High School this June, ending a 15-year run of Eagle Wieners. Despite breaking his wrist and getting kicked off the swim team (only to be let back on by order of the school administration), he was named co-Athlete of the Year for the senior class and also earned the inaugural Ronald Grady Burke scholarship for leadership on his sports teams and in the community. “I feel like I’ve been pretty awesome this year,” said Bubba. “Haven’t I?” This summer, he introduced the town children to water polo and once again worked as a lifeguard. And in September, he started his freshman year at UCLA, where he played on the club water polo team, rushed a fraternity and still managed to get a higher GPA than the Letter ever did. However, the Letter does not remember having to buy his friends. Did the Letter mention that Bubba joined a fraternity? Cause he did.

Andy wrote an honors thesis, took the LSAT and graduated summa cum laude from Brown this spring. (Everybody but Emunah came. Although, in her defense, she did have Red Sox tickets). Then he put it in cruise control for the next six months, tutoring SAT classes and getting good at frisbee golf. Right now, he’s lying on a beach in Peru with his girlfriend Annie, and probably will still be doing so by the time you read this. Their “plan” is to go to Buenos Aires with his girlfriend Annie and teach English, despite the fact that a large percentage of the residents of that city who can afford to learn English already have. As per usual, readers of the Letter will miss out on the most interesting stories about Andy’s year under the terms of various confidentiality agreements.

Jon, in the words of a respected neighbor and friend, “quit f***ing around” and finally moved out of his bedroom and enrolled in law school. Unfortunately for Bubba’s efforts to change his name to Matthew, Jon is also at UCLA. Living in Los Angeles is probably some sort of karmic payback for the bitterness Jon spread on his blog this year. Jon further cut his umbilical cord to Los Altos by leaving the Western Hemisphere for the first time and spending three weeks aimlessly wandering around Europe. He also added left ankle to the list of body parts that his brothers cite as evidence that his body is broken.

Joc still writes about the plight of the poor for the Sacramento Bee, which recently decided it doesn’t want its readers to have to think about the plight of the poor. “Try to avoid getting me fired,” said Joc. She still enjoys turning happy stories into sad ones, such as the one about a homeless man who tracked down two young men who attacked him and brought them to justice (she focused on the effects of the violence on the attackers’ families). And she continues to date Will, who spent the year publishing hatchet jobs on federal judges simply for illegally ruling on cases in which they had secret financial interests or giving a few thousand bucks to the people who are supposed to be evaluating their credentials. Joc and Will went to the Kentucky Derby together and acted like dandies. Afterwards they toured rural Appalachia and mocked its newspapers.

Karen has asked the Letter to highlight “my desire to make the world a better place. For women.” Karen also plans to rekindle her interest in her job teaching resource classes at Gunn High School. To aid her in achieving this goal, her students would be well advised to act more like stocks – talk back less and be easier to trade over the computer. Karen recently learned how to text message and sends a nightly note to Bubba (and a monthly one to Jon).

Bruce turned 60 this year, and the family celebrated with a trip to a surprise location in July. This was particularly frustrating for Bruce, who hates it when he doesn’t know everybody else’s business, let alone his own. Ultimately, the family arrived in San Diego, joined by Emunah, Will, Bruce’s sister Carol and her children. The highlight of the weekend came when Bruce saw his nephew Joey floating out to sea, swam out to him and used his superior shouting ability to attract the attention of a nearby surfer. In a related story, Bruce reneged on his agreement with the Letter to become a water polo referee. He will undoubtedly blame this on someone else, namely Jon, who can tell Bruce when the certification clinics are scheduled but cannot attend them on his behalf.

Doris, known to all as Gammy, saw the most changes this year. After recovering from a broken hip, Gammy has moved into the assisted living facility at the Hyatt in Palo Alto. “I have nothing special to say other than that I’m a very proud grandmother,” says Doris, who has apparently yet to read the Letter.

Best wishes from all of us for a 2007 marked by good health, peace of mind, and, as always, the triumph of the opposition.

Sincerely,

The Wieners

Person of the year: My dad

Time magazine's annual Person of the Year edition arrived yesterday. For those that haven't seen it (spoiler alert), the cover consists of a reflective strip, with a caption underneath that says "You. Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world."

Kudos to Time for figuring out that its readers are so self-absorbed that we would cancel our subscriptions if it didn't name us all persons of the year. (If Dustin Picasso is reading, you can not put this on your resume).

But, unfortunately, the mirrored material on the front is rather cheap. So when my dad got the magazine, he stared at it for over a minute. "Who is that?" he asked.

Thanks to Pat Neal for pointing out the likelihood that Time's "decision" committee got the idea while getting high and watching the Big Lebowski.

Andronico's bans bellringers

Andronico's has jumped ahead in the race to be the snottiest establishment in Los Altos, with an unprecedented move to ban Salvation Army bellringers this Christmas. As we wait for Bill O'Reilly to seize upon this as further evidence of "San Francisco Values" and the "War on Christmas," let's take a quick look at the scoreboard in the grocery store division:

1) Andronico's
2) Draeger's
3) Whole Foods

The Duke of Westwood

John Kerry. Al Gore. George Bush I. Jimmy Carter. You probably have have heard from these presidential runners-up recently. Some of you may even have a vague notion of what Walter Mondale and Bob Dole have been doing with their free time. Michael Dukakis is a different story.

On the night Dukakis lost the 1988 election, I echoed the chants of the audience at his concession speech by defiantly scrawling a block-letter " '92 " in pencil on the wall in my bedroom (where it still visible). But it was not to be. Dukakis did not run again, and few, outside of Massachusetts or the community of Amtrak aficionados, would ever hear from him again.

Until now. Dukakis is capping off his post-candidacy political "career" by sparring with spoiled UCLA undergrads over so-called apron parking in North Westwood Village (a college town apparently designed by 16-year olds). Apron parking, which is illegal in California, basically works like this: landlords sell tenants the right to park their cars in front of their apartments with their noses in the driveway and their butts in the street. This creates a ridiculous situation in which landlords are renting out land they don't own for illegal uses and in the process encouraging driving and creating hazards for disabled residents and pedestrians. But the police have not enforced the law out of fear of inconveniencing those students who can't be bothered to walk, bike or ride the bus the mile or so to campus.

Some students, like those on the editorial board of the Daily Bruin, say things should stay this way, because, well, no good reason, but we really want to be able to keep our cars wherever we want. Maybe it is unfair to students who are in the middle of their lease terms and are unlikely to get a rent abatement from their landlords. But that's a problem between the students and the landlords, not a reason to ignore the law and dedicate every possible square inch of Los Angeles to parking spaces. It shouldn't take a former presidential candidate to explain that.

Remembering a hero

1st Lieutenant Nate Krissoff, U.S.M.C.
1981-2006

It is easy to look at Nate Krissoff's life and call him a hero because of what he accomplished. He was a tremendous athlete -- captain of the water polo and swim teams at Williams, a phenomenal skier and world class kayaker. He was studious and ambitious, becoming commissioned as a marine officer and serving as a counterintelligence officer for his battalion in Okinawa.

But Nate's heroism was more subtle than that. It was in many ways his defining personality trait. It derived from the unfailingly loyalty he showed to friends and family, the courage he demonstrated in the face of adversity, the seriousness with which he approached life and the joy he took in everything he did. Few of us will ever even hope to match his deeds. But all of us can aspire to those characteristics that made him what he was.

To a friend and hero. Rest in peace.

Read more about Nate:
Reno-Gazette Journal, 12/12: Reno Marine killed in Iraq
Monterey County Herald, 12/12: Stevenson grad killed in Iraq
Sierra Sun, 12/13: Son of area physician dies in Iraq roadside bombing
North Adams Transcript, 12/13: Williams grad killed in Iraq


UPDATE 5/26/07: The North Tahoe Bonanza reported last week that Nate has been awarded the Navy and Marine Commendation Medal with the Combat Distinguishing Device for Valor.

The Mercury News is a slu-ut

Hola Amigos.

