This place is right by work and though I have yet to try the pastries but I do know their lunch is really good.

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Fancy French dining in Century City. I took Sun her for our little anniversary, as a sort of recollection of our time in Paris the same event last year.

The food here is absolutely delicious and suprisingly comparitively affordable. Our waiter was a shining example of his profession, of the kind where they do not approach unless you wish them to (I am quite tired of a waiter asking how everything is when I haven’t even taken a bite).

The chocolate soufle, by the way, is very, very tasty.

The next time I go, I’ll go for their 5- or 7-course meal set. I saw a table do that and it looked like a lot of fun (the waiter apparently had some discretion and gave each of them different appetizers and desserts as to their liking, so it’s not as set as you would think).

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by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Can you believe I never read any of the John Carter books until now? Me, neither. Particularly since this is exactly the genre of my own Earthshift.

This is an unbelievably wonderful book about Confederate soldier John Carter, astrally transported to Barsoom, the planet we call Mars, where he, with his impressive strength and agility given by his Earthborn physical makeup on the lighter gravity of the red planet, quickly becomes an important figure in Baroom’s history. Oh, and there’s a princess, too.

The John Carter series was supposed to be made into a film, with filming starting as early as this year under the helm of Jon Favreau. Unfortunately, Paramount thinks Star Trek will make more money, and so Favreau’s off to do Iron Man, another in Marvel’s continued efforts to put every damn superhero title they have on the silver screen. So maybe 2010. If Paramount survives the severe damage it’ll probably get from a Star Trek movie. Seriously, WHAT Star Trek movie?! It’s tapped out. Let it rest a decade or so to regain a bit of vigor, already.

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Apparently, I’m wrong and have grown forgetful. Here in California an Independent may choose a party ballot and, for that one evening, be a party member insofar as to vote for a party candidate for governor or congress.

So, in addition to what I’d already planned, I also included a few thoughts on the candidates for the two dominant parties of the United States political system. The other parties typically have an uncontested candidate for the primaries, so I won’t focus on them until election day in November.

