LA vs NYC II

I recently bought a book called Counter Intelligence: Where to Eat in the Real Los Angeles by Jonathan Gold. There are many problems with this book, but I want to focus on one: below the title it states "the indispensable eats guide to America's most diverse food city." Los Angeles is America's most diverse food city? I don't know why I should expect a book cover to be any more truthful than those idiotic milk ads, which claim cow's milk--one of the most dangerous products of industrial agriculture--is actually good for you, leading the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to file a complaint with the FTC. But the claim of "the most" about any city always bothers me, and its worse when it comes to some vague category like cuisine diversity. Now if it was something like "tallest building in the U.S." or "largest indoor shopping mall", this is a little easier to measure, but what does "most diverse food city" mean?

Most likely it is based on the idea that L.A. is the most diverse city. But L.A. is hardly the only city to make this claim. Of course, the question is how do you define diversity? Based on research conducted by The Civil Rights Project of Harvard, Time Magazine declared Sacramento America's "most diverse city." Reading the article you discover by "most diverse" they mean "most integrated." Nearby Oakland also describes itself as "America's most diverse city" because "More than 125 languages and dialects are spoken." Oh, but wait a second, according to the New York State Comptroller 138 languages are spoken in the Borough of Queens alone. Another definition is found at the Skyscraper City forum, where I found a list of cities with the smallest "majority group," putting Waipo Acres, Hawaii at the top. Even my home town of St. Paul brags of having the most "balanced" diversity because, although it is majority white, it has significant numbers of African Americans, Latino/as, Asians and Native Americans.

So lets presume the publishers do not mean simply that L.A. is the most diverse city but that it just has the most diverse food. And here their argument is probably based on the size of the immigrant population. Woops, once again it depends on what you mean. If you mean the percentage of foreign born in a city's population, Miami wins easily, followed by Santa Ana and then L.A. But if you mean counties--which is what the book must mean since many of its entries are in places like East L.A. or Pasadena--then once again, after Miami, our old friend Queens is back, followed by Hudson, New Jersey, then Kings--that is Brooklyn--then San Francisco, and finally L.A. comes in at number six. If we take 2005 data and compare Los Angeles County to the city of New York it is pretty close. 36.6% of New York is foreign born, 36% of L.A. So L.A. and NYC are roughly the same--except there is a factor missing here. L.A.'s immigrant population is over 50% Latino/a, and that Latino/a population is over 80% Mexican. By contrast New York's top three immigrant groups are Dominicans, Chinese and Jamaicans and only Dominicans are more than 10% of all immigrants-about 14%.

My point is not simply to once again dismiss any challenge by L.A. to NYC's status as the center of the cultural universe--well it kind of is. But even if L.A. did have near the diversity of New York, experiencing that diversity is like trying to eat ice cream with your fingers. You can do it, but after a while the sticky mess starts driving you mad. Sure there is great Chinese in Monterey Park and Ethiopian on South Fairfax, but getting from here to there is a sticky situation. In New York, the subway is your ice cream scoop. Better yet, let your legs be your spoon. On a single stroll you move from stores and restaurants catering to Greeks, Indians and Ecuadorians. Yes, I'm sure that Uzbeki place on La Brea and Sunset is "very authentic," but who wants to drive from the West Valley at rush hour and then dump another 5 bucks on valet parking--and they say you have to be rich to live in New York. No, I think I'll just pick up a pint of Baba Ganoush at my local Persian deli, go home and watch Huell Howser eat some Macapuno at famous Fosselman's in Alhambra.

Million Dollar Tween Critic

I'm waiting for the blue line at Artesia Blvd and a kid around thirteen is hopping about the platform.

"What's up?" He says while running his hand up and down the station sign.

I try to focus on my book. In general, I'm not quite comfortable talking to strange kids. Too often they act like me when I was there age--any conversation is an opportunity to make a joke at your expense. Besides, his question seems more of a distraction for him, something to do while playing on the platform, rather than a serious attempt to engage in a conversation.

"What's up?" He says again, this time more clearly directed at me.

"Not much. What are you doing today?"

"We're going to a movie." I then notice he is with his mother who looks over and smiles at me from a bench.

"What movie are you going to see?"

"Idlewild."

"That's funny. I haven't even heard of that movie."

"Hollywood movies are crap."

"Huh?" His bluntness takes me by surprise.

"They are almost always about the problems of rich white people, and when they do present stories about the poor, its through the windshield of their Porsche Cayennes. Take 'Million Dollar Baby' for example."

"Didn't that win best picture?"

"Exactly. The industry loves movies that appear to sympathize with the poor, as long as the poor meet their bourgeois standards."

"What do you mean?" I'm a little shocked by his language.

"That film is so awful not because it's packed with clichés and extreme sentimentality but because it perpetuates a malicious division between the deserving and undeserving poor. Hillary Swank's character works hard at a low wage job and saves every penny. She embodies the Reaganite dream of how the poor can become rich if only they have the proper discipline. In contrast, her mother and sister are scheming welfare cheats who want something for nothing."

"Really?" I am becoming more impressed with this kid.

"Even though the women in this film are white, the welfare mom is a stereotype that emerged only in the 1960s when black women challenged the discrimination that prevented them from receiving the same benefits that went to whites. In other words, it is a profoundly racist stereotype that ultimately led to the vicious welfare reform law passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Clinton, which forced mother's to find work without providing child care or health insurance. Of course the bourgeois media has celebrated the 'success' of this law in getting former welfare recipients into the workforce, meanwhile the poverty rate is static, the number of uninsured continues to increase and homelessness among families is at crisis levels--probably because the mothers couldn't find work and faced the reality of 'Temporary Assistance.'"

