I think I’ve got baseball fever– I’m a little flushed over your recent article in The Malibu Times highlighting Doug O’Brien. I can’t stop his family from patting me on the behind. Dottie, Kelly, Shannon, Patrick and Michael O’Brien think that Pam Linn is an accomplished writer and should be working for a major newspaper. I think she does a remarkable job of showing the “warmth and passion” of her subject. I personally adored her article entitled “A Man For All Reasons.”

Doug O’Brien

Ed. note: Aren’t we a major newspaper?

Malibu is ped-mean. As a pedestrian, I trekked a few ill-chosen miles of Malibu’s famed “26 Miles of Scenic Beauty” and was so struck dumb by the experience that I’m scheduled to endure the deathly calm of an MRI.

We Malibuites brag about “beauty” on a signboard at the city line — a stretch of highway that can most charitably be deemed “rural.” But what beauty God wrought, man has turned asunder. Weed-choked and litter-strewn, Malibu’s eastern PCH is miles of carefree habitats and slack ropes of utility wires strung hither to yon teetering telephone poles. The least scenic stretch of highway is that built to be walked on — the sidewalk between Carbon Canyon and Cross Creek; downtown Malibu.

Have you ever strolled the detritus? Today, I tried. I dodged dumpsters catty-wampus across the sidewalk; mamboed past mailboxes planted in the concrete; ducked a low-hanging sign; and was skirting a rusty, three-legged shopping cart when I sprawled. There, hidden beneath mounds of gopher dust was a rotting 4 x 4 waiting for a passing innocent. No. this is not a letter about me and my injuries, it is about how we, as a city, invest. It is about the choices we make as citizens.

Three years ago, Malibu spent $50,000 on a feasibility study to build a bike path along PCH — clearly an infeasible proposition to any casual driver of the route. Ms. Van Horn proposed the study and it proceeded, in the end, declaring that a bike path along PCH was not feasible. How much better — and safer — might it have been to spend a fraction of that sum on monthly maintenance of the path already existing — for walkers?

Our council has committed itself to “keeping Malibu rural.” I’ve seen enough of Appalachia to agree that the coastal east side of Malibu is rural — and it is not a pretty picture.

What if we invested more in zoning standards for commercial properties such as those sidewalked along PCH? It would cost business owners less to build to code than to test the absence of one. Property values would be supported and a few miles of Malibu might earn the sobriquet “beauty.”

What if we spent less to save the Malibu Gobi and more to save another endangered Malibu species — the one walking; the one footing the bill?

Thank you, fellow citizen, for reading.

Malibu Mad On Foot

Jody Brightman

The Malibu Water Crisis on Aug. 21 forced the “Techno-2000 Author’s Forum” to be rescheduled to Sept. 4, 3:30-6 p.m. at SuperCare, hosted by Dr. Fiorella Terenzi, astrophysicist and myself, as a benefit for the newly endangered whales and dolphins. Was this a preview of Y2K, as Malibu’s mayor, Walt Keller suggested? Aside from the prestige of the participation by such globally renowned SciFi writers as Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, and local luminaries including Stash Klowsowsky, Leigh McCloskey and Carolyn Mary Kleefeld — let me take this opportunity to tell you what this is all about.

Technology can save or kill, free or enslave, depending on whether it is informed and guided by consciousness and natural intelligence. The impending Y2K bug debacle, with a consensus-projected price tag of some trillion dollars (assuming hopefully that nothing really horrid happens) points our attention, or should, to something terribly unreliable in the software technology upon which we are increasingly making our lives dependent, at an ever-accelerating rate. Is this a splendid example of the “Lemming Phenomenon” on a global, human scale? In the many press/media reports about Y2K preparations, what I have not heard even once, is the obvious conclusion that there may be something fundamentally wrong in the way software is built, and in the culture surrounding that process.

Apparently this very obvious concept is also very taboo in the media culture. The fact is we have placed ourselves in the hands of a new reality created by gigantic corporations whose only goals are to individually advance their bottom lines and stock prices — their dominance of the marketplace, media and indeed reality itself. And as this reality captures all humans, it also encroaches on the natural environment and the other species sharing the planet and the seas with us. Nothing like this has ever happened before, here. Today software is the biggest thing in the world, and is rapidly expanding in this role and status. Guided only by market forces (which we see are easily manipulated by the largest the players themselves), and without consciousness, reflection and awareness of the big picture, it leads to one of two conclusions: (1) the whole thing is going to collapse into a horrendous mess, which we will then need to clean up, assuming we survive; or (2) it will turn into a competing “life form” that will take control, replacing the natural order. That such an unnatural system would be benign (or even efficient) I must regard as entirely unjustified religious speculation or advertisement.

