You may (or may not) have wondered why the front page hasn’t changed substantially since the election. The easy answer is “nothing important has happened.” The harder answer is “I ain’t feelin’ it.”
It’s a lame do-nothing-Congress, a bat-scat crazy President, the Supreme Court’s been silent, the economy’s still slipping, Iraq’s still a cluster-punk and James Baker’s ‘Blue Ribbon Iraq Report’ is twice as worthless as the Star Report (which at least was decent soft porn). I could lay into Nancy Pelosi for her limp-necked promises to make higher education ‘affordable’ by raising the credit limit of people applying for student loans, but I’m sure there will be plenty of time after the Democratic majority actually takes their seats. Federally, I’m bored.
But this is a local site. A Long Beach site, and the truth is, I ain’t feelin’ Long Beach’s political scene.
I can’t watch a City Council without blushing at what passes for responsible government. Between the double talk, the bickering, the race baiting, the myopia and the transparent pandering to petty backroom agendas, it’s more comfortable to just pretend they don’t exist. I don’t feel like posting videos of City Council people promising not support specific thefts of public property along side videos of them proposing those exact thefts. I certainly don’t feel like launching rhetorical e-Molotovs for the escalating parking meter class war against renters and small businesses downtown.
If you want blow-by-blow reporting of the Halloween Beating trial, fires, death, destruction and the occasional human interest story, Long Beach Report is still the authority in town: twice as reliable, twice as interesting, twice as likely to get the scoop. The PT puts stories about its new office on the front page for day after day, as if the view from their new offices or what brand of coffee-maker their new staff room has is of any consequence to the Plebeians they look down upon from on high. Whatever was affecting the local dead-tree news giant’s diseased editorial board has apparently metastasized to the newsroom.
If no-one else feels it necessary to point out that the mayor frequently looks like he wants to hit a council member or two with a cattle prod, I guess I won’t suggest we pass the collection hat to buy him one.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Many in the transportation industry are asking “Where’s Peak Season?”
- Monster.com’s web poll asks: “Are you optimistic about the job market for 2007?” Out of +4300 people, 47% answered “No”.
- The Video Choice/Ocean Gateway project was proposed by Suja and passed. +300 units on the corner of Ocean and Alamitos.
- The mayor killed the LNG terminal, as promised.
If you’ve got something, put it up.