Author Archive | Loretta Redd, PhD

Column by Loretta Redd

Lance Armstrong, aka “The Boss” and “Big Tex” is a liar and a cheat.  He put his ego and income ahead of integrity, character and truth.

I’m amazed at how many sports writers have offered at least something of a ‘mea culpa’ to Lance in their articles following the Great pseudo-Confession. “Lance Armstrong had a tough go of it this year,” they write, “seven Tour de France titles stripped, sponsors jumping the ship, and being forced to give up his position as head of Livestrong.”

But I don’t feel sorry for him in the least, except to say that I don’t believe he has fully confessed, and may not be innately capable of actually telling the whole, ugly truth.  Well, not unless a media icon like Oprah Winfrey is seated across from him.  Maybe he should have started in a Catholic confessional first, but my guess is his last opportunity will be in front of a judge.

How does a man who was diagnosed with testicular, brain and lung cancer in 1996, underwent surgical and chemotherapy, then declared cancer free in 1997, take that miracle and warp it into a blood doping, performance enhancing drug empire?

Where is a man’s soul who owns a business in Texas named, Juan Pelota Cafe (a play on the Spanish translation: one ball,) who goes on to father five children, then uses their innocence for a photo op on stage with daddy dearest as he accepts the Cup of a winner in Paris, France?

During his recent Oprah Winfrey ‘save my butt’ interview, our cycling hero tears up during his recollection of telling his son to stop defending his fathers’ record to his school yard chums…

unfortunately, his son and the rest of us are still waiting for the truth about offering a representative of  the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency a “donation” of roughly $250,000 in 2004.  So many confessions, so little prime time.

No, I have no sympathy for Lance Armstrong, or any of the other cheaters in major sports today…most of whom confessed not out of consciousness, but in an attempt to save their financial empires. The Olympic Committee plays cat and mouse every four years with the newest cocktail of injectable gold medal enhancement; Bud Selig struggles to keep the Barry Bonds, Melky Cabrera and Mark McGwires of the teams from unjustly claiming that their hard work and genetic talent caused a baseball to almost sail over the stadium wall and into the parking lot.

Money.  That is the source of the travesty; the real growth hormone of so-called professional sports.

Lance Armstrong’s net worth is assessed at $100 million, but that is chump change in an era where illegal wagers for professional sports top an estimated $380 Billion, not including product endorsement and advertising.  Whether it is the marketable Olympic gold medal around the neck of the flying squirrel, Gaby Douglas, or Tiger Woods’ six hundred million dollars in endorsements, the amount of money in sports is totally out of control, and we have only ourselves to blame.

December 18, 2012 LA Times wrote an article outlining the salary inflation in pro sports, referring to it as “Bank-Breaking Work.”

Major League Baseball:  1985, Dale Murphy was paid $1.6 million. In 1995, Ken Griffey, Jr. got $7.6 million.  By 2005, Mike Piazza was claiming $16.1 million, and today, our ‘Angel’ outfielder, Josh Hamilton has an average 5 year contract of $25 million.

Want to try the National Basketball Association?  Start with Larry Bird in 1985 at $1.8 million, then Hakeem Olajuwon’s $5.3 million in 1995, to the Laker’s Kobe Bryant in 2005 at $15.9 million, and LeBron James will beat that at $16 million this year.

Maybe you’re a National Football League fan…let’s start with Joe Montana in 1985 at a paltry $1 million, the Brett Favre at $2.9 million in 1995, to Tiki Barber with the 2005 Giants’ $6 million contract, and finally Peyton Manning (with his 1-4 start this year) still took home $18 million.

I would be naive to pretend that gambling and money haven’t been a part of sport since before the days of Greco-Roman wrestling; but like so many areas of influence today, it is the amount of money that is destroying the pillars of our national character.

From the time of Pee Wee competition, parents and coaches all hope for a winner, and push those with sufficient talent toward ever more lucrative rewards.  High schools are tempted to socially promote players into college while being offered money for product endorsements; college stars choose professional contracts over educational degrees, while their alumnus cram money into athletics rather than intellect; and the pros seem willing to do anything from withstanding irreversible brain damage to secretly injecting themselves with growth hormones like heroin addicts in order to attract an agent.