Once merely the speculation of SciFi authors and maverick scientists like my old friend John C. Lilly, MD — “a solid state intelligence” pushing aside the old biological life forms it no longer has a use for — today has become a real possibility (or perhaps even an observable phenomenon).

Who (or what) is really in control? The richest corporation in the world, with unlimited resources and access to technology and experts, has proven unable to build reliable software products, and today we all spend thousands of hours each year, and untold billions of dollars, fumbling over growing numbers of built-in bugs, viruses, and security holes in packaged software everyone feels obliged to buy and use, that is mass-produced and distributed before it is complete and ready for use. But Microsoft is merely a symptom, not the cause. As software and network systems become more complicated, it becomes clearer that the basic technological methods that are used, adopted long ago when things were far simpler than they are today, are simply inadequate to the task. These trend lines — rising complexity and crucial survival dependence on technology, coupled to archaic methods and falling human capacity to cope, as a result — would seem to predict a rather bad outcome. The alternative is to restore consciousness and natural creative intelligence to the equation. This requires we bring lucidity into our software technology, embedding it in a culture that is adequate to contain and convey its meaning from person to person, from a program-creator to that same person over time, and in the long run, across the cultural fluctuations of historical time and different locales. In other words, we need a lucid, humanistic and natural cultural form in which to hold the technology of computers, programs and communications — and to look to historical prototypes for forms of sufficient richness. And fortunately the Quantum Theory has now arrived at the stage where it may help us to enquire: What is the connection between intelligence & consciousness?

Francis Jeffrey

Start Word Count Here

Old age is when the former kids in the neighborhood are so gray, wrinkled and bald that they don’t recognize you. Mike O’Brien, the youngest member of the notorious Rainsford Place confection posse, was 7 years old when I first met him. Along with his fianc, Mike was recently visiting his father, Doug, and both were lending an ear to a discourse by Doug, on how Michael’s success in business was due to Doug’s upbringing, when Mike halted his father. “Dad,” he stated, “I really owe my success in business to Mr. Fakehany!” Mike clarified that on his 8th birthday (1973), he along with the other O’Brien children had popped in on the Fakehanys, as was their custom, to see if something captivating was happening. With his entry, Mike majestically declared that it was his 8th birthday and while Mrs. Fakehany occupied their time with milk and donuts, Mr. Fakehany disappeared out the side door. Returning a short time later Mr. Fakehany professed to Michael that the Fakehanys had a money tree in the back yard and Mike was being given the currency that grew on the tree as a birthday present. With distrust on his face Mike and the posse moved outside to check out the birthday gift. Returning a short time later in a state of excitement, Mike and the posse ran home to share the tale of the money tree and the five $1 bills they found growing on the money tree with their parents. For the next several days Mike would visit his money tree only to find it barren of any supplementary dollar bills and soon Mike’s visits to the tree stopped. “How did Mr. Fakehany’s birthday gift help you in the business world?” questioned Doug, obviously disappointed that someone else was getting credit for his son’s success. “What Mr. Fakehany taught me,” replied Michael, “was that money doesn’t grow on trees.” Now isn’t that the truth.

Since I have used only 322 words of your 350 word limit, I would like to applaud Michael and Anita on their up coming marriage.

End Word Count Here Exactly 350 Words (grin)

Tom Fakehany

Dear Mr. Spinks:

This is in response to your letter [“Median should be mode,” July 29], in which you expressed concern over the removal of raised medians on Pacific Coast Highway along Zuma Beach.

Based on the traffic behavior that has been reported during these summer months, we will be re-evaluating our original plan to place rumble strips in this segment. We are considering other options and are currently in the process of gathering field data to enable us to come up with the best design. We are also working with the Sheriff’s Department towards developing the best solutions for this area and ask for your patience in the meantime.

We appreciate you interest in providing a safer PCH. If you have any questions, please call Melvin Araki at 213.897.4981.

Sameer Haddadeen

senior transportation engineer

Office of Traffic Investigations

Department of Transportation

Long before the coast of California was a playground, it was a workplace. Freighters, factories, oil refineries, tuna canneries and all manner of industry flourished here; some still do.