Please accept my apologies for my failure to comment in recent weeks on all the big local news: An anonymous water polo teammate's devious scam finally led to the collapse of Tower Records. My fellow UCLA students organized a protest against the police department's multiple uses of a Taser on an unarmed and non-violent student only to implore rally-goers to "talk to your parents [and] have them call the chancellor." (Viva la revolucion). San Jose Mercury News reporters were told to wait by their phones to find out if they would keep their jobs. And the corner bar across the street from my apartment changed ownership but still refused to add a single window.

Yes, much has gone unremarked. Luckily for you all, today's Mercury News has something that is just too good for even a diligent student like yours truly to pass up without commentary.

According to the story, Stephanie Herrerra -- a "Christian mother with values" -- was terribly mortified to discover the toy Little Mermaid doll she bought her daughter as a present was saying impolite things about her daughter's sexual habits. Herrerra was appalled, but the worst part is that now her daugher got stuck with some lame nativity scene instead.

The funny part about this story is that it took an astute reader to point out the very strong possibility that Herrerra is using the Merc in order to drive up the price for the dolls she had already been planning to sell on E-bay. I suppose it's possible the writer may have been trying to hint at that in the story as a way of getting back at whoever assigned it to her. Or maybe debasing the paper is some new hardball strategy in the labor negotiations with MediaNews. Still, somebody should have caught this before the story ran.

Not so long ago, the Mercury was shining light on the toxicity of consumer electronic waste and linking the CIA to the spread of crack in the inner-city. Now it is giving ink to small-time con artists like Herrerra and Anna Ayala, the woman who falsely claimed to find a finger in her bowl of Wendy's chili. Ayala got on the front page at least 11 times last year. So we probably haven't heard the last of Herrerra.

UCLA study: Film and TV industry among worst polluting industries

Fucking actors.

UCLA student Tasered in library for failure to show ID

Remember when Taser International said that their products would save law enforcement officers from having to use guns? UCPD were caught on video camera Monday night using the weapon four times on a student who refused to show ID in the main library.



The video and other witness accounts in today's Daily Bruin contradict the police version of events that the student was physically struggling and encouraging others to join in his "resistance." One officer threatened to use the Taser on another student who asked for his badge number.

Meanwhile, Assistant Chief of Police Jeff Young defends the officers by saying that Tasers are safer than batons. This is, of course, not true. More importantly, it is pointless. Police are not supposed to use batons to beat people for non-compliance with verbal commands or to threaten those who ask for their badge numbers.

Young also says that police didn't know the suspect was not armed. Unfortunately, police never actually know a negative fact like that, even if the suspect is naked, so accepting Young's argument would give police a right to do pretty much whatever they wanted.

I hope that UCPD takes a close look at its training and use policies and disciplines the officers. A surprising number of my classmates seem willing to defend the officers today, but I guess we didn't get here by questioning authority.

The worst idea since "Guns for Africa"

UCLA's student newspaper, the Daily Bruin, ran a column this morning advocating oral sex as a good way to protect yourself against HIV transmission. This is, for lack of a better word, retarded. Let's get a petition going to kick the writer out of school and refund to taxpayers any public money that has contributed towards his education.

"UCLA to blacks: You're welcome"

Am I the only person who found this to be an unfortunate headline for Rebecca Trounson's otherwise perfectly fine article in the LA Times about the debate over affirmative action in the UC system? Did the editors just not consider that the phrase has more than one meaning?

Calling all mutants, cheerleaders

Let's imagine for a moment that you sold your old car. You take the paperwork to the DMV to transfer the title. They take care of everything, but somehow forget to record it. Later, the buyer gets the car towed and impounded. Your name is on the title, so the collections agency comes after you. What do you do?

1) Pay the bill
2) Ignore the bill and hope nothing happens
3) Consult a lawyer.

If you answered 1, 2 or 3, you are not Erik Koland. Erik, who once talked his way onto the high school newspaper staff by describing his plans to hold an ultimate frisbee game pitting the school's mutants against its cheerleaders, has taken his one-man fight against Rickenbacker Collection Service onto the Myspaces. And he wants you to be his friend, provided, that is, you also hate Rickenbacker.

He describes his mission thusly:

"Rickenbacker has two key advantages: 1) You don't know towing, lien sale or collection laws [and] 2) You don't know anyone else who's experiencing the same problem. I am here to do my best to take away those advantages--and give us (the collections victims) the upper hand."

Honestly, how can you not be friends with a guy like that?

What other bloggers did while I was drinking

Whatever your opinion of MoveOn.org (or the gerry-mandered winner-take-all system of American politics), being the group's top election-day caller in the entire nation is deserving of some kind of a prize.

The winner is Mountain View's own Wendy Fleet, former community access director director of KMVT better known around town as the lady with the Dream Peace sign (formerly Teach Peace) and in virtual reality as PogBlog. From 6:13 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. on Election Day, she made 500 phone calls, reaching 300 voters and 200 answering machines, more phone calls than any other MoveOn volunteer. (I made five, but then again I was otherwise occupied). Wendy estimates she made more than 2,280 calls in the 10 days before the election, reaching 600 people all over the country. (I'm trying to think what I did over that time period -- I think I went swimming a few times?) Her favorite exchanges are catalogued over on PogBlog.

The first decree is to legalize marijuana

Tenacious D had it right -- the tyranny and the bullshit's gone on too long.

Congressional Democrats have rolled out half a dozen initiatives remarkable mainly for their harmlessness. Raising the minimum wage, negotiating for Medicare drugs, making college tuition deductible (an idea that apparently came to them from an episode of the West Wing) are all politically palatable proposals, but they won't do much to address many of the country's most pressing problems. Meanwhile, calls are sure to grow to make truly difficult but necessary decisions -- things like signing the Kyoto Protocol, ending farm subsidies, instituting single-payer health care, and of course finding a solution to the situation we have created in Iraq.

Somewhere in between these two approaches is what I will call the Wiener platform. It focuses on ending policies that have failed so badly hardly anyone can honestly support them. This is not an argument against doing those other things, but I think these ought to be among the first priorities of the new Congress.

1) Decriminalize marijuana.
"It is recognized widely," writes Noam Chomsky, "that [the war on drugs] fails to achieve its stated ends, and the failed methods are then pursued more vigorously while effective ways to reach the stated goals are rejected. It is therefore natural to conclude that the drug war, cast in the harshly punitive form implemented since 1980, is achieving its goals, not failing."

2) End the embargo against Cuba.
Forty-five years in, and Cuba's still socialist. There's always next year. Even the Red Sox eventually won the World Series.

3) Classify SUVs as cars.
On average, the cars on American roads today get worse gas mileage than they did 20 years ago. The reason: in the twenty years since the end of mandatory increases in Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, SUVs -- which are classified as light trucks under the law and therefore subject to lower standards -- have become far more popular.

There they are: three* proposals so clearly right you'd have to be with the terrorists to oppose them. Chip in here with your own ideas.

*Several of you are probably wondering why abolition of the penny did not make this list. I am retracting my previous support of that policy until I have more time to probe the $37,700 in campaign contributions from a copper company to Jim Kolbe, the retiring Arizona Congressman who sponsored the Currency Overhaul for an Industrious Nation Act. Arizona is the U.S. largest producer of copper, the main ingredient in nickels.

Morning in America

I woke up today at 6:45 to the following message on my phone from a teacher friend who "just had to say some things." Five points to any 1992 Bullis grad who can identify the caller based on the message alone:

Today is the greatest day on earth to be listening to conservative talk radio! [Unintelligible yelling]. I'm on my way to work! I'm listening to these [expletive deleted] complain and [expletive deleted] and moan and, and yell and (garbled) "WHAT WERE THESE PEOPLE THINKING?!" God I'm so happy! [expletive deleted] the conservatives, their kicking squirming moaning [expletive deleted] and they deserve to burn in hell!

[Deep breath] All right. Bye.