Money in sports has made whores of us all- both as competitors and as fans- we are selling the art of physical agility, strength and agility for the thrill of a dollar, and we- like Lance Armstrong- should do more than just confess.

By Loretta Redd

Short of pouring Prozac into our water supply, I’m not sure how to resolve the growing insanity over guns in this country.

Prying rifles from cold, dead hands seems to be the typical aftermath for most mass murderers these days, and yet the killing continues.  When Charlton Heston invoked that famous phrase as President of  the  NRA at their 129th annual meeting, he held his beloved Sharps rifle above his head for dramatic punctuation.

He selected a rifle designed to invoke the days of old when the Second Amendment was used as a warning to foreign governments that these United States could and would defend itself.  His carbine of choice was an extremely accurate Sharps, from a company began in 1848.  In its heyday, as a hunting weapon or perhaps even in self-defense, its rate of fire was 8-10 rounds per minute.

But the hands of a killer today barely have time to go cold before law enforcement usually responds.  Unfortunately, with the AK 47′s 600 bullets per minute, or Bushmaster at 375, an awful lot of carnage can be done in a very short time.

Barack Obama, with his liberal politics alongside a failing grade from every gun control group in Washington,  stated on Sunday, that the Newtown shooting was “the worst day of my Presidency.”  And yet, I doubt seriously that he will attempt to lead the movement to reverse the trend of even more weapons in our nation.

The NRA knew exactly what it was doing when it argued that “mental health” should be our focus- not the guns themselves.  As a psychologist, I watched firsthand, the result of Ronald Reagan’s reduction of funding for the mentally ill and other social welfare policies.  His relaxing the guidelines and requirements for involuntary commitment was a result of a coalition including not only the relative of the mentally ill, but of fiscal conservatives and ‘law and order’ Republicans.

The cost to our society, between the rising numbers of mentally unstable and often homeless, to the increasing cost of police ‘protection,’ has far outweighed the occasional infringement of personal freedoms.  It also has done little to improve the access to or benefit from, therapeutic intervention.

The truth is that mental health is an imperfect and unquantifiable system of care, based on a diagnostic manual created to mimic the medical model but founded less on science than on observation and creative writing.  Psychopharmacology has powerful implications, and yes, psychotherapy has played an important role for many people in altering behavior and perception.

However, if you want to see little or nothing done to change the number and caliber of weapons in our nation, then insist that mental illness must first be resolved before guns are curtailed.

The changes in gun laws, the restriction of certain killing machines, even the shrinking of a magazine for bullets will have to come from the people.  And unfortunately, given the diversity of insecurity in this nation, there is little hope that a popular uprising can sustain itself long enough to be effective.  Especially against the organized and well funded special interests of the NRA and other gun lobbies who proudly ‘own’ a proportion of our elected officials.

Actually, Prozac in the water supply might not be such a bad idea.  Let’s start with Washington, DC., once the murder capital of the United States, and still home to the largest number of questionably mentally unstable legislators in the world.

Column by Loretta Redd

Two and a half months ago, I succumb to the legislatively approved blackmail from the California Public Utilities Commission and allowed Southern California Edison to install a ‘Smart Meter’ at my home.

Coinciding with this installation was my acceptance of a full time position as an interim director of a local non-profit.

I mention this because it means that I am away from my home, using little or no electricity, from roughly 7:30 AM until 6 PM.  When I am home, neither I nor my two cats engage in very much electrical usage.  They tend to wear the fur coats that god provided, and I tend to either slip on a sweater, or shorts and flip flops (this is Santa Barbara, so it might be both in one day).  Having lived in a household as a child, where “turn off the lights” was a common parental refrain; I am trained in the art of flipping off a switch as I exit the room.

My point is that I don’t use much electricity… or at least I didn’t until Mr. Smart Meter arrived.  Apparently, the cats are having parties while I’m at the office, and running the air conditioner sufficiently to keep snow from melting.   Noting the timing of the Smart Meter installation, and the increase in my bill, I wrote a rather curt note on the invoice along with my check.

