Judge Not

(Peanuts from Dominican Friars)

There is a disturbing trend of judging whether victims of natural disasters are worthy of receiving aid depending on their political leanings. There was documented evidence of discrimination against Hurricane Helene sufferers who were Trump supporters, and the internet is rife with worry that the incoming Trump Administration will withhold aid to fire zones that are Democratic strongholds.

Apart from the immorality of dispensing aid based on an individual's politics, it bears reminding that disaster victims, like the vast majority of Americans, pay the taxes that fund these government services. They are entitled to receive these services regardless of their political speech.

Finally, we should always remember that not everyone in an area leans in the same political direction. By broadly discriminating against the people who live in a locale because of their politics, you will inevitably hurt the minority who are on "your" side.

that ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.-----Matthew 5:45

Up in Smoke

LA Mayor Bass and Gov. Newsom tour the ruins of the
Palisades business district (Photo by Thayer/TNS/Chron)

Chronicle "reporter" Kurtis Alexander says we should go easy on criticisms of politicians for their responsibility for the LA fires:

If you were to scan social media for what was behind this week’s deadly Southern California wildfires, you might think leaders in Los Angeles and Sacramento went out of their way to push policies to invite disaster.

The mayor of Los Angeles cut the city’s fire department budget, one pervasive criticism goes. The fire department hired the wrong people, others say. The city didn’t fill the reservoirs that feed the fire hydrants, another asserts. The state didn’t send enough water from Northern California for the firefight, yet another criticism goes.

While the series of wind-driven fires that has blasted Los Angeles County certainly exposed government shortcomings, media experts are quick to note that many of the accusations circulating online are less about real problems and more about pushing an agenda. And some are flat-out wrong.

Should you care to read the rest of the editorialist's (not "reporter"'s) defense against accusations of poor water management (both LA and statewide), emphasizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion over merit, misplacing budget priorities, and why we shouldn't dismiss climate change so quickly, click on the link above.

Your humble blogger understands that people have been overly quick to seize onto these criticisms but also understands that the Progressive ideologues who have run California for a quarter-century are responsible for that portion of the disaster that cannot be laid at the feet of Mother Nature.

And that portion will be significant, no matter how hard the people in charge will try to deflect the blame.

[Note: the Mayor and Governor's tight-lipped expressions aren't typical of sadness or concern. Could it be because they both realize their political futures have gone up in smoke?]

SF Public Toilets: Reason for Optimism

April, 2024: The $200,000 toilet in Noe Valley (Chron)

San Francisco was understandably mocked when a public toilet was estimated to cost $1.7 million. After contractors donated time and materials and specifications were scaled back, the toilet was completed for $200,000.

Based on that experience, San Francisco has streamlined future toilets and "small" public works projects:

Now officials say they’re able to build one toilet in Bernal Heights’ Precita Park for $262,000 — a huge savings. Officials said the project timeline will also be significantly reduced, shrinking from roughly 17 months to just nine...

The savings at Precita Park stem from the use of a prefabricated design and legislation around new cooperative purchasing rules introduced by then-Mayor London Breed in April that allow the city to purchase goods directly from suppliers. [Rec and Park spokesperson Tamara] Aparton told the Chronicle those rules changes mean the department can make several projects currently in the works cheaper to build, such as the new outdoor gym at Kelloch and Velasco Mini Park in Visitacion Valley and a turf field replacement at Raymond Kimbell Playground in the Western Addition.

Aparton said the cost savings for Precita Park’s bathroom should be “very” replicable across other projects.

Normally I'd be highly skeptical of their cost projections, but San Francisco officials should get the benefit of the doubt from the favorable outcome of last year's Noe Valley toilet project.

The Fire This Time

Palisades neighborhood (Swope/AP/WSJ)

Measured on the basis of lives lost (85) and acreage burned (153,000) the 2018 Camp Fire that devastated Paradise, CA is still the most destructive wildfire in California history. However, the ruination of Pacific Palisades, home to the rich and famous, is far more likely to change the future of California.

Pacific Palisades is known for its scenery, with views of the ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains. It is a quiet, secluded atmosphere. The neighborhood sits between state parks and the ocean, offering residents easy access to hiking and the beach.

