This is a local Palos Verdes issue, but I guess there is yet another attempt to install lights on the Peninsula High football field. This doesn't affect me personally, as I live several miles from the school; but if you live less than a mile from it or have a view of the City, you'd better pay attention to the effect this will have on you. Have a look at www.darkskiesinpv.weebly.com.
This has been brought up several times during the life of that school, which has never had lights on that field. Each time, including when the school was built, lights were dismissed out of hand as far too big an imposition on the surrounding neighborhoods -- the noise far into the night, the view obstruction of bright lights on 80' poles, scads of cars parked in the surrounding neighborhoods, the traffic and screeching tires, the bands, the fans, the PA -- all will be audible miles from the school, especially at night. My father, Cliff Graham, was on the School Board in 1964 when that school was built, and there was hardly even a debate about installing lights: the disruption to the surrounding neighbors was too onerous and obvious to admit discussion of lights, and far outweighed any hypothetical benefits to the school or kids.
The proponents are disingenuously suggesting that the lights will only be used 5-7 nights per year. Does anyone believe that $500,000 lights are only going to be used 5-7 times per year? They will be used for every excuse. And, by the way, $500,000 spent on lights when the District is discussing laying off teachers? This is a school, not a sports franchise.
The kids will be there for a few years and they and their parents will move on. The surrounding neighbors (of whom roughly 1000 are against this by latest count) will be sentenced to the late night noise, traffic, nighttime view obstruction, security concerns due to all those cars parking on their streets late into the night, etc, for the rest of their lives . . . or until they have to sell their house at a discount because of all of it.
The governing bodies of the past 47 years have all clearly recognized how unfair lights would be to the people living in the surrounding neighborhoods, none of whom bought their homes with the significant baggage of lights on that field, as did none of the light-favoring parents of kids whose high school experience will now somehow be less fulfilling by having to play/attend games in the afternoon. I was one of those kids, and I survived. The negative effects of lights on the owners of those surrounding homes today would be no different than they would have been every time they've been declined since 1964. Are the kids and parents that much more special now than they have been (or than we were)? Are the neighbors commensurately less special? What, exactly, has changed?
Proponents of lights are asking a large number of surrounding homeowners to bear a significant burden for an infinite time period, for the sole, temporary, theoretical, and minor benefit of those who share no part of that burden. It's as unjust and unwise now as it was in 1964.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Dodger Stadium
While I'm on dangerous ground (see previous post Obsequious Fawning in the media), this whole thing about the San Francisco Giants fan being beaten up by some low-life residents of (I would guess East) LA is distressing on several levels, most of which are obvious.
Now, however, the media is reporting that the family of Brian Stow is filing the inevitable lawsuit against the Dodgers, part of the argument reportedly being that the Dodger organization did not do all it could have done to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
I'm as sympathetic to Brian Stow and his family as anyone, but I remember when Dodger Stadium opened about 1962. There must have been upwards of 100 million fans who have attended Dodger games there since then. How many fan beatings have there been during that time? I honestly can't remember a single other one. It's certainly an exceedingly rare event and one which the Dodger organization has an obvious interest in preventing.
If we can stipulate that fan beatings are so rare that no one can remember another one, on what basis is the attorney for the family going to credibly argue that anything else could or should have been done to prevent it? Seems to me they've been pretty successful. What should they have done -- had armed guards at every gate? Metal detectors? Oh wait, this didn't involve a gun, did it. How many different types of hazards is a business like this supposed to prevent?
This is the kind of
(not to mix my sports metaphors) Monday morning quarterbacking that, as an historian, drives me nuts: "Varus you idiot -- how could you not know the Germans were hanging out in the Teutoburg Forest?"; "Kimmel you ree-tard -- why weren't you ready for the Japanese 0800 7 December 1941?"; "Bainbridge, how could you not know that that [uncharted] sandbar in Tripoli Harbor would ground the Philadelphia while chasing them nasty Tripolitan galleys?"; "Nagumo you dummy -- you shoulda sent out a 5th floatplane at Midway", or "Chamberlain, I don't care if you were universally hailed as a hero after Munich -- look what happened later. It was your fault".