Within two days, I received a message at my home from an Edison representative, asking me to please call her to discuss my “complaint.”  I felt a little embarrassed… not by the tone of my note, but that someone was taking the time to actually follow up on a rather paltry increase.  But I did call back.

On the next day, I received a letter from the PUC’s Consumer Affairs Branch, saying they were in the process of investigating my complaint.  In part:

“…As part of our review, we directly require Southern California Edison Company to provide us with information about your account.  We then review your complaint and the information from Southern California Edison Company to ensure that they are following the rules and regulations of the California Public Utilities Commission.  After completing our investigation, we will contact you and let you know what we find…”

This review, they stated, will take about a month.  Dear lord, that will probably ADD to the cost of electrical usage in California.  Staff must be hired in order to call me at home,  write me letters, follow up on my bill, investigate my oven usage, and otherwise James Bond my “inquiry.”  I was really feeling guilty about wasting their time and money.

Or I was, until I investigated their Return on Equity (ROE) profit margin, and checked out where their income goes, like the compensation for their senior executives.  Now, I do not begrudge Smart People getting paid well, even if Smart Meters seem to be funding it all.  I want companies to thrive, even Public Utility Companies, who are regulated and policed supposedly, by their State Commissioners, or you end up with a disastrous lack of response and capacity, as evidenced in the northeast after hurricane Sandy.

I was unprepared for the magnitude of some of the finances…Profit to shareholders in 2012 was $975 million.  So Cal Edison is asking for an 11.1% ROE for 2013.  By comparison, Portland Energy has never received more than 8.75.

Mark Pocta, a manager for an independent branch of the Public Utilities Commission that advocates for consumers, states that California is one of the highest rates of returns in the nation.

Edison blames our regulations, saying they make it difficult for the company to stay competitive.  “SCE’s request (11.1%) is slightly higher because we face slightly greater challenges,” testified Paul Hunt, director of finances and economics at Edison.  He argued that “SCE is in the middle of a multi-year project to expand and strengthen its power grid to continue serving its customers reliably.”

I’m not feeling too sorry for this utility company, who pretty much has a monopoly on the market, with the parent company, Edison International (EIX), enjoying an earnings increase of 27% in 2010.

Southern California Edison withdrew funding for the $40,000 Santa Barbara Holiday Tree.

At the same time, senior executives received a bungee jump in compensation as well.  Theodore Craver, Jr., Chair, President and CEO of Edison International was paid $6,770,345 in combined income, and the CEO of the Southern California Edison was paid another $5,997,103.  Combined vice-presidential compensation for the two groups came in at another two million dollars.

Mark Pocta notes that if the California Public Utilities Commission were to accept his advocacy’s proposal of 8.75%, rather than the requested 11.1%, it would save customers $200 million annually.  Reducing it down to just 10% would save customers $100 million annually, which might be sufficient to at least cover the senior executive compensation packages.

As monopolies go, they have me in a headlock.   If my monthly cost continues to rise, I’ll call the nice people at the Consumer Affairs Branch, (800-649-7570) to chat about the bill.  On the other hand, if my rate increase isn’t just an anomaly, maybe Edison will be able to afford $40,000 for Santa Barbara’s Holiday Tree next year.

Any governmental body whose ultimate game plan appears to be inefficiency and failure is doomed to accomplish just that.  The problem is, you and I are going down with this Senate Ship of Fools.

A bill designed to protect critical infrastructure in the United States was killed by its own Republican cyber attack this month, as S3414, the Cyber Security Act of 2012, stalled when cloture vote(52-46)  failed to end debate.

Even though the House of Representatives passed the bill in a rare bipartisan vote, and Secretary Panetta, the US House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Rogers (R-Mich) and the head of the CIA have all declared “inaction is not an option;” the Tea Party started serving their infamous brand of Jonestown Kool-aid on the Senate floor and effectively killed it.

