California Driving

An Alert reader posted a comment to Wednesday's musings on AB 493. (The Sacramento Bee reported yesterday that the bill failed on the Assembly floor.) The comment suggested that the Bear take a look at the website: www.wedrivecalifornia.com.

It is a cool website; though, we should disclose that it's sponsored by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. (They didn't support AB 493, and they had a handy link to send an email to state legislators that would voice one's discontent.) Apart from lobbying (which is cool with the Bear, since they're upfront about it), the site offers some nice features. In particular, we liked the page that lists great California drives.

We also like their writing on the site's mission, titled, "California Dreaming:"

The top down on a warm summer night and nothing between you and the stars high above. The road from San Francisco to Stinson Beach. Skiing in the Sierra in the morning, replacing the skis with a surf board and heading for the evening surf in the Pacific. California dreams that can be a reality.

Welcome to WeDrive California. Here you will find information about what’s happening in California’s automotive scene. From fun events like car shows and cruises, information on taking great drives in our scenic state, to the latest news on new products, safety and technology, WeDrive California is the place you can visit to find out what’s really happening in California’s car culture.

Kudos to their copywriter.

Now, get in your car and head for the hills.

Is the "Latte Factor" Grande Logic?

The bear's sister-in-law, a recent college graduate living in one of the nation's priciest cities, forwarded to us an article in the New York Times: More Advice Graduates Don't Want to Hear by Damon Darlin (the follow-up to last year's Advice to All You Graduates: Let's Start with that Daily Latte).

I read the articles, and it's all sound advice. We recently met with the Fidelity Investments dude who handles our 401K at work, and being shown simple graphs is enough to make you want to save every penny. (Do you want to buy the used and rusty wheelchair in your retirement years, or do you want to pay for the hip replacement surgery?)

But the article was good to point out the simple fallacy of one of the writer's own arguments, described in various publications (ad nauseam) as the "latte factor":

"Other people, my wife among them, pointed out that I may have been too draconian on that [skipping the latte] point. Consistent savings is a lot easier if there are small rewards along the way; otherwise, life seems as if it is just one bowl of cold grass porridge after another."

Simply, I get an inordinate amount of pleasure from a well prepared latte. 3 dollars (not every day) is money well spent if I derive considerable pleasure from it. If you choose your indulgent choices carefully, it can be part of a well conceived budget.

I have read a handful of books and magazine articles on budgeting, investing, and creating wealth. The biggest financial mistakes you make are not going to come down to a latte unless you are making a choice between Starbucks and eating ramen. The math doesn't work. I don't care how many times I hear it, but unless you're pulling into the cafe for 7 bucks a day, you're not going to save much over a year or a lifetime. It's the large expenses in life that will drag you down if you make choices above your means.

Invest consistently, take a care of your body and mind, give to charities with your money and time, don't borrow what you can't pay back, and buy things that last. Clothing, electronics, utilities, automobiles, education, health, home or apartment: think very carefully about purchasing those things, and you'll be fine.

And if you want a cheap way to drown your sorrows over your maxed-out credit card or looming student loan payment, consider the 3 dollar latte.

AB 493

I just received an email about a bill before the California assembly. AB 493 may go to a vote today. The bill, sponsored by Ira Ruskin (D-Redwood City) would impose a fee or a rebate on new vehicles sold in California. A fee would apply to a vehicle that produces a lot of polluting emissions, and you would receive a rebate (based on a sliding scale) for cars that produce less. For instance, a Prius would get you a maximum rebate, while a Hummer would be slapped with a big fee.

The idea is right—having the market play a factor in cleaning the environment. However, in principle, I don't think that taxation (and yes, it's a tax when you impose a mandatory fee) is a good means to change behavior. Though, there should be some kind of penalty for excessive pollution. It's a tough issue.

This bill does not take into account that many who use trucks or large vehicles for work (e.g. yard crews, builders, etc.) would have to pay the penalty, nor does it address the fact that car companies are dragging their feet on lower emission vehicles (and probably, as a result, artificially inflating the cost of cars like the Prius). If a Prius cost as much as a two door coupe, then we'd see thousands of them on the road.

Burger Madness

There are burgers. And then there is the "Cadillac of fast food burgers." (Quote: Mike Cahill of Michigan) There has been much talk lately among So Cal bloggers about the best burgers to be found, since Chowhound published the Burger Hunt Map (Google map). Chowhound's focus is on non-chain burgers. Still, if I had the choice, I'd go to In-N-Out for a double-double. The fast food chain has been praised by many (including Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation). The only thing that's secret about it now (and even that's out of the bag) is the secret menu or the double-secret menu. If only they delivered!

