Fires and Family

What a week. I don’t ever remember fires like this in Southern California. They all started last weekend with what is known as a Santa Ana condition. The winds here ordinarily come from the west off the ocean and are generally humid and cooling in nature. During Santa Ana conditions the winds come off the desert from the east and are hot and very dry.

The winds kicked up and a combination of fires broke out. We live in an area that is at least forty miles from any danger of flames. But due to strange wind currents, the smoke and ash converge on Long Beach. I’m not making this up. In fact, there was an article in the Times last Wednesday that discussed this phenomenon.

So not only have we worried about loved ones – Janette (niece) and Brandon Pace who live in San Diego with their kids had to evacuate but are now safe – there have been several days where breathing has been very difficult. I have had to choose between exercise that helps me control my diabetes and not exercising so I don’t damage my aging lungs.

It’s Monday now and even though the fires are still burning, the air seems a little better so we are walking to breakfast this morning. I’m usually off on Mondays because I work four ten hour days a week.

We have had a great October and November will also be terrific. We started by going to San Jose to be with Adam and Myisha while Adam was sworn is as an officer in the navy. Then we went to Provo for my mom’s ninetieth birthday celebration. Now we are getting ready for Jake and Meredith’s wedding.

Like so many other worthwhile things in life, these things have taxed us financially. So I tried what seems to have been working very well recently… I took it to my Father in Heaven. And then my business partner in entertainment security, Avi, offered me an advance on what I earn by coordinating security at the annual Screen Actors Guild Awards show. Then I got offered an opportunity to coordinate security at the Geffen Museum of Contemporary Art this past weekend. They are opening a Murakami exhibit that is very popular and they had two different events.

These things have eased the financial difficulties and enabled us to proceed with helping Jake and Meredith. Don’t get me wrong. I love doing this and Cathy is very good with the kids and their wives. We have a wonderful family and it just seems to get bigger and better. Now we’ll have our third daughter in law, Meredith, and Kim is three months pregnant so here comes grandchild number four. The joys make any expense seem completely insignificant. My only concern is not in spending money on the kids, but getting enough to spend because we love doing these things.

Further Proof of My Blog About Police and the News Media

An Op Ed piece in today's LA Times about news media coverage of the Los Angeles Police Department offers an additional explanation of the position I took last week about news media coverage of police work in general and the Los Angeles Police Department in particular. It isn't even written by a cop and I'm frankly a little surprised that the Times published it.

Jean McIntire Partridge - 90th Birthday

My mom turned 90 on the same day as General Conference Sunday (October 7, 2007). My sister, Beth Merrill and Brother, Bob, and I decided many months ago to try to have a major party to celebrate. In order to avoid conference-related conflicts we decided to have the party on October 13th in Provo, Utah.

We talked and brain-stormed and shared ideas until we had a pretty sizeable group and a great location. Beth did the bulk of the work because she lives there and she's Beth. That's what she does. She does for others.

Beth did some research and suggested the Wilkinson Student Center on BYU's campus. We had the penthouse with a view on three sides. The room was very nice and the staff was tops. The meal was good too.

Beth and Bruce were there with their clan, Craig and Andrea Merrill, Devin and Maddi Merrill, Karen Merrill, Diana Merrill, Brandon and Janette Pace and Julie Hinkson (Julie's husband, Ralph is in Iraq).

Cathy and I were there and we had Kevin and Kim with us. Adam and Myisha, as well as Jacob had planned on being there but Jacob went and got engaged to Meredith Black (soon to be Partridge), a very good thing, and they are getting married in the Timpanogos Temple on November 10, 2007. So those members of our part of the family, who could really only afford one trip to Utah, decided to do it in November.

Bob and Kathy were also there, of course, and they had Brian, Heather and Gene Condie, and Megan with them.

Also present were Mom's sisters, Deniece Starich, LaVon Pleasants and Marge Matich, mom's Sister-in-Law, Ruth McIntire, Marge's husband Joe Matich, and LaVon's two daughters, Rebecca and Amber.

There were also some great grandchildren and maybe one or two other folks that I forgot to mention. We had a nice program where some of the grand kids gave a little recount of fun times with grandma. The highlight of that was Craig who talked about a special spritual experience where he was once invited to give grandpa a blessing.

Another major highlight was a DVD presentation of wonderfully edited photographs of all segments of grandma's life which Diana put together. A significant part of the DVD was a major and touching emphasis on Dad, who, of course passed away a few years ago, and who we all love and miss a lot. He was (is) really a good man.

On a lighter note, Bob and I sang, "M-O-T-H-E-R" to mom ("M" is for the million things she gave me, etc.) with Beth accompanying us on the piano.