For the opposite end of the spectrum, Peter Daou over at Salon has compiled some of the most hysteric posts from the conservative blogs. This doesn't quite fit the definition, but Hugh Hewitt, who also says Santorum's loss is good for conservatives because it frees him up for the Supreme Court, might take the cake for most far-fetched rationalization:

[I]f you had told me in 1986 that 20 years later there would be a Republican president facing a 20 seat Democratic majority in the House and a two seat Democratic majority in the Senate --and that the Soviet Union had collapsed-- I'd have cheered long and loud.

A love letter to the people of Stockton

24 hours ago, I was perfectly sober. Ken Blackwell, Katherine Harris and Tan Nguyen all still held elected office. Donald Rumsfeld was still employed "overseeing" the war effort. Congress was completely devoid of former NFL quarterbacks. Perhaps worst of all, Richard Pombo was chairman of the House Resources Committee.

In all of the Pacific Time Zone, only a single Congressional seat changed hands last night. But the change in Pombo's 11th Congressional District was no ordinary takeover. It turned a seat that served as the launching pad for Pombo's efforts to gut the Endangered Species Act to a seat represented by a wind energy consultant.

People of the Central Valley, I take back everything bad I ever said about you. I wish I could give all of you (or at least 88,000 of you) a hug.

Erik Koalnd's reputation

Thank God Wolf Blitzer has failed to call several of today's House races. On the other hand, hahahahaha. As for the Senate, tradesports.com now has the odds the Dems will take over at close to 90%, Jim Webb (Virginia) and Claire McCaskill (Missouri) have already declared victory, and Erik Koland has staked his reputation on a Democratic sweep...

Drinking with Wolf

Here we are at the close of the first polls. So far, CNN has called races for Richard Lugar and Bernie Sanders, which they could have done this morning had they wanted.

This is the first election I have not had to work in years, so I am sitting here with my computer, Frank Rich's book and -- at least right now -- an 18-pack of Bud Light. Each time the Democrats take a Republican House seat, I'll be drinking one. (Hard alcohol for Senate seats). The liquor store is around the corner in the event I need more.

As an anonymous reporter friend said yesterday, cheers to alcohol poisoning.

You don't come here for the hunting, do you?

A common complaint about newspapers is that they will print all sorts of scandalous allegations on Page 1 and hide the correction somewhere that it will never be read.

You've got to give the Mountain View Voice credit. In the finest tradition of the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader Dealer, which a couple of years ago issued a front page "clarification" apologizing for its failure to cover the civil rights movement, the Voice puts its corrections right where the errors are made -- the editor's column on Page 5. Prominently featuring the correction also has the added benefit of filling column inches on those rare weeks when there are no puns to be made about squirrels or restaurant Web sites.

(By the way, the title of this post refers to an obscure joke involving a grizzly bear repeatedly violating a hunter who is trying to kill him. The rather vague implication being that a columnist who repeatedly fills his columns with corrections of errors in previous columns may actually be making those errors on purpose. Sorry nobody got it).

A post for our Virginia readers

In the last installment of Congressional previews, I turn this space over to Mountain View's own Karen Meredith, appearing in an anti-George Allen ad funded by the Campaign for America's Future.

Everybody hates Katherine Harris

This might be piling on at this point, but I couldn't take all those notes on the Bill Nelson-Katherine Harris (U.S. Sen-Fla.) debate and not publish them, could I? (This, on the other hand, is definitely piling on).

Here are some choice bits from the woman who handed the 2000 election to George W. Bush. Direct quotes provided where possible.

On Vietnam: "The way we lost Vietnam is because Congress got involved."
On Cuba: "Our embargo [against Cuba] has worked."
On North Korea: The development of a nuclear program proves that Bill Clinton is to blame for the development of the nuclear program.
On global warming: "Global warming is a fact, but the scientists disagree on whether it is systemic or manmade. ... (walking towards the camera) ... We need to develop these alternative energy sources and we have made great progress in doing so."
The very first "alternative" energy source she cited? Drilling in ANWR, which she said can replace all the oil from Saudi Arabia. At this point, Bill Nelson stopped acknowledging her and began referring to himself in the third person in order to have a reasonable opponent to debate.

Harris continues to maintain that she is confident she will win despite a 30+ percentage point deficit in most polls. Too bad she's not Secretary of State anymore. Otherwise, she might still have a chance.

If you thought 2004 was bad...

Not to be outdone, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is considering whether to disqualify Ted Strickland, who is currently crushing Blackwell in the gubernatorial race. As the New York Times points out, this is pretty much Blackwell's only chance of winning.

Many of you may remember Blackwell as the man behind the disproportionately long voting lines in black communities in 2004. Coincidentally, he was also co-chair of the Bush campaign in the state. (Click here for the full report).

And just in case Blackwell decides to let him stay in the race, he is pinning his hopes on accusations that Strickland is gay and supported by NAMBLA. In the process, Blackwell has embarrassed himself so much that one paper even took back its endorsement.

Where all the white women at?

In the surprisingly close race to replace Dr. Bill Frist as Tennessee's Senator, Harold Ford, Jr. is bidding to become the first black Senator from a Confederate State since Reconstruction.

In response, the Republican National Committee, of course, is basically accusing him of intent to consent to miscegenation. The advertisement features a white woman saying she met Ford at a Playboy Party and winking at the camera as she says "call me." Earlier in the ad, a black woman says that Ford "looks good" and that's enough for her.

RNC chair Ken Mehlman, fresh off a campaign to woo black voters back to the Republican Party, continues to defend the ad and claim that he could not have taken it down even if he wanted to. The ad has been replaced with another that accuses Ford of "not being one of us."

Guess Tan Nguyen's alias

Let's begin with Orange County's 47th Congressional District, where incumbent Loretta Sanchez is absolutely pummeling Republican challenger and raging lunatic Tan Nguyen.

Nguyen continues to defend a letter sent to 14,000 residents with Spanish surnames born outside the U.S. telling them that they could go to jail or get deported for voting. Nguyen fired the staffer accused of sending the letter (which was printed on a non-profit advocacy group's letterhead. Now he says he would welcome her back. Why the change of heart? Because Nguyen's sources tell him that the word "emigrado" does not actually mean "immigrant." The identity of these sources and the schools from which they earned their PhD's in Spanish Vocabulary continues to remain a secret.

"I am innocent, and there is no way in hell that I am going to withdraw," Nguyen [lied]. "I am not going to quit this race, and I am going to win this race."

The L.A. Times is now reporting that Nguyen actually purchased the voter list himself, using an alias. They didn't say what alias he chose, but if you're an Orange County voter, be wary of future political mailers sent from anybody calling themselves "The real Sergio Ramirez," "Rusty Shackleford," "Edward K. Janowsky," or "T. Simon Warrington III."

Yesterday, state investigators searched the home of an LAPD officer who apparently played a role in the mailer. The best part of the story is Nguyen's comment at the end.

Reached by telephone Wednesday, Tan Nguyen declined to comment on Mark Nguyen, saying he had already discussed details of the case "far and beyond" his lawyers' recommendation.

Google enters negotiations to buy Congress

For those of you who didn't suffer through Atlas Shrugged, here's the plot:
A brilliant businessman named Hank Rearden is convinced he needs to hire lobbyist Wesley Mouch to curry favor in Washington. This advice winds up backfiring, as this supposedly fictional Washington runs on illusory notions of trust and equality instead of virtuous capitalist efficiency. Ayn Rand spends 900 pages knocking down straw men. Subsequently, a cult grows up around her, which is ironic, given her support of individuality.

Apparently, Hank Rearden's advisors have prevailed upons at Google. Its progressive leanings notwithstanding, the company has been hugely successful on the strength of its ideas and its execution of them. Instead of continuing with that wayhas decided to start funneling money to Republicans in a bald attempt to gain more influence. And if you ask the cheerleading team known as the San Jose Mercury News, the only problem with this is that they are not giving more.

This is as good an excuse as any to check in on the status of some of my favorite races to follow across the nation, starting with a place near, if not dear, to my heart.