June 6, 2006 California Elections Guide – Party Ballot

• Governor, Democratic Party – Phil Angelides; let’s stop being afraid of taxes yet expecting the government to give us handouts… you know, stop being hypocrites — it’s a refreshing platform and one that provides a strong alternative to the Republican platform. Westly is just Arnold for a different party. We already have an Arnold. Let’s have an interesting fight for once. I suppose I could also argue the other way, and say with Westly on the ballot voting for either means a stable California, since California isn’t exactly the battlefield between far left and far right as in other places, which means my thought on the subject earlier, though well-intended, should not be applied in this particular arena. I’m very non-committal mostly because I plan to vote for Arnold, meaning I really should not vote for anyone on the Democratic ballot in this primary.
• Governor, Republican Party – Arnold Schwarzenneger. The people who elected him showed him who was boss last year and he’s finally figured it out. Let’s give him a shot at keeping his eye on the prize and making state government work. That he distances himself from the federal Republican platform is always a good thing — because the GOP is about state’s rights, right? All this federal nonsense about constitutional bans and increase executive powers annoy me, and it’s nice to see they annoy the Governator, too.
• Lt. Governer, Democratic Party – This is an odd one. I’m automatically not keen on Speier simply because she ran with the most cash though Garamendi is ahead and only spending a third the amount, while Figueroa spent a sixth. That would have me going for underdog Figueroa. Garamendi’s unpopular with insurance companies. That’s always a plus. You know, it’ll be a close thing and I don’t think I’d be disappointed with any of them. I’ll go with Garamendi.
• Lt. Governor, Republican Party – Tony Farmer. I don’t like McClintock. It goes that deep. Of course, McClintock’s the shoe-in. Whatever.
• Secretary of State, Democratic Party – Both candidates promise to protect the voting system and to raise voter registration. I don’t see much difference other than that Bowen’s savvy enough to put up a website. I could pull a geek card for her and vote her in just for that. In all honesty, in today’s world, a website is the most cost-effective way to put out your message. If you can’t be bothered, then really, you’re not representing me. So, yeah. Bowen.
• Secretary of State, Republican Party – The guy’s running unopposed. You don’t need a guide.
• Controller, Democratic Party – Chiang. Dunn gets kudos for cracking Enron, or whatever, but if that’s all he’s got over a person educated in financing, which is the state controller’s job, then I’d lean towards Chiang.
• Controller, Republican Party – Well, Strickland’s automatically out for me since he’s pretty hard right about immigration. That he worked as chief of staff for State Senator McClintock doesn’t help. That he wants to go in and tamper with the LAUSD instead of letting us as Los Angeleans deal with it sounds heavy-handed. Maldonado loses out for getting into a slime versus slime with Strickland — over state controller? Dudes, you guys just gave Stieringer the vote were I holding a GOP ballot.
• Treasurer, Democratic Party – uncontested.
• Treasurer, Republican Party – Richman wins by virtue of having a website. I state again, a website is so friggin’ cheap and easy to put up it just doesn’t make any sense to not have one for a statewide election campaign.
• Attorney General, Democratic Party – Tough one. Brown’s a quirky guy, Delgadillo’s the Harvard law guy who is currently LA City Attorney. I’d vote for the hometown boy except he doesn’t really say much about his platform and attacks Jerry Brown. I’m no fan of attacks. I think I’m leaning towards Brown, but this might change to a complete switch to Delgadillo, or just refrain from voting.
• Attorney General, Republican Party – Poochigian runs uncontested. I just wanted to write out his name.
• Insurance Commissioner, Democratic Party – Why is Bustamente leaving the Lt. Governor position to become insurance commissioner? Why does it look like his opponent, John Kraft, did his website himself or let his grandson do it, while Cruz’ doesn’t even acknowledge he’s running for this office? This one is just plain weird. Uh. Kraft?
• United States Senator, Democratic Party – Feinstein. This isn’t even up for waffling.
• United States Senator, Republican Party – Uncontested.
• United States Representative, District 36, Democratic Party – I’m voting for Winograd. Harman’s ticked me off with her voting record. I remember writing to her specifically about the flag-burning issue and her canned response was not much of one (it went for the symbol of patriotism card, which I find ludicrous since the ultimate symbol to a patriotism that stems from “”Give me Liberty or give me Death!”" is to have the right to burn a piece of cloth — you worship the flag, I’ll uphold liberty). I sincerely doubt she actually read what I wrote. I don’t have any illusions that Winograd, if elected, would read an email sent to her. But at least I like her platform. Besides, and this is key, Harman knew about Bush’s NSA spying but only expressed herself after it was leaked. Way to go, Harman.
• State Senator, District 28, Democratic Party – Nakano. Oropreza sounds like a nice candidate, but she doesn’t strike me as outstanding enough to counter Nakano’s hefty resume. Maybe next time, when she’s got a bit more under her belt (or does something spectacular).
• State Senator, District 28, Republican Party – Uncontested.
• State Board of Equalization, District 4, Democratic Party – Horton or Chu.
• State Board of Equalization, District 4, Republican Party – There isn’t enough info here… can’t say.

So anyhow, I’m a bit torn. I sorta want to grab a GOP ballot so I can put in my two cents about who I’d like to see there… but part of me wants to grab the Democratic ballot simply because I’d like to see Winograd represent my district.

Anyway, onto the actual elections at hand for all registered voters:

June 6, 2006 California Elections Guide

• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 8 – Friedenthal.
• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 18 – Mitchell.
• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 28 – Meyer.
• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 95 – Lopez-Giss.
• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 102 – Whoa. Zacky looks like John. That’s a bit creepy. Montgomery seems to have more experience as a judge. I’ll go with that.
• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 120 – Janavs.
• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 122 – Lowenthal, because Davenport lists as a priority to reinstate the cross in the LA County seal. That’s a fucking priority?
• Judge, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, Office 144 – Stuart.
• State Superintendent of Public Instruction – There’s a mouthful and how many of us knows what that means? It means they manage the State Department of Education. Suddenly it’s much more important, eh? KQED San Francisco held a debate. O’Connell, the incumbent, rides on the reinstatement of the California Exit Exam, something I agree with (and in no way antithetical to my opposition to Prop. 209 — if you can’t graduate because of your situation then there is no shame in spending extra time to go to summer school or some other form of instruction to be able to pass the Exit Exam). Knopp opposes it and spends most of her time railing about corportations. Lenning sounds like a Republican shill. Bunting’s got no backbone, and McMicken’s, a math teacher, has some fairly radical and somewhat improbably ideas. I think the incumbent’s gonna have to stay if this is the playing field.
• Assessor, County of Los Angeles – Lowe official changed his name to John Lower Taxes Loew. That’s kinda awesome.
• Sheriff, County of Los Angeles – Baca’s running as incumbent. He’s also turned Scientologist. Jernigan’s Plan page is all about how Baca sucks. In fact, only Leyva has a platform that doesn’t overtly have red text accusing Baca of being a sucky sheriff. Leyva it is.
• Supervisor, County of Los Angeles, District 3 – Springer’s out. He’s a prude of the first order. His first bullet points are about Yaroslavsky’s removal of the cross from the LA County Seal – I am not arguing about validity of this point, I am pointing out that this is the number one issue he lists, followed by a rail about prono then on how illegal aliens are robbing us blind. Hernandez supports keeping Prop 13. Yaroslavsky the incumbent gets my vote.
• Proposition 81, California Reading and Literacy Improvement and Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act of 2006 – Yes. Improve our libraries, already!
• Proposition 82, Preschool Education Tax on Incomes Over $400,000 for Individuals; $800,000 for Couples – I initially liked the idea, but with closer examination it sounds untenable. What does having a four-year college degree have to do with being a preschool teacher? Why another certificate? Do you actually think that a college graduate is that much better as a preschool teacher than someone who trains with vocational classes for a credential? That’s wasting rich people’s money. Good intentions typically result in bad implementation. This is one of them.