My point is that, after the fact, when everyone knows what was about to happen, and ignoring everything else that could have happened but didn't but which, apparently, it was incumbent upon the Dodgers to prevent, it's easy to say what should have been done to prevent what actually did happen. I refer to this as Hindsight 3.0 on the Dana Graham Scale of Hindsight (see my post in this Blog of February, 2009, on the Iraq War, in which different forms of hindsight are catalogued). What if an asteriod had landed in the parking lot? Coulda happened -- nothing between asteroids and the pavement to prevent it. And Frank McCourt is an expert on parking lots, is he not?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that bad stuff happens as a consequence of being alive, and while the above-mentioned [apparently] gang-bangers appear guilty as sin, it is they who are culpable. Going after the Dodgers to pay medical bills, just because they have deeper pockets, is difficult to justify.
Now, however, the media is reporting that the family of Brian Stow is filing the inevitable lawsuit against the Dodgers, part of the argument reportedly being that the Dodger organization did not do all it could have done to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
I'm as sympathetic to Brian Stow and his family as anyone, but I remember when Dodger Stadium opened about 1962. There must have been upwards of 100 million fans who have attended Dodger games there since then. How many fan beatings have there been during that time? I honestly can't remember a single other one. It's certainly an exceedingly rare event and one which the Dodger organization has an obvious interest in preventing.
If we can stipulate that fan beatings are so rare that no one can remember another one, on what basis is the attorney for the family going to credibly argue that anything else could or should have been done to prevent it? Seems to me they've been pretty successful. What should they have done -- had armed guards at every gate? Metal detectors? Oh wait, this didn't involve a gun, did it. How many different types of hazards is a business like this supposed to prevent?
This is the kind of
(not to mix my sports metaphors) Monday morning quarterbacking that, as an historian, drives me nuts: "Varus you idiot -- how could you not know the Germans were hanging out in the Teutoburg Forest?"; "Kimmel you ree-tard -- why weren't you ready for the Japanese 0800 7 December 1941?"; "Bainbridge, how could you not know that that [uncharted] sandbar in Tripoli Harbor would ground the Philadelphia while chasing them nasty Tripolitan galleys?"; "Nagumo you dummy -- you shoulda sent out a 5th floatplane at Midway", or "Chamberlain, I don't care if you were universally hailed as a hero after Munich -- look what happened later. It was your fault".
My point is that, after the fact, when everyone knows what was about to happen, and ignoring everything else that could have happened but didn't but which, apparently, it was incumbent upon the Dodgers to prevent, it's easy to say what should have been done to prevent what actually did happen. I refer to this as Hindsight 3.0 on the Dana Graham Scale of Hindsight (see my post in this Blog of February, 2009, on the Iraq War, in which different forms of hindsight are catalogued). What if an asteriod had landed in the parking lot? Coulda happened -- nothing between asteroids and the pavement to prevent it. And Frank McCourt is an expert on parking lots, is he not?
It is an unfortunate fact of life that bad stuff happens as a consequence of being alive, and while the above-mentioned [apparently] gang-bangers appear guilty as sin, it is they who are culpable. Going after the Dodgers to pay medical bills, just because they have deeper pockets, is difficult to justify.
Obsequious Fawning
This is going to be misinterpreted, so let me just say that I was in the US Marine Corps when it was unfashionable. I was no hero -- just a guy doing what had to be done.
A common theme these days in the (especially center and right-wing) media is the (in my view) ridiculous fawning over those who serve in the military. Every one is characterized as a "hero" and the conservative talk show hosts (guys like Limbaugh, Medved, Praeger, Hewitt, Hannity, Beck, etc) seem to fall all over themselves to lick the boots of anyone who is, or has been, in the military. Don't get me wrong --these guys all deserve our respect and thanks, but elevating them all to the status of "hero" demeans those whose deeds are truly worthy of the term. The left-wing media, of course, are clueless about so much and continues to be anti-military, so that's not surprising, but I'm not talking about them -- I expect that from those who are further down the learning curve.