MV council candidates profiles

[Note to readers: Given the outcry that has accompanied the Voice's "decision" not to run council profiles this year, I have decided to pick up the slack. -- NOE]

In 2002, Matt Neely, Mike Kasperzak and Greg Perry emerged from a field of 11 candidates for Mountain View City Council, all promising to build more housing throughout the city. Perry's suprising decision to drop out of this year's council race robs the council of a man so meticulously honest he once reports $6.25 worth of buttons on a campaign contributions form. It also means that the phrase "at least one council member" will appear less frequently in the newspapers. Most of all, it means that the council will have lost its three biggest proponents of new housing projects, and the crop that replaces them is likely to roll back some of their efforts.

With the city awash in new residential developments as a result of recent votes, a growing residentialist backlash will have plenty of candidates to support this year. The Voice has endorsed three candidates it believes are likely to put the brakes on the housing developments. This is ironic, to say the least, for two reasons. The Voice consistently backed the housing policies supported by Perry, Neely and Kasperzak. Furthermore, the city council and city staff are both on record as saying they do not want the current pace of development to continue for more than a few years.

Anyway, here are he candidates, in alphabetical order, complete with links to their Web sites and smarmy comments:

• Margaret Abe-Koga: Attacks by Perry and disappointing interviews spelled doom for her 2004 bid, but she's back for more after serving on the environmental planning commission for the last two years. Once again leading in endorsements and money raised.
  
• Ronit Bryant: A sextalingual green thumb from Old Mountain View. Matt Neely once introduced her at a party as a planning commissioner before she reminded him that the council had rejected her application.
• Alicia Crank: Human relations commissioner, renter, blogger, weight loss success story and Nemesis of Evil reader, and not the kind that found by doing a vanity search. (Speaking of which: welcome candidates.)
  
• Tian Harter: Best understood by his decision to avoid paying federal income taxes by refusing to collect any income.
  
• John Inks: Soft-spoken, upstanding libertarian parks and recreation commissioner. The kind of person whose best qualities are the same ones that will keep him from going far in politics. Has collected endorsements from those who fought against the city's decision to build a privately-operated child care center in Rengstorff Park.
  
• Kalwant Sandhu: Blunt-spoken HRC member. Enthusiastic about sports, but rumored to pay too close attention to his jv soccer team's record and not enough to player development. Has suffered the indignity of the Voice mispelling his name in different ways on different occasions.
  
• Jac Siegel: The conservative EPC member has the backing of several council members. A supporter, according to his Web site, of "win-win solutions," he is also one of Mountain View's 10 most eligible bachelors.
  
• John Webster: Former standard bearer for the Libertarian Party, supports this guy, but also this guy. Barely lost 2004 primary after fellow party members decided certain things, like his unflinchingly honest biography, were best left off the platform.
  

This would be more believable if it took place in Los Altos

I don't generally care about Menlo Park news, other than when it applies to Los Altos High School boys water polo. Nor, so far as I know, do most of you. But this story about a fight over privatization of the public pool was just too amusing. Good thing the pool Los Altos is building will be too small and useless to engender this kind of anger.

No on everything?

As I write this, I am surrounded by thousands of undergraduates, mostly female, who are hoping to get a glimpse of the fallen former sex symbol Bill Clinton before he is institutionalized for his uncontrollable bouts of violent rage. The crazed ex-president is ostensibly here to discuss the virtues of Proposition 87, a perfectly fine law that has the unfortunate quality of being a state ballot proposition.

Prop 87 would create a severance tax on oil drilling and spent the approximately $4 billion raised to fund an alternative energy program. This is almost unquestionably a good idea, and by far the best law I have ever seen proposed on the state ballot.

If you have any doubt that the severance tax is a good idea, simply look at the tens of millions of dollars oil companies are spending to defeat it. If what they were saying was true -- that the law will simply force them to pass costs onto consumers -- they would never waste that much money fighting it. The law actually makes it illegal for them to pass those costs on. They are opposing it because it threatens to cut into their profit margins).

The problem is that every time a proposition becomes law through a vote of the unwashed masses, somewhere a rich asshole gets the idea in his head that he can spend millions of dollars getting people to support his terrible idea to reform the state constitution.

These rich assholes occasionally they have good ideas (like this one). More often than not, however, those ideas wind up screwing the state's tax, education, or penal systems. Progressives have scored small victories over the years through this process: the (sort-of) legalization of medicinal marijuana, funding for stem cell research and the recent "millionaire's tax" to support mental health facilities being popular examples. Here's a partial list, off the top of my head, of what they have given up in return:

1978, Prop 13 "People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation"

1994: Prop 187 "The Save Our State Initiative"

1994: Prop 184 "Three Strikes You're Out"

1996: Prop 209 "The California Civil Rights Initiative"

1998: Prop 227 "English for the Children"

2000: Prop 22 "The Defense of Marriage Act,"

Ultimately, I don't know that I will be able to face myself in the mirror if I am the one vote that keeps the tax on oil drilling from passing. Weighing the possibility that voting no will discourage the next Howard Jarvis, Pete Wilson or Ron Unz from spending millions on their own particular horrible idea against the possibility that a yes vote will make this law a reality, I have to say the latter is probably greater. Sure, this amounts to compromising any belief in categorical moral imperatives to accept a loathsome kind of Clinton/Gore type of political pragmatism. Call me a sell-out, I suppose.

They must have been running out of Hangar One-related puns

A week after calling for kids to exercise less, the Voice's editorial pages tackle the biggest story in the history of Mountain View.

Squirrels.

A reader sent me the link to last week's editorial with the subject line "Worst one yet?" The issue referenced squirrels in four different articles. With apologies to the good folks (and fellow malicious nerds) at Fire Joe Morgan, let's walk through the reasoning here:

"As far as we can tell, no biologists or other wildlife experts have been directly consulted."

This seems complicated. Does anybody else mind looking into this?

"Different animals follow different patterns of behavior and reproduction, and the city should educate itself in developing a humane and long-term way of alleviating the problem."

Seriously, somebody should DO something.

"Another possible option for the city is to close the portion of the park that is causing the problem."

Last time we checked, squirrels can not walk.

By doing so, perhap the squirrels could be weaned of human food, and park users would have more time to be educated about the dangers of feeding squirrels."

Q.E.D.

A's clinch ALDS, poor people's lives don't measurably improve

The celebration of the A's landmark, hex-breaking ALDS win was somewhat muted last Friday at the detention center at Lancaster. I had signed up to go volunteer there (despite having no training) well before the playoffs schedule was set. When the day came, what I really wanted to do was stay home and watch the game, but I figured that might make the A's lose. I certainly didn't want that on my conscience, let alone flaking on the the people at the detention center.

Reiterating again that I have no training and can't speak about immigration law with any sort of authority, I did want to share the story of one man I met there.

Jose was 4 years old in 1986 when his family fled the civil war in El Salvador. [As a brief refresher, Central American civil wars, particulary during that time period, typically feature corrupt and brutal governments armed and supported by the United States.] The family did not apply for asylum, but managed to obtain work permits and, for the most part, green cards. Jose let his work permit expire, which means he is no longer able to apply for green card, at least not from within the country. Effectively, it meant that despite living here nearly his entire life, raising a 6-year-old son, and having no criminal record, Jose was in the country illegally.

Earlier this year, Jose bought a stereo system for his car off the street. He was pulled over for running a stop sign [which is apparently still against the law in some parts of Los Angeles]. The police officer saw the stereo under the driver's seat, and immediately booked Jose on grand theft auto. With no evidence to support the charge, the prosecutor lowered it to possession of stolen property. Jose was convicted. Now he's in a Lancaster jail, awaiting deportation to a economically depressed country that is in no way his home. Jose said he had no gang affiliation, but is afraid of the gang violence that the U.S. exported to El Salvador in the last two decades.

So what did the lawyer tell him his options were? One was to try to win some international awards for his sketches and get legal status under a provision generally reserved for Olympic athletes. The other was to ask for voluntary removal, which, if he were to get it, might make it easier for him to get a visa to come visit in the future.