Being an Independent means I don’t get to do anything about the Democratic primary in California, but I certainly hope that Angelides takes it from Westly and that Winograd wins over Harman for my home district.

I’m a moderate, and in fact, I’m fairly conservative of the libertarian kind. But with the pendulum swung so far to one side, you really need sufficient force to swing it back, and that means calls for bipartisanship are pointless. Let’s go radical and see if we can get things a little more balanced.

That’s a very simplistic view, and I don’t intend it to be otherwise, or I’d be typing for some time. In general, though, the liberal candidate platforms by and large reflect my own views when it comes to issues of military aggression and civil rights with regard to sexuality. So, yes, I’m all for having these folks charge in and stirring things up.

If we have to have political parties, then we might as well be able to tell the difference between them.

That said, I’m probably going to vote for Arnold again. We’ll see.

Mindless fun of the best kind.

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A recent LA Times article states that next year’s UCLA freshman class will have only 96 African-Americans, down twenty from last year. This UCLA report on admissions by ethnicity from 1991-2000 shows that during my time there (1992-1996), African-Americans who registered to attend UCLA were consistently above 200. In 1997, I graduated and Chancellor Charles Young retired. He gave an address to the life science majors at their graduation ceremony, which I attended for Kris and Katri. He congratulated the class on their achievement, but his speech was a sad one, where he admitted feeling that all his efforts for over a quarter century had all come tumbling down. Charles Young was referring to the passage of Proposition 209, a clever bit of legerdemain that essentially boils down to: California recognizes we are all equal, we no longer need the band-aid of the sixties. In 1998, with 209 in full effect, African-American freshman registration dropped below 200. More telling, the number of applications didn’t change, but the number of admits dropped 40%.

Yet Ward Connelly denies that 209 was wrong, citing that the problem is that the problem is that there are only a “”small number of black students who are academically competitive”".

Prop. 209 was intended to establish a full meritocratic admissions process. Unfortunately, you can only have this if you cancel out socioeconimic factors that affect your competitiveness. This is not to say I don’t believe we should strive towards a meritocratic institution. I do. But do I think that has been achieved? So much so that affirmative action was no longer needed? No. I didn’t then and I definitely do not think so now.

If I want to be generous, I would say that Prop. 209 is ahead of its time. It is the kind of legislation, in its text, that sounds democratic (except that it omits discrimination of sexuality, which is today’s hot potato). But for it to work, to be democratic, it assumes that society provides equal opportunities to everyone. This is, of course, not the case, and in rendering the ways in which our society strive to give everyone an equal chance through affirmative action, in stating that affirmative action gave an unfiar advantage, this proposition, with its head in the clouds, with its simple democratic text, brought about the complete opposite of its intentions.

I worked at UCLA from 2000 to 2005 and during that time all I noticed was an increasing number of affluent Asians and whites. I note that they are affluent, because even economic middle-class, let alone lower-class, families simply cannot afford the UC tuition, and that as well is a victim of Prop. 209. It’s not just blacks, folks, it’s everyone who cannot extract a decent education.

Yes, this means we need to address the education system starting from Grade 1, but to remove affirmative action prematurely was just plain stupid. It was a band-aid, true. But the wound is deep and still bleeding, and we still haven’t figured out how to cure it. At least a band-aid kept us from bleeding out, and now here we are… bleeding out.

Congratulations, California.