While it is populated with high-end homes and gated communities, there is also a small, walkable downtown with boutiques and cafes. Celebrities who have bought homes in the area include Reese Witherspoon, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garnerand Steven Spielberg...

The typical home value in Pacific Palisades is $3.4 million. Sixteen homes on the market are priced at $10 million or more in Pacific Palisades, according to Zillow. In neighboring Brentwood, 18 properties meet that threshold.

When the rich and famous encounter the California government's multi-year delays in granting rebuilding permits, that may well be the proverbial straw that breaks the back of Progressive dominance in government. Add to that the difficulties in finding homeowners' insurance and the incompetence in water management and wildfire prevention, the conflagration that engulfed Pacific Palisades may well start a metaphorical fire in the halls of Sacramento.

U.S. Master Tax Guide

I have ordered a copy of the U.S. Master Tax Guide nearly every year. It's a handy one-volume guide to tax law; on the back cover publisher Wolters Kluwer calls the 944-page tome "the tax professional's quick reference."

Real tax professionals disdain the MTG. Their libraries contain the Internal Revenue Code, the Regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, and court cases. Combined with a research service or two, a full set of publications would cover an entire wall. All the information is available through online subscriptions, so an extra wall is no longer required.

As for me, I like riffling through pages to look up stuff, so I will continue to get a hard copy of the U.S. Master Tax Guide. It reminds me of how it used to be in the old days, and yes, I am no longer a "real" tax professional.

High Electricity Rates: the Policies Californians Voted For

(Photo from CalMatters)

California's push toward clean energy has resulted in the second highest electricity rates (behind Hawaii) in the nation: [bold added]

“California’s electricity rates are among the highest in the country,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported. “On average, residential electricity rates in California are close to double those in the rest of the nation.”

The increase in electricity bills has been nothing short of shocking, especially when compared with the overall inflation rate.

“Average residential electricity rates in California have grown faster than inflation in recent years, rising by about 47% over the four-year period from 2019 through 2023 compared to overall growth in prices of about 18%,” according to the report from the Legislative Analyst, a nonpartisan group that provides the state Legislature with advice and information.

The report blames:

— significant and increasing wildfire-related costs.

— the state’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction programs and policies.

— differences in utility operational structures and services territories.

These causes are the result of man-made policies, which means that California is getting in the way of its own green ambitions. High electricity prices discourage drivers from turning in their gas-powered cars, and homeowners from switching out their natural-gas furnaces, stoves, and water heaters. (For the record I'm not getting rid of my fossil-fueled cars and appliances unless they can't be fixed.)

They shouldn't be too upset because Californians are getting the policies they voted for.

The 12th Day of Christmas (Reprise)

Now that Congress has certified the election of Donald Trump, normalcy has begun to return to January 6th. Perhaps in a decade or so, the events of four years ago will have receded to history's dustbin, where they belong. Knowing that the events of that day will pass, I wrote this on January 6, 2021.

Da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi (unfinished)

Brittanica: [bold added]

Epiphany, also called Feast of the Epiphany, Theophany, or Three Kings’ Day, (from Greek epiphaneia, “manifestation”), Christian holiday commemorating the first manifestation of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, represented by the Magi, and the manifestation of his divinity, as it occurred at his baptism in the Jordan River and at his first miracle, at Cana in Galilee.

Epiphany is one of the three principal and oldest festival days of the Christian church (the other two are Easter and Christmas). Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, and other Western churches observe the feast on January 6, while some Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Epiphany on January 19, since their Christmas Eve falls on January 6.

A half-century ago churches held services on January 6th no matter what day of the week it was. It was on the Feast of the Epiphany, not Christmas, that the pageant was held when the kids dressed up as angels, kings, shepherds and, of course, Joseph and Mary.

I've played most of the parts, but never Joseph. Joseph was not a desirable role to us kids--everyone else had better costumes or appurtenances like a shepherd's crook. As we got older we began to understand Joseph's honorable decisions when he found that his virgin bride was pregnant.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ---Matthew 1:18-19

An angel told Joseph in a dream that Mary was bearing the Son of God, Joseph went ahead with his marriage to Mary, and the rest is history.