"Wow!"

"Not surprisingly, this film shows a complete ignorance of welfare policy and depicts the women actually turning down a free house because they might lose government benefits. When I saw that scene I didn't know whether to laugh or scream 'What is this, Vanilla Sky II?' Oh and by the way, did you notice how they suggested the female champion, who was black, always won by cheating? That film was flat out racist."

"Kenny." His mother begins to walk over. "Stop bothering that man."

"Oh, he's not bothering me." Kenny goes back to running around the platform. "Beautiful day."

"Sure is." She waves her arm in a fan like motion. "It's finally started to cool off a bit."

"Yep. Finally."

"Oh here's our train. Have a nice day."

"You too." I see her rush over to take Kenny's hand. He gives me a smile and waves goodbye as they step through the sliding doors.

Sugar-Free Marketeers

Splenda/Sucralose

The fantasy of the free marketeers is the fantasy of Splenda. The popular artificial sweetener, said to be 600 times sweeter than table sugar, is made from mixing chlorine with raffinose, a sugar derived from various vegetables. As with saccharine and aspartame, it is often combined with other potions/poisons, in an attempt to cover a soapy aftertaste--sweeteners such as acesulfame-k, salts like sodium ferulate. They never quite work but over time that aftertaste seems natural, and people begin to crave it.

A recent study by the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think-tank, found "Traffic delays will increase 65 percent and the number of congested lane-miles on urban roads will rise by 50 percent over the next 25 years." Fortunately, they say, the solution is cheap. Simply spend $533 billion to widen highways and don't waste any more money on public transit. The author of the study, David T. Hartgen, a Professional Engineer and Professor of Transportation Studies at UNC Charlotte, has done extensive research to show that widening highways is more effective than public transit projects in reducing traffic congestion. Why? Because people love cars and don't use public transit. Of course, he means white middle class people, but still his "reasoning" has a certain space cadet logic. Just like food engineers might achieve the right balance of sweetness by adding a few milligrams here or there of this or that powder, transportation engineers will be able to create a smooth flow of traffic by just adding a few lanes of traffic here and there--and the chemical aftertaste of neocolonialism and dead fish will dissappear.

Iraq is hardly the only place where blood is shed to keep our cars running. In the Niger Delta, 1000 people are killed each year, violence that western oil companies accept as part of doing business in the region, and while the region brings enormous wealth to these companies, most people who live there are destitute.

Meanwhile, a United Nations study found there are now over 150 ocean dead zones, where the lack of oxygen prohibits the survival of fish and other creatures. These zones are created by global warming and land based run off, including tailpipe pollutants, which is why author David Helvarg lists reducing automobile trips as one of the top 50 Ways to Save the Oceans.

Perhaps one should not expect a transportation engineer to care about geopolitics or ocean health, but one should expect an interest in numbers, and there have been numerous studies showing the cost of supporting cars is much higher than the expense of building roads, which are only partially covered by gas tax revenues.

Let's just take the highway patrol for example. The 2006-2007 budget for the California Highway Patrol is over 1.5 billion. Imagine how much more it will be if we simply continue to "accommodate" the growth of automobile usage. But maybe these anti-government activists would prefer we stop funding this bloated institution that restricts our freedom to race the roads, and we could just let the blood spill until highways are covered with a faint pink film, much like the color of my Splenda flavored cherry popsicles.

The City of Sin

When you take the bus, you also walk. And walking you actually might meet someone you know. You also meet the homeless, although in So Cal they are usually panhandling at freeway exits with cardboard signs saying "homeless veteran, please help". Even panhandling here has drive-thru. Still, it is often pedestrians, the fellow poor, that are most generous. They know it could be them on the street, and they can stop and visit after dropping a dollar in the cup.

Another hundred degree day in the valley, and I just missed the bus, arriving at the other side of the street, a guy I know to be one of the sidewalk donors, is about to cross.
"Hey Ed, what's up?"
"Hey man, what's goin' on?"
"Nothing, where you headed?"
"Just getting something from the store. Hey, you know we're moving to Vegas?"
"Really? You find a job there?"
"Nah, Its just too expensive here, and Meena can't find any work."

According to a Center for Housing Policy study measuring the median wage against the median cost of rent, Los Angeles continues to be one of the least affordable cities to live in. This is not likely to change much despite recent passage of a bill that would raise California's minimum wage to 8 dollars an hour by January 2008.

Let's say you can find a Van Nuys Studio for 800 with bad AC and roach scat in the cupboards. After deductions you bring home maybe 1200 a month. That leaves you with 400. Even for a healthy guy like you, that's about the cost of health insurance, so if, while running to catch the 573 commuter express taking you to the coffee shop in Westwood, where you work but can't afford to live, you slice your ankle on a rusty muffler clamp shot from the street by the tire of a jock rocket ripping by at 65, but you avoid the doctor until the pain of walking on your purplish puss filled limb is too much, and you go to the hospital, where you are billed 700 dollars for treatment plus meds, well then, welcome to Vegas.

"So you got family there?"
"Yeah, I gotta brother and Meena's daughter lives there."
"Aw, that's great. Hey, and you'll have weather like this all the time!"
"Yeah..." He looks off at the intersection blankly.
"I'm just joking ya man!" I swipe at his shoulder with a fist.
He smiles and gives me a quick shake.
Just then an old Chevrolet sputters to the stop in the middle of the intersection. Ed runs to help.
After it won't budge he yells, "You gotta put it in neutral!"
Me and another guy run out to help push the sun faded beater to the curb. The seven man pit crew jumps over the wall and goes into action. They change tires, fill it with gas and push Jimmie Johnson back onto the track, and he goes on to win the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400.