Where it's hotter and harder

“When you make people no longer accountable for political reasons, even a dummy knows what’s going to happen. It’s going to make things more difficult.”

That’s R. Rex Parris spouting off - as usual. I have written before, not too long ago, about the mayor of Lancaster in northeastern Los Angeles County, where he’s at least as hard and dry as the desert surrounding the town.

This time, besides putting down the mentally disabled, he is griping about the county’s decision to stop providing funds for additional housing inspectors in Lancaster and another desert town, where rent is cheaper. Never mind that these inspections of units rented to people who, like me, receive Section 8 federal Housing and Urban Development subsidies are often unannounced (I always get a month’s notice) and with armed police officers in tow and focus on non-white residents.

Never mind that the inspections have been labeled harassment and intimidating. Never mind that they are now the subject of a federal investigation and that the county is making the wise move to untangle itself out of an ugly, illegal mess. According to the Los Angeles Times, Parris called the county’s decision “insanity.”

What’s insanity is this mayor, who has advocated that city council meetings should opened with a prayer to Jesus, taking his middle name - Rex - all too literally (not to mention degrading the mentally disabled in a public statement). Moreover, he sounds like those conservatives who say voting should be hard because people died for it.