On a day when too many people have acted ignobly, give a thought to Joseph, without whom there probably wouldn't be any Christmas--or Epiphany--to celebrate.

Objects of Worship

(Lehman/SFGate)

Privately owned Mt. Shasta Ski Park has installed a 20-ft. statue of the Virgin Mary at its base:

Standing at about 6,600 feet on Shasta’s slope, the statue has become a focal point for discussions on the intersection of faith, culture and the natural landscape. While some view it as a meaningful tribute, others see it as an unwelcome addition to one of the region’s most revered mountains.

Opposition arose from the usual suspects: those with a beef against Christianity and those who view the culture as oppressive colonizers of Indian lands.

Ann from Chico, California, declared, “Keep religion out of skiing!!!! We ski to enjoy the beauty of nature — not to be preached at by religious NUTS.” Donny from Redding called the statue “an annoyance and waste of resources.”

Shawnee Kasanke, a critic of the statue who was raised near the mountain, told SFGATE the statue symbolizes a painful history. “These types of statues erected on sacred land represent the devastation caused by missionary colonizers and their disrespect for and attempted erasure of Native traditions, sacred spaces, and ways of life to many of us,” she said.

The statue could have been ugly and harder to defend, but by conventional standards it's beautiful. Pitted against the mountain, a statue is easy to ignore; to the critics I say go in peace to look at the thousands of trees, of which there are dozens of species.

(pinterest image)

Your humble blogger sees Mt. Shasta occasionally when driving to Oregon along Interstate 5. Yes, the mountain is an outstanding example of the magnificence of God's creation.

But it's hard to feel religious when one's first memory of the mountain's image was a drawing on a soda can.

No Congratulations are in Order

For decades boys' performance in school has lagged that of girls. Recent studies show that boys are catching up, but there's no joy in why that's so:

Girls have lost ground in reading, math and science at a troubling rate, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of student test scores across the country.

Since 2019, girls’ test scores have dropped sharply, often to the lowest point in decades. Boys’ scores have also fallen during that time, but the decline among girls has been more severe. Boys now consistently outperform girls in math, after being roughly even or slightly ahead in the years before 2020. Girls still tend to perform better in reading, but their scores have dropped closer to boys.

The findings suggest that pandemic learning loss hit girls particularly hard in ways that haven’t been addressed by schools. The most recent test scores show that girls haven’t yet recovered. This comes following longstanding gains for girls and women in educational attainment.

Theories abound why girls seemed to suffer more during the COVID lockdown:

Shutting down schools might have hurt girls more because they tend to do better in school generally, said David Figlio, a professor of economics and education at the University of Rochester who has studied gender gaps in education. “Girls have a comparative advantage in school and you take schools away, they’ll suffer more,” he added.

Another hypothesis is that girls took on more household duties during the pandemic—including taking care of younger siblings—so were less able to focus on school.

Boys can catch up to girls by bettering themselves or because girls have gotten worse. When the reason is the latter, no congratulations are in order,

It Concentrates his Mind Wonderfully

Billionaire Ron Shaich founded Panera
Bread (Abramsom/Getty/WSJ)

If New Year's resolutions haven't been effective, try thinking of yourself on your deathbed. Ron Shaich refers to these envisionings as "premortems." [bold added]

It’s a habit that began as a response to the death of his parents in the 1990s. His mother was at peace with herself when she died, he says. But his father was “racked with regret and remorse” about decisions he made and the opportunities he missed. What he took away from their experiences was the last lesson that his parents would teach him—and the most profound of them all.

Don’t wait until the end to decide if you are proud of your life. Do it before it’s too late. Do it while you can still do something about it.

“I realized that the time to be having that review was not in the ninth inning with two outs,” he told me. “It was in the seventh inning, the fifth inning and third inning.”

Ron Shaich did not invent the term:

In business, the concept of the premortem was coined by cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, and the late Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman called it “a brilliant idea.” The goal is to identify all the potential sources of failure on a project to improve the chances of success—to imagine how and why things might go wrong instead of explaining after they have gone wrong. “So that the project can be improved,” as Klein once put it, “rather than autopsied.

