Fighting for breath

   “It creates enormous obstacles for anyone wanting to either expand a business or site a new business…”

   And so the business argument against environmental safeguards goes on.  But at least this sentiment, expressed by Bill La Marr, executive director of the California Small Business Alliance,  didn’t stop the Los Angeles City Council from adopting new rules, dubbed Clean Up Green Up, that will ease air pollution is some of the area’s poorest communities.  This comes after decades of complaints about unhealthy air and its effects, and the rules will include, among other things, more buffers between factories and homes and high quality air filters in new housing within 1000 feet of freeways. 

   These days, unfortunately, this isn’t often the case.  As I explored in a column in the Claremont Courier last month, it seems that businesses and developers are getting the upper hand. 

           A DECISION TO GO BACK TO A HAZY FUTURE

   It used to be “Beware the Ides of March.” Perhaps now it be the Spring Equinox, coming Sunday, that we should beware. 

   After all, “having jobs [is] just as important for a person’s health, for a family’s health, as having clean air.” That’s what Larry McCallon, the mayor of Highland in San Bernardino County and a newly appointed board member of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, thinks. And it looks like he and the other new Republican members of the panel of 13 charged with adopting pollution control regulations to protect the health of the 17 million people here in Southern California are doing what they can to put oil refineries and other heavy industries first. 

   That Winter is ending may not mean much for us in Claremont, all the more so when the monster El Nino has been pretty much a no-show here.  With days and weeks of warm, clear weather since early February, the first day of Spring, March 20, is merely a date on the calendar. Even so, I’ve always had a soft spot for Winter in Claremont. 

   This is because, although it may be warm and dry, it has always been clear, refreshingly clear, here in Winter.  There have always been clear skies, with little or no smog, during the Winter months.  This was when we had those iconic, heavenly views of snow-capped mountains with trees loaded with giant, bright oranges in the foreground.  The old joke was that this is when the colleges hired their new professors starting in August. 

   But this has been changing.  Not only are there no more orange trees, so to speak, and not only has there been not so much snow on Mt.  Baldy and the other peaks in recent years, the Winter months haven’t been the only clear, smog-free or less smoggy, period in Claremont. 

   In the last five years or so, I have noticed that the warmer days of Spring doesn’t always mean that we can’t see Mt. Baldy. Even in summer, it’s not so hot and smoggy.  Or it may very well be hot, but it is definitely not so smoggy, and there are days we can see our local mountains.  Perhaps this just makes it feel not so hot.  Last Summer, I wrote about being able to find a pleasant spot under a tree to read on a afternoon in July and August.  I couldn’t do this when I was growing up here and even ten or twenty years ago. 

   This isn’t wishful thinking or seeing things through rose-colored sunglasses.  According to the Los Angeles Times, since Barry Wallerstein became the executive officer of the AQMD in 1997, “pollution diminished sharply across the region.” This is significant, in that the agency’s jurisdiction, covering Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, has long been known to have the nation’s worst air. 

   With the coming of Spring and Summer this year, I wonder if this happy trend will continue and if we’ll be able to see Mt.  Baldy during the warmer months in future years. There has been another change, and, this time, it isn’t for the better. 

   Two weeks ago, in a closed-door session during its meeting in Diamond Bar, the AQMD board, with its new Republican members, voted to fire Wallerstein as its chief executive. The 7-6 vote was a repudiation of the long-time director’s tightening of air pollution rules which lead to the clearer skies here in recent years. 

  The board also reaffirmed new smog rules backed by oil refineries and other major polluters.  This vote revisited the one made in December, going against what Wallerstein and his staff recommended. The new rules will cut nitrogen oxide pollution by 12 tons a day instead of 14 tons a day, as was recommended, and will be less expensive for industry to implement. 

   These actions were taken despite desperate pleas during the public comment period.  Syvia Betancourt of the Long Beach Alliance for Children with Asthma told the panelists, “Your names will be etched on the lungs of our community members.”  Former AQMD Chairman Henry W. Wedaa wrote to the board expressing “grave concerns” about the move to oust Wallerstein – a move taken without public explanation. 

   According to the Los Angeles Times, the firing and the new rules “are expected to delay Southern California’s progress toward [meeting federal standards} by allowing industry to avoid costly air quality improvements.” The California Air Resource Board has taken the unusual step of criticizing the board decision, saying it violates state and federal laws and will harm public health, and the Senate Environmental Quality Committee has asked the board to reconsider its decision. 

   In addition, California Senate President pro Tem Kevin de Leon said he will introduce legislation to add three new members to the board, and a coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, have filed a lawsuit to prevent the implementation of the new rules. 

   Maybe this and all the outcry will better the situation – clear the air again, so to speak. It will be interesting to see.  The AQMD board’s move wasn’t unlike the California’s Coastal Commission’s decision in January to oust its long-time, respected executive director, Charles Lester.  The vote, also taken behind closed doors after hours of public testimony in favor of Mr.  Lester, is seen to favor developers who want to build projects along the state’s spectacular coastline. 

   This isn’t the first time the air quality board has been questioned recently.  It has been in the spotlight over its handling of years of dangerous lead and arsenic emissions from the now-closed Exide battery plant into communities of southeast Los Angeles County, its response to the massive gas leak near Porter Ranch and restrictions targeting smoke from beach bonfire pits in Orange County. 

   The board members who voted to fire Mr.  Wallerstein and not to reconsider the weakened smog rules insist that they are simply putting environmental needs and business needs more in balance. They would no doubt agree that their decisions merely reflect what David Englin, the executive vice president of the Los Angeles County Business Federation, says: “Children deserve to breathe clean air and they deserve the healthy homes that result when a parent has a good-paying job.”

   Yes, I agree that having a good-paying job is “healthy,” but I wonder if Mr. Englin, Mayor McCallon of Highland and others on the AQMD board have considered that having a good-paying job does no good if one can’t do the job because of asthma or other breathing problems caused by chronic smog. Or because of having to constantly take care of a child with a breathing ailment due to air pollution. 

   This is the question.  Even more than whether we can see the mountains for more than a few months during the year – although it would be nice if we can keep doing that. 

When pride won't come out

   I go to Casa Colina Hospital near here in Pomona twice a week to work out.  Casa Colina is a rehabilitation hospital, catering primarily to people who have become disabled, helping them learn to live with their disabilities, and it has a program for disabled people from the community to use its gym.  When I’m there, I work with weights on my upper body and use a hand bike.  There are usually staff members or volunteers to help me with setting up the weights or tie my hands to the bike. 

   Anyway, when I was there the other day, there was a new volunteer, a young woman who seemed cool, with the sides of her head shaved.  As she was helping me, trying to figure out how to strap a sandbag weight on my arm, how to reattach my speech device to my wheelchair, I noticed she was wearing a gay pride bracelet.  I thought this was way cool – it made me happy – and I wanted her to see my rainbow bracelet, to let her know that I understood, that she had company.  And, okay, I wanted her to see I’m not just a patient, a disabled person that needs help; I wanted her to see that I have a life, a life like her. 

   The problem was that I was wearing long sleeves, and my rainbow bracelet, along with a friendship bracelet, was way up my arm, under the sleeve.  I tried to get the sleeve up and the pride bracelet out.  I kept rubbing my arm on my leg, hoping the sleeve would ride up.  (My other arm, as frequently happens, wasn’t being cooperative.) But to no avail. 

   No.  Nothing doing.  I was stuck, like I was back in the closet, and the door was locked.  There was no pride, no being out, today. I do rainbow laces on my Docs, but I wasn’t sure if the young woman saw them - they’re more subtle perhaps, not really out there, not like the bracelet. 

   Before I left, I almost tried to tell her that I like her bracelet, but a staff member came over, and I didn’t want to make an awkward scene. 

   I left, frustrated, but figuring that I’ll see the volunteer again and that she’ll eventually see my bracelet, especially when it gets warm and I start going shirtless in my overalls.  I also thought once again about getting a rainbow sticker and putting it on the front of the cup holder on my wheelchair.  That way, I will always, always be out and never stuck back in the closet. 

A lesson in packing, like it or not

   In Texas, if you want to go to school, you have to have a gun. 

   Sure as shooting, that’s what it looks like, with a new law recently enacted in the Lone Star State. In fact, you may need to have a gun with you are at school. 

   When the so-called campus-carry law passed by the Republican-dominated state Legislature takes effect in August, public colleges will no longer be able to ban the concealed carrying of handguns on campus. Though the schools can impose some restrictions, they must generally honor a state-issued concealed handgun license on campus. 

   This means that, whether they like it or not, state universities and colleges have to buy into Texas’ wild, wild west packing culture.  Except in certain spaces, like a chemistry lab, there is no escape from firearms that can be used. 

   Lots of students and professors don’t like it, especially at the state university in Austin.  In a photograph accompanying a Los Angeles Times article, protesting students in the liberal community appear to be pleading, begging to be safe, to feel safe, in their classrooms, free of guns. That doesn’t matter. 

   It also doesn’t matter that professors don’t feel safe with the new arrangement and that some are leaving or turning down positions at Texas public colleges.  Never mind the concern that, as one professor noted, “a disgruntled student with a gun would ‘lose it,’ pull out the gun and shoot the instructor” or, as another mentioned, “Students get very angry if they feel they’re getting a grade they don’t deserve.  I have students who come in absolutely red-faced… ‘Why did I get this grade?’”

