Harris, Trump and a lesson in what it means to be civil

A political science student holds his bingo card during presidential debate watch party at Price Room at Vanguard University.

By Carol CormaciDaily Pilot Executive Editor

Sept. 18, 2024 9 AM PT

Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Sept. 18. I’m Carol Cormaci bringing you this week’s TimesOC newsletter with a look at some of the latest local news and events.

Civility, from where I sit, seems to have very nearly dissipated into the atmosphere during our highly polarized times. Should it really be so very difficult for adults to at least pretend to respect one another? Apparently so, based on what one observes in today’s world of politics when much of the population seems all too inured to lies and name-calling spewed at fellow candidates seen more as enemies than as worthy opponents.

So I couldn’t wait to read my colleague Matt Szabo’s report on the presidential debate watch party that Vanguard University held as part of its “Year of Civility.”

If you follow that link above on the Christian college’s website, you’ll find the description of this endeavor. In it, Jess Van Winkle, assistant director of student development and success, writes that the nature of Vanguard’s campus “lends itself to building meaningful community, and we want to see that community flourish, especially as we work through the tensions of an election year. Our student leaders will be pressing into the picture of community in Ephesians 4:2 and learn what it means to ‘bear with one another in love’ this year.”

That’s a heady goal in these divisive days. The 90-minute debate between former President Trump and current Vice President Kamala Harris served as an apt lesson plan last week.

Matt’s coverage of the school’s watch party starts with the moment the two presidential candidates stepped onto the stage:

“Vice President Kamala Harris extended a handshake to former President Donald Trump before Tuesday night’s presidential debate in Philadelphia.

“Thousands of miles away, dozens of Vanguard University students at a debate watch party on campus in Costa Mesa marked their bingo cards.

“‘Extends a handshake’ was one of the positive items listed on the university’s presidential debate bingo game.

“Other, more negative items included “‘interrupts their counterpart,’ ‘polarization’ and ‘avoids a question.’”

I don’t know who held the winning bingo card that night, but from my recollection of the debate I’d imagine there were plenty of times a student could wield their bingo dauber and fill in a square. Right?

It’s so great to know civility is being taught, if not in the home, at least somewhere.

One of the students Matt interviewed following the main event that night was Asher Russ, 20, junior history and political science student.

“Our generation, at least my age and younger, has never seen a civil election,” Russ said. “I don’t know what that looks like. So for me, this hasn’t been super out of the ordinary, because in my head, an election being crazy and everyone yelling at each other is the norm.

“Back in the day, say a neighbor mows their lawn differently than you,” Russ continued. “You’d say, ‘Oh, they just like to mow their lawn different.’ But now, it would be like, ‘They mow their lawn differently, they must be a terrible person.’ Instead of thinking someone with different political ideation just believes or thinks different than you, you attribute negative characteristics to them.”

In his converstation with the reporter, the 20-year-old also referred to a clip he’d seen of presidential candidate John McCain on the campaign trail in 2008. McCain took the microphone from a supporter who called opponent Barack Obama an Arab and said Obama was a “decent family man, citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”

“That’s a super-crazy video because that would just never happen now,” