Read Opinion: Gavin Newsom's French Laundry scandal is no reason to toss him out (CNN)
Lincoln Mitchell writes that though California Gov. Gavin Newsom has made mistakes during the Covid pandemic, he has not done anything that rises to the level of prematurely removing from office.
My friend Dave Harris asked me about this article.

In general, I’d say that the Republican party is trying to rile up something where nothing truly exists. They’re feebly trying to inflame Democrats to “cancel” Newsome so they have a shot of getting a Republican in office. Sadly, the unwritten subtext here is that if a Republican were actually governor during the pandemic, California would have just followed suit with the Trump administration and fared far worse as a result. Where is their position on that?!

It would be nice if, instead of being against something like they are in this case, the Republicans would state what they’re proactively for—and preferably something that would improve the lives of all Californians. We know that they’re against Newsome and a progressive agenda, but why not tack a bit toward the middle and actually accomplish something instead of continually trying to split us all apart?

Their push on this front is simply an attempt at creating a wedge issue at the lowest level when there are so many, many other things that are more important right now. If they couldn’t as a party and we couldn’t as a country agree on the far more egregious aggressions of Donald Trump, then nit picking at Gavin Newsome is going to be a losing proposition, especially in California.

Read The Californian Ideology by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron (Mute)
The California Ideology is a mix of cybernetics, free market economics, and counter-culture libertarianism and is promulgated by magazines such as WIRED and MONDO 2000 and preached in the books of Stewart Brand, Kevin Kelly and others.

Lacking the free time of the hippies, work itself ho become the main route to self-fulfilment for much of the,virtual class’. 

They’re right that overwork and identification with work has become all too prevalent over the past several decades.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:11AM

Community activists will increasingly use hypermedia to replace corporate capitalism and big government with a hi-tech ‘gift economy’ in which information is freely exchanged between participants. 

I know the idea “gift economy” was around in the late 2000’s and even more prevalent in the teens, but not sure where it originated. This is one of the earliest sitings I’ve seen.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:15AM

In this version of the Californian Ideology, each member of the ‘virtual class’ is promised the opportunity to become a successful hi-tech entrepreneur. 

In retrospect, it’s really only made a much higher disparity between the top and the bottom.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:19AM

Almost every major technological advance of the last two hundred years has taken place with the aid of large amounts of public money and under a good deal of government influence. The technologies of the computer and the Net were invented with the aid of massive state subsidies. 

examples of government (public) funding for research and it’s effects
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:23AM

Americans have always had state planning, but they prefer to call it the defence budget. 

Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:24AM

Entrepreneurs often have an inflated sense of their own ‘creative act of will’ in developing new ideas and give little recognition to the contributions made by either the state or their own labour force. 

Techbro hubris
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:25AM

When Japanese companies threatened to take over the American microchip market, the libertarian computer capitalists of California had no ideological qualms about joining a state-sponsored cartel organised by the state to fight off the invaders from the East! 

A good example of so-called capitalists playing the do as we say and not as we do game.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:27AM

In American folklore, the nation was built out of a wilderness by free-booting individuals – the trappers, cowboys, preachers, and settlers of the frontier. Yet this primary myth of the American republic ignores the contradiction at the heart of the American dream: that some individuals can prosper only through the suffering of others. The life of Thomas Jefferson – the man behind the ideal of `Jeffersonian democracy’ – clearly demonstrates the double nature of liberal individualism. The man who wrote the inspiring call for democracy and liberty in the American declaration of independence was at the same time one of the largest slave-owners in the country. 

Some profound ideas here about the “American Dream” and the dark underbelly of what it may take to achieve not only for individuals, but to do so at scale.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:29AM

Working for hi-tech and new media corporations, many members of the ‘virtual class’ would like to believe that new technology will somehow solve America’s social, racial and economic problems without any sacrifices on their part. 

In retrospect, this has turned out to be all-too-true.
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:31AM

Slave labour cannot be obtained without somebody being enslaved. At his estate at Monticello, Jefferson invented many ingenious gadgets – including a ‘dumb waiter’ to mediate contact with his slaves. In the late twentieth century, it is not surprising that this liberal slave-owner is the hero of those who proclaim freedom while denying their brown-skinned fellow citizens those democratic rights said to be inalienable. 

This is a powerful example
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:33AM

Abandoning democracy and social solidarity, the Californian Ideology dreams of a digital nirvana inhabited solely by liberal psychopaths. 

And nearly twenty years later, isn’t that roughly what we’ve got? (aside from the digital nirvana, which didn’t work out so well.)
Annotated on September 17, 2020 at 09:35AM

❤️ PFA809 tweet The fires in So. Cal are urban interface fires and have NOTHING to do with forest management.

Liked a tweet by Pasadena Fire Assn.Pasadena Fire Assn. (Twitter)

👓 Squatters’ takeover of Torrance home illustrates landlord frustrations with state law | Pasadena Star News

Read Squatters’ takeover of Torrance home illustrates landlord frustrations with state law (Pasadena Star News)
California law protects squatters who take over rental properties, drawing the ire of landlords such as Cindy Oye-Marquez, who must initiate an arduous eviction process to force out the people who …

🎧 ‘The Daily’: When Democratic Newcomers Challenge the Party Line | New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: When Democratic Newcomers Challenge the Party Line by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

Alarm over the election of Donald Trump spurred dozens of first-time candidates to run for Congress. Some of those candidates now present a problem for the Democratic Party.

On today’s episode:

• Mai Khanh Tran, a Democratic candidate for a United States House seat in California.

• Alexander Burns, who covers national politics for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• National Democrats, fearing that crowded rosters of primary candidates could fracture the party, have begun to intervene by urging some to bow out of the election.

• The party views the California midterms as a particular risk. The state’s nonpartisan primary system — in which the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation — could propel two Republican candidates to the November race.

• Here’s what to watch for in the California primaries, which take place on Tuesday.

👓 Billionaire relents, kicks open his gate to popular Martins Beach | SF Gate

Read Billionaire relents, kicks open his gate to popular Martins Beach by Peter Fimrite (SFGate)
A billionaire landowner who had blocked access to a beach near Half Moon Bay opened the gate leading to the sandy shore Wednesday, two days after legal papers were filed demanding he comply with a court order. The decision by venture capitalist Vinod Khosla to finally allow the public to use the only road leading to picturesque Martins Beach was touted as a victory for surfers and sunbathers, but lawyers say it probably isn't the end of a decade-long battle over the sandy cove.
Oh, the never-ending battle between public beaches and rich people along the California coast.

They didn’t do a very good job describing the subtleties of the situation and the law here though.