I'd also add that I was once a big fan of the Big Wave with Cheese and the natural fries at Islands.

Blotter Buzz

I work on a small college campus in a small college town. The school newspaper and the local fish wrap each publish a police blotter—a collection of police activity for a given time period. Nothing much happens in town. Maybe a DUI or domestic disturbance. Anything more would be highly unusual and make headlines. At the college, the typical blotter item is, "3:35 AM. Campus security responds to fire alarm. Toaster is found smoking with forgotten toast. Intoxicated female student is taken to emergency room." All in all, there is not much ado.

In yesterday's Native Intelligence blog (one of the fine LA Observed contributor blogs), TJ Sullivan wrote about the lack of a comprehensive police blotter of LAPD operations. This idea was inspired by reading a column by Mariel Garza in the LA Daily News about Cal State Northridge journalism students meeting information gathering obstacles while trying to report on the LAPD. Garza's column prompted a terse response from LAPD Chief William Bratton on the LAPD blog. (Yes, they're bloggers too.)

All in all, there are interesting questions on both sides of the plate. Would the LAPD benefit by publishing more information about its proceedings? (Garza and Sullivan think so.) Does the LAPD offer some kind of comprehensive information about its operations and statistics? (Bratton thinks so.) The information sources Bratton points to are the blog, the media relations department, and LAPDonline.org (which is worth looking at from time to time, if only for the crime map).

It would be interesting to shed more light on the LAPD, but is that a practical objective?

Would such a blotter be citywide? I doubt that residents of Playa Vista are much interested in reading that officers responded to a car accident on Laurel Canyon.

Then, would it be by neighborhood? Would that local information source be redundant? (Many neighborhoods have Yahoo or other online groups where they disperse this kind of blotter-relevant information.)

I'd read such a thing, but I have an addiction to news that is bordering on unhealthy.

"Illuminating the Connection"

Politics equals money. That's what the general public, for the most part, believes. It's certainly the story line coming from most news sources, and during debate, it's what a politician will tell you guides his or her opponent's interests.

David Pogue, the eminent technology writer at the New York Times writes on his blog about a new website, Maplight.org, which claims to illuminate the connection between money and politics. The site describes itself as:

"...a groundbreaking public database, [that] illuminates the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes in unprecedented ways. Elected officials collect large sums of money to run their campaigns, and they often pay back campaign contributors with special access and favorable laws."

Maplight.org is brilliant in its simplicity (even if the website isn't—as Pogue points out—entirely intuitive or analytically complete). At present, the site includes the ability to search for information about both the U.S. Congress and the California legislature, and it aims to exhibit basically three sets of data: bills, interest groups, and legislators.

Maplight.org offers a search by bill. It shows the legislators that did want this bill to pass, the legislators that did not, and the related special interests that paid to influence each legislator. For example, I selected to review the U.S. Congress >Bills>Education>College>H.R.5 - College Student Relief Act of 2007. (N.B. I am very much interested in the issue of student loans, as Sallie Mae and her gangster thugs visit my bank account once a month to extract a large portion of my paycheck. This bill, according to GovTrack.us, has passed the house, but has not passed the senate or been signed into law. It would reduce interest rates on subsidzed student loans, which would be good. However, a vast majority of student loans are not subsidized; thus, it's only a small step in the right direction.) The bill was sponsored by George Miller, Democrat from California, who represents the 7th district—a weird blob that includes Bay Area cities from Richmond to Vacaville. (View his Maplight.org breakdown.) The bill passed with 356 Ayes, 71 Nays, and 8 no votes.

The maplight.org analysis of this bill shows that voting in Congress is more complicated than the money for votes idea that the site and writers like Mr. Pogue suggest. In this example, more money was implicitly spent opposing the issue than for it, yet the bill overwhelmingly passed. Was it conscience? Politics? (Most likely, as who could return to a home district to say they oppose helping out needy high schoolers wanting to go to college.) Nevertheless, it doesn't appear to be money, despite the paradigm that they're suggesting exits. Mr. Pogue does allude to this paradox, but hardly backs away from the correlation:

"Now, not all bills exhibit the same money-to-outcome relationships. And it’s not news that our lawmakers’ campaigns accept money from special interests. What this site does, however, is to expose, often embarrassingly, how that money buys votes."

