{"id":3013,"date":"2002-11-10T08:04:01","date_gmt":"2002-11-10T08:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=412"},"modified":"2002-11-10T08:04:01","modified_gmt":"2002-11-10T08:04:01","slug":"in-todays-papers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=3013","title":{"rendered":"IN TODAY’S PAPERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

First, some damn good news. Here’s<\/a> the ‘lead editorial’ in today L.A. Times (registration required, ‘laexaminer’\/’laexaminer’):<\/p>\n

There wasn’t much mystery last week about who would be elected to the state Legislature or California’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. Party leaders in the Legislature stacked the deck last year when they drew new district lines to reflect population shifts on the basis of the 2000 census.
\nThose 153 districts were carved into enclaves of heavy Democratic and Republican voter registration to provide “safe” seats. Maps in hand before a single vote was cast, you could have picked the winner in virtually every district — 80 in the Assembly, 20 in the state Senate and 53 in the House. Only five of the 153 were true contests. All but one of the 49 California incumbents in Congress won by a landslide, with at least 60% of the vote. The other, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Santa Barbara), won with 59%. Democrats remain strongly in control of all three houses.
\nThis cynical deal may serve the pols well, but it’s bad for California. It becomes virtually impossible to hold lawmakers accountable at the next election. The Legislature is increasingly polarized between Republican conservatives and liberal Democrats. In spite of their majorities, Democrats need some GOP votes to pass the budget and any other fiscal bill. That’s why this year’s budget was deadlocked for two months beyond the deadline.
\nIt’s in the public interest to have clear lines of opinion and vigorous debate. But the Legislature is so fractured now, it’s virtually impossible to reach a compromise on any major issue, particularly on spending and taxes. The result of Tuesday’s election will be even more gridlock.
\n…<\/b><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sign me up!!
\nAnd in today’s Daily Breeze (the local paper), something<\/a> that has me scratching my head…<\/p>\n

Mixed feelings over SP film event<\/b>
\nNO SHOW: Insensitivity to Japanese-Americans is cited. Vets are stunned.
\nIt was going to be a night to remember.
\nUshers dressed in World War II military uniforms, vintage cars pulling up to the curb, Pearl Harbor survivors and a recently restored 1940s military searchlight would be on hand Dec. 7 to greet the crowds at a special anniversary showing of \u0093Tora! Tora! Tora!\u0094 at San Pedro\u0092s historic Warner Grand Theatre.
\nThe 1970 film \u0097 a joint American and Japanese production \u0097 is considered one of the most accurate depictions of events leading up to the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Expected to attract hundreds, the showing on the 61st anniversary of the attack was to serve as a fund-raiser for the Fort MacArthur Military Museum in San Pedro.
\nBut now the show is off.
\nWhy? Veterans and museum members say it\u0092s simply a case of political correctness run amok.
\nWhile there was a previous theater booking for Dec. 7, according to theater manager Lee Sweet of the city\u0092s Department of Cultural Affairs, which manages the facility, Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn concluded that the event would have been insensitive to the Japanese-American community.
\n\u0093I wanted to be very sensitive to the Japanese-American community,\u0094 Hahn said. \u0093Dec. 7 is a tough day, especially for the second and third generations of Japanese-Americans. Why do we want to do something that makes it more difficult?\u0094 The showing was planned this year to take the place of the Fort MacArthur Military Museum\u0092s annual Pearl Harbor Day observance.
\n…<\/b><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

My knee-jerk reaction tends to be againt faux displays of sensitivity (‘faux’ being defined as those that have no real impact on people’s lives…as opposed to things like access to jobs, schooling, etc.). And Pearl Harbor is, like it or not, a part of our and Japan’s history. So I’m tilted toward the ‘this is stupid’ camp. Tenacious G, my SO, is Japanese-American, and on showing her this, she pretty much agrees…her comment was “I feel vaguely bad every Dec. 7, but it’s a part of all our history. This is just a way for people to pretend to be sensitive.”
\nBut this one still has me thinking in circles…I’m interested in what other folks think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First, some damn good news. Here’s the ‘lead editorial’ in today L.A. Times (registration required, ‘laexaminer’\/’laexaminer’): There wasn’t much mystery last week about who would be elected to the state Legislature or California’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives. Party leaders in the Legislature stacked the deck last year when they drew new district […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}