December 16, 2004

"...'The hope is twofold, that officers will have an opportunity

    to interact with folks and if they have a handgun, that will

    be reason enough to confiscate it,'  he said. ' Second, we

    know that for even law-abiding folks who own guns, the

    rates of suicide and mortality are substantially higher. So

    while just perceived to be a crime thing, we think there is

    a wide benefit to limiting the number of guns in the city...' ".

 

                 -Statements by Bill Barnes, aide to SF Supervisor

                  Chris Daly, on the recent proposal to ban handgun

                  and ammunition ownership/possession in the

                  City of San Francisco, as reported by Lisa Leff

                  of the Associated Press on December 15, 2004.

 

 

 

     "...Mulligan is also suing the Golden Gate Bridge District for

         failing to install suicide barriers on the bridge. As writer Tad

         Friend pointed out in ' Jumpers: The Fatal Grandeur of the

         Golden Gate Bridge,'  an article that appeared in the Oct.

         13, 2003, issue of The New Yorker, the controversy over

         installing suicide barriers on the bridge is almost as old as

         the bridge itself. Since it was completed in 1937, more

         than 1,200 people have committed suicide by jumping off

         the Golden Gate Bridge. By some estimates, that's one

         suicide every two weeks.

 

         Mulligan had hoped that The New Yorker article would

         generate renewed local interest for installing suicide

         barriers on the bridge. But aside from a few national news

         outlets, it appears that no one has followed up on the story.

         It seems that publicly discussing the installation of suicide

         barriers on the Bay Area's most notable landmark is almost

         as taboo as suicide itself.

 

         ' There are some who will say that by doing this article,

          you're killing someone, '  says Marie Currie, spokeswoman

          for the Golden Gate Bridge District. When the number of

          suicides was approaching 1,000 in the 1990's, psychologists

          and suicide-prevention experts urged media to stop pub-

          lishing suicide reports from the bridge because it might

          encourage others to jump. The blackout is still in effect

          today, Currie says. ' The Bay Area media does not cover

          suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge...'  "

 

                      -Excerpts from an article by R. V. Scheide in

                       the March 24-31, 2004, issue of the North Bay

                       Bohemian in regards to suicides on the

                       Golden Gate Bridge, including an interview of

                       a mother whose daughter committed suicide

                       from the bridge.

 

 

 

     "...Unlike the Bay Bridge, or most bridges, for that matter--

         the Golden Gate has a footpath adjacent to a low exterior

         railing. ' Jumping from the bridge is seen as a sure, quick,

         clean, and available-- which is the most potent factor,'

         Dr. Jerome Motto, a local psychiatrist and suicide expert,

         says. ' It's like having a loaded gun on your kitchen table. '

 

         Almost everyone in the Bay Area knows someone who has

         jumped, and it is perhaps not surprising that the most

         common fear among San Franciscans is gephyrophobia,

         the fear of crossing bridges. Yet the locals take a peculiar

         pride in the bridge's notoriety. ' What makes the bridge so

         popular, '  Gladys Hansen, the city's unofficial historian,

         says, citing the ten million tourists who visit the bridge each

         year, '  is that it's a monument, a monument to death ' ..."

 

                    -Excerpts from an article in the October 13, 2003

                     issue of the New Yorker, by Tad Friend, on certain

                     observations about suicide and the Golden Gate

                     Bridge in San Francisco.

 

 

     "...Last week, just a few days before Chirac opened France's

         new engineering marvel, the [Schwarzenegger] adminis-

         tration abandoned the suspension design and opted for a

         simple viaduct on concrete pilings, dubbed a ' skyway ',

         which had been the original notion.

 

         ' We need to get a safe bridge completed as soon as

         possible for a reasonable cost,'  said Sunne McPeak,

         the administration's secretary of transportation and

         housing. ' That is exactly the goal. The least risk is

         associated with the skyway.'

