California Today: A Final State of the State From Jerry Brown

Props for somehow managing to slide "boondoggle" into California Today on two occasions.

“When Mr. Brown delivered his first inaugural address in 2011...” Really? I thought his first inaugural address was in the 1970s when I first moved to California!

Jerry Brown’s first state of the state was not in 2011 as your story states. He previously served two terms from 1976 - 1983., and if he gave speeches in each of those years, 2011 would have been his ninth.

Increase the pot tax to help reduce the pension fund.

I wish Americans would demand that EVERY politician elected (Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal) was "famously frugal" like Jerry Brown. We've learned that the Republicans are ridiculous spenders as bad or worse than Democrats--they both spend too much, just on different things. Jerry Brown, can you come up with a "Jerry Brown Frugality seal of approval?" I promise not to vote for anyone that doesn't have it.

"Traffic Gridlock" should be his epitaph. He also signed a bill doing away with local regulations and restrictions on the barbaric practice of infant circumcisions.

The Govenor's first inaugural address was in 1975

As a long time Californian, I object to the wording used here: "notoriously dysfunctional tax system, hamstrung by Proposition 13". I don't object to paying taxes because unlike Republicans, I know that fixing roads, "free schools", police and fire departments and all the other government services are in fact NOT FREE. And unlike Republicans, I value a clean environment, pollution controls, and laws to regulate corrupt practices. Prop 13 is perhaps the one time I completely agreed with the anti-tax establishment. As I'm preparing to retire, I can still afford to live in my home which has more than tripled in value due to forces beyond my control, BECAUSE of prop 13. Are there downsides to prop 13? Sure, but the logic behind it is unassailable.

We really need that train. Tired of constantly hearing it referred to as a "boondoggle," as though it's a bridge to nowhere pork barrel project. Every time one needs to get from one city to another in California (and yes, there are more than two cities here), you tear your hair out. Do I drive and waste hours in both directions crawling along the freeway? Flying works out for some routes at some times, but not others. Or do I resign myself to Amtrak, which is comfortable and allows me to get work done, but takes forever? How much productivity is lost statewide to people sitting in limbo trying to get from point A to point B? In just about any other country, trains are a no-brainer. I get that California has challenges of terrain and density that need to be worked out. But can it be that we're the only place on earth that's had to face these challenges? Or are we just willing to be propagandized into accepting corruption and foot-dragging determined to turn a much needed infrastructure project into a "boondoggle?"

He is one of the greats. And he did not deliver his first inaugural address in 2011. He delivered it in the 1970s.

That's why I always liked Jerry. He was never one who seemed to be in love with his own words like most politicians are.

If Brown was a wee bit younger, I'd push hard for another presidential run. The guy is one one of our best leaders. Progressive but sensible. I'll miss him as governor.

Why would Jerry Brown (or anyone, really) listen to a Hoover Hack? "Funded largely by right-wing foundations and corporate donors, the Hoover Institution has been a mainstay of the Republican Party for decades, serving as a virtual revolving door for high-level GOP figures and appartchiks, including many who served in the George ["C-"] Bush administration: with Donald Rumsfeld as a visiting scholar (widely excoriated for his oversight of the Iraq War and dismissal from the administration shortly into Bush's second term). Condoleezza ["Who is Al Kaye? That nasty Richard Clarke keeps yelling at me 'check out Al Kaye, duh!'"] Rice, a Hoover fellow who served as National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State in the George W. Bush administration, rejoined the institute following Barack Obama’s inauguration as president. Ties with the Reagan administration were similarly strong. Reagan advisers associated with Hoover included Secretary of State George Shultz, Attorney General Edwin Meese, and National Security Adviser Richard Allen. Margaret Thatcher and Newt Gingrich have also been Hoover fellows." That some real quality line-up there! Add a grifter from the Trumps or the Palins and it's an unholy trinity of criminal incompetence, hubris and graft.

At San Francisco’s March for Science last year, a young man who grew up in the city was dismayed by changing attitudes toward the city’s ever-present homeless population. “It’s crazy,” he told me. “San Francisco always took pride in treating its homeless with tolerance and respect. But with the wave of Silicon Valley nouveau-riche entrepreneurs moving here came intolerance bordering on cruelty...I’ve seen police kicking people out of cardboard boxes into the rain.”

I've lived under the Hollywood Sign for over twenty years now, and during that time I've had the opportunity to observe, and converse with, many visitors who come to this neighborhood to see the sign. I don't see any of these people being diverted by a replica sign in another location. The sign exists in context, and part of the thrill of seeing it for real includes its setting. It's surrounded by neighborhoods that were developed in the 1920's and 1930's and populated not only by movie stars, but by the ordinary working men and women who invented the film industry -- an industry which grew up alongside this neighborhood and which shares its name. Walking around this neighborhood, you see houses built in the style of a Norman castle, or a Handsel-and-Gretel cottage, around the corner from a miniature palace straight out of the Arabian Nights. Exploring these streets is like exploring a studio backlot, but with tantalizing glimpses of the bits and pieces of the sign itself on the hillside above. The history of an industry built on imagination, here, is still being written. Seeing a replica of this sign is never going to approximate seeing the sign itself, in its iconic location. As with, say, Mount Rushmore, the setting isn't just an inconvenient obstacle to viewing the monument ... it is an integral part of the monument itself.