John Reed, writing for FP National Security, explained that the opposition by Republicans was because the minimal cyber security standards it establishes could create an unfair cost for business, and  the private sector should provide cyber security on its own.

Joining in the insanity of opposition is the ever-vigilant ACLU, stating that some evil future administration could use the Act to abuse our civil liberties. Of course, we won’t have power to read by or safe water to drink, and access to our money will be forever lost, but we’ll be “free!”  Some of the corporations opposing our government’s efforts to protect our systems of energy, transportation, finance, nuclear and water include the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), and Tim Berners Lee (one of the founders of the Internet.)

Forgive me if I doubt their altruism a teeny bit.

Their objection is primarily that the Act creates an unfair cost.  But as the FP National Security article points out, compliance may be onerous, but the threat is REAL and it isn’t just a threat anymore.

Google disclosed in a blog post that it had been cyber attacked by China in mid-2009.  To give you a sample of what the Chinese are chasing, hackers went after Yahoo, Morgan Stanley,  Dow Chemical, Adobe and Northrop Grumman as well.  The cyber attack, known as Operation Aurora, had as its primary goal, “to gain access and potentially modify source code repositories,”  more or less known as the crown jewels for data mining.

The other objection- that the private sector should be encouraged and allowed to find its own sources of cyber security because the government just gets in the way, assumes that all major energy, banking and industrial corporations will voluntarily and effectively make this their number one priority.

Message to the Tea Party proponents: not every effort by government  to protect its citizens is a power grab intended to bankrupt the nation or score points with voters.  Sometimes, regulations are written to compensate or prevent private industry from continuing to do things that are harmful or risky or stupid.  Remember AIG? Enron? Bear Stearns? Deepwater Horizon-BP? Exxon Valdez?   We don’t privatize the security of our nuclear weapons or our missile defenses for damned good reasons.

Establishing information technology security standards for major industry is of major importance to our country’s future, and to allow some pointy headed politician to stand in its way is traitorous.

Romney’s Foreign Policy White Paper, October 2011

But not all Republicans are impeding progress in this area or against the government role is cyber security.  In researching Romney’s thoughts and policy recommendations, I’ve found little in way of specifics – no ‘shock and awe’ here- but there is reference to the importance of protecting our nation from cyber attack in his White Paper of October 7, 2011, “An American Century,” page 38.

In light of the failure to pass the Senate bill, Harry Reid has joined forces with Sen. Lieberman and  Sen. Collins to bring it back to the floor for a vote in November.  It isn’t that the conservatives (plus four democrats) have suddenly seen the error of their ways, or that someone hacked some sense into their brains… it’s that President Obama has now threatened to promote the Cyber Security Act through Executive Order.

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Back in the 1950′s, in the early days of television when there were three network channels to select from and each was heavily regulated, they were politically pretty neutral.  More like the Newshour of today.  Each station needed to appeal to a broad audience to capture viewer loyalty and earn a sense of legitimacy as a vehicle of some opinion, but mostly factual information.

Today, there are hundreds of cable channels, millions of websites and uncountable numbers of social media deliveries hoping to influence our thinking.  Our once broad based exposure to many points of view has disintegrated into tiny slices of search engine individualism, mirroring our own thoughts and echoing our own voices.

According to the Borrell Associates research firm, an article in Ad Age projected that Super PACs and political campaigns (including 13,000 state, municipal, congressional and Presidential races) will expend $9.5 Billion this year.  Cable television is the main beneficiary of that tidal wave of campaign spending.

But you’re not likely to watch a cable program that delivers opinions which vary widely from your own, are you?  I don’t know many Glen Beck fans that watch MSNBC or Maddow-ites that can’t get enough of FOX news.

Today, we rely on pundits and anchors to not only give us their opinion, but to tell us what our opinion should be about the very thing we just saw and heard.

Neil Postman, author of “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” writes, “Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice.”

Debates are presented as smack-down wrestling events, where more attention is paid to smirks than content,  to eye-rolling than policy.  Rather than a source of information into the philosophies and intelligence that drives a particular candidate, through asking complex questions and multi-layer follow ups, most campaign directors see debates as three lost days of fund-raising and media control.

