When you go to the polls on Tuesday, you should be able to devote your time to deciding between Steve Westly and Phil Angelides instead of poring over Prop. 82 —the Universal Preschool Initiative. Just as you should keep driving when you spot a restaurant named “Mother’s,” when you see the term “universal” on the ballot, worry and then vote no. For the unsuspecting voter, “universal” means we are going to make you do this regardless of whether you have any inclination to follow through. Call it the forced schooling initiative, applicable to every four-year-old in California. Free for everybody. Remember what your mother told you about an object that is free? Besides, the free-ness is only for half-a-day. If the liberals who are mindlessly promoting this plan were watching more closely, they would realize that poor people cannot send their drivers to school in mid-day to pick up their children. They need all day. Picky, picky, say our friendly neighborhood liberals. The most fascinating statistic I have seen shows that sixty-four percent of California four-year-olds already are enrolled. Education experts say the maximum number who reasonably could be added is seventy percent, a scant increase of six percent. This, friends, is why Archie Bunker used to call the former actor Rob Reiner, author of the bill, “Meathead.” Archie just never dreamed Mr. Reiner would play the same role in real life.
A Holiday Bu-bar-cue
More than baseball, more than my wife or children, more even than mush-brained liberals, I dearly love secret-keepers. Especially elected secret-keepers. Every morning, they leap directly from bed to their favorite full-length mirror. Pompously, they preen their way through three different poses before putting on their pompous clothes, the better to strut their way through another — oh, must we? — pompous day.
In the Year of Our What?
Such thoughts of terribly inflated grandeur floated through my little mind while ruminating over a tiresome event at last Tuesday night’s School Board meeting. In the Year of Our School Board, Double Oh Six (that is how long they have been together), the act is wearing a little thin. Like the widely ignored shopkeeper who begs customers to step inside, the School Board has such a small following I could shlep all of them to the meetings in my little red wagon. Better yet, I could bring the School Board to them. So few people bring inquiries to the Board, you would think they might offer a free chocolate milkshake to anyone who can think up a substantive question.
The Suit Is in Heidis Court
Selecting his words prudently, the lawyer for Police Officer Heidi Keyantash told thefrontpageonline.com yesterday morning, “We are going to proceed toward trial.” The next court date on Terry Goldberg’s calendar is Thursday, July 6. Is the hour later than the defendants realize? Ms. Keyantash’s blockbuster suit against former Mayor Albert Vera and City Hall — first revealed to the community by The Front Page last Aug. 26 — is heating up this week. Charging the recently retired mayor with defamation, discriminatory behavior and harassment, Ms. Keyantash is seeking an award that may reach the tens of millions. When the case was suddenly exploded two years ago weeks after Mr. Vera thought it had gone away, his instinctive response was to say the police set up his son. That felt juxtaposed. Mr. Vera traditionally had cast the police as his heroes. When the circumstances became known — Mr. Vera’s son was stopped for a five-years’ late registration and hit with a drug charge — Vera supporters alleged the accusations stemmed from a police vendetta against the father.
Stand for Something
I would imagine the roughest part of the day for Erin Aubry Kaplan, the Times’ often brattish commentator on cultures of color, is arriving at a traffic signal. The angry little lady probably is puzzled by which light to get mad at. At the red one because green is showing? Or the green one because the red is showing? She appears to prefer amber because amber does not force her to make a commitment. She can stop, a little. Or she can drive on, a little. Life can be such a nag when you are shilling for the affirmative action yahoos. My, my. Living with Ms. Mad must be a riot. (Fortunately, she is one of the few women with nose-holding attitudes whom I overlooked in my now terminated Wife-for-a-Few-Years Derby.)
