Hasta La Gadget!

Game (and food-eating) broadcasting service Twitch has been in the news quite a bit this week, and here’s another instance of that. First up we have a few major additions to the Twitch Creative umbrella. The Creative homepage has undergone a revamp,…

It was an interesting night at the Beverly Hills City Council last Tuesday. We were all treated to the municipal version of the “jack story” on a monumental scale.

When we were little, my mother would sometimes tell us kids, “Let’s not do the ‘jack story.'” While the expression has been a part of my vocabulary since childhood – as well as words to live by – it seems that there are those who are not familiar with Danny Thomas’s famous routine, and who don’t know what the “jack story” is.

So in the words of long-time Beverly Hills resident, comedian and philanthropist, Danny Thomas himself, here’s the “jack story”:

There’s this traveling salesman who gets stuck one night on a lonely country road with a flat tire and no jack. So he starts walking toward a service station about a mile away, and as he walks, he talks to himself. “How much can he charge me for renting a jack?” he thinks. “One dollar, maybe two. But it’s the middle of the night, so maybe there’s an after-hours fee. Probably another five dollars. If he’s anything like my brother-in-law, he’ll figure I got no place else to go for the jack, so he’s cornered the market and has me at his mercy. Ten dollars more.”

He goes on walking and thinking, and the price and the anger keep rising. Finally, he gets to the service station and is greeted cheerfully by the owner: “What can I do for you, sir?” But the salesman will have none of it. “You got the nerve to talk to me, you robber,” he says. “You can take your stinkin’ jack and shove it up your . . .”

Well, last Tuesday night at the Beverly Hills City Council meeting, we had a roomful of supporters of the Hilton’s skyscraper initiative which added new horizons to the jack story. The Hilton skyscraper initiative, which I have written about before, is the Beverly Hilton’s attempt to use California’s initiative loophole to build a 375-foot skyscraper in Beverly Hills, bypassing the entire public review process, including avoiding environmental review, traffic studies and the like.

The Hilton’s skyscraper would be absolutely unprecedented in Beverly Hills: at 375 feet, it would be more than double the height of the current tallest building in town, not to mention 70 feet higher than the Statue of Liberty, including the base.

The Hilton packed Council Chambers with a roomful of supporters, some on salary and some, perhaps, with visions of rewards should the initiative pass. Their mission? To convince the Council to call for the election in November, rather than a special election which could be earlier.

Individual after individual spoke of the potential for “voter suppression” with a special election. People spoke about a “waste of precious public resources” in the event of a special election. Others spoke of outrageous personal vendettas being satisfied by a special election.

And none of it all had any basis in reality.

It was the perfect jack story.

For whatever reason – we would likely need Danny Thomas to explain the psychology behind it – Hilton supporters believed that the inclusion of the possibility of an early special election before November was a nefarious plot to suppress voter turnout, to undermine democracy and to subvert the will of the people — a direct slap in the face of Thomas Paine, if you will.

There was just one little problem. What these supporters, some of whom clearly had been coached, and some of whom had perhaps been egged on by misinformation in a local newspaper, had forgotten was that the special election was only considered in the staff report because the applicant, i.e. the Hilton itself, had requested it. That’s right, in its application to circulate the petitions, the Hilton had specifically requested a special election, when it had the possibility to simply apply for the General Election in November.

Here’s the language verbatim (with added emphasis):

“To the Honorable City Clerk of the City of Beverly Hills:
We, the undersigned, registered, qualified voters of the City of Beverly Hills, hereby propose amendment and/or additions to the laws of the City of Beverly Hills and petition the City Council to submit the measure to the voters of the City for their adoption or rejection at the soonest possible election, including any special election for which the measure qualifies, or as otherwise provided by law.”

So the Hilton specifically asks for the “soonest possible election, including any special election” and they then raise holy hell that the Council’s staff report includes discussion of a special election. It’s the jack story with the salesman asking himself to pay more for the jack. Now, there’s a twist not even anticipated by Danny Thomas.

In addition to the speakers, we also received a number of “jack story” letters in support of a November election, some of which seem to have been directly written by Hilton PR flacks.

