CommentsTHE DOCTOR IS IN - I'm as guilty as any of being garrulous, verbose, loquacious, etc. So, I'll try to keep things neat and sweet for our New Year:
1) If we're stupid enough to vote in morons like Attorney General Gascon, then we deserve all the crime and homelessness and chaos we get.
2) If we let all our current rainfall spill worthlessly into the ocean, and not keep the water in reservoirs and/or direct the rainfall to our forests, agricultural regions, and water table, we deserve all of high utility costs, wildfires, and high food prices we get.
3) If we don't focus on why so many Angelenos (particularly the middle class, and comprised of all ethnicities and political backgrounds) are fleeing to conservative, Republican strongholds, then we'll deserve all the urban misery and hideous cost of living that we get.
4) If we don't recognize that we're probably all going to get the Omicron Variant of COVID-19 sooner or later, we deserve all the confusion that we get.
5) If we don't get vaccinated with boosters--even the J & J vaccine, WITH boosters--we deserve all the "surprises" we get with respect to those who ARE versus those who ARE NOT vaccinated and the degree of the COVID infection that results.
6) If we don't recognize that herd immunity to a virus that may be mutating more to an infection akin to a cold and/or a flu, then we deserve all of the misery that our economy and quality of life will suffer on Main Street (while thriving on Wall Street for those who are brave and smart enough to see this through).
7) If we keep telling white Americans they're all racist, including conservative white Americans who are among some of the most giving and tolerant human beings on planet Earth, then we deserve all of the backlash we get...just ask the Salvation Army.
8) If we keep pushing "cancel culture" and "woke culture"like we have over the past 5-10 years, then we'll see more black and trans Americans like Dave Chapelle, Kevin Hart, and Caitlyn Jenner push back, and we'll deserve all the centrist/right-wing response we get to what is a 21st Century McCarthyism gone amok...because EVERY human being knows what fascism looks like.
9) If we don't recognize that individuals who have "XY" sex chromosomes instead of "XX" sex chromosomes are different with respect to everything from muscle mass to brain development, then we'll deserve all the backlash we get from thrashing the rights of both heterosexual and homosexual female athletes without doing ANYTHING to promote the rights of transsexual individuals.
10) If we don't keep the worst excesses of the Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory movements and advocates in check (and YES, they've gone overboard), then we'll deserve all the backlashes we saw in Virginia's recent elections we get.
11) If we don't recognize that major cities such as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco have been (and continue to be) terrorized by left-wing tyrants, then we deserve all of the political and social upheavals we get.
12) Finally, if we don't rid ourselves from the Downtown L.A. Elite who have made our city an overly-expensive and miserable place to live in our next election cycle, then we'll deserve all of the unhappiness and despair (and continued exodus of those citizens and taxpayers we need the most) that we get.
Happy New Year--will it actually BE a New Year, or just the same 'ol, same 'ol?
It's your call. It's my call. It's our call.
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father to two cherished children and a wonderful wife. He was termed out of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) twice after two stints as a Board member for 8-9 years and is also a Board member of the Westside Village Homeowners Association. He previously co-chaired the MVCC Outreach, Planning, and Transportation/Infrastructure Committees. He was previously co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee, the grassroots Friends of the Green Line (which focused on a Green Line/LAX connection), and the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
