Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

On January 27th, California Superior Court Judge Marie Weiner rendered a final judgment against Steve Jobs in his bid to demolish the historic Jackling House. Uphold Our Heritage, a group I’ve supported even before its formal inception, led the battle to preserve the home when the Town of Woodside essentially capitulated to Jobs’ demand that the house must go.

The house was built by Daniel Jackling, a western mining magnate who revolutionized the copper industry at the turn of the century. He built his palace in 1923. I’m certain he was as entrepreneurial in his day as Jobs’ is in ours. It was designed by renowned California architect George Washington Smith (who was responsible for Santa Barbara’s “Spanish hacienda” style). For further background, see my earlier post about the campaign to save Jackling. The Uphold Our Heritage site also contains valuable information about the home’s history and the architect’s legacy.

Bloomberg News published its own story about the case yesterday, Apple’s Jobs Fights Preservationists Who Want to Save His House. Apparently, CNN ran a story which made a bollocks out of the entire case saying that Jobs was fighting with the Town of Woodside which was attempting to prevent him from demolishing the home (it isn’t, but Uphold Our Heritage IS). The reporter accepted at face value Jobs’ contention that the house is a “monstrosity.” I’ve tried to find this story on their website without success. Apparently, they thought better of profiling it online.

Last December, when Weiner filed her preliminary decision I wrote Steve Jobs Loses Fight to Demolish Historic Landmark. Now that the decision is final I’m delighted. Of course, Jobs attorney has publicly stated that his client will appeal the ruling to the State Supreme Court. This will land Jobs in the same spotlight as David Geffen, another celebrity who took land use decisions into his own hands–and lost. In Geffen’s case, he defied the State’s right to permit public access to his beachfront property in order for individuals to get to the Malibu beach. I’m glad that the Supreme Court doesn’t take it lightly when celebrities ride roughshod over State law when it comes to uses of their property.

Here is a portion of Weiner’s decision:

The administrative record reflects a severe lack of evidence supporting…findings that the EIR alternatives are “economically unjustifiable” or economically infeasible [this refers to Jobs' claim that relocating the home was economically unjustified].

…Their [the Town of Woodside's] finding of economic infeasiblity is not supported by substantial evidence, and was arbitrary and capricious. This was an abuse of discretion.

What the Town…approved is the utter antithesis of its existing General Plan. The theme of the General Plan is one of conservation, preservation, and certainly maintenance of existing structures. It is arbitrary and capricious for the Town of Woodside to imply or interpolate the provisions of the General Plan contrary to its express components.

Such findings simply demonstrate the Town Council’s exaggerated efforts to find a means to the end that Jobs seeks.

In regard to the “conditions” placed upon the demolition permit [that Jobs take a year to find someone willing to move the house off-site] , there has been no showing that these conditions are actually enforceable [i.e. if there were a buyer willing to relocate the house, Jobs would be under no obligation to turn the house over to him/her]. Jobs is the sole decision maker in determining whether or not to accept any proposals for relocation.

Woodside made a finding that the EIR alternative to have the house relocated to another site was not feasible, yet it required that efforts be made to see if the house could be relocated to another site to a willing taker. This demonstrates the absurdity of the “findings” of infeasibility made by Woodside.

Accordingly the finding of overriding consideration was not supported by substantial evidence, and the granting of the demolition permit by Woodside to Jobs was an abuse of discretion.

Congratulations to Clotilde Luce and Uphold Our Heritage for waging a brilliant campaign with the help of Chatten-Brown Carstens, a law firm specializing in cases involving the California Environmental Quality Act. This is a huge victory for historic preservation. It should be a lesson for cities (like mine here in Seattle) which have essentially no regulations intended to preserve existing housing stock (and especially historic homes). Preserve it or lose it!

UOH’s defense of Jobs’ appeal will cost at least $35,000. UOH has confidence it has a strong case on appeal. If you admire historic architecture, if you’ve ever visited Santa Barbara and loved it, if you believe in preserving our artistic heritage, and if you just want to make sure Goliath doesn’t get to run roughshod over the Davids of this world, please consider making a contribution to support the legal defense of Jackling House via the group’s Paypal account.

Tax-deductible donations may also be made through:

National Trust for Historic Preservation
Western Office
8 California Street
Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94111-4828

Please note “for Jackling House” on the check.

tags george-washington-smith, jackling-house, spanish-revival-architecture, steve-jobs, woodside-california

Israel, with the tacit backing of the U.S. has been tightening the noose around the Palestinian economy using the pretext of Hamas’ upcoming assumption of control of the Palestinian Authority. All I can say is thank God there are alternative international forces which aren’t bound by Israel and the U.S.’ draconian notions.