   There is concern that grading will be effected, most likely inflated.  Faculty have been warned to “Be careful discussing sensitive topics” and “Drop certain topics from your curriculum; not ‘go there’ if you sense anger; limit student access off hours…only meet ‘that student’ in controlled circumstances.”

   Never mind what this means about teaching and education.  Never mind about challenging ideas and opening minds.  Proponents say the new law will make colleges safer, with people able to take down a shooter.  (They also probably like it that ideas won’t be challenged and minds won’t be opened.)

   Never mind that education will be watered down to meaningless drivel.  What’s even sadder is that, in Texas, you’ll need to take a gun to school – to be safe.        

Just plain folk - and more

   Last Friday, I saw in the Claremont Courier that Marley’s Ghost was playing the next night at the Folk Music Center.  I was delighted, feeling that I was in luck.  Marley’s Ghost is one of my favorite bands, and I happened to not have plans for Saturday night.  Plus it would be a nice way to celebrate getting over a horrible cold that I had had for two and a half weeks.  I went by the store the next afternoon and snagged a ticket. Sweet! 

   The group put on a great show, as always.  I have seen this folk band – there are six guys – four or five times, and they are wonderful.  I like folk music, old-time music, and these guys play and sing with lots of soul.  The trick, for me, is that they infuse a lot of their stuff with reggae and also borrow a lot from the Grateful Dead.  So they are right up my alley. I once heard them play a song about love being like jelly in your belly that was just magic, deeply feel-good.  Also, as with many folk bands, they feature much humorous, corny banter, and it’s a kick to see these white guys my age – in their 50’s – jamming and singing so sweetly in harmony and doing it so superbly. 

   Also, seeing them at the Folk Music Center was a real treat.  The Folk Music Center is in Claremont and is practically a museum in addition to a store, with all kinds of acoustic guitars, violins, drums, xylophones and other folk instruments from all over the world lining the walls, literally from floor to ceiling, and visitors encouraged to try out some of them.  It was founded by Charles and Dorothy Chase, the grandparents of Ben Harper, and it is sort of legendary around here and probably at least in the wider folk world. 

   The store puts on in-store concerts usually about once or twice a month, and, over the years, I’ve seen a number of groups there, from the pretty traditional Wicher Brothers to the punk-folk I See Hawks in L.A, and this wasn’t the first time I saw Marley’s Ghost there.  The back half of the store, which is relatively small, is cleared, with folding chairs set up.  It is like going to a concert in someone’s living room, an intimate jam session with top-notch musicians surrounded by beloved instruments.  What’s more, tickets go for $10 or $15.

   Like I said, a real treat – and all the more so with Marley’s Ghost! 

Rioting at the polls

   “We’re voting with our middle finger.”

   It certainly looks like that’s what’s happening in the primary elections, with Donald Trump piling up win after win.  As the blowhard, bullying, ignorant billionaire, who everyone in polite company says they hate, appears to have nearly a insurmountable lead in the Republican presidential nomination race after this week’s Super Tuesday elections and caucuses, it looks like there’s a lot to this quote from a retired truck driver before voting in the South Carolina Republican primary last month. 

   No matter how much the Republican party itself says that this would be a disaster, with Mitt Romney joining in in a big way yesterday, Trump for president seems to be what folks want. The people voting for Trump have one thing in common: they’re angry, angry at how government operates, and they like it that Trump “tells it like it is” and expresses this anger. 

   The Trump voters, many but notably not all of whom are white, blue-collar, non-college-educated workers, don’t care about the usual conservative values.  They don’t want big military spending, and I read that many don’t mind large government programs, as long as they benefit (they don’t like others getting welfare). They want an outsider, someone angry like them, to go in and take charge. 

   Some commentators argue that this same anger fuels the same passion behind Bernie Sanders, with his anti-big money platform.  This may sound like an unfair and nonsensical comparison (after all, isn’t Trump big money?), but, in what is a truly alarming development, I have read about Sanders voters saying that, if he doesn’t get the nomination, they’ll vote for Trump if he’s on the November ballot rather than Hilary Clinton, who they see as slick politics as usual. 

   All this is fascinating, and it’s great theater.  It is fascinating to see what happens when people say what they want, when things are not going the usual way – so much for Jeb and for Hilary’s glide to the nomination (although that now be more likely) – and, for a Democrat, it’s fun to see the Republican party coming apart at the seams.  This is all quite heady stuff. 

   The trouble is that this is not theater.  This is our society, our life, and it may be how we live in this country, and how others see us in this country, for the next four years.  The people voting for Trump are certainly giving the finger – to themselves.  In voting with their middle finger, they are like rioters, burning and looting their own neighborhood.  Sticking it may feel good now, but it will cause great destruction and may well destroy their life. 

   It is not unlike poor people who agree that Obamacare is bad, even as it is making or can make their lives easier and better.  Except, in that case, it’s more rhetoric, and they are the only one getting hurt.