There’s been a lot going on in our world these last couple of weeks.
Trump started looking like he was going to declare war on North Korea; he ended up declaring war on the National Football League, which seemed every bit as unintimidated as the North Koreans.
An item in one newspaper said the North Korean government is actually looking to hire some Republican consultants to help explain what Trump actually means when he speaks. If they figure it out, I hope they’ll share the information with the rest of us.
It looks like—barring some sort of a miracle—the move to kill Obamacare may officially be dead. The Reps are moving on to something that might be more productive, like changing the tax code. Hopefully they’ve learned something from the Obamacare battle and will do this one out in the open, going through a regular legislative process. The tax code hasn’t been overhauled in 30 years and it’s overdue. However, if it’s not something of a bipartisan effort—which means tradeoffs—it’s probably not going to fly.
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Steve Soboroff, who is only known as the father of the Whole Foods project in Malibu, is a man who wears many hats. He has once again been elected to be president of the LA Police Commission, which supervises the LA Police Department (LAPD). Since the Watts riots of the ’60s, the LAPD has made enormous strides to modernize itself, bring minorities onto the force and move away from the use of excessive and deadly force. It’s a very tough job being a cop these days—you’re on the line at all times—and there are a lot of tough calls that have to be made, particularly with so many mentally ill people out on the streets. Steve is an acknowledged leader in the field.
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I’ve been following the fate of Puerto Rico trying to recover from Hurricane Maria, which effectively leveled the island, destroyed the entire electrical grid, took out all the power poles, and broke up most of the major and minor roads. The island is now almost inaccessible from air or sea. It’s going to take billions to put the island back together and, inexplicably, Congress doesn’t seem too overly concerned, saying it can’t get to dealing with the island for several weeks. It was very different with Texas and Florida. I guess it pays to be a state and not a territory. Puerto Rico is running out of diesel oil to keep some basic emergency services running. Karen and I spent some time in old San Juan several years ago and it was beautiful and historic. Now, without tourists, the island’s economy is almost totally destroyed and it’s not going to come back without major federal government help.
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I was amazed to see that some conservative Catholic theologians were publicly saying that Pope Francis was a heretic or at least “spreading heresy” in a letter. Times are definitely changing and, apparently, after a couple of conservative Popes, the current Pope is moving the church in a direction that some find very uncomfortable or simply wrong. I can’t remember a previous Pope ever being challenged this way.
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On a positive note, the government of Saudi Arabia finally decided that it might be OK for women to drive; the country will be lifting the ban on women driving. The 32-year-old crown prince, the heir apparent, is pushing the kingdom to modernize and a lot of that is being driven by economics. They want to get women out into the workforce, which means they have to be able to drive to work. Apparently, when oil is down to $50 per barrel (and probably headed lower if the push toward electric cars continues to grow), they can no longer afford the cost of keeping woman economically unproductive. The Saudi government has reduced the number of government jobs; it needs a stronger private economy. There will still be a lot of oil in the ground but the demand for it just won’t be there. In a few years, many of those large American corner lot gas stations are probably going to turn into commercial buildings. I suspect the oil companies saw this coming a few years ago and began making their gas stations bigger in anticipation of the changes in the gasoline market.
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Lastly, as many of you may know, we have been running a series of portraits with biographies of Malibu community members over the last few years called the “Face of Malibu.” We now have over 60 faces and there will be an exhibit at Malibu City Hall. There will also be an opening night event on Friday, Oct. 6, beginning at 5 p.m. There will be hors d’oeuvres and wine at the opening. Thereafter, the show will be running for several months. You’re all invited.