Weekend Links: Oct. 28-30
Vanity plates, (very) high roads, and 8 other stories to consider in your quest to understand the Golden State
Greetings from What is California? HQ, where the end of spooky season looms with the scariest part of all: Reading and parsing the California Voter Guide. All those candidates! All those propositions! At least Gov. Newsom made it… easy:
Big leadership energy here! Maybe we can make some last-minute yard signs: Newsom 2022: [No candidate statement]
Welcome to new subscribers and followers!
It’s been amazing to see so many new folks following, sharing, and listening to What is California? here on Substack, on Twitter, and wherever you listen to podcasts. I’m grateful to have you here, and I hope you’ll stick around! If you like the show and the newsletter, please consider rating and reviewing What is California? on Apple Podcasts and/or sharing What is California? among like-minded folks.
ICYMI: This week’s podcast
This week’s podcast features Alicia Garza, the principal of Black Futures Lab and the cofounder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network:
On with the Weekend Links
Meanwhile, I hope you'll consider checking out some of these nifty California stories if/when you are so inclined.
NOTE: I try to link to stories that are not behind a subscriber-only paywall. If you can, please consider subscribing or donating to news organizations that provide this essential California coverage.
In MAGA-Led Shasta County, Election Apprehension Reigns - Shawn Hubler, NY Times (gift article; free to read)
I’ve posted a lot here about the upheaval in Shasta County, where the majority of county supervisors are aligned with a local right-wing militia and where the Big Lie about stolen elections in 2020 has influenced a cavalcade of civic batshittery heading into the 2022 elections. In this extraordinary interview, Shasta County’s clerk, Cathy Darling Allen, explains the damage done to democracy in her county, as well as the emotional toll of the abuse and accusations hurled at her office by foes of any elections they don’t win: “What we’ve experienced is more like bullying and aggressive behavior. But for those of us who work in elections — who miss our kids’ football games or get home late for dinner or give up holidays and weekends to do this work. […] This is heavy stuff. It hurts. And not just hurt feelings. This is what our country is based on.”
Why some schools saw their scores soar despite Covid — and others didn't - Carolyn Jones, EdSource
Speaking of rural counties: You might have heard that California public school test scores plunged in the pandemic year, with students’ math and reading proficiency at catastrophically low 33% and 47% respectively. But guess where in California students actually gained proficiency? “Mountain Valley Unified, a diverse, predominantly low-income K-12 district in the remote mountains of Trinity County, had some of the state’s largest increases: 13 points in reading and 17 points in math, with overall results far above the state average,” Jones reports adding that districts in Kern and Mono counties fared well over the state average as well. What did they have in common? “All three of these districts reopened for in-person instruction in fall 2020, while most other districts around the state remained closed due to the local spread of Covid,” Jones writes.
This Bot Posts Rejected License Plates and It's Amazing - Gabe Meline, KQED
Some teenager got a hold of vanity license plate application data from the DMV, then built a Twitter bot to showcase them. Prepare to lose yourself in hours of endless scrolling delirium. My favorite so far:
Mike Davis, ‘City of Quartz’ author who chronicled the forces that shaped L.A., dies - Carolina A. Miranda, LA Times
If you live in and think about California long enough, you hear about the book City of Quartz by Mike Davis as a sort of timeless artifact that exists everywhere and nowhere, an ambient mood that seeps into the atmosphere from bookshelves across the state. I wish I’d read it and maybe talked to Davis for the podcast before he died this week at 76: His 1990 chronicle of Los Angeles sounds amazing, having deconstructed (and challenged) the city’s myths to foretell its messy future. Miranda has an accessible and affecting tribute here, framing Davis’ unique perspective and legacy (“Everybody knows that Malibu burns; it was not until Davis that anyone said, ‘Let it,’” wrote Lewis MacAdams) alongside Davis’ own complicated relationship with L.A.: “I love L.A. How can you not see that? I suppose the book is, in the end, a failure if it betrays none of the sense of deep feeling I have about the city. But that’s where being a radical comes in — you have to rain on the parade.”
California Poised to Overtake Germany as World’s No. 4 Economy - Matthew A. Winkler, Bloomberg
Yes, gas is expensive, there’s no housing, and economic inequality is arguably worse than ever despite a historic budget surplus. Nevertheless, after years of steady growth (as well as some precipitous backsliding by Germany), Winkler makes the case that California likely will soon become the world’s fourth-largest economy, with a GDP over $3.3 trillion. That would trail only Japan and China before colliding with the U.S. as a whole. Counterpoint: The California Business Roundtable says not so fast, arguing that California’s cost of living is so high that it barely makes the Top 10 when adjusted for purchasing parity—just ahead of… Turkey. Yikes.
Silicon Valley’s big tech donates little locally - Brian Howey, San Jose Spotlight
You might look at the $57.7 million that Google’s parent company Alphabet donated to Bay Area-based charities and nonprofits in 2021 and say, “Wow, way to go, Google!” Then you look at the gross revenue for the same year: $257.6 billion. As Howey notes, those Bay Area donations made up just 0.02% of the Mountain View tech giant’s overall revenue. Other companies fare a little better or a little worse, but they all show a stinginess toward giving back to the communities where they’ve imprinted themselves so indelibly on local economies and culture. Not cool! Maybe we could fire up a Peter Thiel Little League or something, where every player on the championship team gets a signed copy of Atlas Shrugged and a Maltese passport.
Key takeaways from Newsom and Dahle's only California governor's debate - Nicole Nixon, Capital Public Radio
The Newsom/Dahle debate last weekend was a suitably spicy, not entirely specious, occasionally thoughtful and even revealing cage match between our leading candidates for governor. Dahle made the most of the moment, while Newsom was smug but pointed and unrelenting in his attacks. Nixon has a good summary here for anyone who missed/avoided it. Maybe the biggest surprise was the two seeing eye-to-eye on California’s long-overdue Reparations Task Force, which Dahle voted for and Newsom signed into law in 2020. Good to know!
California sheriff’s office stops Black drivers five times more often than white people, data shows - Sam Levin, The Guardian
Presented without comment: “[I]n Sacramento, the state capital, sheriff’s deputies pulled over Black drivers at a rate 4.7 times more than they stopped white drivers. In overall stops, which include pedestrians, Black residents were stopped at 4.1 times the rate of white people. In San Diego, Black residents were 2.2 times more likely than white residents to be stopped by deputies; in Los Angeles, Black people were 1.9 times more likely; and in Riverside, which is east of L.A., they were 1.5 times as likely.”
Recycled Water May Prove Crucial for Northern California Amid Ongoing Droughts, Climate Change - Ezra David Romero, KQED
Southern California is already great at recycling wastewater for public consumption, but Northern California? Not so much. But as they stare down another year of drought, local water officials and policy leaders understand the urgency to waste not, want not. “The concept that we take potable drinking water, poo and pee in it, and just flush it down the toilet is a travesty,” said Silicon Valley water official Teresa Herrera. Amen!
RELATED: Featured prominently in Romero’s report is Felicia Marcus, the veteran California water whiz who spoke about wastewater recycling and other matters earlier this year on What is California?
And finally…
What's at the top of California's highest road? - John Bartell, ABC10
The intrepid Golden State explorer Bartell paid a visit to White Mountain Peak, which features—at 14,252 feet elevation—the highest road in California. What happens up there? And who else might he encounter? There’s a surprise every minute of this journey, and I want to go there myself right now:
Thanks for reading, and have a safe, happy weekend! 🐻 ❤️
-Stu