The NY Times notes that the EU has responded positively to James Wolfensohn’s urgent request (on behalf of the Quartet) for emergency funding to prevent the PA from imminent collapse:

After receiving a dire warning that the Palestinian Authority was so short of money that it might collapse in two weeks, the European Union on Monday offered $144 million in aid to the Palestinians before a Hamas government takes power.

The Europeans acted in partial response to a letter from James D. Wolfensohn, the special Middle East envoy of the so-called Quartet made up of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

Mr. Wolfensohn warned in a letter dated Saturday that “unless a solution is found, we may be facing the financial collapse of the P.A. within two weeks,” referring to the Palestinian Authority. The money from the European Union will not solve the Palestinian money crunch for very long, especially since most of it is not in cash, but it will ease the burden of repayments to suppliers.

And other nations have stepped up to the plate too:

…The Saudis have promised but not yet delivered $20 million for February, the Norwegians have promised another $10 million and Qatar has delivered $14 million, which has already gone to repay loans taken in January in anticipation of the donation.

Wolfensohn also notes the need to address the Palestinians’ long-term financing requirements so they will not have to beg each month for the funds to get them through the next month:

“If we do not want to see rising tension leading to violence and chaos,” Mr. Wolfensohn wrote, “we will have to develop urgently a convincing strategy addressing the P.A.’s financial and developmental needs not only in the short-term of the next few weeks but also in a longer time frame.” That includes the revenues withheld by Israel, he said, adding, “It cannot be in Israel’s interests to have a sharp deterioration of the economic and humanitarian situation next door.”

You’d think the sentiment in the last sentence of that paragraph would be self-evident to the Israelis. But they’ve never been ones to think in the broader or long-term context about the problems of their region. And as far as they’re concerned they live alone with no neighbors to speak of. At least, that’s they way they’d prefer it. But reality has a way of jumping and biting you in the ass when you try to maintain such a segregated existence.

The funding we’re speaking of is short-term financing which will only get the Palestinians through the coming weeks. Then it’s back to the drawing board. U.S. and Israeli policy only ensure that the Palestinians will continue to move from one crisis to the next. You might almost get the impression that both nations (though especially Israel) prefer it that way.

tags european-union, hamas, israelis, james-wolfensohn, Mideast Peace, mideast-policy, palestinian-authority, the-quartet

Wal-Mart’s CEO, H. Lee Scott, made a pitch to the nation’s governors yesterday to ease up their campaign to force the company to provide health care to more employees. The reason the governors are concerned is that every Wal-Mart employee who either doesn’t qualify for the company’s health care plan or can’t afford to pay for it is potentially another applicant for Medicaid and other state-financed health programs. The governors are getting wise to this corporate shell game and putting the screws on the company. That’s the only reason that the company recently announced it was “sweetening” its health plan to cover more workers and shortening the period of time before an employee could begin to use the benefit.

That’s also the reason that the company, run largely by white executives but frequented by minority customers and staffed also by minorities, just hired Andrew Young to lobby on its behalf. The cynical strategy: let’s hire that Black man to show that we care about our wage-slave minority employees. And here is what the former UN ambassador and civil rights icon had the gall to say on his new client’s behalf:

”They are some of the best entry level jobs that are available to poor people. And they also make products available to the working poor.”

He neglects to complete the thought: “they are some of the best jobs available for poor people AND they’ll sure stay poor as long as they remain in them.”

Here’s the NY Times account of Scott’s speech:

The executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., said that state bills aimed at improving Wal-Mart’s benefits “may score short-term political points, but they won’t solve America’s health care challenges.”

Mr. Scott said that Wal-Mart’s health plans were “not perfect” but that the company was committed to improving the health care system by expanding its benefits and by opening low-cost medical clinics for workers and the public in its stores.

Trying to broaden a debate over employer health care plans that has focused heavily on Wal-Mart, Mr. Scott said: “At the end of the day, this is not about me. It is not about Wal-Mart. And it is not about you. It is about all of us and what we can do to keep this country great.”

He claims the state bills “won’t solve America’s health care challenges” as if that was the responsibility of these governors. No, their only responsibility is to solve their states’ health care challenges. And Wal-Mart’s working poor employees (average salary–$20,000) ARE a burden on state budgets. Which means that the state bills are precisely appropriate ways to address the problem caused by Wal-Mart’s benefit-poor working environment.

And don’t you just love that last paragraph in which Scott begs for “understanding.” It’s not about me. It’s not about Wal-Mart. It’s about what we can do to make this country great. Who does he think he’s talking to? FoxNews? I hope no governors were fooled by this trash-talk. If Scott or his company gave a damn they’d make a small corporate contribution to making this country great by enabling their employees to maintain their health.

My advice is cut the crap, boss. Do right by your employees and give them honorable health benefits so they can take care of themselves and their children.

