July 20, 2012 | 4:46 pm

The Progress is (In)Visible

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

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The view at 4:00 with the temperature over 80.

Yesterday seemed like the first really hot day in a long time, the temperature was in the high 80s to 90s and the evening remained warm with virtually no breeze. Despite the heat, it was remarkably clear.

From my thirty third floor perch in a Downtown office building I couldn’t help but notice how remarkable the vistas were. I could watch the planes as they descended into LA International and on the drive home the San Gabriel Mountains were exceptionally sharp—virtually no haze or smog, no brown gunk obscuring the view.

Just a few years ago, the notion that the temperatures could be in the 80s and the sky could be blue seemed impossible. In fact, Angelenos of my vintage recall that when they participated in PE or physically exerted themselves in the 1950s and 60s the effort of simply catching a deep breath on a smoggy day was daunting (one’s chest would grip up and a coughing fit was inevitable).

Yesterday’s view was so crisp and clear that I had to research how far we had come in the past few decades.

Sure enough the data are impressive yet, surprisingly, little discussed. In 1976 the LA Basin had, depending on which federal clean air standard you use (the “old”, the 1997 or the 2008 standard), 28 times [old], 3 times [1997 standard] or more than twice [new standard] as many days exceeding “Health Standard Levels” as in 2010.  We have gone from 102 days of Stage 1 episodes of high smog concentrations in 1976 to having one day of a Stage 1 episode since 1999.

This dramatic turnaround of what seemed like a hopeless endeavor just a few decades ago—-more people and more cars seemed to insure worsening air quality—-has taken place despite a dramatic increase of 38% in the population of Los Angeles County (from 7,082,000 in 1970 to an estimated 9,800,000 in 2010) and a concomitant increase in cars, trucks, trailers and motorcycles of 20% in the last thirteen years alone. I suspect the increase in cars and trucks would mirror that of the population were it extrapolated back to 1970 (I couldn’t find the data).

I can understand the reluctance to “crow about the success” by air quality officials and others who are responsible for the transformation; as one former official told me, “the AQMD doesn’t brag enough about it because we have much left to do.” Additionally, he noted that “the air we can’t see is really quite harmful…because we have crushed the particles.” 

So, I offer the caveats and admonitions that there is much left to be done and that the “invisible” air that doesn’t mar our vistas still has microscopic particles that are harmful….nevertheless, the reduction in visible smog and the marked decline in both Stage 1 episodes and days in which the various Federal clean air standards are exceeded are achievements to celebrate. On an 87 degree day when the vistas stretch from the ocean to Mt. Wilson and are unsullied by brown gunk and you can take a deep breath without seizing up your lungs, you know that we are moving in the right direction.

July 6, 2012 | 11:35 am

The Declaration of Independence’s Inclusiveness

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

Yesterday’s blog described my visit to the National Museum of American Jewish History and the George Washington letter to the Jewish congregation in Newport, Rhode Island of 1790.

Today’s

Wall Street Journa

l has an op/ed by law professor Michael Meyerson titled “Was the Declaration of Independence Christian?” which concludes that the document was “deliberately designed to be as inclusive as possible, it was a quintessentially American achievement—-specific enough to be embraceable by those with orthodox religious views but broad enough to permit each American to feel fully included and equally respected.”

The Declaration of Independence (1776) antedated the Washington letter (1790) to the Newport community by fourteen years, yet its sentiment clearly set the tone of tolerance that Washington later reflected as president.

Was the Declaration of Independence Christian?
The religious phrases in our founding document were deliberately designed to be as inclusive as possible.
By MICHAEL I. MEYERSON
 
Americans of all political stripes invoked the Declaration of Independence this Fourth of July week. Some read the document and found, as Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz has, that it “rejected Christianity, along with other organized religions, as a basis for governance.” Others saw the same language proving the opposite, that our nation was founded on “Judeo- Christian values.” Such definitive statements do not tell the full story. The American Framers, in their desire to unite a nation, were theologically bilingual—not only in the Declaration of Independence but beyond.

Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

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July 5, 2012 | 4:25 pm

A 220 Year Old Lesson

Posted by  David A. Lehrer

Last Friday, while on a family vacation in Philadelphia, my wife and I visited the new National Museum of American Jewish History on Independence Square. We toured the wonderful exhibit that chronicles American Jewish history from the first immigrants to the current period. The permanent exhibit alone is worth a few hours of touring.

We were especially lucky to be present the first day of a new exhibit that runs until the end of September: “To Bigotry No Sanction—George Washington and Religious Freedom.” The exhibit centers on the August 1790 letter that Washington sent to the “Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Rhode Island.” The Museum recently acquired the original letter which had been hidden away for the past decade. Due to the delicacy of the original, it can only be on display three months a year.

It is an extraordinary document that is especially worthy of attention in the days surrounding July 4th.  The letter was handwritten by Washington shortly after he received a letter from Moses Seixas, the “warden” of the Newport synagogue. In the letter Seixas welcomed Washington to Newport and thanked God for having led the Jews to America:

Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free Citizens, we now with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty disposer of all events behold a Government, erected by the Majesty of the People…generously affording to all Liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship: deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language equal parts of the great governmental Machine….we desire to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great preserver of Men beseeching him, that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the wilderness to the promised land, may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of mortal life. And when, like Joshua full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the after of life and the tree of immortality.

In Washington’s response a few days later he laid out a vision of religious tolerance that likely had no historic precedent (the French legislation emancipating its Jews was not adopted until September, 1791).

In a few, terribly moving few paragraphs, Washington declares that, “the citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.”

In beautiful prose he invokes the words that Seixas had included in his letter that, “happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving on all occasion their effectual support.”

In what is a rather prescient view of societal dynamics, Washington makes clear that it is really not for one set of citizens to express “toleration” for another, acceptance is not theirs to give. Liberty is, after all, the exercise by the minority of their “inherent natural rights.”

Below is the full text of Washington’s letter, it’s worth a read.

It probably needn’t be noted, but the exquisite language of tolerance that Washington expressed in 1790 did not extend to either slaves or women or Native Americans and did not reflect itself in the laws of many of the states which had attitudes that were considerably less benign. The Emancipation Proclamation (freeing the slaves) was seventy three years and a civil war away. And as recently as the past decade seven states still had statutes on the books (though unenforceable) that had religious tests for holding office.

Notwithstanding the fact that Washington’s vision took a while to realize—-“every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid”—it was an aspiration that helped set the bar for what America was to become, a nation that “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport

George Washington

August 1790