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She Said, Z Said: Is B All That We Can Be?
Z: Let’s fight about Measure B.
She: OK. Why?
Z: Because everyone else in town is. Besides, a good fight sounds like fun.
She: OK. Which side do you want?
Z: I’ll take the billionaire’s side. Maybe he’ll buy me a toy.
She: Wait a minute; he’s against tall buildings. You’re the one who’s always citing “height” as the best thing you bring to the gene pool.
Z: Absolutely, but that’s only because I’ve never really been chummy with a trillionaire. For that I could be anti-height.
She: You are such a whore! I hope you and your stupid measure both explode in a ball of flame!
Z: You’re very good at this arguing thing.
She: Thank you.
Z: My turn. Stop wrecking my city! Tall buildings are ugly, and they hurt a lot more when they fall over on you.
She: You elitist pig! You don’t want affordable housing in the city because then we’d be forced to live with people who actually work.
Z: We’re building a city of ugly canyons. Sure, the echoes are fun, but the Star Wars Canyon Runners create a traffic nightmare.
She: We’re just now, for the first time ever, pricing the working class out of Santa Barbara. Where will they live?
Z: Why don’t you and comrade Steve Cushman go back to communist Russia in the 1950s where you both belong!
She: And leave you to party with the Texas villain, the destroyer of democracy, Randall Van Wolfswinkel? I don’t think so, Sell-Out-Boy.
Z: Hmm. Does it seem to you like the argument over whether to limit building height has gotten a little hostile?
She: Not at all. What makes you say that? After all, building heights are the single most important challenge facing our community. They can’t do anything about gang violence, job loss, the escalating costs of health care or the struggling school system, but doggone it, let’s fight about how tall the tallest buildings are.
Z: There do seem to be a lot of outsize responses.
She: Starting with Van Wolfswinkel’s $250,000 and counting. What’s up with that?
Z: I’m guessing it was a math error. He meant to write the check for $2,500.00, but forgot where to put the decimal point. Don’t forget, he did go to Santa Barbara High.
She: Spoken like a true Royal.
Z: He was right in-between our two grades. That must have been the year they taught people how to become zillionaire developers instead of how to do math.
She: I knew I graduated the wrong year.
Z: Then there’s a whole world of knee-jerk responses to all that money. The dark insinuations are pretty funny, but I do have to take issue with everyone calling him a Texan. That’s just mean.
She: He lives in Dallas.
Z: But he was born and went to school here. The man’s a Santa Barbarian. If we can call Oprah a Santa Barbarian, then we can call Van Wolfswinkel a Santa Barbarian. By the way — Van Wolfswinkel from Dallas? — I’m starting to think his opposition even made up his name. Seriously, this is the best they could come up with? It sounds totally fictional.
She: I don’t remember him and I knew a lot of kids at Santa Barbara High.
Z: Could it be?
She: Maybe that’s why he’s not returning any reporters’ calls except for a few: he’s a fictional character who likes to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Z: As long as those buildings are under 40 feet tall.
She: Yes, dear.
— When She and Z aren’t debating the most important political issues of the day, they can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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» on 10.19.09 @ 08:38 AM
For more information regarding Measure B visit the following websites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1OZG4fsmAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFD-e02CVUM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYxI0s_qUtM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6_GloaSWE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u2L0LXPdwA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLrle9-LI6w
» on 10.19.09 @ 09:38 AM
Well, between the SB High slam and calling Zak a whore, I’m sure you’ll get some mail on this one. ;)
It used to be you couldn’t call yourself a Santa Barbarian until you had been here at least two generations - where have all the standards gone?
» on 10.19.09 @ 02:31 PM
i like political humor, makes for more civil debate. Thanks for the info and humor. My compromise is 40 feet with rooftop bars mandatory.
» on 10.20.09 @ 03:08 PM
Funny - I’m from The Netherlands, and ‘Wolfswinkel’ or ‘Van Wolfswinkel’ is a very common surname, where I come from! There’s even a rising star soccer player with that name.