A premortem can focus the mind better than composing yet another list of resolutions.

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.--Samuel Johnson

California's High Home Prices in the 1970's

California home prices achieved separation
from the rest of the U.S. in the 1970's (psmag)

One aspect of Jimmy Carter's Presidency of which I was unaware:

Carter’s presidency was No. 1 for California home-price gains

During Carter’s four years in the Oval Office, California home prices jumped 90%, as measured by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. No presidential term since Carter’s has produced a larger California home-price surge.

High housing prices are not unequivocally good; they benefit sellers but hurt buyers, and with sizable numbers on both sides politicians should try to cater to both (e.g., lower taxes on capital gains, faster permitting).

In California during Jimmy Carter's term, the State government was a huge beneficiary of the runup in home prices. Property taxes were ad valorem, i.e. based on the market value of homes, and had increased dramatically. There were numerous widely accepted anecdotes (though extrapolation would be unreliable because sellers did not have to disclose their motivation) of fixed-income seniors who were forced to sell their homes due to property tax increases. State legislators made no move either to lower taxes or rebate surpluses. The stage was set for Proposition 13.

From the State Board of Equalization's 2018 California Property Tax - An Overview:

On June 6, 1978, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, a property tax limitation initiative. This amendment to California’s Constitution was the taxpayers’ collective response to dramatic increases in property taxes and a growing state revenue surplus of nearly $5 billion. Proposition 13 rolled back most local real property, or real estate, assessments to 1975 market value levels, limited the property tax rate to 1 percent plus the rate necessary to fund local voter-approved bonded indebtedness, and limited future property tax increases.

The home-price increases during the term of President Carter are an interesting phenomenon but are historically important because they spawned a nationwide taxpayer revolt that still echoes in the politics of today.

Happy New Year: Just Roll With It

(David Moyers art)

I've often made New Year's resolutions--you know, the usual goals to spend less, lose weight, read more books, etc.--but that list is predicated upon the New Year being "normal." Sometimes events take charge--a death in the family, a corporate layoff, a house fire, getting a scholarship at a top college, winning the lottery (good things happen too)--that upend all the priorities.

In 2024 I had to learn once again that nature and other people had far more to say about how the year went than me, myself, and I.

In the New Year stuff will happen, so just roll with it.

Bottom Story of the Day

Magnus Carlsen's illegal pants (x/twitter)

One of the best chess players in the world was banned from a tournament for refusing to switch out his pair of jeans:

five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen arrived at the upscale Cipriani Wall Street, host of this year’s World Rapid Chess Championship, wearing something organizers considered utterly inappropriate. He was sporting a pair of jeans.

To FIDE, the game’s world governing body, this was as unacceptable as moving a pawn three spaces.

Denim, FIDE said, is “explicitly prohibited under longstanding regulations for this event” and promptly fined Carlsen, one of the greatest chess players of all time, $200 for his infraction. When the chief arbiter requested that Carlsen change his clothes, he declined to do so. And as a result, the 34-year-old grandmaster from Norway wasn’t assigned a match in the following round. It was chess’s equivalent of a one-game suspension.

Carlsen responded by quitting the tournament altogether—and then pulling out of the World Blitz Chess Championship, too.

“At that point, it became a bit of a matter of principle for me,” he said in an interview on his Take Take Take chess platform. “I’m too old at this point to care too much.”

Carlsen added that he’d been returning from a lunch meeting and barely had time to go back to his room, where he put on a shirt and jacket. He even threw on a different, dressier pair of shoes. But once the arbiter warned him about changing his trousers, Carlsen decided he’d had enough. Instead of arguing about pants, he figured he might as well spend his New Year’s somewhere warmer than freezing New York.

There are some people who are bigger than their sport. Tiger Woods, at his peak, was bigger than golf. Magnus Carlsen is bigger than chess. FIDE would be wise to consider that power dynamic when it seeks to assert its authority over a trivial matter like wearing blue jeans.