Campaigns have become play-by-play entertainment, designed purely to draw money to the media source, with post-game analysis and endless chest-thumping over wins and losses.  What is driving politics today, in addition to the mountains of money, is the speed of delivery and its competition for attention.  The content must change at least hourly, along with satisfying our expectation of drama and live action.

Before television, there were a few radio commentators, but most political information and even opinion was delivered in newsprint.  It was designed to be lasting; it enabled the reader to digest the information.  To even lay the paper aside and come back to it for a second read.  But that was before news became simply entertainment.  Nowadays, we are looking for the ‘win,’ not the content.  In fact, thoughtful, cogent and complex answers to life and death issues like nuclear weaponry or medical care insurance actually work against the candidate, as the viewer awaits the ‘zinger’ line.

Again, from Postman, “When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk…”

Elections are the absolute bedrock foundation of our freedom.  The process of selecting a President should require us to study, to pay attention, to learn, compare and contrast…dare I say, to think for ourselves–not to sit in front of our wide screens with popcorn, and expect to be entertained.

Weekly column by Loretta Redd

Like most of you, I received my 143 page Official Voter Information Guide for the November 6 election, which should have had a Poly Sci diploma included for anyone willing to wade through it.  And after studying the eleven complex and competing Proposition statements, I’m definitely feeling that the voters should be paid a salary for doing the work of the legislators.

There’s actually a major piece of legislation that isn’t on the ballot, even though it was originally certified to appear two years ago.  In 2010, the California Water Bond–an $11.14 billion general obligation bond–entitled the Safe, Clean and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act (who comes up with these names?!) was approved by the 2009 legislature.

Categories of funding include such important areas as drought relief, water supply reliability, Delta sustainability, state operational improvement, conservation, infrastructure upgrades, water recycling and groundwater protection.  Although the Water Bond Measure qualified for the 2010 ballot, it was removed and placed on this years.

But because our Legislature is still more concerned with their reelection than with their citizens welfare, they continue to refuse to make any political decisions which may prove unpopular…which, in case they are listening, is NOT AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO GOVERN.

So, 2012 rolls around and the democratic majority wants to do everything it can to ensure the (unlikely) passage of Jerry Brown’s tax hike Initiative.  Therefore, on July 5th, the legislature approved a bill to take the water bond measure off the 2012 ballot and put it on the 2014 ballot.  A four year stall for allowing the voters to weigh in on the need for a Water Bond, which will take several more years from which to reap any real benefit.

I admit, I must lack vision, because the need for water just seems to outweigh the need for a train to nowhere or even regulating genetically engineered foods.  I comprehend that hitting the voters with too much bond debt may result in likely failure at the ballot box, but I really don’t comprehend the priorities, when water shortages are never a matter if “if,” but rather “when.”

If anyone has noticed, our country is in a drought.  The lower 48 states and the Midwest are in crisis conditions, accounting for over 65% of the U.S., and 20% is in extreme or exceptional categories.  Although California hasn’t yet been included among those parched states, anyone who lived through the Santa Barbara drought of the 1980′s recalls that it is a distinct possibility.

But memories fade, and we Americans have a tendency to take water for granted.

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By Loretta Redd

She didn’t see it coming, although there had been signs all along.

Like a forensic chemist, she mixed her Maybelline concealer, skin tone Clearasil and Cover Girl foundation in the palm of her hand, then dabbed it strategically to hide her black eye.

“I should have known not to say that,”  she reprimanded herself aloud into the mirror, absorbing the guilt and twisting reason into a knot in order to forgive her boyfriend for punching her in the face.  “I should have never mentioned his ex…he’s warned me not to bring her up…he’s told me I belong to him, and never question his past.  Why can’t I learn?”

Over the next several months, the emotional trigger that separates love from contempt and protection from control would get flipped repeatedly.  The results would be threats, more beatings, hair-pulling, and accusations of unfaithfulness and unworthiness.

“I oughta just kick you out,” he would say, “you make me sick with your whining.”  It was a predictable and repeating pattern of tension build-up, followed by explosive behavior, then remorse and apology and promises that last only until the tension builds again.