Tribute to Gay Honesty
Ladies and ladies. Or is it gentlemen and gentlemen? We are well past due in paying head-dipping tribute to the marbled honesty of America’s gallant gay and lesbian leaders. Bravely, they have remained unswervingly true to their moral principles. They have stubbornly fought off tempting overtures in the face of steaming-hot pressure ever since the gay lobby most reluctantly became nationally focused in 1982. Resisting tear-stained pleas from supporters within the gay community to widen their agenda and present their lifestyle as a legitimate alternative to the way normal people live, gay leaders staunchly have stood their ground unblinkingly. No, no, a hundred times no, gay leaders have told huge crowds over the past twenty-four years. We will not present ourselves as more than we are. Greedy, we are not. Ordinary folk, that is all we are. Blacks? Now there are victims. Native Americans? They are victim, too. Us? We’re just normal people. Monks are our models. We admire — yea, dare I say we envy? — the modesty of these ascetic rascals who ask so little from life. Like the monastic types, we seek neither recognition nor acclaim. We just wish to be left alone. Almost. All we want is a sliver of respect from the non-gay crowd. Just because we are different from you all, we are not a threat to you, and we would appreciate it if you would not try to get us fired when you find out we are working next to you. That is all we want…
No Friend of Mexicans
When I read the obituary of Clarabelle the Clown yesterday morning, I presumed that meant that the Alameda County Judge Robert Freedman, who killed the high school exit exam last week, no longer was moving among us. Drat the misunderstanding — by the heavenly powers, not by me. The petitioning lawyer successfully argued that the high school exit exam is too tough for poor and minority students to pass even though he himself rose from Latino poverty in a Spanish language home of thirteen children. He seemed to be saying that even though he has achieved a lofty plateau in the world, the present generation of high school kids is too dumb to emulate him. (Why doesn’t an enterprising chap open The Slow School for Poor and Minority Students — Cover 12 Grades in 24 Years or More?)
Making West L.A. Disappear
The Board of (Not Always Trustworthy) Trustees that runs West Los Angeles College sure showed us, didn’t they, bub? Last year, in a regrettable moment of regressive ignorance, the Board planted its foot where Frank Quiambao’s tush usually goes. Unceremoniously, they kicked the best thing ever to happen to West L.A. out of the college president’s chair. All the way into (possibly unredeemable) obscurity. For all I know, Mr. Quiambao is facelessly pumping gas these days somewhere along PCH. His aggressive personality that never allowed him to speak — or move — at less than a hundred miles an hour, plus his insistence on candor, seemed to bother the ladies and gentlemen on the Board of Untrustworthies. For the last twelve — shhh, very quiet — months, West L.A., a mainly minority community college, has reverted to its shameful pre-Quiambao posture. It is as invisible as, oh, say, Albert Vera.
From the Right, Mr. Noonan
[Editor’s Note: For the first time since we began working on the same newspaper, my liberal but talented colleague Frederik Sisa and I have reached roughly similar conclusions on a subject. Please stress “roughly.” Today, we present our views in tandem.]
Possibly the only worthwhile question to curl out of the distinctly anti-American march for illegal immigration on May 1 was whether the hooligans would have any effect on policymaking in Washington. Except for the historic penchant of the political class to wobble and cave before pressure groups of any size, the inquiry would be absurd. For sober Americans, however, the carefully scripted rallies in each of thirty American communities represented the nadir of nonsense. Marching to honor those who blatantly broke the law, boast about it and now are demanding further handouts is a stunt that deluded doctors of distraction, such as our town’s Tim Robbins, should limit to the confines of a playhouse. Or risk falling into America’s doghouse.
Who Wants Job More?
Having sparred fiercely with each other daily for more than two weeks for a committee seat both of them want more than their next breath, Mayor Gary Silbiger and Vice Mayor Alan Corlin paused yesterday morning and took one step back. In unison, they spoke identical sentiments. “This is not personal, not about me,” they both said, even though they were miles apart at the time. Describing their foundational sentiments that way, while undoubtedly intended sincerely , has the highly desirable effect of lowering expectations, cushioning the fall just in case this does not work out. The night before, at the City Council meeting, they had said practically the same thing.
Turning Out the Lights
The Stokes sanctuary has permanently closed. One of life’s saddest axioms was fulfilled last Saturday when my friend Dorothea Stokes, freshly turned ninety years old, died. In lengthy marriages, the widowed spouse seldom seems to survive more than a year after the first partner dies. Irv Stokes, one of the brilliant scientific minds of the preceding generation, died a year ago January, several years after a stroke stilled his body but did not dare to intrude on his extraordinary mind. Early in World War II, in his first years out of college, Mr. Stokes was a crucial contributor to the discovery of radar, which played a commanding role in America’s defeat of its enemies. In the years that I knew the family, Mrs. Stokes, a noted math instructor, seemed content to serve as the No. 2 fiddle in their mellifluous arrangement. She spoke as little as he spoke greatly. For reasons of tradition, I suppose, only once or twice did she join the years of discussions between Mr. Stokes and me. As if traveling on cat’s paws, she was scurrying through their pleasantly carpeted home, answering his latest call. What her husband wanted or needed dictated her next tasks. My libation of choice was orange juice, and a filled tall glass always was at my right hand.