What can you say about the Fourth of July, American Independence Day, that isn't already a cliche?
The only thing I can think of is to say something about the hundreds of people I've met since I left the Daily News and gotten out in the community as an ordinary citizen. Sure, I knew there were a lot of people who really want to make our city great but I didn't really understand just how many, just how hard they have worked, just how much they know and just how frustrated they are by the resistance of City Hall.
It's what triggered in me the belief that if we all came together -- the people of all backgrounds, all beliefs, all races and religions -- we can beat the problems we face and make life better for us all.
OK, it's a cliche but it's my cliche and I believe it. So listen to this Frank Sinatra version of the song that embodies that for me:
Frank Sinatra - 05 - The House I Live In (That's America To Me).mp3
The only thing I can think of is to say something about the hundreds of people I've met since I left the Daily News and gotten out in the community as an ordinary citizen. Sure, I knew there were a lot of people who really want to make our city great but I didn't really understand just how many, just how hard they have worked, just how much they know and just how frustrated they are by the resistance of City Hall.
It's what triggered in me the belief that if we all came together -- the people of all backgrounds, all beliefs, all races and religions -- we can beat the problems we face and make life better for us all.
OK, it's a cliche but it's my cliche and I believe it. So listen to this Frank Sinatra version of the song that embodies that for me:
Frank Sinatra - 05 - The House I Live In (That's America To Me).mp3
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the Naitonal Enquirer.
I just hope for your sake that Bruno isn't upset my fireworks.
Ron, when you speak of all the people you have met who want change for this city...what age group are you referring to? Are you meeting any 'under 50' citizens for change? I am of your generation, and a life-long resident of the city....but it seems like it's just us 'old timers' who are worried.
Today's generation never knew how different the city was before Mexico invaded.
They don't remember the days when schools were 'English-only' and ESL was unheard of; they don't remember the days when ENGLISH was the only language on printed applicatons and forms; they don't remember the days when we didn't have to 'PRESS ONE FOR ENGLISH"; they don't remember the days without day labor centers and taco trucks; they don't remember the days when everyone who worked at McDonald's was an American and spoke ENGLISH; they don't remember the days when violent Mexican gangs did not exist and gang murders were not an everyday occurance; they don't remember the clean middle class neighborhoods with the white picket fences that used to dominate the valley and all of LA; they don't remember the libraries that used to be the sanctuaries for book lovers and not drug dealers; they don't remember the beautiful parks that were for families and kids, not drug dealers and gangs; they don't remember a city without graffiti on every building; they don't remember the days when kids carried Snoopy lunch boxes to school...not weapons; they don't remember the days when it was safe to walk to school...skipping jump rope along the way.
Our grandchildren will never know that marriage between 2 men or 2 women was considered unthinkable a generation ago; they will never know that the 14th Amendment was not meant to give US citizenship to everyone who came to this country ILLEGALLY for the purpose of manufacturing 'anchor babies'!
Our grandchildren will NEVER know how wonderful life was before the invasion!!! They have no frame of reference unless it's from our old photo albums and old super-8 home movie collections! This is our legacy to them...how tragic!
I worry about what will happen to this city, and indeed to the entire country...AFTER we are gone! Who will be left to restore the damage that has been done?
I know what you mean about age groups and ideas.
You will be very happy to know that Generation X has had a chance to live with their parents and now are opting to be more like their grandparents. The beat goes on.
Read Plato's The Republic to see that human beings are not above repetition over and over again, making the same mistakes.
But that does not mean that we should not try to bring sanity back to LA. See you on the 14th!!!
Chicago has had its share of what is happening here now - the Mayor then was Edward Kelly. Long time ago.
8:24 a.m., I agree with you, but please don't lump in all of us 50-somethings in with the "old timers" who don't remember "the way things used to be." I'd like to shoot AARP for putting us in with the same category as our parents -- and fostering the notion that 50 is geriatric. With the likes of George Clooney and Esa Pekka Salonen hitting that mark, guys like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt not being far behind, and on the female side, the AARP "hags" include Sharon Stone, Michelle Pfeiffer and soon, Demi Moore and more -- let's stop the outdated age bias that's lingered from the 50's, shall we? You don't have to be a star to look like them, just take care of yourself and work out.
NOW, as for "not remembering:" I came to SoCal as a very young person in 1980, 28 years ago, from New Jersey, when there were so few Latinos and those that were here were nearly invisible busboys and maids, that SO40 was needed and there weren't significantly more than in other cities. Compared to New York or any Eastern City, LA with its drab mini-malls was the land of the slobby Ohio transplants, except for the film industry. The Valley looked like what we'd wanted to leave behind -- the butt of New York jokes. So sure, anyone over 40-45 remembers those times, as do transplants of all ages. Wish I'd had my kids in public school in the early 80's -- they're the last generation when it was really possible. Teachers and plumbers could still buy in WLA and the hills, not just the rich, right up until 1991. We all know people over 60 living in mansions they bought for under $200,000.
BUT some things I don't miss: the drab mini-malls and total lack of style; the naivite of people who fought mass transit when it would have been cheaper and the feds had money they were TRYING to give us, instead opting for more suburban and Valley sprawl; for all their traffic problems, well-designed work/shop/live centers like downtown (there IS life down there at night, around MOCA and cafes/ galleries, believe it or not), Century City and trendy areas like Melrose, Robertson and 3rd, and Montana and Santa Monica, have considerably improved our social options. New York and Tokyo aren't laughing at us anymore.
Though I MISS being able to drive to the beach and park, without paying a fortune and being surrounded by swarms of families with boomboxes. That's forced more people into pricey beach clubs and into the Third World polarization of our city.
I guess I'm saying, let's NOT glorify EVERYTHING about the past, and those of us who don't, aren't forgetful or myopic -- we're nostalgic, upset about the same demographic shifts you are, but look to major east coast and European cities as models, not towards Toledo.
Like it or not, we're going to have to combine the best of New York/Paris/Tokyo/Hong Kong (while avoiding the worst) with areas of bland, suburban and tract house sprawl that look like Burbank -- for better or worse. Their streets are nondescript but you can get around and park pretty easily even at the big malls. Meanwhile, people who choose to live in the luxury, doorman high-rises of Century City or the Wilshire Corridor think more of their friends or former homes in Manhattan. I just don't want the people who think the former is the whole city, to dictate its future anymore than those in East or South L A who don' understand why we don't want 7-story lighted billboards and dense projects with no parking, since they're fine with it.
Each community or district needs MORE autonomy, not less, which is the way things are going with AB1818 and the barely-stopped AB212. That's what I'd like to see us fighting for.