Go A's.

Strange rumblings in Los Altos Hills

At the end of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, the defeat of the dark lord Sauron also spells an end to the grand aspirations of his deputy the corrupt wizard Saruman. Undeterred by his lack of a patron, a weakened Saruman travels to the Shire, where he reasserts his will until the rural hobbit folk finally awake to their own power of self-determination and, in a battle unusually intense for that part of the world, overthrow the fallen wizard and his lieutenant.

That's not exactly how it went down with George W. Bush and Toni Casey, but the similarities are hard to ignore. NOE's Los Altos Hills correspondent Drew Grewal, reports that the disgraced former LAH Mayor is back at the helm of the Los Altos Hills Civic Association.

In the group's August junk mailing, Casey once again rails against the dual threats to our freedom of energy efficiency and deer.

"Casey and her cronies like Steve Finn paved the way for monster home development in this town in the late 90s, before Casey went to work for the Bush administration," writes Grewal.

He adds, "I suggest these topics instead of incriminating your friends on a public site -- friends who are upstanding citizens, teachers, and entrepreneurs. Your previous posts could amout to libel."

First, make sure not to get fatally ill.

Death and pestilence correspondent Erik Koland wrote in with this tidbit over the weekend:

The Mercury News came with a special insert today, "Your Guide to
Pandemic Flu." It was a poster-sized fold out that helps you guide your
way through the upcoming pandemic flu in which deaths could be in the
millions.

It was sponsored by the Department of Health, Santa Clara County.

So, hang on to that, I guess. Thankfully, the Merc got back to being its new self as the week progressed. For more of the news that makes Silicon Valley tick, go the Merc's Web site, where some of today's top stories include a controversy around A.C. Slater's dancing techniques and coverage on the overly aggressive squirrels in Cuesta Park. (We actually got a letter about this at the Voice many months ago expressing fear that the city would not do anything until a squirrel attacked a kid).

Things us nerds find funny

Apologies for the lack of posts. I meant to finish my guides to local elections this weekend but have been engrossed in my law school reading. Here's a brief sampling:

from Favrot v. Barnes, a 1970s divorce case before the Louisiana Supreme Court:

"...at the husband's insistence, they agreed to limit sexual intercourse to about once a week. The husband asserts, as divorce-causing fault, that the wife did not keep this agreement but shought coitus thrice daily."

This case inspired my contracts professor, an Oxford graduate from Kansas who pretty much fits the stereotype of what a law school professor should look and act like, to go into a long and involved hypothetical featuring (I'm not lying about this) penal-vaginal intercourse, missionary position, oral sex, dildos, butt plugs and threesomes.

Meanwhile, the Civil Procedure has these nuggets, from actual cases, borrowed (and reprinted here without permission) from Richard Lederer's Anguished English:

Q: Doctor, did you say he was shot in the woods?
A: No, I said he was shot in the lumbar region.

Q: Mr. Smith, do you believe that you are emotionally unstable?
A: I should be.
Q: How many times have you committed suicide?
A: Four times.

Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?
Mr. Brooks: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.

And lastly, this, from Professor Richard Friedman:

The Court: Next Witness.
Ms. Olschner: Your Honor, at this time I would like to swat Mr. Buck in the head with his client's deposition.
The Court: You mean read it?
Ms. Olschner: No, sir. I mean to swat him [in] the head with it. Pursuant to Rule 32, I may use the deposition "for any purpose" and that is the purpose for which I want to use it.
The Court: Well, it does say that.
(Pause.)
The Court: There being no objection, you may proceed.
Ms. Olschner: You may proceed.
(Whereupon Ms. Olschner swatted Mr. Buck in the head with a deposition).
Mr. Buck: But Judge...
The Court: Next witness.
Mr. Buck: We object.
The Court: Sustained. Next witness.

Moments of silence, months of scare tactics

I glanced at Fox "News" early this morning, just out of morbid curiosity. Next to the ever-waving flag in the corner was the banner headline

"THE COST OF WAR:
STOCKS READY TO MAKE AN ALL-TIME HIGH!"

Just after this came an update on Paris Hilton. Not quite what you might expect from the Defenders of Freedom (TM) on the fifth-year anniversary of Sept. 11. The Mercury News did little better (at least on its Web site), burying its coverage of the anniversary under a mountain of information about the kick-off of the NFL season.

Meanwhile, at the law school this morning, very few people seemed to remember that the bells were tolling for 60 seconds so that we could spend one minute silelntly reflecting on the significance of the attacks, the lives lost and the wars spawned. Apparently, that was too long to ask people not to talk about themselves. Special shame goes to the rep from Sidley Austin LLP who kept right on going with her pitch to some hopeful job supplicant during the entire minute.

Luckily, for those of us who have forgotten the significance of the day, Karl Rove is going to remind us, as only he can.

House: Earth is round

Run, don't walk, to your local newsstand. The L.A. Times has a Pulitzer-worthy scoop: According to the U.S. Senate, Saddam Hussein was not allied with Al-Qaeda.

Advice from family and friends

At a going away party my family through for me a few weeks ago (thanks to everyone who came), my mom circulated some paper so people could write down some advice for me. She led it off with "Meet a nice girl with long arms and bring her home to meet the family by Thanksgiving '06 not '07.''

Here are my other favorites:
Molly Tanenbaum:

"To do in LA: 1) Find a decent bagel. 2) Meet Larry David.
To not do in LA: 1) Party with undergrads. 2) Continue blogging about MV + Los Altos news."
(Sorry, Molly, but building a shower to take to Burning Man cost you some credibility here.)

Arcia Dorosti:

"I can't think of anything important to say. So, I will call you when it comes to me."
(He called a few days later with updates on the A's).

Bubba:

"Deep thought: You will go as far as your heart and mind take you.
Lighter note: I'll hook you up with some girls if you buy me beer."
See you in a few weeks, Bubba.

Patrick's return

The last thing Patrick Neal needed was $8,000 from the Army. The son perhaps the greatest nine-fingered litigator in the world, money had never been a motivation for him to join the Army. Instead, he wanted to lead men, help repair America's damaged standing in the world and perhaps launch a political career.

But no sooner had he arrived at Officer Candidate School this January did he begin to doubt the nobility of the institution he had joined. The very first day, officers briefly mentioned problems that had arisen with the signing bonuses that recruiters had promised them. As Patrick would learn later, the Army was trying to figure out a way around a provision of U.S. code that prohibits offering signing bonuses to officers.

No one mentioned the bonuses again until the day before the class of 115 was due to graduate and receive their commissions. Junior officers circulated a memo advising the candidates that the bonuses would not be paid, and told everyone they had to sign it. Pat, of course, did not sign it, reasoning that if he had a contract that called for him to receive an $8,000 signing bonus that he was never going to get, that contract was invalid.

Over the course of the next three months, Patrick's case sparked a clash between his superior officers that would eventually force a change in the Army's policy. After some initial harrassment, Patrick received a commission as a second lieutenant and an honorable discharge. He returned home Wednesday to yellow ribbons and American flags. (A "Mission Accomplished" was not arranged in time).

For his friends and family, Patrick's safe return after what he called his free trial in the Army is by far the most important issue. But the larger questions are still very troubling. Why were recruiters making promises they could not deliver? How many officials knew about this and why did they approve it? How many other people have been lied to?

At an impromptu welcoming party for Patrick, at which his mother smiled for the first time in a year, we discussed the case of Steven Green, the soldier accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and then murdering her and her entire family. Green, despite at least two misdemeanor crimes on his record, received a "moral waiver" that allowed him to enlist. He was honorably discharged before the allegations against him came to light. His case has very little in common with Patrick's, but they both show the desperation tactics to which military recruiters have resorted in order to fulfill their quotas.

The writing on the wall

Joseph Krueger, I have some good news for you.

Sure, a judge increased your bail $1 million after you and your friend allegedly attacked a black man in Pioneer Park while yelling white supremacist statements. And maybe everybody is planning public gatherings and vigils to denounce you. And then there's that pesky (albeit unverified) rumor about a man showing up to your court with sleeves rolled up to show his white power tattoo.

