Shaken, not stirred

It wasn’t the “Big One,” but it was big enough to disrupt our day with back-to-back news coverage. The epicenter of the 5.4 magnitude earthquake was near Chino Hills, while here in Orange County, a few buildings sustained some minor damages. The OC Register has more details from across the county here.

I was backing out my car when the earthquake hit. I felt a small rolling and swaying motion while I was in the car, and thought it was being caused by the engine. Knowing little about cars, I worried that I had done something to make the vehicle shake irregularly. Once the rolling stopped after a few seconds, I drove off toward the Mission Viejo Mall, where I planned to replace my dainty old cell-phone with a new, blue-tooth compatible one. While I was stuck in traffic on Marguerite I was listening to Rush Limbaugh on 640 KFI Am discussing inflated media reports about his salary. He was interrupted by a breaking news report about the earthquake, thus putting to rest my concerns over the functioning of my car.

I arrived at the mall and walked toward the food court entrance. About a dozen people with frustrated looks on their faces stood outside, frenziedly pressing the keys of their cell phones. It resembled a scene from an M. Night Shyamalan movie—a bunch of people in a mild panic over a whole lot of nothing. Like the people outside of the mall, my cell phone was temporarily denied service. I tried to call my mom dad to reassure them that I was safe, but the call would not go through. According to news reports, the earthquake caused many cell phones to lose service.

When cell-phone service was restored, I spoke to my dad, who had finished having lunch with my mom and sister at the Block at Orange. My dad managed to ride the quake with his usual sense of humor, joking with a group of Irish tourists that such earthquakes happen daily, and that it was no big deal to the locals. Having never experienced an earthquake before, I doubt the visitors from Ireland found it very funny.

Fortunately no one was hurt. The worst news so far is that Disneyland was forced to shut down all of its rides. Even though this wasn’t the Big One, the brief disruption to the Happiest Place on Earth is certainly just as devastating.

The audicity of having a real opinion

From the Associated Press

Presidential candidate John McCain on Sunday endorsed a proposal to ban affirmative action programs in his home state, a policy that Democratic rival Barack Obama called a disappointing embrace of divisive tactics.

You know what’s more divisive? Allocating resources and benefits based on race and ethnicity. Obama should be expressing disappointment toward those that endorse racial preferences. When a government hands out special privileges based on skin color, it basically undermines the idea that “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” Race becomes much more relevant to individuals when it is a deciding factor in who gets what.

Barack went on to tell the AP, “‘I think in the past [McCain] had been opposed to these kinds of Ward Connerly referenda or initiatives as divisive. And I think he’s right.’”

Referenda and initiatives are supposed to be divisive. For every ballot measure or candidate, there will always be those in support and those in opposition. Disagreement is the essence of politics. So Obama is basically upset that McCain has an opinion about something. By exaggerating the inherent divisiveness in McCain’s opinion, Obama continues to portray himself as the exceptional uniter who is above politics as usual. So far, it has been an effective narrative for the Obama campaign. Instead of rebutting the points made by McCain, Obama retreats to his boilerplate “hope” and “change” rhetoric, in an attempt convince people that substantive policy debates are wrong to engage in to begin with. It’s actually a brilliant move for a candidate with little substantive experience to be Commander in Chief.

And what exactly is in the Arizona Initiative banning affirmative action that upsets Obama so? Behold the text of the proposed amendment to the Arizona State Constution that seeks divide us all:

Article 30
(a) The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.

Looks ok to me. Maybe Obama thought his white grandmother wrote it. Typical.