Santa Cruz Wharf

Debris from the partial collapse (CBS/YouTube)

The Santa Cruz Wharf experienced a partial collapse after being buffeted by large waves on December 23rd. Repairs had been planned since 2014 but were stymied by environmentalists to protect seagulls (who are not endangered): [bold added]

Strict permitting requirements and lengthy litigation by environmental activists have stalled efforts to fortify the pier that could have helped it withstand the storm, current and former city officials say.

At the center of the delays: seagulls.

It was for the benefit of the western gull, commonly known as the seagull, that the city of Santa Cruz delayed the most critical part of the repair work, installing new timber piles — the columns that hold up the wharf — until September, because gulls and another bird, the pigeon guillemot, make their nests in the wharf’s wooden beams.

The protections for the birds are imposed by the state Coastal Commission, from which the city must obtain a permit before it can do repairs. Most major construction — including replacing the piles — must take place between September and March to avoid the nesting season.

“Our work window is a very narrow six months over the winter time when we tend to have storms and big waves,” said Tony Elliott, director of Parks and Recreation, which oversees the wharf. “The wharf is a 110-year-old structure, and it requires a lot of work. … It takes more than six months out of the year to maintain it effectively.”

Neither the western gull nor the pigeon guillemot are endangered species, yet the Coastal Commission says federal and state laws protect their nesting areas.

One can see thousands of seagulls in San Francisco and down the Peninsula in Foster City. They swoop into the stands at the end of Giants games, looking for scraps. They are ubiquitous, far from endangered, and, frankly, hazardous to human and animal health. Somehow I think the seagulls will adapt if they couldn't nest at the Santa Cruz Wharf over several summers.

The blame for the wharf collapse rests squarely on the shoulders of the California Coastal Commission, which refused to modify its protection of the nesting areas of a species called by many as flying rats.

James Earl Carter, Jr. (1924-2024)

Former President Jimmy Carter, 100, has died:

The 39th president’s sole term in office was marred by a listless economy and stubborn inflation, squabbles within his party, gridlock in Congress and the seizure of American hostages in Iran. Considered a long-shot Democratic candidate when he announced his bid, Carter would broker a historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and set in motion other changes that would dominate global politics in subsequent years.

Many of the achievements for which he was recognized came after he left office in January 1981. He was the most active former president in modern U.S. history, gaining renown for work over four decades monitoring elections around the world, fighting neglected diseases, working to raise living standards for the poor and advocating for human rights. He did much of this work through the Carter Center, the humanitarian nonprofit he founded with his wife, Rosalynn Carter, in 1982.

“Jimmy Carter will probably not go down in American history as the most effective president. But he is certainly the best ex-president the country ever had,” said Gunnar Berge of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in his 2002 speech presenting Carter with the peace prize.

Because of the Iran hostage crisis and moribund economy during his term, Jimmy Carter's Presidency is poorly regarded. But there were some positives:

But he had some notable successes in foreign affairs, including the Camp David Accords. Signed with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, they reshaped the Middle East by bringing a lasting peace to two hostile nations. And domestically, the president was able to push deregulation of airlines, railroads and other industries. He signed a law establishing the Energy Department to regulate existing sources of energy and fund research into new sources and other technologies.

If there's one thing that I remember about President Carter, it's his outspoken Christianity. He was mocked by the Eastern cognoscenti for the Playboy "lust in my heart" interview:

"I've looked on a lot of women with lust. I've committed adultery in my heart many times."

In his defense he wasn't saying anything that most red-blooded American males didn't identify with, but back in the '70's one just didn't talk about such things in public. To his secular supporters he had committed an unforced error by bringing up one of the central struggles of being an evangelical Christian---that God judges men not by their actions but by what is in their hearts:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.---Matthew 5:27

Jimmy Carter spent his post-Presidency showing everyone what it was like to walk the walk over more than four decades. He and Rosalynn lived humbly in Plains, GA and gave generously of their time and money to philanthropic endeavors.

IMHO, Jimmy Carter's failures provide the answer to a question that journalists liked to ask during the recent Presidential campaign: "How can Christians vote for a rapist, serial liar, and convicted felon?" The answer is obvious: we elected a saint once before, and look where that got us. R.I.P.