Hi. I asked Patricia for this short history of SMRR to go with their voting recommendations and critique, sent to me yesterday and here, just below this intro. I fully endorse and support SMRR's ongoing work, their criteria and choices. I lived in Santa Monica and Venice, worked with them from their beginnings and know well what they've changed and what they've preserved in the face of huge money interests and nefarious campaigns, open and covert. Supporting their candidates, chosen by convention open to all and scrupulously democratic is preserving liveability in SM and the agency which is responsible for maintaining it. Ed
----- Original Message ----- From: "Patricia Hoffman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Ed Pearl'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 5:21 PM Subject: RE: Voting recommendations w/judges, proposition, local races Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights (SMRR) is a grassroots organization that organized to pass rent control in 1979. While housing rights are still our main focus we have evolved into a multi-faceted progressive organization. Our platform is on-line at Smrr.org. We have had a majority on City Council on and off since 1981. The last time that we didn't have a majority, the Council approved nearly five million square feet of new development - mostly commercial. SMRR has tried to keep neighborhood serving businesses in the community where rents are among the highest in Southern California. Our adversaries love the gentrification. They come out to protest the building of affordable housing for low income families but don't oppose a lot of the market rate buildings. I hope this helps as an explanation of SMRR and why I have spent so much time working for the candidates and platform. Patricia. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patricia Hoffman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'Ed Pearl'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 1:43 PM Subject: RE: Voting recommendations w/judges, proposition, local races Ed - I apologize for being out of touch. I am on the SMRR Campaign Committee and have not had a moment to catch my breath. I do want to respond to the recommendations Faramarz sent as they relate to Santa Monica. For City Council, SMRR has endorsed Kevin McKeown, Gleam Davis and Pam O'Connor. The very progressive Santa Monica Democratic Club has endorsed Kevin McKeown and Gleam Davis. These are the people who can be relied on to vote for affordable housing, rent control protections, and school budget enhancements. Jonathan Mann and Linda Armstrong are non-contenders who run every two years for a platform and TV face time. Linda is very sweet and is running on a platform of housing homeless women. She has not taken a stand on many other issues. Jon is running on recreating the Santa Monica Public Electronic Network, made defunct by internet access. It's time passed more than a decade ago. Terry O'Day is a serious contender and a bright young man. Unfortuneately, his campaign is being financed by the large hotels and developers that are running a half a million dollar hit campaign on Kevin McKeown. Terry was going to seek the SMRR endorsement and definitely had a chance at it since he is good on many of our issues. He has not yet denounced the hit campaign that they are running against Kevin. Kevin has been the most responsive and outspokenly progressive of all the Council members. He announced the developer's plan to build three 25 story towers for market rate housing (read millions of dollars per unit) "Dead on Arrival." Just imagine how much the hotels think that they have to gain if they can spend more than half a million dollars to defeat a local candidate. This is a new low for Santa Monica. Please let your list know that there are better choices in Santa Monica than those forwarded by Faramarz. Thanks, Patricia. FOLLOW THE MONEY!!! *** Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 01:50:28 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [NYTr] Bush 'Staying the Course' Right Over a Cliff To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (NYTr List) Alternet - Oct 30, 2006 http://www.alternet.org/story/43642/ Bush 'Staying the Course' Right Over a Cliff By George Lakoff The Bush administration has finally been caught in its own language trap. "That is not a stay-the-course policy," Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, declared on Monday. The first rule of using negatives is that negating a frame activates the frame. If you tell someone not to think of an elephant, he'll think of an elephant. When Richard Nixon said, "I am not a crook" during Watergate, the nation thought of him as a crook. "Listen, we've never been stay the course, George," President Bush told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News a day earlier. Saying that just reminds us of all the times he said "stay the course." What the president is discovering is that it's not so easy to rewrite linguistic history. The laws of language are hard to defy. "The characterization of, you know, 'it's stay the course' is about a quarter right," the president said at an Oct. 11 news conference. " 'Stay the course' means keep doing what you're doing. My attitude is, don't do what you're doing if it's not working - change. 'Stay the course' also means don't leave before the job is done." A week or so later, he tried another shift: "We have been -- we will complete the mission, we will do our job and help achieve the goal, but we're constantly adjusting the tactics. Constantly." To fully understand why the president's change in linguistic strategy won't work, it's helpful to consider why "stay the course" possesses such power. The answer lies in metaphorical thought. Metaphors are more than language; they can govern thought and behavior. A recent University of Toronto study, for example, demonstrated the power of metaphors that connect morality and purity: People who washed their hands after contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their thoughts than those who didn't, the researchers found. "Stay the course" is a particularly powerful metaphor because it can activate so many of our emotions. Because physical actions require movement, we commonly understand action as motion. Because achieving goals so often requires going to a particular place -- to the refrigerator to get a cold beer, say -- we think of goals as reaching destinations. Another widespread -- and powerful -- metaphor is that moral action involves staying on a prescribed path, and straying from the path is immoral. In modern conservative discourse, "character" is seen through the metaphor of moral strength, being unbending in the face of immoral forces. "Backbone," we call it. In the context of a metaphorical war against evil, "stay the course" evoked all these emotion-laden metaphors. The phrase enabled the president to act the way he'd been acting -- and to demonstrate that it was his strong character that enabled him to stay on the moral path. To not stay the course evokes the same metaphors, but says you are not steadfast, not morally strong. In addition, it means not getting to your destination -- that is, not achieving your original purpose. In other words, you are lacking in character and strength; you are unable to "complete the mission" and "achieve the goal." "Stay the course" was for years a trap for those who disagreed with the president's policies in Iraq. To disagree was weak and immoral. It meant abandoning the fight against evil. But now the president himself is caught in that trap. To keep staying the course, given obvious reality, is to get deeper into disaster in Iraq, while not staying the course is to abandon one's moral authority as a conservative. Either way, the president loses. And if the president loses, does that mean the Democrats will win? Perhaps. But if they do, it will be because of Republican missteps and not because they've acted with strategic brilliance. Their "new direction" slogan offers no values and no positive vision. It is taken from a standard poll question, "Do you like the direction the nation is headed in?" This is a shame. The Democrats are giving up a golden opportunity to accurately frame their values and deepest principles (even on national security), to forge a public identity that fits those values -- and perhaps to win more close races by being positive and having a vision worth voting for. Right now, though, no language articulating a Democratic vision seems in the offing. If the Democrats don't find a more assertive strategy, their gains will be short-lived. They, too, will learn the pitfalls of staying the course. (c) 2006 George Lakoff and The New York Times. Originally printed in The New York Times on October 27, 2006. [George Lakoff is the author of Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate' (Chelsea Green). He is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley and a Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute.] © 2006 Independent Media Institute. *** 7 dudley cinema 7 Dudley (1 blk. S of Rose Ave., Venice) WED, Nov 1. HORACE TAPSCOTT'S ARKESTRA ('95, 90m) Horace Tapscott, a quintessence neglected Californian, is the powerful, highly individual, bop-tinged pianist with avant-garde leanings who showed how music and community can grow as one. This rare concert features LA's senior statesmen of improvised music with his Pan American Peoples Arkestra including Dwight Trible, Arthur Blythe, Michael Session, Charles Owens, Steve Smith, Thurman Green, Roberto Miranda & more. 7pm preshow: Steven Isoardi, author of great books on Tapscott, Central Avenue and LA's Jazz & Arts Community, will discuss his revelatory research and screen 18 mintues of solo Tapscott in Berlin, 1988. 6pm LIVE MUSIC pre-show: Master percussionist TAUMBU storytells the Roots of the Drum, Part II. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