It is domestic violence…and it has to stop. Continue Reading →

by Loretta Redd

Tonight’s City Council special evening session will decide the fate of members of the Architectural Board of Review, who in their zeal to protect gay marriage from being battered, fried and stuffed in a biscuit of inequality, stupidly abstained from a final approval vote on an already agreed-upon design.

Former Burger King location set to become a Chick-Fil-A

Overlooking the fact that if Burger King couldn’t make the upper State Street location profitable, that Chick-Fil-A likely won’t either;  the ABR members instead brought more free advertising to their purported nemesis than the Cathay family would have purchased for themselves.

Mayor Schneider was correct in her publicly released letter, that “The City’s approval process about Chick-Fil-A’s building application, however, is not about gay marriage; it’s about the design of a building, and the approval of the project should be based on those merits alone.”

Would that the members who abstained from voting take that opportunity to state that allowing personal beliefs to derail their civic duties and ask for a re-vote, tonight’s contentious Council meeting wouldn’t have to occur.

The City Attorney should have immediately called for an educational review for all board and commission members, to discuss how to handle any conflict of interest, and to remind all parties of the seriousness of their appointments, and the necessity for objectivity in order to ensure unbiased service to the public.

The Mayor, Council, Attorney and staff could have come together in a supportive and educational fashion, perhaps averting Mr. Mosel  from making his erroneous civic action into a civil liberties battle whose rainbow flag has now been picked up by other organizations.  Handled more adeptly, Mr. Rivera may not have resigned, and Mr. Gilliland may not have had to publicly apologize.

Simply put, “political disagreement is not a legitimate reason to abstain from voting.”  If it were, I imagine we could find threads of political, personal or religious disagreement to abstain on just about any project before the commissioners and board members.

Unfortunately, our City Charter, Article VIII, addresses Appointive Boards and Commissions through subcategories of: Qualifications, Length of Term, Meeting Schedules, Time, Financial Disclosure, Compensation, Staff Liaison, and Municipal Code References, but there is no instruction as to the education and oversight of the commissioners and board members.

Having served on two city commissions, I can tell you there was very little education offered to me as a new member…I was expected to read the materials offered, and pretty much ‘pick it up’ on my own by following the lead of my peers.  With better training on objectivity and guidelines, not only the committee members, but the City staff liaisons may also receive beneficial reminders.

Unfortunately, tonight’s Council meeting follows a series of missed opportunities for education, for understanding, and for reversing decisions outside of the spotlight of national media.  The reputation of the Architectural Board of Review has been severely damaged, and the shortsighted and unhelpful “protest by abstention” has been spun into a controversy unbefitting our predominately accepting and reasonable community.

Instead of removing prejudice from the Chick-Fil-A menu, as was the intention of some recalcitrant ABR members, they’ve ordered a double helping.  Unfortunately, they  may end up being removed from the Board, no doubt resulting in unwarranted accusations of bigotry and furthering an unhelpful schism of political ideology on Council.

Nothing about Chick-Fil-A appeals to me, from its cholesterol  laden menu to its religiously zealous and politically influential billionaire owners.  But to put a pickle on top of those who think they  wholeheartedly support Dan Cathay’s beliefs regarding marriage…he doesn’t believe in divorce, either.

It doesn’t matter why the chicken crossed the road…City Council has an opportunity to get this right.

Even if the commissioners erred in their behavior, Council should instruct the City Attorney to offer education to all its public servants.  Then, by asking each ABR member if they would prefer to serve free from the same type of prejudice they seem to abhor, or leave the Board, the Council can let the offending parties decide their own fate.

Chick-Fil-A’s executive vice-president, Steve Robinson, recently announced an apparent change of heart and mind inside the Cathay empire.  Their new philosophy is “to treat every person with honor, dignity, and respect- regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender.”

If they can be prejudice free, so can we.

Attend tonight’s City Hall session at 6 pm, or watch it on the City channel, or by live streaming online at the city website…it will hopefully be a lesson in civics we can all be proud of.