A4 The Malibu Times May 8, 2014

Observing the downfall

Schadenfreude (the enjoyment of another’s misfortune) is usu-ally considered a base emotion. It is like kicking someone who is down or piling on. But in the proper context, such as when the person causes his own downfall by reason of his own repugnant con-duct, it can be acceptably gratify-ing. Under those circumstances it is not even a guilty pleasure.

The word is German and lit-erally means “harm joy.” The Greek word hubris (excessive pride or self-confidence) is also relevant. Power, coupled with hubris, can seduce a person into

believing that conventional rules of behavior do not apply to him. If he exercises his power hubris-tically and fate turns against him, he will be an appropriate object of schadenfreude. Examples are Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, Anthony Weiner and Chris Christie. Donald Sterling has just joined this unattractive pan-theon and the pungent aroma of schadenfreude wafts through the country. Sterling is everywhere. In the newspapers, the talk shows, the internet. His downfall will bring out few mourners.

It is not as if his recent racist rants came as a surprise. His atti-

Opinion

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From the PublisherArnold G. York

This and thatSterling-Phase II is still at the top of every

media agenda. A new player has entered the lists. Shelly Sterling, the wife of Donald Sterling, has taken charge of the situation, reminded everyone by implication that this is a community property state and that she continues to be an owner of the team. Smartly, she said that she agrees with the Commissioners’ decision to ban and fine Donald, and agrees the team should have a new CEO immediately, chosen, I assume, by her and the league. Shelly, by the way, has been involved with the team for years and is also very basketball savvy, so this is not someone stepping out of the kitchen to run a professional sports team.

Her proposal gives the other owners an oppor-tunity to say maybe we should wait a bit before tak-ing any action on the franchise, and give the new CEO a chance. I think many of the owners may not want to give the new Commissioner that kind of power, like being able to force the sale of a team. Besides, the league rules may not be all that clear. Certainly, there are few precedents if it turns into a legal battle royale. Plus, the team keeps winning and no one wants to rock that boat. Once things settle down, the sponsors will probably all be back and the crisis over. Money always trumps principal and there probably are some very highly paid play-ers and coaches who also don’t want to knock over this money train. So I suspect this will die down shortly, unless there are new revelations.

•••••The United States Supreme Court was once

again hard at work—or, rather, the majority of five was hard at work—soundly convinced that the four other justices really didn’t matter, and there was no point in trying to find any kind of a middle ground on a very thorny issue—the question of sectarian prayer at public govern-mental meetings. This court, which has shown little timidity in overruling previous Supreme Courts, appears to have no problem with this religious question and now, in various places, we’ll have a Baptist-sanctioned government and a Presbyterian-sanctioned government and a Greek Orthodox-sanctioned government and a Roman Catholic-sanctioned government and a Jewish-sanctioned government.

According to our Supreme Court, if you don’t like it, cover your ears or move someplace else. Justice Clarence Thomas appears to believe that localities could even officially institute a pub-

lic religion because the constitutional prohibition in his mind only applies to the federal govern-ment. It’s an interesting proposition because if the little town of Podunk, Ala., can declare an official religion, why can’t they just also declare that slavery is OK in Podunk, sort of the local option? Then all Justice Thomas would have to do is avoid driving through Podunk, lest he be clapped into irons and put to work in the fields.

It strikes me as strange that in a world beset by sectarian violence, one of the things that always sets America apart is that we had a non-sectarian government. Why the U.S. Supreme is set on destroying one of the crowning achieve-ments of the American democracy mystifies me. You can already hear the local politicians extolling their particular species of God with all of the pro-nouncements from the governmental bench. After all, what politician doesn’t want God on their campaign team?

•••••Unfortunately for the City of Malibu, they

cannot claim the hand of divine providence in their efforts to get information related to Malibu citizens who are renting out their homes, or places in their homes, to visiting vacationers. It turns out that if you rent for 30 or less days, you have to pay the city 12% of whatever you collect as a TOT tax, like a hotel would. So far, no problem because the city certainly has a right to enforce its ordinances.

But at this point, you have to begin to won-der what they’re putting in the drinking water at city hall. What they want to do is have the council approve serving subpoenas on 69 different online rental sites that have Malibu rentals and essen-tially demand that they produce all of their busi-ness records at city hall so the city can check who rented what, where, when, for how long and for how much. I can just see VRBO, Craigslist, vaca-tionrentals.com, flipkey.com or any one of the 69 entities rushing down to city hall to deliver all of their business records related to rentals in Malibu. Whoever thought up this hair-brained scheme should be locked in a dark room before they cause any further damage.

Perhaps someone has it in for our new mayor, Skylar Peak, who will be signing every subpoena, and would probably end up spending the next two or three years of his life having his deposition taken. Come on guys, let’s start liv-ing in the real world.