For example, Linda and Maynard Brittan wrote a strong letter using such phrases as “the will of the people,” “wanton,” “simply wrong,” and “a blatant attempt to manipulate the outcome.” The only thing missing from the letter was: “You can take your special election and shove it up your…”

The Brittans go on to write: “The only apparent reason to hold a special election is to suppress the vote in an effort to defeat the initiative.” This was a talking point-style argument that other speakers also had made, along with other letter writers. Yet, neither the Brittans nor anyone else who raised a similar argument managed to explain themselves or clarify how a lower turnout election would “defeat the initiative.” In fact, one might argue that with over 3000 people who signed the initiative, who are invested in its success, who would be highly motivated to vote in a special election would actually give the skyscraper fans an advantage in a lower turnout election.

For all the talk about “manipulating the election,” the pro-Hilton acolytes just left this allegation stand in the air like old beef jerky. But without actually specifying why, clearly they were upset, distraught, even incensed at the prospect of an earlier special election — despite the fact that it was the Hilton itself which expressly asked for such an election. Not one of them explained their allegation. Could the real answer possibly be that they suddenly realized the Hilton is counting on trying to influence uninformed voters in a higher-turnout election who might be susceptible to their multi-million dollar barrage of deceptive advertising, which would have the election be about “green space” rather than the 375-foot skyscraper? (The Hilton skyscraper initiative adds exactly .65 acres of additional open space to its private garden).

Without a doubt, the best letter, destined to become a classic, was written by former Mayor Mark Egerman, who since he left office has had a lucrative career as a land-use lawyer and lobbyist. It is unclear if he is now on the Hilton payroll or is somehow auditioning for a gig. In his missive, Egerman decries the “substantial additional cost to the City,” which the putative special election would cost. For the record, the additional cost would have been $88,000.

After having read Egerman’ s letter into the record at the Council meeting, I noted how gratified I was to learn that Mayor Egerman had suddenly gotten religion about the expenditure of taxpayer dollars. You see, Mayor Egerman was responsible in 2001 for retroactively increasing city employees’ pensions while simultaneously reducing the retirement age from 55 to 50. That move allowed employees with the requisite number of years to retire at the age of 50 with 99% of their single highest salary – for life, and with CPI increases built in.

According to the City’s current CFO, Don Rhoads, Egerman’s freehanded generosity has cost the City a total of some $59 million over the years – with an additional $4 million being added each year to the tab. Mayor Egerman’ s tender concern for 88 grand is touching, if somewhat belated, especially considering that his fiscal actions on the Council continue to cost the City some $4 million a year.

It should be noted that Egerman’s erstwhile Council colleagues, former mayors Les Bronte and Linda Briskman, both of whom also were responsible for the retroactively increased pensions also expressed “serious” concerns about the fiscal implications — i.e. $88k — of a special election.

Briskman, notwithstanding having cost the City over $59 million, prides herself as being the “citizen sponsor” of the initiative. One might assume that, should the initiative pass, she will get some kind of reward – perhaps a free or discounted condo? – at least meaning that she would be more mindful of her own fiscal situation than she ever was for the City’s. Some might consider her paranoia about the election to be extremely Nixonian, which, of course, would be entirely appropriate considering Briskman’s Whittier origins (unfortunately, however, Briskman does not seem to share Nixon’s concern for the environment — remember, he founded the EPA — as she evidently finds full environmental reviews unnecessary, at least when it comes to her friends and potential clients).

The most unexpected letter in support of a November election did not come from paid or unpaid Hilton supporters, but from Dan Schnur, the well-respected director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and a former chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission. He also advocated in favor of a November election, with the view of increased voter participation in mind. That should come as no surprise to anyone who knows about Schnur’s efforts to reform our election system and increase voter turnout. Yet it was somehow clear that Schnur, who is a true reformer, did not have all the information. For example, he wrote: “It has come to my attention that the city of Beverly Hills is currently debating whether to hold a special election for a vote on the Beverly Hills Garden & Open Space Initiative.” Aside from referencing a non-existent debate, it is telling to point out how he refers to the Hilton initiative as “the Beverly Hills Garden & Open Space Initiative,” a misleading designation which only the Hilton and its supporters use to hide the fact that it really is an initiative to build a 375-foot skyscraper.