In case, we entertained any notion of Scott’s sincerity on these matters, listen to how he slyly criticizes state health plans for being TOO GENEROUS to the working poor:

Mr. Scott, referring to Wal-Mart workers on Medicaid, said: “Do we want more of our associates’ kids on our health plans? Of course we do.”

But Mr. Scott hinted at another reason so many of his workers were on Medicaid. “Have many states made Medicaid programs far more generous in order to cover the kids of working families? Yes, they have.”

So, he’s saying that if your states would stop providing coverage for children, then his employees wouldn’t be a burden on the state; AND he wouldn’t have to come up with improved health benefits for his own employees. Do I hear the word “cynical” anyone? It reminds me of Jonathan Swift’s remarkable satire, A Modest Proposal, in which he suggests that one way to ease the Irish famine would be to eat Irish babies thus easing the burden on both the starving poor and Ireland’s English rulers. All I can say is eat your heart our Mr. Scott, that is, if you actually have one.

I’m pleased to know that my own governor wasn’t buying any of Scott’s crap:

Christine Gregoire, the Democratic governor of Washington, said that 20 percent of Wal-Mart workers in her state received public health care assistance. After Mr. Scott’s speech, she said that this was “a problem that he has to solve.”

tags andrew-young, children's-health, h-lee-scott, health-coverage, medicaid, wal-mart-worker-benefits

An Iranian newspaper devised a Holocaust cartoon contest in vengeful response to the Muhammed cartoon fiasco. In reply, an Israeli cartoonist, Amitai Sandy, has devised what he shockingly calls the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoon Contest (IASCC). He put out a call to Jewish cartoonists around the world for submissions and has published (see the cartoons) around ten so far (the competition ends March 5th). All cartoons here are provided courtesy of Amitai Shandy. I know that when you first read this headline you had the same chilled response that I did. You said something like: “there isn’t enough of this shit in the world that a fellow Jew has to be the conduit for more of it?”

Yaakov Kirschen, author of the Dry Bones comic strip, probably had something like this response. His blog was where I first learned about it. He links to this Haaretz story about it which quotes Sandy saying mockingly (please understand that this statement is meant ironically):

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

But after actually visiting the IASCC website and viewing the cartoons for myself, I had quite a different response. Why? Well, first of all I must admit that there ARE a few genuinely disgusting cartoons. But even more importantly there are some genuinely funny ones that make interesting and valid points. Not reinforcing anti-Semitic stereotypes, but rather poking fun at those very stereotypes. In short, I think this competition was everything that the Jyllands-Posten cartoons were meant to be but were not. The latter were not funny (a cardinal sin for cartooning). They were gratuitously insulting and with little redeeming social commentary. They did not challenge accepted norms or values in any sort of constructive ways.

I’m running a few of the cartoons which I thought the most interesting. I’m not running the few cartoons which seemed revolting and insipid (there were a few). I’m gonna let you decide what you think.

Terry Gross on Fresh Air interviews Sandy and gets closest to conveying both the nuttiness, irony, and provocative nature of the contest:

“I’m trying to decide whether this contest is incredibly smart and funny and a really great way of proving the point that you want to make or whether it’s really kind of sick.”

To which Sandy replies: “It’s a little bit of both.”

The problem with all this is that most Jews are understandably uncomfortable with anything that remotely smacks of anti-Semitism. Our vaunted sense of humor (remember Lenny Bruce?) takes leave when it comes to this subject. But Sandy is saying: “why should it?” Why can’t we talk about it like we talk about any other subject that is important to us? Why can’t we poke fun at the anti-Semites using their own graphic weapons (big noses, horns, the works)? And most of all, why can’t we poke fun at ourselves as Jews have done for millenia? Let’s not forget that such dangerous and subversive humor was an integral part of Lenny Bruce’s comic arsenal. Witness this great joke of his:

We killed Jesus Christ. That’s right, we did. And we’re proud of it, too. His parents wanted him to become a doctor and he refused. So we killed the f*$%@r.

Finally, Sandy mentions in his Fresh Air interview that during an Israeli peace demonstration against the Separation Wall right-wing counter-demonstrators shouted: “You fuck Arabs.” I personally can vouch for such disgusting behavior because when I demonstrated in Jerusalem in 1973 for Israeli negotiations with the PLO right-wing hooligans threw rocks at us and one hit me square on the chin. The only time I’ve ever encountered violence at a demonstration.

So Sandy’s response was to create this poster which takes the right-wing taunt at face value and makes a virtue of the insult.

tags anti-semitism, israel, israel-anti-semitic-cartoon-contest, jewish-humor, muahmmed-cartoons

According to the NY Times, Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, has upped the ante in the Israeli standoff with the new Hamas government by declaring Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas persona non grata:

Israel’s foreign minister said Sunday that Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was “no longer relevant” in a Palestinian government that will soon be led by the militant Islamic group Hamas.