But some don’t. And fixing what they left behind, restoring the land, making it ready for recreation or animal habitat or some other public use, is the biggest challenge that federal and state agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers and the California Coastal Commission face year in and year out. Using a variety of legal tools, these agencies are making a lot of progress in planning infrastructure, reclaiming wetlands, rebuilding harbors and restoring habitat.

And it works: Our coast has never been in better shape.

But much of that progress is threatened by a recent appeals court decision that may remove one of the most effective tools to repair, preserve and enhance the coast. A tool beach-goers, surfers, environmentalists and others who care about the coast should hope their lawmakers re-instate just as quickly as they can .

The tool is called mitigation. It means, in effect, if a local government or property owner needs to extend a road or bridge along the coast — disturbing a piece of coast land the planners call an “environmentally sensitive habitat area” — then the local government or landowner must preserve or restore another piece of similar property. Typically, this means restoring 3 or 4 times the amount of coastal land that is disturbed.

In Southern California, those who drive on Interstate 5 can see several examples of this kind of mitigation. In San Diego, the Port of Los Angeles agreed to spend tens of millions of dollars to restore Bataquitos Lagoon near Carlsbad in exchange for permission to expand their port facilities. Before, this lagoon was severely degraded and without tidal action, resulting in a shallow, smelly, stagnant mud flat that often dried up in summer, resulting in a major kill-off of fish and other aquatic animals.

Today, with the wetlands enhanced with dredging, and better tidal action restoring the natural cleansing mechanism and bringing sand to beaches as well, the lagoon serves once again as a natural spawning area for fish, and new nesting ground for least terns and other rare birds. Humans have benefited too with new trails and cleaner beaches.

In another example, a Los Angeles utility company is restoring the San Dieguito Lagoon near Del Mar, as mitigation for problems near its power plants. The results are the same: Degraded wetlands are being enhanced and habitat on dry land is being restored. All over California, damaged wetlands are being returned to their natural condition with private money, all because of a policy that allows public and private interests to work together to solve environmental problems.

It’s a real success story, one that could never have existed had not public agencies been allowed to work with private landowners in such a creative and innovative fashion. It should be noted that much of the privately owned coastal land that people want to develop is not pristine wilderness but is often already degraded, as was the case with the Port of Los Angeles. So not only did the port have to improve the land it wanted to use for more facilities, it also restored wetlands that, without port money, would have stayed stagnant and unhealthy for years.

But all this might soon be a thing of the past because of what an appeals court has ruled concerning a place in Orange County called Bolsa Chica. There, the landowner wanted to build a road and some homes near a stand of eucalyptus trees — which had been designated as sensitive habitat. Noting that this stand of eucalyptus trees was dying, the landowners offered to grow another stand of trees, larger, healthier, and native to the region, to replace these in this dwindling grove.

The Coastal Commission, following more than 20 years of precedent, practice and legislative intent, gave its consent. As did local government agencies. But soon after the issue was in court, with an appeals court ruling that the Coastal Commission was not allowed to follow this precedent because the trees were part of an environmentally sensitive habitat area that despite its degraded condition and proposed mitigation measures, should not be touched.

This was news, not only to those of us who consider eucalyptus trees a non-native nuisance that kills other plants around it, it was also news to the millions of people and dozens of communities throughout the state who are enjoying — or waiting for — the benefits of this kind of mitigation.

In South San Diego, those who live near the Mexican border have been waiting to have their wetlands and beaches restored after years of abuse at the hands of sewage spills from Mexico.

But now the court of appeals has drawn a line in the sand, saying property owners and cities and anyone who desires to build infrastructure or use their property may not touch certain kinds of land, even if that land is in terrible shape, even if the landowner replaces the habitat three or four times over. Even if proper permits are granted.

That’s bad news for anyone who thinks wetlands are important. That is not what the voters intended when we voted for the California Coastal Act. Neither is it what the legislature wanted when it implemented that law. And that is what our legislators should restore, at their earliest possible opportunity, if we are to continue to restore the beaches and the wetlands and coast of California.

Brian P. Devine

This time we were Lucky —

No Santana winds,

Or dryness or conditions,

When the water supply was thin.

But had this been weeks later,

When conditions could be right —

Our way of life and safety

Would not be a pleasant sight.

We all should give serious thought

To “back-up” water supplies;

And necessary pumps and things —

Making it easier to survive.

How come the sum is spent on things

To bring us joy and fun,

And little, if anything,

On a fire that’s due to come?

My life was spent in fighting fires,

And watching humans act —

It’s still a great surprise to me,

How people ignore the facts!

Retired Fire Captain Emmett Finch