Dan Schnur is not the kind of guy who implicitly or explicitly would be involved in any way with voter deception, which his unintentional use of misleading language might suggest. Quite the opposite, he is someone who has worked for election and initiative reform, and who has expressed a willingness to work with our own Sunshine Task Force to increase transparency and public participation in local government in Beverly Hills and to establish our own best practices. I look forward to working directly with Dan Schnur to see how we can mitigate the impacts of Citizens United, Buckley vs. Valeo and the outlandish role of money within our political system in order to create a level playing field in local and state elections. I look forward to working with him in trying to craft ordinances to curb initiative abuse and make sure the voters have access to full and objective information. I look forward to working with him to create a democratic marketplace of ideas in which those with the best arguments, rather than the biggest megaphones, win the day. And I look forward to working with him, as former chair of the Fair Political Practices Committee, to truly put the “fair” back into all aspects of our electoral system.

Of course, it turns out that Dan seems to have been somewhat snookered into writing the letter. While he wasn’t asked to take a position on the initiative itself – nor did he — nonetheless, he wasn’t informed, for example, that it was the Hilton itself which had requested a special election. He wasn’t told that it really is a skyscraper initiative masquerading as an “open space” initiative. Dan is a very busy, as well as a trusting guy, and I’m fairly certain he is no friend of crony capitalism. No, it seems that Dan Schnur wrote the letter at the behest of a former colleague, Merrill Balassone, formerly of the USC media relations office, who is now working for Sugerman Communications. Not surprisingly, Sugerman Communications is one of the Hilton’s numerous (and well paid) press and media consultants, and, well, Balassone evidently only gave Dan Schnur the information which fit into the story the Hilton wanted to tell.

And, yes, it turned out to be just another jack story.

Somehow I think Beverly Hills resident Danny Thomas is looking down upon us and laughing in his heaven…

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Six months after announcing the November 2016 Royal Society evolution meeting on this page and a half dozen or so stories later, over one-third of the seats for the event still remain vacant — and the tickets are free! But that’s easily explained, because the zoologists ultimately decided to “hog” the show.

It didn’t have to be so. A lineup of speakers who truly represent the paradigm shift underway in evolution science would have quickly filled up the house. Instead, organizers went with essentially an evo-devo reunion on plasticity and niche construction — rehashed themes of Altenberg! from eight years ago minus most of the stars of that conference. And they made sure to exclude, for instance, experts on viruses — the largest part of the biosphere — at a time when Zika continues to prove it can downsize the human brain in a flash and could have done the reverse at some point in evolutionary time. So how can the November proceedings possibly be considered a credible meeting on the latest “trends” in evolutionary science?

Aside from some of the organizers and Jim Shapiro and Doug Futuyma — there’s no big-name recognition. A number of prominent scientists I’ve spoken with who have not been asked to present but hope to get a word in edgewise have told me they nevertheless still plan to attend.

Other irritations are that the meeting is largely another Anglo-Amercian affair and there’s an absence of women who are stars in science, aside from Eva Jablonka and she’s considered somewhat at the conservative end of the discussion.

I expected Evelyn Fox Keller to be the key dissector of gene jargon, however organizers have chosen to showcase lesser known female academics. There are altogether six women presenting.

Also, the hand of Templeton is all over the November event with many of the participants part of the $11M Extended Synthesis grant.

It’s interesting that Massimo Pigliucci, one of the organizers of the Altenberg 16 conference — who is not speaking at the Royal Society event — recently gave a talk on science and fantasy at the UK philosophy & music festival at Hay. I’m beginning to wonder whether Pigliucci may finally be on to something.

Here is the lineup for the November Royal Society event, at the moment still over 100 seats left. . .

Denis Noble — Oxford University

Nancy Cartwright — University of Durham, UK and University of California, San Diego

Patrick Bateson — University of Cambridge

John Dupré — University of Exeter

Kevin Laland — University of St. Andrews

Gerd Müller — University of Vienna

Douglas Futuyma — Stony Brook University

Sonia Sultan — Wesleyan University

Russell Lande — Center for Biodiversity Dynamics, NTNU

Tobias Uller — Lund University

Paul Brakefield — University of Cambridge

James Shapiro — University of Chicago

Paul Griffiths — University of Sydney

Eva Jablonka — Tel-Aviv University

Greg Hurst — University of Liverpool

Andy Gardner — University of St. Andrews

Karola Stotz — Macquarie University

Tim Lewens — University of Cambridge

Agustin Fuentes — University of Notre Dame

Andrew Whiten — University of St. Andrews

Suzan Anton — New York University

Melinda Zeder — Smithsonian Institution

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.