The remarks by the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, are consistent with the tough stance Israel has adopted as Hamas prepares to take power, but her view is at odds with the efforts by the United States and the European Union to work with Mr. Abbas and to bolster him.

On Saturday, an American envoy, David Welch, met with Mr. Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah and expressed support for his leadership.

I find it interesting that Israel usually, at least on its face, attempts to be in step with U.S. policy toward the Palestinians. And stated U.S. policy is that Mahmoud Abbas is a valuable and strategic partner for peace. This makes Livni’s comments a real slap in the face to Condi Rice who firmly believes in Abbas because…well, because there isn’t much other choice is there? If you can’t deal with Abbas, who will you deal with? No one? Is no one a viable choice? I guess for Livni and prime minister Ehud Olmert it appears to be.

Their strategy seems to involve reverting back to Sharon’s unilateral approach to Israeli-Palestinian relations. This means that Olmert will announce withdrawals from selected West Bank settlements and then declare those Israel’s “final position.” In essence, he’ll be saying that this will fix Israel’s international border; thus presenting Hamas and any other international entity that objects with a fait accompli. Like a mafia don, he will dare them by saying: “Whadaya gonna do about it?”

Such unilaterism does not require that he interact with Palestinians or their elected government at all. The separation between Israel and Palestine will continue and become further institutionalized in Israeli political and social life. All of which is beyond sad. It’s tragic. And some day this will change. This attitude will be overthrown. It has to be. Human life and society does not allow for walls. Humans want to interact with each other. They need intercourse. They need contact. My fear is that the longer this benighted policy reigns supreme the harder it will become to undo its pernicious impact when the era of peace does come. Only then will we be able to count the toll in suffering and hardship (for both sides) that this frigid policy has caused.

tags abbas-irrelevant, hamas, israeli-foreign-minister, mahmoud-abbas, tzipi-livni

I've read some wacky conspiracy theories suggested by "progressive" opponents of the Dubai ports deal, but I think what I read at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's Stakeholder blog last night takes the cake. The post titled Oy, linked to a New York Post (that's Rupert Murdoch's shmatte) story, QAEDA CLAIM: WE 'INFILTRATED' UAE GOV'T (registration required). The Stakeholder post thanked the Left Coaster for alerting it to the story. U.S.: Surrendering to terror and paranoia (cartoon: Gary Markstein/Cagle.com) The first thing that struck me about this was that two erstwhile progressive websites were leaning on a Murdoch rag to support their opposition ...

I just wrote a post about AIPAC's big annual bash, better known as the AIPAC Policy Conference, that begins March 5th in D.C. They'll bring 5-6,000 of their biggest fat-cat boosters to D.C. to hobnob with fawning members of Congress eager for campaign largess. The prime rib of red meat for this conference will be AIPAC's proposed Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act (H.R. 4681), which will draw the noose ever tighter around Palestinian necks in a vain effort to destroy Hamas and the PA. Speaking of red meat, Dick Cheney will be the "Special Guest" for the Closing Session. Steve Rosen, fired number 2 AIPAC staffer (photo: Jewish ...

I'd like to turn Allan Bloom's neoconservative rant against multi-culturalism, The Closing of the American Mind, on its head in this post about the Bush Administration's war on foreign intellectuals who wish to teach or speak at American universities. Many of us know about Tariq Ramadan's horror story in being denied a visa to teach at Notre Dame University. He and the ACLU are suing the Department of Homeland Security over that one. But recent news stories note that DHS and the State Department are waging a worldwide campaign to rid this country's campuses of foreign intellectuals who may expose our tender young minds to ideas too dangerous for them to absorb. Not to mention those foreign scientists ...

For the past week or more I've been doing a daily digest of news and opinion in the blog and media world that supports the Dubai ports deal. There is an overwhelming tide of opposition to the deal among both political parties, the right and left blog world, and the media. That's why I feel it's important to point out voices of reason, moderation and accuracy on the other side. Perhaps the biggest news yesterday was Dubai Ports World agreed to hold off taking active control of P&O, the British company that holds the leases to the six U.S. ports in question. The way the delay is being described by Bush, the pols and the media is a ...

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) published a revealing article heralding AIPAC's upcoming national conference. This is THE event every year when 6,000 of AIPAC's top Jewish leaders come to DC to hobnob with the political elite, which seemingly delights in paying obeisance at AIPAC's feet. By the way, I note that this year Dick Cheney will be the "Special Guest" at the Closing Session. JTA did everyone a favor by laying out AIPAC's political agenda for both the meeting and the remainder of the congressional session. Become a Goliath for Israel--attend the AIPAC policy conference and smite Hamas Not content with the current Bush Administration policy ...