5-acre Brush Fire Erupts in Pacific Palisades

PCH Construction to Bring Long-term Traffic Troubles

Power Restored for Nearly 2,000 in Western Malibu

From the Editor: So Long, Malibu

Malibu Misdeeds Crime Report April 17-21

Guest Column | Hanz Laetz

Last week’s power pole col-lapse in Trancas Canyon during a minor Santa Ana wind was easy to predict. That section of poles caused one fire a decade ago, the distance between poles is very long, the heavy communica-tions cables sag significantly and the poles look very old and very overloaded.

We quite literally could have predicted this. A study was just done to find the hot spots where poles are overloaded in Malibu. But that study is being kept secret by the regulatory agency-the California Public Utilities Commission-that’s supposed to protect us. They have the study, and won’t release it.

Remember, the 2007 Malibu Canyon Fire produced about $66 million in fines against Southern California Edison and five wireless communications companies, which hang their heavy black cables and other gear on poles around us. Half went to the state treasury, the other half went to several pro-grams:

- An independent survey was done on the millions of Edison poles in its area, where we learned that 50 percent of their poles in high fire risk areas are overloaded or decrepit.

- 3.3 miles of Malibu Canyon poles were designated for replacement.

- Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and all the other wireless companies did a complete safety inventory of the poles in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Sounds good, but every time with these “wireless” companies, what they accomplish is different from what they promise.

For example, the Verizon engineers who scoped out the Malibu Canyon replacement project made a dreadful mistake: it seems they relied on Google Earth to do their field survey, and as a result drastically under-estimated the amount of work to be done. This has resulted in delay, and the likelihood that very major construction will tie

up Malibu Canyon Road for months in the coming future.

And then, the wireless folks filed their state-required safety inventory of power poles in greater Malibu, and incredibly stamped a giant “secret” seal on it. The phone companies claim that state law allows them to keep “proprietary” data at the PUC top secret.

This study would have pointed a big red danger arrow at Trancas Canyon Road, where only luck prevented a wind-whipped fire burning down to Broad Beach in minutes last Wednesday.

I’m an official party to that settlement, and they won’t even give it to me. The Malibu safety analysis that the State of California required these com-panies to undertake, after they caused a fire that damaged Malibu to the tune of $500 mil-lion, is sitting in a file cabinet in San Francisco.

Can you hear my outrage now?

Meanwhile, the PUC has lurched forward, again, with its long-delayed plans to draw up “High Fire Risk Areas” in California, and tighten up safety standards in them. The power companies and wireless provid-ers are writing the new rules, and drawing the new maps. State regulators, beholden to the industry, are going along. Great.

And one of the first ground rules that the PUC set down, early in the process, is “no undergrounding for safety pur-poses.” Let me repeat that. The state agency that regulates power line safety has already ruled that underground power lines are not to be considered as a solution.

Are you surprised? That’s the same agency that doesn’t investi-gate pole collapses unless there’s a fire. It’s the same agency that ordered a comprehensive safety review of the poles in greater Malibu, and then refuses to release that report to the public.

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For those of you who read my column for 18 months in the Malibu Patch, you already know what I am about to tell my new and wider audience in the The Malibu Times: I serve light fare. With a few exceptions now and then, this is a humor column. My pur-pose is to entertain. If you take offense at any-thing I write, I apologize in advance. If you take what I write literally, you do so at your own risk. Humor trumps truth for me every time.

Most of my columns will in some way relate to how I view Malibu and California through the eyes of an immigrant from the “old country”—New Jersey. I still consider myself an immigrant since I have only been here for two years and a few months. To be honest, I think I may remain an immigrant for the rest of my days. My accent is a dead giveaway and not about to change, and until I get the lay of the land, it will be obvious I come from some far off land.

A few months ago, a friend told me his company was hosting a two-day conference in some place which sounded to me a lot like Ohio. Why anybody would travel to Ohio for a conference is beyond my comprehension, especially during the winter, but far be it from me to tell my friend where or how to conduct his business.

When I asked him how long his trip

should take, he said he could get there in a little more than an hour. “That is insane,” I blurted out, “nobody can get from Malibu to Ohio in just over an hour unless you take a rocket ship.” My friend laughed, “Who said anything about Ohio? I’m going to Ojai.” I had never even heard of Ojai.

Another case in point was a trip to San Diego. I was driving north of there when I entered a fairly large city La Jolla. Quite frankly, I was surprised I had never heard of this town before and asked my driving com-panion about the place. Never having studied Spanish, I pronounced it phonetically. “No, no” my friend proclaimed. “Pronounce the ‘J’ as an ‘H’ and the double ‘L’ as a ‘Y.’” As a foreigner in a strange land, I found this very confusing. If the city wants to call itself La Hoya, why don’t they just spell it that way?

Now perhaps you are beginning to under-stand what I mean when I say I don’t yet have the lay of the land.

I do use a GPS in my car and have become very dependent on the female voice which I affectionately call “the lady.” She almost never pronounces any street or town name correctly including our city, which she insists on calling “Maleebu,” with an accent on the second syllable. At least I know how to pro-nounce Malibu. I guess there is some hope for me after all.

Guest Column | Burt Ross

I serve light fare

A4,7 opinion 5-8-14.indd 4 5/6/14 9:05 PM