But I have no idea what this Randall van Wolfswinkel wants or does not want from or in Santa Barbara.. I’d better stay out of that discussion :)
Cheers!
G.J. Wolfswinkel
The Netherlands
» on 10.21.09 @ 09:11 PM
As usual, Leslie hit the nail on the head with her comment about “After all, building heights are the single most important challenge facing our community. They can’t do anything about gang violence, job loss, the escalating costs of health care or the struggling school system, but doggone it, let’s fight about how tall the tallest buildings are.” The amount of time and energy being spent on this relatively unimportant issue just hurts my heart. We have so many better things we could be channeling this toward.
» on 10.23.09 @ 09:07 AM
This is not political humor. This is a slam towards Measure B supporters being masked as satire. I’ve never read your column before, so I know nothing about your politics other than what I can glean from this awful, irresponsible piece.
Let’s remind everyone that Measure B came on the ballot as a grass roots effort. I think it was something like 11,000 people who signed to get Measure B on the ballot!
I find it quite telling and sad that people are so cruel as to go after people just because they have money. This is not a rich guy’s ballot measure. This is a grass roots measure that happens to now be supported by a guy with money.
Anybody ever hear of Lynn Twist? She wrote a great book called The Soul of Money. She reminds us that when we identify people with their financial state, whether they be “rich” or “poor”, it is dehumanizing.
» on 10.23.09 @ 08:46 PM
I think the point, which some people seem to miss, is that clearly SB has bigger fish to fry and we’re wasting a lot of time, energy and money on this particular issue.
» on 10.24.09 @ 09:02 AM
Sure, there are bigger fish than Measure B, but because there are tuna does that mean we should ignore all the halibut and rockfish or even the squid and octopi. And what about the shellfish? ...You get the point: fry one fish at a time.
This is the time for Yes on lowering new building heights. And as a supporter of Measure B, sad about the negativity, I say, save us from our friends almost as much as from our oh-so-very-nasty enemies.
What’s particularly sad is the NO people have lived up to that name and it’s going to be very difficult to work together in the future on some of those other fish tales.
Yes on B! (And to balance jandrul, 1 versus many: http://SaveEPV.org)
» on 10.24.09 @ 10:10 AM
Gotta say this is pretty funny stuff! Wish the B people had a sense of humor, after all what good does it do to turn yer town into a retirement c”ommunity of single story buildings if yer gonna be an angry crackpot all day long! Now the answer to the question why don’t we fry bigger fish” is of course B people think all our problems stem from a single building dimension, so of course if we eliminate vertical height all together we can all live in a crime, traffic, gang free two dimensional paradise. I think these guys just watch too much TV.
» on 10.24.09 @ 11:40 AM
The 11,000 signature argument is as weak and self serving as this Measure in general. Standing outside of Trader Joes asking people if they are worried about building heights and views and getting them to sign their name is self-serving at best and deceptive at worst. The development of this city (and it is a city) is a complex issue that deserves understanding, analysis and discussion by a wide range of residents, not just the established old guard who want to prevent any sort of reasonable, realistic, inevitable growth at any cost. Ballot box planning is a bad idea. VOTE NO.
And note that 11,000 people haven’t even submitted ballots as of mid-week.
» on 10.24.09 @ 12:46 PM
Don’t they know the exponential cost! The city will have to hire inspectors and buy a bunch of forty foot tape measures! Why is it with every ad about low buildings there’s talk about taking the streets back. It all fits into a pretty picture…
Small little town with no crime, vote for measure B if you want Santa Barbara to look like Mayberry, Aahhh. You’re getting played by the in your pocket politicians and the ride along media machine.
» on 10.24.09 @ 01:10 PM
Wait, the Measure B *supporters* are complaining about negative campaigning?!? What is this, bizarro world?
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