Everyone seemed to have a great time and Mom, sensing a locked in audience, prepared and delivered a sermon, worthy of Sacrament meeting, that was directed at her relatives who she alone believes are in need of repentance. I say she alone, because we are all in need of repentance and the targets of her sermon are wonderful people in many ways. They are loving, giving and sharing human beings whose lives in many respects set enviable examples for the rest of us even if they don't go to church as much others might. As Forrest Gump might say, "That's all I'm going to say about that."

Anyway, it was a great event.

On Saturday morning, we had Kevin and Kim meet us at our hotel (Little America) where we enjoyed an excellent breakfast buffet and a real nice visit. Kevin and I discovered that the workout area was kind of neat with exercise equipment arrayed in such a way as to be able to watch a big screen TV. So he came back later and we exercised while watching USC's football team struggle to a win over Arizona.

The buffet reminded me of the previous weekend when we drove to San Jose and looked on proudly while Adam was sworn in as an officer in the United States Navy. He is a reserve officer for now, and must finish his last year of law shool, pass the California Bar Exam, and complete Navy Officer Indoctrination School next fall. Then in January, 2009, he goes on active duty as a regular Naval officer in the Judge Advocate General Corps.

The reason the buffet reminded me of the previous week is that we were staying at a very nice hotel (Hyatt) in San Jose that also had a great breakfast buffet and we had Adam and Myisha over for breakfast there.

Our children bring us our greatest joy. And our daughter's in law, Kim, Myisha and (soon) Meredith, are like having fantastic daughters only we didn't have raise them. Their parents did that and did it very well.

So life is good as we head into fall and then winter.

And, not that I'm counting, but there are now only 195 calendar days until we put our house up for sale (May 1st, 2008).

I'm Tired of Apologizing for Doing What Police Should Be Doing

In today's Los Angeles County edition of the LA Times, one of the headline stories deals with LAPD apologizing and taking the blame for disturbances that broke out at a demonstration at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles on May 1, 2007.

A couple of preliminary remarks are in order.

First, most of the report is accurate but nevertheless unsettling to me in ways I might explain later in this post. Police work has evolved over the years since I began (1969) and, although many of the changes are a result of police abuses of power, those abuses are generally few and should have been dealt with as individual cases rather than "reining in" all of the police across the country. For example, Police in Los Angeles (and elsewhere) are now required to do everything possible to make sure that demonstrators who are usually intent on being noticed by the news media, and who often strain the bounds (if they don't cross them altogether) of lawful behavior in order to increase the likelihood of gaining their sought after media attention, are coddled, babied, and appeased at every turn. In fact, I was surprised that the Department took any action at all on May Day, because since the Rodney King-related fiasco of 1991, that's what we've done. Nothing. And it works.

Oh business owners get understandably upset when their windows and outdoor fixtures get broken, spray painted or otherwise vandalized, but these are people who work so hard to make a barely average living that they don't have the time or money to raise much of a ruckus. They just grumble, clean up and continue working. Interestingly enough, many of these are legal immigrants to our country. Ironic isn't it when you consider that this particular protest was staged in order to promote illegal immigration.

My second point is somewhat remote. I was in San Francisco area last Saturday where our youngest son was sworn in as an officer in the United States Navy. During the proceedings, the officer in charge noted that our son's blog is well read and somewhat infamous for being politically conservative. I believe the phrase used by the Navy Lieutenant was, "that will stop today," meaning no more controversial blogs. I, having less than a year to go in my sometimes but usually not illustrious career, have the luxury of criticizing the Department whenever I want to. Technically I'm already retired so unless I commit a crime, I'm untouchable.

To be sure, I'm not so much criticizing the Department as the tendency among news media types and some segments of society to blame police for everything.

I hope that most honest and hardworking citizens understand that Police are people too. We are mothers fathers, sisters and brothers. we are sons and daughters. We have lives and live in or near and are a part of the communities we serve.

We had to be darn good people to get the job in the first place and the vast majority of us still are. We have a strong sense of justice which is brutalized on nearly a daily basis as we see criminals walk free for various reasons be it liberal courts, lack of prison space or intimidated witnesses. Yet when there is an increase in crime, or an insufficient decrease, the first people we blame are usually the police.

Mark Fuhrman who was my roommate for a time and who I consider to be a dear friend was basically forced from his career by news media reports intent on spinning him as a "racist cop" which could not possibly have been farther from the truth. The truth was that he is a talented and smart investigator who should still be on the job working for all of the citizens of Los Angeles like he was working when he left. He would literally have thrown himself in harms way to protect anyone in this city. He was willing to risk his life so that average citizens could feel safer.