But here's the good news: Your mother believes you.

The editor chose to bury my favorite quote from her interview with the Ceres Courier -- "Actually all their friends are mainly hispanic and lots of blacks." It reminds me of a guy I lived with in college. We affectionately called him "Angry White Ben." Born in New Hampshire, the Ceres of New England, he used to angrily defend himself against charges of racism by arguing that he knew several Jewish kids growing up.

At one point, he told me that the reason the Native American tribes were wiped out was because of their failure to "see the writing on the wall."

"They were up against a superior force," he said.

This, of course, presented me with a rare opportunity to win an argument by beating someone up. In short, he didn't see the writing on the wall.

Lucky for him our sh*t doesn't stink

Three-and-a-half years ago, the city of Los Altos dumped 36,000 gallons of raw sewage into Tom Burns' house. Tree roots clogging the sewer line sent enough waste to fill two swimming pools pouring out of the sinks, drains and toilets throughout the house, forcing Burns to move out for 9 months and, not surprisingly, leading to a bitter public and courtroom fight. The case has put the city's aging sewer system in the spotlight, including an alleged coverup of overflows into Adobe Creek and nearly a dozen other instances in which the city has paid damages to homeowners.

Somehow, Burns lost the case, and the two sides are in court again this afternoon to hear his appeal in the case. Burns wants the city to pay more than a million in damages, but the city is sticking to its argument that Burns was at fault for not installing a backflow device, an argument that the judge apparently bought the first time around.

A friend says Burns, a rheumatologist, is also working on a book in the case. If nothing else, it should have a good title.

Wait until our 10-year reunion

As president of the Los Altos High class of 1998, [name redacted] left Los Altos (among other things) a $500 tug-of-war rope as well as the best quote I have ever managed to print in any article ("Jon, why do you have to ruin everything good?").

[Name redacted] is also the person responsible for calling off our five-year reunion, reasoning that nobody was doing anything interesting enough at that point to justify a reunion anyway. Better to wait until we've been out 10 years when people have better stories to tell. Personally, I think I'd have been prouder to tell people that I was the water polo coach and a reporter for a local paper than that I'm in law school, but hopefully the rest of you 98ers will take advantage of the opportunity to do something interesting in the next year and a half or so.

For her part, [name redacted] will be done with law school. She's entering her third year at George Washington and worked as an intern for Dianne Feinstein this summer. When I visited her recently, she introduced me to the culture of Hill interns and political consultants.

"I've been working on campaigns since 1992," said one 24-year-old, who proceeded to introduce the CFO of her 2010 campaign for Washington State's 4th Congressional District.

[Name redacted] also volunteers with Human Rights Watch's Guantanamo project and periodically saves the lives of crime victims. She is open to suggestions about where and when to hold the reunion (I said Safeway Parking Lot, but that didn't go over well).

"Here's a quote for you, Jon," says [name redacted]. "Jon Wiener is as reliable as your drugstore tabloids. I think you should learn how to draw a boundary between work and play."

MV loves the hook-ups

An e-mail from Ellen Fletcher, former Mayor of Palo Alto, to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition listserver:

"We urgently need more volunteers for the three-day Grand Opening of the new REI store in Mountain View today, Saturday and Sunday.

I had recruited three volunteers for each shift, thinking that would be more than enough. However, between 8 am and 10 am this morning seven of us were working and there was a line of bicyclists waiting to have their bikes parked.

When we got there at 8 there were already people in line, many, if not all, had slept there overnight. By 10 the line had gone around all the buildings next to REI all the way to the back parking lot - maybe 1,000 people!"

Incredible.

The best-educated burrito truck in England

One is a Los Altos High School valedictorian, Ivy League graduate with a master's from Cambridge. The other has an L.L.M. from the University of Texas. Together, they are mannamexico.

British people have an odd habit of greeting each other by asking, "You alright?" (At least that is what it sounds like they are saying). This is perhaps because of the fact that British people are frequently not alright, according to Friends of the Earth's rather ridiculous Happy Planet Index. People I have met here offer a few possible explanations from this. The cost of living is incredibly high, leading to a widening disparity between rich and poor. The weather is dreary. But, most of all, the food is terrible. So much so that the national newspaper is lamenting the decline of dishes such as pigs' cheeks in brine and boiled calf's foot. A burrito truck (they are currently looking to expand into a storefront) doesn't sound like quite such a bad idea, now, does it?

As the newspaper boy was yelling as we boarded the tube to Cockfosters, "Get it before the panic buying starts!"

REI opening tomorrow

A year after notifying the Mercury that it were planning to open a store at Charleston Plaza in order to keep the story from coming out first in the Voice (but who's bitter?), the new REI is finally ready to go, and they've got a pretty good opening weekend planned.

Doors open at 10:00 a.m. each day, with the first 200 people through the door getting free gift certificates of $5 (or perhaps more). Among other offers, the store is serving free breakfast at 9:00 a.m., and donating $10 to the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition for every person that takes advantage of the guarded bike parking the group is providing.

Was it a racism test?

Quick, name something for which the cities of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills both deserve A+ grades. Spraying raw sewage into people's living rooms? How about their creeks? Racist and illegal ordinances that cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars? Embarrassing public debates about "the gay agenda" or the overly diverse nature of local high schools (both of which also wound up costing taxpayers thousands of dollars)?

If you guessed helping address housing affordability, you would be right, according to the Bay Area Council. In a laughable report issued two weeks ago, LA and LAH received A+ grades for their commitment to helping the Bay Area achieve a sustainable balance between housing and jobs. Mountain View, with far greater residential density in its existing neighborhoods and 3,000 new units planned for vacant industrial areas near transit lines, received an F.

MV cleanup costs likely to rise

Fairchild can stop telling Jane Horton that her son has nothing to worry about.

Five years ago, under heavy pressure from the Pentagon and manufacturing companies like Fairchild, the Bush administration ordered the National Academy of Sciences to review a new finding by the EPA that a chemical solvent known as TCE was 70 times more likely to cause cancer than previously thought. At the time, the move helped polluters keep their cleanup costs down while frustrating those who lived on or near Superfund sites contaminated with the solvent.

The National Academy released its report last week, and the conclusion vindicates the EPA gives the agency the go-ahead to finalize its earlier finding. What this means in terms of real consequences for Mountain View's eight Superfund sites is unclear. Locally, the EPA has always tested for the provisional standard, and -- despite being powerless to compel polluters such as Fairchild Semiconductor, Raytheon and the Navy to factor it into their cleanup plans -- has generally received good cooperation from these parties.

The Navy's decision to reconsider a proposal to demolish Hangar One has earned most of the attention this week. But though this this story has gone largely unnoticed in the local press, it has much wider implications.

I wouldn't be surprised if the new standard is the nail in the coffin of the already embattled plan to demolish Moffett Field's Orion Park housing development and build a reserve training center on the contaminated land there. The Navy and EPA and semiconductor manufacturers appear to have made little progress towards determining responsibility for the cleanup.

Hate crime in Pioneer Park

Pinned from Palo Alto Online:

Two young white men were arrested last weekend after beating an African-American man in downtown Mountain View's Pioneer Park while shouting white supremacist slogans and making Nazi salutes, according to Mountain View police.

"This is white power!" one of the suspects reportedly shouted... A dagger was held over the victim, identified only as a 19-year-old Mountain View resident, as he was beaten and his hair was pulled, police said. ...

Enjoy Venice while it lasts

There is something vaguely terrifying about Venice. Part of it is the sense of impending doom hanging over a city that already floods during high tides 250 times a year. Part of it is that the people seem to be missing -- city leaders banished the glassblowers and Jews to separate islands centuries ago, and most of the 67,000 remaining residents (outnumbered 3-1 by tourists) make their livings hawking papier-mache masks and crappy gelato. But mostly, the strangest thing about Venice is that there are no cars.

