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  • From: "saundrakaerubel.com" <saundrakae AT saundrakaerubel.com>
  • To: internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: lets make fun of californians some more
  • Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 13:16:58 -0700


froM:
http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/gmsv/archive01/morn05302001.htm

Californians seem surprisingly slow to grasp why the rest
of the United States doesn't like them very much. Here in
Arizona, Californians are regarded as something akin to
pests or vermin. No exaggeration! (Of course I do not
subscribe to this personally. Some of my best friends live
in California. The magazine for which I write has its
editorial offices in California. Ahem.)


Here's the basic problem. The environmental movement is
widely perceived to have its deepest, oldest roots in
California, and is viewed with dismay by land owners in
other states who fear copycat legislation -- which is
quite a legitimate fear, bearing in mind that the Sierra
Club tries actively to pass ballot initiatives in places
such as Arizona, based on initiatives that already
succeeded on the West Coast. People who live in areas of
scenic beauty (unlike most Californians, who live in
suburbs) have a much more rational attitude toward the
wilderness. They argue that a few roads into wilderness
areas -- which otherwise will benefit no one -- are an
entirely appropriate means of allowing people to enjoy
them. They are appalled bylaws that protect (for instance)
prairie dogs -- those lovable little rodents who carry
bubonic plague, which kills about four people per year in
Arizona.


While promoting its heavy-handed and indiscriminate
environmental policies,California has been smug about its
wealth. That's a sure-fire way to get yourselves on
everyone's s---list: Pass a bunch of onerous laws which
a reliable to be imitated elsewhere, while flaunting your
high standard of living and paying lip service to the free
market!


Worse still, Californians are widely observed to drive
their German-mad eautomobiles into neighboring states,
where they build vacation homes in an attempt to escape
from high prices, overpopulation, and, yes,
excessive regulation. These California refugees have an
unfortunate habit of demanding new laws that will create a
higher financial burden on the locals, whose incomes are
pitifully inadequate. Typically Californians want paved
as opposed to dirt roads, better schools, sewer systems
rather than septic tanks, and other public services which
will raise property and state taxes -- ultimately
recreating the same overtaxed environment that they
supposedly were fleeing from.


There was a great deal of barely smothered mirth when
California started suffering power outages as a result of
incompetent government andenvironmental regulations that
had stopped power utilities from building new power
stations. And now the state goes crying to the Federal
Government, in a pathetic attempt by legislators to shift
blame and salvage their future chances of re-election!
Well, good luck!


As for turning Alaska into a new superfund site, I have two
questions:


1. Did the Alaska pipeline, and Alaska drilling operations,
ruin the portions of the state where oil exploration is
currently allowed?


2. Even if an expansion of energy mining in Alaska does
cause environmental damage (which I do not believe), who
cares? Northern Alaska is not an environment that anyone
shows much interest in visiting, other than an occasional
photo team from National Geographic. If those Sierra
Club romanticists really have an interest in "wilderness
areas," why don't they spend more time in them? The fact
is, Northern Alaska is remote,inconvenient, cold, and
boring. It could disappear tomorrow, and virtually no one
would notice. By all means let us preserve natural wonders
such as The Grand Canyon; but if there's a wilderness area
that no one visits, what use is it?


So, here's the take-home message from other states to
California. If you want the comforts of civilization, pay
the price. Don't pretend you can cause zero impact and then
go crying to the Feds when your castle in the sand gets
washed away by the cold water of basic economics!


I'll miss your columns. Have a good vacation. Just keep yer
cotton-pickin' BMW out of Arizona! (Only kidding.)


--Charles Platt


My God, Charles...


I really wish you'd sent this to me earlier. I would have
much preferred to have spent my day working at a response
to your letter, rather than answering messages from a
number irate readers who chose to demonstrate their
typically "non-Californian" viewpoint with a well-crafted
insult or two. I still shudder to think that someone out
there believes me to be a "tree-hugger with my head stuck
deep in that darkest valley of them all."


Were I not going on vacation tomorrow, you can be sure I
would have taken issue with at least a few of the
assertions you made below. Californians
German-cars-driving vermin? One of the greatest sport
fisheries in the world "remote, inconvenient, cold, and
boring?" Clearly you must live somewhere in which the
continual threat of bubonic plague ill-affects your
thinking... Arizona perhaps.


I'll not debate California's lack of foresight in assessing
energy issues. Clearly, CA and Governer Davis ARE at fault
here. But the "unjustified profits" to which Davis often
refers are unsettling and, I think, a decent reason for
"the state to go crying to the Federal Government." I
can't seem to find the statistic right now (it's somewhere
in here though), but I'm certain that the mark-up on
electricity being sold to CA is an extraordinary one. It's
certainly true that in the spot market for electricity,
supply and demand set the price, and that those who fail
to properly assess their need for electricity should be
punished to some extent for their folly. But these
prices...What's been occurring recently really appears to
be price gouging to me. And that's something that FERC
could easily address.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/hottopics/energy/archive.html


As for turning Alaska into a new superfund site, well...I
suppose I was being somewhat inflammatory when I wrote
that -- so your point is well taken. Still, there's no
accounting for human fallibility and while Alaska drilling
operations likely haven't yet ruined those portions of the
state where oil exploration is currently allowed, there's
nothing to say that they might not harm them at some
unforeseen point in the future. Remember, Prince William
Sound was once an uneventful body of water largely
unaffected by the by-products of oil exploration...


I suppose, what bothers me the most about this whole
debacle is that few of those involved seem willing to use
this crisis as a jumping off point for an effort to
investigate alternative sources of energy. Given recent
events in the Middle East and California's woes, it seems
to me it's about time we really started looking ahead to
sources of power other than those housed within areas
specifically designated as wildlife refuges.


But that's just me. A former New Yorker with a typically
Californian view of things...



Saundra Kae Rubel
Web Law Manager
http://www.saundrakaerubel.com
(listed on the Wall Street Executive Library, CIO Career Sources and The Back Room)




  • lets make fun of californians some more, saundrakaerubel.com, 06/11/2001

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