Most of the officers on the job today would do the same thing which brings me to the "Consent Decree." A few years ago we had the "Rampart Scandal" where an officer who was obviously a horrible exception to the rule, was caught stealing. He then began claiming that corruption, brutality and racism were rampant in LAPD. He made numerous allegations nearly all of which turned out to be false. The most intensive investigations revealed only minuscule impropriety by a very few officers.

And now we are saddled with a consent decree where we use hundreds of officers (closer to a thousand, I believe) investigating other officer before there is even a hint of misconduct. We pay police officers to call up other police officers faking a desire to complain about yet more police officers in order to see that we handle these "fake" complaints properly. We pay police officers to, on an under cover basis, turn in wallets and other valuables to other police officers to make sure they don't steal anything. These "sting" operations are being done even when there is not a shred of indication that there is any stealing going on at all.

So police officers who are already overworked because so many other police officers aren't available, have to go out and face dangerous situations with inadequate back up. And because so much money is needed to support the stings and other consent decree-related activities, the officers who are doing real police work are under-supported by technology and other equipment.

Many times I have sat as a Watch Commander at 77th Street Area police station while one of my desk officers called numerous people who had requested an emergency police response and we ask if we (the police) are still needed. Imagine calling the police in your neighborhood because a guy was prowling through your back yard and nobody comes. Then when you finally get the doors locked, lights on all over and the wife and kids to settle down and get to bed, we call you back and ask if you still need us. This happens all over LA many times every week.

It won't ever happen, but I'd love to see a chief of police stand up in front of news media microphones and cameras and say something like, "While we're sorry if any innocent people got hurt, we were doing our jobs clearing a rowdy and dangerous crowd out and trying to get them to disburse. We are reviewing the incident to identify any issues that we need to resolve in the way we handle these events. I would like to point out that we respect everyone including members of the news media equally and everyone can be expected to be treated equally. Other than that, I have no other comment."

I believe that many of the problems we face are the responsibility of professional journalists who have evolved from presenting unvarnished objective facts to the public to now spinning those facts in order to try to manufacture controversy.

The result is that you have a chief of police apologizing for officers who are in an impossible, no win situation.

Fall 2007

Here it is. Fall again.

A little catching up might be in order.

Back about the time Adam went on his mission I was called to the High Council. I have some event and sports and music background and that seemed to be needed. I served in that calling for just short of five years and was then called to be a counselor in the Stake Young Mens' program. I enjoyed both callings a lot.

The nice thing about the Stake callings is you don't have to deal with individual people's issues that much. The bad thing about Stake callings is that you don't get to deal with the individual members that much.

So when I got called to be our Ward Young Mens' President, I was pretty excited. Even though our Ward seemed a little weak at the time (hence me as Young Mens president at age sixty) I truly enjoyed getting to know each of the young men. Great kids. We had a lot of fun and a lot of meaningful conversations and trips of various kinds.

So Brother Russ Ellsworth and his family moved into the Ward and he, being younger and having all sorts of other worthwhile characteristics, was ca;lled as the Young Mens President after I had served for nearly two years. There was a need for a music chairman and Choir Director. I got the call and liked that too.

We proceeded to have a wonderful Ward Choir. I bought myself a baton and really acted like I knew what I was doing. We had good participation and sang some great arrangements.

Toward the end of 2006, Cathy and I were called to be Adult Advisors in the YSA El Dorado Ward. That was a very interesting calling for me because Bishop Clark Posten, an old friend from High Council days, and I get along well. I think the world of him and he treated the men advisors as sort of quasi Bishop Counselors and included us in all the Bishopric discussiona and meetings. I did a lot and learned a lot but the wives weren't asked to do anything but sit there and look nice. Cathy tried but couldn't come up with any way to sunstantively contribute.

We are planning to move next year and Cathy sort of resigned herself to ride it out because there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

So six months later we get a call to see President Hyatt of the Stake Presidency and now I'm a counselor in the Ward Bishopric. Bishop Saunders is a devoted man and loves the Lord and he can really use some help. And, he is teaching me a lot about Church management. I finally get my very own complete Handbook of Instructions and it has been very enlightening to read. It is truly an inspired writing. It's amazing how much in formation is in there and how easy it is to retrieve.

So I'm over finances, Primary, Young Men, Music and a few other things.

Lots of work. Very rewarding. The difficult thing about a calling like this is that you cannot accomplish what needs to be accomplished without the Lord's help. And, of course, the wonderful thing about a calling like this is that if you keep yourself worthy and on your knees, you get that help. It's a great feeling. I don't think there are words to properly describe it.