So, why is this terrifying? Because Venice is not the utopia that one would expect to naturally grow in the absence of automobiles. Aside from the total lack of green space and natural light, the place just seems wrong. Maybe I've been around cars so much that the world doesn't feel right without them, the same way that silence can be deafening to someone who moves from Niagara Falls. Let's hope that's not true, although if it is.

In another note, I did what I believe to be the first Mitzvah of my trip today, when a Hasidic Yeshiva student convinced me to put on the tefillin prayer boxes and say the shema ("Oye Israel, God is our God, etc. etc." in the gender-neutral parlance). I told him I was a member of a Reform congregation -- the same revelation that once prompted Roy Dar to say "You might as well say you don't have a religion" -- so he made me repeat after him.

We finished up by saying, "we want/Messiah/now." I realize may seem awkward to those of you who believe the Messiah already came and my people killed him, but bear with me. I barely managed to stifle a laugh. Personally, I'm not sure I want the Messiah to arrive quite yet. I think I might need some more time. But even if I did, I don't think that trying to recreate European ghettoes is the way to lure said Messiah to Earth.

Unfortunately, when I took that class on the ghetto in college, I didn't actually read either the book about The Ghetto of Venice or Hasidic People, both of which contained knowledge that might have been helpful today.

Fire at King of Krung

A quick look at the Castro St. Thai restaurant scoreboard suggests Amarin has pulled back into the lead:

King of Krung: Delicious pineapple fried rice
Amarin: Great lunch special, smaller chance of a fiery death

A postcard from Rome

What am I doing in Rome?

This is the same question world leaders must have been asking themselves earlier this week. Surely they weren't doing any leading. Perhaps they were too busy looking at all the Bernini sculptures and pretending they, too, were Harvard symbologists. In any case, the 20-nation "peace conference" here has ended, and Israel remains free to bomb innocent civilians without even the threat of criticism from the West.

So I spent the day touring around Rome's monuments to death and destruction and then had dinner with my old nemesis, the irreplaceable Matt Neely, and his wife Erica. The Zidanesque Neely recently moved to Rome after giving Mountain View the finger at his last city council meeting.

At the bar later, we happened to run into MVHS special ed teacher Kathy White (now Brenner) and her new husband, who I had met earlier at the Roman fora while he was searching for the Temple of Virgins.

One thing led to another, and eventually the discussion turned to the sex lives of city council members and school board politics. "You don't know who Rose Filicetti is?" I asked her, oblivious to my own nerdiness.

"Write me when you're coherent," Matt said as he got into the cab. Some day, I will be.

A postcard from Amsterdam

"Courage, spirit of enterprise and passion for quality, these were the characteristics that moved Gerard Adriaan Heineken. At nearly 22 years of age, he decided to invest the money he had just inherited from his father in beer. Beer... he did not know anything about brewing himself."

It doesn't take long to realize that "The Heineken Experience" takes itself a little too seriously. In case you don't figure it out from the history lesson at the beginning of the tour, the life of a Heineken bottle simulator -- in which you watch a screen while the floor tilts gently in various directions -- pretty much clinches it. But 10 Euro for three beers and a bottle opener isn't such a bad deal, so former Lucky's Chinese deliveryman Tony Chan and I decided to pay a visit.

The Doha trade talks collapsed right before I arrived, as the farm lobbies of Western Europe and the United States once again have managed to convince their governments to go back on their word not to screw poor countries, at least not so obviously. Being in Amsterdam, we opted not to discuss this depressing turn of events and instead explore the local customs.

Luckily, this was the last time the camera worked before I left Amsterdam, so nothing too incriminating could be caught on film.

A postcard from Paris

I arrived here just after Floyd Landis took his victory lap down the Champs Elysees, which immediately thereafter resumed being overrun with mimes and other French stereotypes. To paraphrase one of my favorite quotes from Futurama, the food in Paris is like sex, except I'm having it.

As good as the food is in Paris (and Rome), it's surprising that people are so much thinner than in the U.S., even compared to U.S. city dwellers. One main difference is that streets are built for pedestrians, so distances seem closer and driving is a pain in the ass. Of course, despite huge warnings on cigarette packaging, people undo all the health benefits of walking by smoking. It can also make you thin, but is more likely to kill you than being fat.

A postcard from Barcelona

Just before I went to Barcelona, one of my readers gave me a list of things to see. At the top of the list was La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell, two famous landmarks that the architect Gaudi never managed to finish. Slightly further down the list was "Beach," immediately followed by "Titties at Beach."

Los Altos can learn a lot from Barcelona. For instance, Lincoln Green ought to be topless. We can work out the details later, but I think it's an idea that at least needs some studying.

(The same reader, who has requested to remain anonymous, saw the photo and right and suggested that 18-year-old Brazilian girls are likely more sexually experienced than I'll ever be, so I shouldn't worry about looking like a pervert.)

In addition to titties, Barcelona features its very own separatist movement, not too surprising considering that Spain was fighting off military coups as recently as the 1980s. In fact, the city does a pretty good impression of the third world -- the grocery stores are sorely lacking, the locals speak a strange dialect, and the place is crawling with sex tourists. Sure, they don't call themselves that, but how else do you explain the popularity of Porto Olimpico -- the strip of tourist clubs at the site of the 1992 Olympic Village. It is a place where you can memorize the words to Shakira's latest song in the course of 20 minutes even if you're not paying attention, and people freely sing along to The Weather Girls. While I was there, I couldn't help thinking of Hunter S. Thompson's description of Circus Circus from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: "what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis has won the war. This is the Sixth Reich."

Of course, the subway system still puts anything in the U.S. to shame -- cars are air conditioned, run frequently, and arrival times are displayed on an electronic screen. You gotta hand it to those fascists, they did public transit very well.

Cancel the Grand Prix

I hope that whoever manages the VTA's Web site has a sense of humor. The top item on the page right now juxtapose an announcement that tomorrow is a Spare the Air Day and that transit agencies found funding to makes rides free all day. Just below that is an advertisement for the San Jose Grand Prix, scheduled to take place next weekend and undo any progress in air quality that might be made between now and then.

Coincidentally, the Mercury News is scheduled to come out with its preview of the Grand Prix in a few days. The Merc is a sponsor of the event (as is the City of San Jose), so don't expect anyone there to call it what it is -- an unconscionable exercise in polluting air that is already unbearably smoggy for many people.

Thursday's Spare the Air Day will be the fifth this summer. They are only declared when the smog is so bad so that people with respiratory problems can not go outside.

Corporate welfare fails again

Residents were upset when the Mountain View City Council voted to lease the first floor of the new downtown parking garage to Longs Drugs instead of Zanotto's family markets. Longs offered more rent money for the city and also a track record of financial stability that Zanotto's couldn't compete with. But people like their vanilla soy yogurt, and at one point went so far as to organize a "vigil" for the grocer.

But the city's argument looks even better after reading a profile on Zanotto's in Sunday's Mercury News, a typically positive piece which briefly mentions that the downtown San Jose store went out of business after the City of San Jose co-signed on a $1.65 million loan (no mention of how much of the debt San Jose had to cover).

Of course, this experience hasn't stopped San Jose from giving away money to lots of other private businesses, but at least somebody learned from its mistake.

"Such a noble cause"

Three stones have been placed atop Lt. Ken Ballard's grave marker at Arlington National Cemetery.

Ballard, 1995 graduate of Mountain View High and only son of Karen Meredith, was killed in An-Najaf on Memorial Day in 2004. Everyone I've ever met who knew him has only positive things to say about the man, and his personal story is mainly that of a war hero who won several medals and deeply touched many lives. But, through no fault of his own, it has also has become inextricably tied up with the poor planning and misconduct of the Iraq war.

Ballard's was one of the first units to be extended as part of the military's "stop-loss" program, a direct consequence of the Pentagon's decision to ignore officers who said more troops would be needed for a post-war occupation. He was killed by an equipment malfunction when his tank struck a tree during a firefight in An-Najaf, part of the insurgency that military planners refused to consider as a possibility. His mother was unable to even see a picture of his coffin, and was fed a false story about how her son died for more than a year. (Visit her blog at Gold Star Mother Speaks Out and make sure to read the post on Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey's vigil).

