Letters to the Editor: Laguna City Hall places commerce above residents’ welfare

Our city’s commercial-friendly groupthink has made it official: Welcome to Laguna Beach, the Disneyland of O.C. beach communities, whether residents like it or not.

Take that Huntington and Newport. Yes, we can. We can “out-gaudy” you, we can better deface and clutter our sidewalks, we can monetize what was once funky, charming and aesthetically unique by homogenizing ourselves with urban blight pennants and poles.

These “make commerce great again” forces have convinced City Hall that theme park-type signs and benches, color-coded for carved out, metaphorical districts, might theoretically solve many of the traffic circulation and parking problems.

Branding each district is the equivalent of Tomorrowland, Adventureland and obviously, this nonsense is Fantasyland. It’s about efficiently propping back up merchandising to the diminishment, to the degradation, of formerly quiet neighborhoods.

Within each “land” (aka district), there’ll be theme park-type indicators, hopefully directing pedestrians toward “attractions,” otherwise known as rides at amusement destinations. No jive. The planners have termed the sign elements as “attractions.”

Locals are being marginalized and have fallen in city priorities. A stealthy process, hundreds of thousands of dollars being considered for eventual, build-out funding, without extensive oversight consideration.

Locals and veteran visitors alike already know the migrational wheres and hows, so the city should drop the pretense of any enhancement, any benefits we’ll experience.

This Wayfinding proposal only helps merchants via increased numbers: Overwhelmed now, if this does work it’ll be for first-time tourists, and increasingly more will try to stuff themselves into an already cramped, confined space.

Soon, the parking permit programs could become a common municipal necessity, extending from Boat Canyon to Diamond Street.

Ask residents around Mozambique, hostages in their own dwellings. Imagine needing a placard to park overnight in front of your own residence. Surprise, it’s like living near Disneyland!

Disruption and distress because City Hall has a solution in search of a problem.

“Laguna Residents First” no longer resonates during decisions: City Hall is definitely open for business, the commerce flag flying above the common welfare pennant.

Roger E. Bütow

Laguna Beach

Republicans are doing what voters want

Re. “Republicans remain the party of ‘Just say no,’ and little else,” (June 19): After reading the subject letter, I found myself wondering why the title of this letter and the seeming wonder by the author, so I thought I would provide some analysis.

The Republican Party ran on all the items listed in the article — the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Paris Accord, Regulations on the EPA, banks, etc. — so this is the platform they campaigned on. No surprise here.

Then the Republican Party was elected to the executive branch and majorities in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. Oh, and the party increased about 1,000 seats in state houses nationwide.

So I am thinking the voters wanted the changes that are occurring. Anyone notice who won the last four special elections?

Republicans.

Perhaps the author only watches CNN and reads the Los Angeles Times, so maybe he isn’t aware that voters wanted the changes. For some reason, not many in California find these changes popular. Maybe that’s it.

Juli Hayden

Newport Beach

The psychological effects of the post-truth era

Like it or not, we are now living in a post-truth world. When the truth no longer matters, scientific evidence and objective facts are devalued, even ridiculed. “Alternative facts,” “fake news” and purposeful and conscious lying and concealment become the bewildering coin of the realm.

Those seeking the truth are forced to wander through a maze of confusion, obfuscation, contradiction and deception. Public discourse becomes punctuated by personal attack, intolerance and a lack of dignity and respect. Integrity, fairness and civility are compromised in the service of influencing the narrative and outcome.

In a post-truth world, each person’s interpretation of events and the story they create to explain these events is viewed as equally viable, plausible and valuable. Truth itself is perceived as relative — not absolute.

Scholars have contributed to a post-truth world by promoting the notion that the concept of absolute truth is philosophically naive and that any attempt to discover it is a futile undertaking. Psychologists have also contributed with theories about the fluidity of the truth-stories we tell ourselves and how we may learn to construct new, more positive narratives to undue past destructive ones.

What are the psychological and emotional consequences of living in a post-truth world? As a private practicing psychologist who has been doing psychotherapy for 40 years, I have a historical perspective that allows me to discern how the recent assault on truth is impacting the people who come to me for help, as well as those in the community at large.

It is evident that there is something important taking place now that was nowhere near as obvious or pronounced in the past. And that is a growing fundamental disequilibrium in of our sense of reality. It has become more difficult to determine what is fact versus fiction. The facts, evidence and logic that used to buttress our truths are no longer so reliable. Nor are the media sources of news on which we had come to rely on.

Trust in our basic sense of reality and what we know to be true, along with our own perception of internal and external events, is being challenged. When the ground of our sense of reality experiences an earthquake, our basic security is shaken along with it. More than 1,000 psychotherapists have recently signed a “statement of concern” that supports the negative impact on their patients this blurring of their sense of reality is having on them.

Without a firm ground of reality to support us, we become less sure of our decision-making in all areas of our lives. Personal safety is threatened, as we no longer can count on our governmental institutions to protect us. We become more unsure of our future, sometimes to a paralyzing degree, leading to pessimism and dread rather than optimism and hope.

When our psychological stability is shaken, we are susceptible to loosening our own valuing of truth. We become vulnerable to doing the same lying and deception that is modeled to us by those in power because we have been given a tacit approval that these behaviors are acceptable and may even be necessary for survival — rather than being viewed as morally reprehensible.

It is not surprising that this disruption in our sense of security may lead to anxiety, depression, confusion and despair. Nor that it may lead to anger, rage, paranoia, polarizing of emotions and intolerance.

With all the media attention to the political aspects of our forced adaptation to living in a post-truth world, let us not overlook the powerful accompanying psychological and emotional consequences that may undermine our basic sense of mental health and well-being.

Steven Hendlin

Newport Beach

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