Wednesday, March 28, 2012

The Climb

I HAVE A PERMIT!

A friend convinced me to climb Mount Whitney this coming summer. I am so excited about this adventure on so many levels and I've already begun conditioning. Mt Whitney is the highest peak in the lower 48 states. It is an 11 mile ascent (22 miles round trip) with over 6000' of altitude gain. Yikes! Our climb is on August 8th so we have 4 months to ramp up the training schedule in preparation.

Located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in Eastern/Central California Mount Whitney's summit is 14,500. It is a well-traveled and maintained trail but conditions are highly dependent on the weather - not only on the day of the ascent but all season long. I have a friends who did it in mid-July last year after an extraordinary year of precipitation and snowfall and required crampons at higher elevations. That is not the kind of experience I'm interested in or expect to have. Nevertheless it is a grueling day. My friend left the base area called Whitney portal at 2 am and returned at 8pm. Eighteen hours! There are 99 switchbacks in all that traverse the side of the mountain. I think I'll sing 99 bottles of beer on the wall to count them down.

Monday, March 19, 2012

We won!

Every 10 years the US Census Bureau polls and enumerates the population to determine congressional districts and allocate funds for program funding. At the municipal level Los Angeles uses the data collected to redraw the councilmanic lines in a process called Redistricting. There are specific laws that must be followed in the process and a commission of 15 members was appointed (not elected by voters) by the mayor and the LA City Council. The theory "one person, one vote" is the mandate and the districts aim to be egalitarian in number and demographic. To that end, communities of interest and geographic contiguity are expected to be considered and protected. Granted, the job of the commission was extraordinary and they had a daunting task ahead of them to accommodate over 4 million constituents and divvy up the city as equally as possible without pissing anyone off. Impossible!

As part of the process the public is encouraged to submit maps and participate in public hearings in order to have their opinions and discourse part of the public record. The commission then submits the final draft map to be approved by a Rules Committee - a team of 5 City Council members - before the final vote goes before the full council. I haven't been involved in the process before now but this time the public turned out by the hundreds as their districts were carved up and eviscerated. Since the commission's work was lacking in transparency and there was seemingly no rhyme nor reason to the final outcome the only obvious conclusion was that political gerrymandering and backroom dealing was at play. Some even accuse of racism given the way some districts were shaken down.

After weeks and months of hearings and meetings, letters and phone calls the council amended most of the districts under contention and restored our little enclave in Westchester to its rightful home with the rest of our neighborhood and councilmanic district. That said there are many constituents throughout the city who are furious and with just cause. During the final hearing one of the commissioners came forward and admitted that indeed racism was a key factor during the process and promised that lawsuits will be filed. But to put it all in perspective let's bear in mind that politicians are a priori in their thinking. That is to say that they think of the city not in cohesion but in terms of voting blocks with the hope of saving their ass and/or advancing their own political aspirations. This time negotiations worked to the benefit of many but stiffed the powerless few because no matter how impartial the law intends to make it politics (and those who play that game) is corrupt.