DISQUS

I went to public school, too, in rural Texas (and in Virginia and Colorado). I wasn't suggesting that all people who attend public school don't know how to think. Some people find their own way, or a few good teachers help them along, however critical thinking skills aren't a prominent part of any curriculum I've encountered in the U.S.

Just take the compliment.

Ms. Langston, the only things you aren't guilty of are compassion and philanthropy.

Andy, kudos to you. Thank you for not allowing the absurdity to penetrate your logical thought. Unfortunately, people like Ms. Langston are the unknowing victims of the incomplete education the public schools afford our citizens. After all, it's very dangerous to know how to think.

I propose we change our fair city's name. Who wants something as plebeian as "Long Beach"? There's already one in NYC, and clearly we haven't achieved the cache so desperately longed for by our city officials. Perhaps we should change our name to Adreanopolis. Doesn't that sound oh so Eurosophisticate? And everyone will address each other as Adreana. And we'll be the first city in America to establish English as our official language, publicly enforceable by law.
If you really want to get friendly with your neighbors and break down those language barriers, you could start with a smile and some eye contact.
The homeless are already displaced, but that's okay because who notices them anyway, right, Adreana? Let's displace the families that are already struggling and living in squalor, trapped by low pay, limited opportunity, slumlords, and lack of access to credit and healthcare. Not to mention the kind of education necessary to reverse sociological trends of poverty in minority populations. I like the way you think, Adreana. Why should we even attempt to clean up our neighborhood parks and turn them into safe places with adequate equipment when they serve just as well as places for drug deals and gang activity? Not to mention their service as dormitories for the homeless you so generously refrain from "distaining".
Of course you would like to live among the disabled and the elderly. They don't make a lot of noise, since they either shuffle or just wheel themselves about on rubber tires. And best of all, they die very quietly. No fuss, just a little smell until the mortician arrives.
You don't want to live in a city, Adreana, you want to live in a graveyard. I know you'll find your plot, and there you can pipe in Kenny G's Holiday Album for your undisturbed eternity.

Who is going to live in the 450 condos they build on the site? Why doesn't anyone ask that question? I've seen the kind of people that buy/lease condos, and looking around at my neighbors (whom I happen not to loathe or feel ashamed of) I don't see the demographic they're reaching for. Maybe there is a factory somewhere churning out office jockeys in striped shirts..... wait, I remember now, they're called MBA programs. The truth of the matter is that more condos don't equal affordable housing or "revitalization". We'll still have thousands of people living on the margins and on the street. The city and the RDA want to push the working class people further inland. The people who work in the malls and serve you your lattes and clean the restaurant toilets just aren't pretty enough to deserve to live downtown. That's what this fight is all about, because anyone who really knows Acres of Books knows it not only as a bookstore but as a bastion of social equality. EVERYONE is welcome at Acres. This makes people like Suja and Theo uneasy. After all, what self respecting white collar pantywaist wants to dirty themselves by mixing with the hoi poloi? I'm not against the project, though, I've seen the building plan and it has lots of awnings and little manicured lawns where the homeless will find some shelter in the wee hours of the night. And as the proud new residents of the condos wake up on their Ethan Allen sheet-set with matching chamois and pull on velour track suits for their morning jog and make their way down endlessly uniform corridors to the unnecessarily large freight elevators and out into the smoggy Long Beach morning they will be greeted by the smell of urine and the jangling of a cup and the toothless maw of a man laughing mirthlessly: the last laugh, echoing on the walls and shiny cars lined neatly in the subterranean parking lot. Can I get a Hallelejuh?