I was going to wax about this, but I read two comments posted on Mr. Pogue's blog that address my problems with this concept perfectly:

"Almost every legitimate political scientist agrees that money does not buy votes. Think of it this way: why would an interest group donate money to a politician who doesn’t support their interests? And why shouldn’t they donate to politicians who agree with their goals? Correlation does not mean causality."

And

I believe you have drawn a false conclusion of the type 'Post hoc ergo propter hoc,' Latin for 'after this, therefore because of this.' [snip] Just because a candidate voted in favor of his or her contributor does not PROVE the money bought their vote; it merely supports the assertion.

Mr. Pogue is right about most things. In this case, he joins many others in illogically oversimplifying complex issues.

As for the remaining two data sets Maplight.org provides, you can search by legislator (e.g. search for Nancy Pelosi and see that she gets most of her special interest money from attorneys and law firms). And you can search by interest group category (e.g. Eduction).

I don't deny that money can buy votes, and there is certainly enough pork in every bill to spread the bacon wide and high. We do need to be better at holding legislators accountable, and Maplight.org is a useful tool in this pursuit. We also need to address issues with nuanced and cogent argument.

The Theme Building and Encounter Restaurant

Last Friday, the always interesting blog CurbedLA offered a post (via retro_futurism) about the strange and captivating architectural delight at the center of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) known as the Theme Building (photo at left from the UCLA photo archive—see recent post). I grew up so close to LAX that I could hear the aircraft take off and land and sometimes smell the rubber from the tires hitting the landing strip. The ambient light emanating from the airfield is so bright that an eerie glow was constant at night in our neighborhood. I didn't see many stars in the heavens during my childhood. What I did see were aircraft lined in the sky to the east, approaching to land.

Living that close to the airport, we were always asked to shuttle friends and family to and from LAX. Thus, I was quite familiar with questions and comments about the Theme Building.
Does it rotate? No. Is it supposed to resemble a spider? Maybe, but probably not. Is it a movie set? No, but its exterior has been seen in probably dozens of movies and is rumored to have inspired the buildings on the TV show "The Jetsons." What's in there? A restaurant and maybe some offices and catering operations.

Most people assume it's an air traffic control tower, but never served that purpose. LAX recently built a new tower that's more obvious, so this mischaracterization will be less common. The Theme Building is tall, but it doesn't provide a view high enough for air traffic control, especially at an airport prone to runway mishaps. The view it does provide is quite compelling.

How do I get inside? Oddly, it isn't convenient from any part of the airport. A visitor has to leave a terminal, walk across many lanes of dangerous traffic, then find the elevator entrance. I've read that the original intent was to provide walkways to the structure from each terminal, and the building would have served as a hub. I'm sure that expense prevented that idea to take hold.

At present, the building is closed for renovation. According to a LAWA press release, "a 1,000-pound, 5-foot-by-10-foot piece of the stucco 'skin' was discovered to have fallen off the underside of the east upper arch," and repairs are expected to keep the restaurant closed for a while. The press release also notes some design information and history. The tops of the arches aren't structural (which is also why the damage mentioned above isn't too serious).

The release also notes that the "Theme Building was completed in August 1961 at a cost of $2.2 million. Architects Pereira & Luckman Associates, Welton Becket & Associates, and Paul R. Williams designed the building's 135-foot-high parabolic arches to symbolize the optimism of a futuristic Los Angeles in the space age. In 1992, the Los Angeles City Council designated the Theme Building a cultural and historical monument."

Have you been in there? Yes, but
not until I was in high school on a date. What's it like in there? Well, when I went there the first time, it looked different than it does now. Some entity that operates the restaurant hired Disney Imagineering designers to create a futuristic decor. The photo at right (from the retro_futurism blog) shows the results. It is a little too much to stomach, and I wouldn't suggest subjecting your rods and cones to this scene before a long flight to Hawaii or Beijing. I do wish that when I was there that I had taken the elevator to the top observation deck.

In the UCLA archive photo above, you can see the fenced observation area near the roof perimeter. It's now off limits due to post-September 11 security concerns. Bummer.

What kind of food do they serve? It's California cuisine, for the most part. What's that? Some kind of Pan Asian inspired vegetarian health food? Not exactly, but that's a good question for another post perhaps.

Can you drive me to LAX for a 5:35 AM flight to Amsterdam and then pick me up at midnight next week? No. Call Super Shuttle.

For more information about the building and its history, visit the Encounter Restaurant website or read a bit more about the development of the design and some of the architects at Wikipedia. Also, more links to photos here and here.