• Imagine my shock when I found myself in agreement with Donald Trump about gun control. First, grab the guns and then, due process.
• If you put your face on social media, holding an AR-15 and claiming you’re going to shoot up a school, that certainly seems like enough for me to go in and arrest. If a criminal charge won’t fly, there is certainly enough for a “mental health” hold—at least long enough to find out if it’s just a stupid kid making noise or “a threat to themselves or others.”
Much to my relief, Trump immediately backtracked the next day before anyone could accuse me of being a turncoat.
• There is a new player in the game: a former Trump campaign-something named Sam Nunberg. He spent several days on every cable outfit known to mankind explaining how he was just going to ignore Mueller’s grand jury subpoena and not appear unless he decided to appear after all to squeal on his good friend Donald Trump, who he loved but who had screwed him, unless, of course … etcetera, etcetera. Clearly, Donald Trump has done something to their mental health; they’re all beginning to sound like him.
• There is a new endangered species to be added to the Endangered Species Act list, a species that suddenly has been found missing from our skies. I speak, of course, of the “deficit hawk,” which vanished in a barrage of tax cutting explosions. But not to worry, they’ll be back in the future when someone proposes giving food stamps to hungry children.
• And now, a word on two of our local, somewhat vulnerable California congressmen. Duncan Hunter, from San Diego, appears to have some difficulty understanding the difference between campaign money for politics and campaign money for personal expenses, and is now trying to explain it all to a federal grand jury in San Diego.
• Another longtime congressman, Dana Rohrbacher from Orange County—a big supporter of a better relationship with Russia and sometimes facetiously referred to as “Russia’s man on the Hill”—was involved in a meeting with a campaign operative, who just pled guilty to lying to the FBI about that meeting. Unclear what Mueller has in mind about that meeting
• Locally, the City Council decided to kick the can down the road regarding their position on the issue of demolishing the Rindge Dam in Malibu Creek. The dam has been there for almost a century. Although the Army Corps of Engineers and the California Department of Parks and Recreation, along with a slew of environmental groups who simply just hate dams, want it gone, there are some substantial unknowns about the flooding risk to our Civic Center if the dam is torn out.
• In the general category of “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore,” a couple of traffic accidents in San Francisco involving driverless cars seems to have provoked a few in the local populace to beat and batter the offending vehicles. Sadly, they weren’t wearing wooden shoes to cause some serious damage to the vehicles. There was no comment from the vehicles.
• I read today that the Westside Pavilion, a longtime busy shopping venue located at Pico and Westwood boulevards in West L.A., was going to be converted into mainly commercial office space. I think we might see that happen in a number of other older shopping malls as an interim step and then, some of those buildings are going to be converted into mixed-use space, including apartments, for which we are desperately short.
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Our City Council is going to soon hear and consider what to do about Airbnb and other short-term rentals. The council decided to take the proposed ordinance directly without first vetting it through the Planning Commission, which they have a right to do, but for reasons that are yet unclear. The issue is a bit thorny. Some people love Airbnbs and use them to supplement their income so they can afford to live in Malibu. Some people have bought buildings, single-family residences and apartment buildings, and practically converted them into Airbnb hotels. Some have created party houses, annoying all the neighbors. The city is trying to decide what they want, how they are going to control them, and who is responsible and available if there is a problem. These rentals provide the city with a lot of money and in any event, the Coastal Commission likes them because they feel they give more access to the beaches, so I imagine they’re also going to get into the act.
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Lastly, this week was about the Oscars, which is as much about glamour, beauty and fashion as it is about movies, with a soupçon of political relevance thrown in. As I watched the women appear on the red carpet and the stage, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of them had starved and exercised themselves for a couple of months to achieve just the right look. Then, they had to squeeze into a bodysuit so tight that not a telltale bulge appeared anywhere in those lovely soft fabrics. Of course, since none of them—whether aged 25 or 75—showed nary a facial line, you just knew they had just spent three hours in hair and makeup, with the best artisans that money could buy to achieve that look. After that, they had to get into their dresses, taking great care not to crease them, avoid catching any of the expensive borrowed jewelry on their dress, slip into four- or five-inch heels (which must have been killing them by the end of the evening), and then float through the red carpet and stage seemingly effortlessly, smiling and taking great care not to catch the hem of their long dresses in their heels and all the time, looking like they were having a wonderful time. That’s what I would call great acting!