 

         Advocates of the bolder suspension design were dis-

         appointed, saying it undercuts the esthetics of the

         Bay Bridge. And even though it may save money, the

         bridge project is still running several billion dollars over

         the original estimate. At this moment, the state lacks

         the funds to pay for it.

 

         The design shift rekindles the once-settled debate over

         financing, with Schwarzenegger pushing for even-higher

         bridge tolls and Bay Area politicians insisting that the

         the state as a whole should pick up the cost- which would

         eat deeply into transportation accounts that are already

         bone-dry from years of raiding to shore up the deficit-ridden

         state budget.

 

          So this is the situation: France built a world-class bridge

          in three years for a half-billion dollars while California

          continues for a second decade to haggle over a much-

          shorter span whose cost is already 10 times that of the

          French project and still growing.

 

          We should hang our heads in shame..."

 

                        -Excerpts from an article by Dan Walters in

                         his Sacramento Bee column of December 15,

                         2004.

 

 

To All,

     It really says a lot about the Back-Assward Crowd currently running Frisco that France's politicians can get a bridge project done in a more cost-effective and timely manner than they can. Now, if only the San Francisco Supes can be as sensitive to the surviving family members of Golden Gate Bridge victims as they are to the lobbying efforts of the LCAV, then one might finally see them put their money where their political correctness is:

 

Killer Esthetics:

     Something funny is happening along the way to 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place.

 

     On one hand, it seems that the San Francisco City Supes are trying to reduce the odds of work place injuries for the hot prowl B & E crowd (It seems that just about every occupation has seen a rate increase from the State Compensation Insurance Fund) with their attempt to ban the possession of handguns and handgun ammunition city-wide.

 

     On the other hand, it seems that, for the sake of scenic vistas (and the choice property values that benefit from them), they are practicing the Rule of Omerta on the issue of anti-suicide safety measures at certain Bay Area Bridges. Given the dearth of local coverage, one could almost believe that the plague of selective outrage is at epidemic proportions amongst San Francisco pols.

 

     Of course, Red County Californians would likely propose the most simple of solutions to this seeming dilemma in Baghdad by The Bay- Dismantle the Golden Gate and Bay Area Bridges and restore the Bay Ecosystem to what it was before the time of Francis Drake (Boy, would that change the voting demographics in the Fool's Golden State, or what?).

 

     That way, one literally kills two birds with one stone. While removing one of the major ways in which troubled souls can make the mistake of a lifetime, one can transform a diminished Frisco into the world's largest gated community. That way, the various Lefty denizens can wear the "Kick Me" signs proclaiming a disarmed status to their heart's content while not otherwise posing a threat to travelers and citizens alike.

 

     In fact, such a quarantine zone could turn out to be a test environment for all the liberal nostrums unveiled since the Summer of Love. Perhaps, after a suitably long period of trial-by-fire, Bay Area residents can somehow divest themselves of their "Moore-On" proclivities and return to the body politic a saner, safer group of likely voters. But until that day arrives, perhaps it would be better to stand a close watch over this latest attempt at making the world safe for criminal activity, and prepare oneself for the day of effective opposition.

 

Story elements may be found at:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/news/archive/2004/12/15/state1859EST0145.DTL

 

http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/
03.24.04/suicides-0413.html

 

http://www.tf.org/tf/injuries/suic.html

 

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?031013fa_fact

 

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/columns/
walters/story/11772680p-12657561c.html

 

 

Fractured Fairy Tale:

     Speaking of Dan Walters, one is called to his column of December 14, 2004.

 

     Here Walters opines on some of the reasons why California was "out of play" during the recent Presidential cycle. Walters blames California's irrelevancy in part upon the so called "winner take all" system of awarding Electoral College votes. Presumably if candidates of the "minority" party could expect to eke out partial fractions of what they need to win in the Electoral College, one would theoretically see more of their Presidential Campaign in real time.

