Here are five things that caught my attention!
This week: I want to thank many of you who have reached out to me and family this week. The outpouring of support has been greatly appreciated. For those of you who don’t know, in the early morning hours of Wednesday we were awoken to the sound of smoke detectors in our house. The front of our house was engulfed in flames but we were all able to escape without injury. I am very grateful for the fast response of the San Diego Police and Fire Departments (firefighters brought us a very touching gift). Thank you to those that have kept my family in your thoughts and prayers.
ICYMI: It’s been overshadowed by Wednesday’s fire, but on Tuesday, I was honored with a second consecutive term as Chair of the Board, and my friend Supervisor Nora Vargas was again selected to serve again as Vice Chair of the Board. It was a unanimous and bi-partsan vote (those still happen). It’s rare for Chairs to serve consecutive terms (you have to go back to the 1940s to find the last time this happened) but it speaks to the progress we are making and work left to be done. You can watch my remarks from being selected as Chair.
A good rat: We generally don’t have initial positive thoughts when someone talks about a rat. But this week, the world lost one heroic rat. Magawa was a specially trained rat in Cambodia who was trained to help sniff out landmines. In his life, he cleared more than 2.4 million square feet of land and no doubt saved lives. Many years ago, I had the chance to do some work in Cambodia and am familiar with the ever present dangers of landmines. A good rat, indeed. RIP Magawa.
Racism: Another week, another disgusting example of the coarsening of American politics. This week a Republican candidate for the Texas State House called for Chinese students to be banned from all Texas colleges. This is the type of racism that used to be expressed via dog whistle messaging, now it's broadcast through social media bullhorns. These are the types of messages that promote hate crimes against the AAPI community and divide communities. We desperately need more good people to go into public service, but first we have to clean up our politics.
Please: Smoke detectors can save your life. They woke us up at 4am and gave us the time we needed to escape our fire. Please take a minute today to check the ones in your home. If you don’t have any, please install them ASAP. If you can’t afford them please call my office and we will help. (619) 531-5544.