I am a little mixed in my reaction to last week's lecture. I guess that is because both of the messages were a mix of pessimism and optimism. It is sad to think that the majority of Americans are acted upon, rather than acting themselves, in regard to art and entertainment. At the same time there is a certain amount of democracy to it "popular (or mass)" culture.

I am not a scientist, but like Joel said in class, I am a little hesitant to trust Gottlieb's statement that Mira Loma is the fifth most polluted area in the world. It certainly is bad, but I am a little suspicioous that he (or those he was quoting) are tweaking the statistics a little.

It is interesting that we talk so much about the city's water acquisition, as this really is central to a city's growth potential. There is actually a geographic/meterological line stretching across the continent (North to South) somewhere around Wichita, Kansas. The majority of the places West of this line cannot support agriculture on almost any scale without irrigation. There is simply not enough rainfall in the (in the areas flat enough to cultivate) West of this line, including most of California. So, of course these cities are forced, if they are going to exist, to get the water from somewhere else. The Pacific Northwest is, obviously, an exception to this, but this principle holds true most everywhere else. Sometimes I wonder what Los Angeles (and the rest of Southern California) would be like if all of the corrupt water acquisition hadn't taken place...don't get me worng, I am not, in any way, saying that what happened was right or justified!