The most striking thing about Ballard's section of Arlington is the amount of open space nearby, as if it being kept in reserve for thousands of more dead soldiers from this misguided war. At one point two years ago, Ballard's was the last row of his section. More recent graves have soldiers as young as 19, and the grass has yet to grow over the newest of these.

The day before, at the World War II memorial, I was struck by two quotes I found engraved on the walls there.

"They fought together a brothers in arms; they died together and now they sleep side by side. To them we have a solemn obligation -- the obligation to insure that their sacrifice will help to make this a better and safer world in which to live."

-- Admiral Chester Nimitz

“We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.”

-- Army Chief of Staff George Marshall

It was impossible not to think of them again as I said thanks to Ballard and his fellow soldiers, and marvelled at the enormity of both Arlington itself and our unmet obligation to the hundreds of thousands of soldiers buried there and the millions of their comrades whose graves are elsewhere.

A note to readers

For the next few weeks, I will be taking my basic ethical bankruptcy (anybody know how to change the tagline under the title of blog?) to England and beyond. I will continue to post periodically, but invite readers to help me keep tabs on the local parades and plagiarists and such.

The running man

That short, orange man in Mountain View this afternoon was Governor Schwarzenegger, announcing the opening of his reelection campaign headquarters on Fairchild Drive, presumably in hopes of squeezing money from wealthy campaign contributors in an otherwise Democratic stronghold.

Attention local reporters and headline-writers: it's time for another Nemesis of Evil contest, this one to see who can use the most over-the-top movie puns in their coverage of the campaign. Prizes will be given for both sheer numbers as well as most shameless. To get you started, here are some ideas from The Onion and The Discovery Channel.

Those darn kids, with their skateboards

It's a good time to be a rapscallion in Los Altos. Maybe too good. Monday night, the city council followed Mountain View's lead in entertaining the local 'hoods by finally approving the concept of making tentative plans for a permanent skate park. Not to be outdone, Mountain View is finally going ahead with the plans, on hold for the last three years due to bizzarre concerns about gender equity concerns, to build a BMX park out at Shoreline.

Of course, give those kids an inch and they'll take a mile. For the perspective of the square community, we turn to the award-winning (seriously) editorial pages of the Los Altos Town Crier, which implores readers to "Grow up and leave the cows alone."

Regardless of how we feel on the subject of public education in Los Altos Hills, we can all agree that stealing and defacing plywood cows erected on town land is beyond the juvenile.

The cows, conveying the "Got Milked?" message of discontent following the 2003 closure of Bullis-Purissima School, are continually vandalized, according to their creators, and the incidents go up or down depending on the surge of publicity regarding town public education issues.

Some cases are the work of pranksters, but others surely result because perpetrators don't like a message that conflicts with theirs. Such protest and debate belongs in open public forums, not played out in petty, stealthy acts of vandalism. We strongly urge the guilty parties to recover their maturity and leave the cows alone. If town residents choose this option to express themselves, so be it.

I have to say that it speaks poorly of the investigative abilities of the reporters at the Town Crier, Daily and Mercury that not only can they find nothing better to write about, but that they also can't seem to sleuth out the fact that the people behind this dastardly political espionage are just a bunch of bored high school kids.

By the way, this might be a good time for me to apologize to Patricia Williams and other city council candidates whose campaign signs we removed in 1994 and hid in another candidate's bushes.

Smug levels high over Mountain View

To: Bay Area residents
Re: Loving the smell of your own farts

Dear friends,

Please stop writing letters to the editor about how great you are for buying a Prius, like the one in today's Mercury by Mountain View's own Dave Stein. Many people in the country only know the Bay Area through South Park and the O'Reilly Factor. The least we can do is make those shows' writers come up with their own punchlines.

Sincerely,

Nemesis

Kasperzak switches parties, your vote still worthless

Unlike most people of my political ilk, I have a few fond memories of election night 2004. For one, I got to drink on the job. I also got to take a photographer on a wild goose chase for then-Mayor Matt Pear that led us to KMVT's studios, the city attorney's house and, finally, the Mayor himself.

Nationally, the results of the "voting" that day were equal parts horrifying and disastrous. But, at the local level, the Republican Party suffered two very significant losses.

The first -- Sally Lieber's crushing victory over Marie Dominguez Gasson in Assembly District 22 -- was no suprise at all. Gasson, a Santa Clara University student who turned 21 on election night, said herself that she was a sacrificial lamb. (Interestingly, she won about the same number of votes from Mountain View voters as did George Bush, indicating that the decider-in-chief had no qualities to recommend him beyond a 21-year old college student.)

Gasson raised several hundred dollars for her campaign, much of which she sent to Steve Poizner, the charming moderate billionaire that the GOP was hoping would lead them to a victory in Assembly District 21. That didn't happen either, of course, and, despite what his altered state, it didn't take Mountain View City Council member Mike Kasperzak long to grasp the lesson that even billionaire Republicans can not win state office in Northern Santa Clara County.

This is not because we have such good taste or such good candidates around here, but that the state legislature has so gerrymandered the electoral districts that seats almost never change parties in either house. (Bonus prize to anyone who can explain why we have two houses in the state legislature).

Kasperzak (right) and others tried to use this as an argument for letting Governor Schwarzenegger appoint some retired judges to redraw the district boundaries. Voters realized this wouldn't really accomplish much and rejected the proposal. A better idea comes from Steve Chessin, a Mountain View man active with Californians for Electoral Reform, a group promoting multi-member districts and instant run-off voting as solutions to what we have now.

Of course, the corporations, trade groups and unions that control the parties don't like this either, because they would lose their stranglehold on state politics. (Newspaper editors don't like it because it's complicated). So, long story short, Kasperzak changed his party affiliation this morning, leaving behind the party that was once grand but is now just old in favor of the one that is neither, at least partly in hopes that he can keep his political career alive.

Welcome to the losing team, Mike.

So you want to build yourself an outlandishly giant house

Vicki Geers has good news for you.

One of the things I like least about Los Altos is that, while in other parts of the country and at other times in history the term "embarrassment of riches" actually had a literal meaning, it is basically impossible to be too rich here.

So I think the woman who is trying to sell the Winbigler estate at the top of S-cuve is right to target those people with more money than shame. In other communities, it might be poor form to advertise the land you are trying to sell as an ideal location for a megahome. Not here.

Luckily, for prospective buyers, the former owners have already done the hard part, illegally knocking down the house that was there. The two sides just settled the resulting lawsuit, although "settled" may be a misnomer since neither side appeared to get anything from the other. But it does allow Los Altos Hills to focus on newer outrages and injustices against its people.

White people politely applaud

How to explain the lack of outcry after the Los Altos City Council's unanimous decision to arm all 38 police officers with Tasers? Perhaps it's that any high school student who ever went on a ride-along with the Los Altos police knows that the police spend a disproportionate of their time tailing minorities and people who drive beat-up looking cars.

Tasers, like all police weapons, tend to be disproportionately used on minorities. But police frequently fire them at non-violent suspects who are disobeying orders (the link is worth reading just for the story of "Dan-o" Curran). Imagine if they said that every time they asked for more.

Local police have a few handy stories that purport to prove the necessity of Tasers, disingenuously saying that the presence of a Taser saved them from shooting a suspect.

Sometimes, though, the stories appear to bear this out. When police did not have a Taser to subdue a crazed machete-wielding man in Los Altos Hills, they wound up shooting him. (The man survived, but the Palo Alto Daily did not get the memo, leading the next day with a story along the lines of "Police shoot, kill machete-wielding man." Instead of issuing a correction, the following day the paper ran an interview with the man. I believe the headline was "Machete-wielding man tells his side of story.")

As long as we're making fun of newspapers here, a Google search for Los Altos and Tasers turned up this barely comprensible article from the Town Crier's archives.