The fawning from the Right can be explained, I think, by guilt and ignorance. Military service was, to put it mildly, out of fashion when most of the media were coming of age. Guys like Medved, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc, all did whatever they could to evade serving. This was very common at the time, as we all know, so they were not unique. However, now that they have become conservative spokesmen, often advocating military action, and with all that the conservative philosophy implies about the need and uses for a strong national defense, I strongly suspect that there is a gnawing guilt deep within them for not having done their part when their time came. It's easy now to advocate sending people into combat when you are too old to serve and your children are not about to volunteer for the now-all-volunteer military. It might, ironically, even assauge some personal guilt. They can't go back and re-live those days; they can, however, profess nauseating worship for everything and everyone military in an attempt to, at least in their mind, make up for their own refusal to step up. It's pretty transparent.
These same people tend to be painfully ignorant of things military. Most of them couldn't tell you whether a colonel outranked a corporal, or whether the Navy Cross was more or less desirable than the Silver Star, or what the significance of the Chaut-chaut machine gun was. You don't have to have served in the military to know this stuff. Being interested enough to study a bit of military history will give one the insight to understand that just being in the military does not make one a hero. In fact, shooting at (or being shot at by) the enemy does not, by itself, confer hero status -- isn't that stuff sort of implied when one signs up?
Along with unfamiliarity with the military generally goes unfamiliarity with the truly heroic deeds of such as John Basilone, Alvin York, Stephen Decatur, Leonaidas,
Jackson Pharris, or Taffy 3. Those are just a few that come to mind at the moment, but with the exception of Michael Medved (easily the best informed talk show host on radio today, tho he has other issues), I'll bet none of the above personages could tell you anything about any of these people or what they did to truly earn the status of "Hero". I would have more respect for their opinions on military matters if they could.
A common theme these days in the (especially center and right-wing) media is the (in my view) ridiculous fawning over those who serve in the military. Every one is characterized as a "hero" and the conservative talk show hosts (guys like Limbaugh, Medved, Praeger, Hewitt, Hannity, Beck, etc) seem to fall all over themselves to lick the boots of anyone who is, or has been, in the military. Don't get me wrong --these guys all deserve our respect and thanks, but elevating them all to the status of "hero" demeans those whose deeds are truly worthy of the term. The left-wing media, of course, are clueless about so much and continues to be anti-military, so that's not surprising, but I'm not talking about them -- I expect that from those who are further down the learning curve.
The fawning from the Right can be explained, I think, by guilt and ignorance. Military service was, to put it mildly, out of fashion when most of the media were coming of age. Guys like Medved, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc, all did whatever they could to evade serving. This was very common at the time, as we all know, so they were not unique. However, now that they have become conservative spokesmen, often advocating military action, and with all that the conservative philosophy implies about the need and uses for a strong national defense, I strongly suspect that there is a gnawing guilt deep within them for not having done their part when their time came. It's easy now to advocate sending people into combat when you are too old to serve and your children are not about to volunteer for the now-all-volunteer military. It might, ironically, even assauge some personal guilt. They can't go back and re-live those days; they can, however, profess nauseating worship for everything and everyone military in an attempt to, at least in their mind, make up for their own refusal to step up. It's pretty transparent.
These same people tend to be painfully ignorant of things military. Most of them couldn't tell you whether a colonel outranked a corporal, or whether the Navy Cross was more or less desirable than the Silver Star, or what the significance of the Chaut-chaut machine gun was. You don't have to have served in the military to know this stuff. Being interested enough to study a bit of military history will give one the insight to understand that just being in the military does not make one a hero. In fact, shooting at (or being shot at by) the enemy does not, by itself, confer hero status -- isn't that stuff sort of implied when one signs up?
Along with unfamiliarity with the military generally goes unfamiliarity with the truly heroic deeds of such as John Basilone, Alvin York, Stephen Decatur, Leonaidas,
Jackson Pharris, or Taffy 3. Those are just a few that come to mind at the moment, but with the exception of Michael Medved (easily the best informed talk show host on radio today, tho he has other issues), I'll bet none of the above personages could tell you anything about any of these people or what they did to truly earn the status of "Hero". I would have more respect for their opinions on military matters if they could.
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