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The Spread of ‘Debate is Over’ Syndrome

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

The ongoing trial involving journalist Mark Steyn – accused of defaming climate change theorist Michael Mann – reflects an increasingly dangerous tendency among our intellectual classes to embrace homogeneity of viewpoint. Steyn, whose column has appeared for years on these pages, may be alternatingly entertaining or over-the-top obnoxious, but the slander lawsuit against him marks a milestone in what has become a dangerously authoritarian worldview being adopted in academia, the media and large sections of the government bureaucracy.

Let’s call it “the debate is over” syndrome, referring to a term used most often in relationship with climate change but also by President Barack Obama last week in reference to what remains his contentious, and theoretically reformable, health care plan. Ironically, this shift to certainty now comes increasingly from what passes for the Left in America.

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City of Villages

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Appearing in:

The City Journal

Los Angeles is unique among the big, world-class American cities. Unlike New York, Boston, or Chicago, L.A. lacks a clearly defined core. It is instead a sprawling region made up of numerous poly-ethnic neighborhoods, few exhibiting the style and grace of a Paris arrondissement, Greenwich Village, or southwest London. In the 1920s, the region’s huge dispersion was contemptuously described—in a quotation alternately attributed to Dorothy Parker, Aldous Huxley, or H. L. Mencken—as “72 suburbs in search of a city.” Los Angeles’s lack of urbane charm led William Faulkner to dub it “the plastic asshole of the world.” But to those of us who inhabit this expansive and varied place, the lack of conventional urbanity is exactly what makes Los Angeles so interesting. My adopted hometown is the exemplar of the modern multipolar metropolis: less a conscious city than a series of alternatives created by its climate, its diversity, and a congested but still-functional system of freeways that historian Kevin Starr calls “absolute masterpieces of engineering.”

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Radio Interview: Energy Running out of California

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By: KABC Radio Los Angeles
On: Larry Elder Show

Joel was on with KABC Radio’s Larry Elder recently to talk about the shifts in the energy industry in California and what it means for the state’s longer-term economic future. Click the Play button below to listen. (mp3 audio file)

Bubble Trouble in Silicon Valley

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

Third-generation venture capitalist Tim Draper believes he has a solution for California’s problems that will make the Silicon Valley safe for its wealthy: secession. In a recent interview, Draper suggested that California be divided into six states, including one dominated by the Valley and its urban annex, San Francisco.

By jettisoning California’s deeply troubled components – the Central Valley, the Inland Empire, Los Angeles – the Silicon Valleyites can create their own enclave, where incomes will be far higher – $63,288 per capital compared with the $46,477 for the whole state. If adopted, Draper’s proposal would mean our self-styled cognitive leaders wouldn’t have to deal with interior California’s massive poverty, double-digit unemployment, farmer demands for scarce water supplies or manufacturers seeking reasonable energy prices. Read more

Energy Running Out of California

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

The recent decision by Occidental Petroleum to move its headquarters to Houston from Los Angeles, where it was founded over a half-century ago, confirms the futility and delusion embodied in California’s ultragreen energy policies. By embracing solar and wind as preferred sources of generating power, the state promotes an ever-widening gap between its declining middle- and working-class populations and a smaller, self-satisfied group of environmental campaigners and their corporate backers.

Talk to people who work in the fossil-fuel industry, and they tell you they feel ostracized and even hated; to be an oil firm in California is like being a pork producer in an ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem. Read more

Joel Talks About LA’s Energy Industry

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By: KABC Radio Los Angeles
On: McIntyre In The Morning

Joel appeared yesterday on KABC Los Angeles McIntyre in the Morning to talk about the current state of California’s energy industry. Click the Play button below to listen. (mp3 audio file)

Southern California has Aging Issues

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

Back in the 1960s, and for well into the 1980s, California stood at the cutting edge of youth culture, the place where trends started and young people clustered. “The California teen, a white, middle-class version of the American dream” raised in a world of “suburbs, cars, and beaches,” notes historian Kirse Granat May, literally shaped the national image of youth, from the Beach Boys and Barbie to Gidget.
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Possible Sign of Trouble for Los Angeles

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

A quarter century ago, the Los Angeles-Orange County area seemed on the verge of joining the first tier of global cities. As late as 2009, the veteran journalist James Flanigan could pen a quasiserious book, “Smile Southern California: You’re the Center of the Universe,” which maintained that L.A.’s port, diversity and creativity made it the natural center of the 21st century.

A very different impression comes from a newer report, The Los Angeles 2020 Commission, which points out that, in reality, the region “is barely treading water while the rest of the world is moving forward.” The report, which focuses on the city of Los Angeles, points to many of the problems – growing poverty, a shrinking middle class, an unbalanced city budget, an underachieving economic and educational system – that have been building for decades.
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California’s Potholed Road to Recovery

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Appearing in:

Orange County Register

California’s economy may be on the mend, but prospects for continued growth are severely constrained by the increasing obsolescence of the state’s basic infrastructure. Once an unquestioned leader in constructing new roads, water systems, power generation and building our human capital, California is relentlessly slipping behind other states, including some with much lower tax and regulatory burdens.

The indications of California’s incipient senility can be found in a host of reports, including a recent one from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which gave the state a “C” grade. Read more

Talking About the Future of LA on ABC Radio

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By: KABC Radio Los Angeles
On: McIntyre In The Morning

Joel joins host Doug McIntyre to discuss the findings of the Los Angeles 2020 Commission’s recent report. Click the Play button below to listen to the interview. (mp3 audio file)