Opinion: In today’s pages: Baseball, food fights, gay marriage
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Jonah Goldberg lays the Senate’s management problems on the dining room table, while NewSchools Venture Fund’s Jonathan Schorr and Ted Mitchell warn that rising costs and a focus on the middle class are shutting low-income students out of higher education. New America Foundation fellow Rick Wartzman explores California’s split political personality through the prism of gay marriage, and cartoonist Joel Pett takes on women’s issues beyond Hillary Clinton. Contributing editor Rob Long sets up a mock interview for the Democratic vice presidency between Clinton and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg:
[Kennedy]: ‘How are you with Excel and PowerPoint?’[Clinton]: ‘Am I being punked? ‘Cause that’s what this sounds like.’K: ‘Oh God. I’m sorry. I know I’m screwing this up. It’s just that, you know, I’ve never done anything like this before. So I got a copy of ‘HR for Dummies,’ and it says to tape everything and try to make the applicant feel comfortable and pay attention to their shoes.’C: ‘Their shoes?’K: ‘I didn’t get it either. But apparently people who take care of their shoes are trustworthy and detail-oriented. So could you just ... lift up your leg?’
The editorial board, aghast at the spike in murders over the weekend, still praises the LAPD’s gang crime reduction efforts, and gives two thumbs-up to Orange County for conducting a transparent search for the successor of ex-Sheriff Michael S. Carona. The board also does the wave for Major League Baseball, whose teams each symbolically drafted a surviving member of the Negro Leagues:
Thursday’s draft was a joyful event, devoid of breast-beating on the part of baseball and bitterness on the part of the players. It served to remind that progress and healing sometimes come from momentous events -- a victorious campaign or landmark lawsuit -- but also from quieter gestures. The honorees said the event was one of the greatest moments of their lives, a day they thought would never come. As he waited to be drafted, one erstwhile infielder said it felt like being born again.
Readers react to an editorial reflecting on Proposition 13’s 30th birthday. Robert Somerville writes:
What a bunch of drivel. You really want to give Proposition 13 a haircut? The barber needs the real clipping. How about doing away with government-defined benefit pensions for all new hires? How about reducing fringe benefits? How about kicking elected officials out of office if they cannot balance a budget?