 

    Of course, Walters does not expect the majority Democrats to allow the same kind of change that Colorado Democrats campaigned for last November. Current demographics allow the Donkey Party's strength in the Bay (see article above), the Monterey Coast, and Los Angeles County alone to dominate the Fool's Golden State. In turn, this keeps Republicans at bay while the Democrats are able to shift funds from California sources to buttress key races in other, more "competitive" districts elsewhere.

 

    But what Walters and other pundits seem to forget is the national burden of public campaign finance limits. In the General Election (post convention) period, the Democrat and Republican candidates each are limited to about $ 75 million to campaign with.

 

     Given the cost of running campaigns in the California media market (Or New York and Illinois for that matter), one could reasonably suspect that Republican candidates would not put significantly more time and money into such high cost markets anytime soon. Here a simple voter initiative can run several million dollars to pursue successfully, and a controversial "conservative" initiative can run some $ 15-30 million to be viable. This would be practically impossible to budget a national Presidential campaign for, if the candidate also wishes to be able to spend reasonable amounts in any of the other media markets.

 

    In other words, the only way to achieve comparative relevance through a voter re-alignment would be primarily predicated upon  increasing public financing limits. Otherwise, candidates will be forced to "ration" spending to those states that are "affordable" from both a demographic and an economic standpoint.

 

     This thus begs the question as to whether the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law was really designed with small state advantage in mind, rather than with fair reform (Senators McCain and Feingold both represent "small states"). While Democrats would seemingly benefit from the loopholes allowing for 527 expenditures that would help in urban turnout, it would also seem that the current donation levels would have at the same time a limiting effect in campaigns conducted in the high cost (read urban) states that just happen to show up on the "blue" side of the ledger.

 

     Granted, one is still constrained by the material one has on hand. The searing Democrat critiques by such pundits as Evan Thomas or E.J. Dionne point clearly to a "Doofus" Candidate Kerry, one too dense to realize that getting photographed in spandex while windsurfing was "a bad thing".

 

     But the very same troubles that California has in regards to relevancy are currently the same for New York, Illinois, New England, and possibly even Washington State (This last is dependent if Democrats are allowed to "find" more ballots in the deepest, darkest cubbyholes of King County. ). All of these are relatively high cost states with otherwise hostile members of the Legacy Media and a voter registration differential that makes a mass re-alignment unlikely.     

 

     Oddly enough, the best form of campaign finance reform may be to gut the now-failed McCain-Feingold bill (especially the infringements on the First Amendment) and replace it with a "reform" that is the campaign finance version of the guest worker proposal currently in front of the Congress.

 

     Rather than have money leaking over unregulated avenues far from the eyes of the authorities and the voting public, larger amounts of time, money, and other forms of political participation should be allowed to be gathered and spent out in the open where it can be more easily monitored. Perhaps the Bush-Cheney 2000 technique of raw lists of donors of all stripes being posted on the Internet, followed by better receipt reporting at each quarterly reporting period, would be sufficient to make campaign finance fraud uncompetitive. Also, by allowing inflation-adjusted state-by-state budgets, rather than a fixed national budget too small to matter in all but a handful of states, would finally allow California to become "relevant" again.

 

    Of course, said "reform" should not come to pass until the "yoke" of the firearms confiscation crowd is broken in California once and for all. It would not due to allow a "blue state" with a history of zany gun schemes to suddenly become "more relevant" on the national scene.

 

    But given the way in which the Legacy Media is enamored with McCain-Feingold (Though one now wonders in the post-election period, given that McCain-Feingold did not stop the Blogosphere's success at getting the "message" out to a listening public.), one may not expect them to give up their "monopoly" position anytime soon. Real reform thus may be dead for the foreseeable future, no matter the kvetching of certain newspaper columnists. As such, it may just be that California's "relevance" in Presidential campaigns will remain "fractured" for a long time to come.

 

 

Story may be found at:

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/
11763505p-12648442c.html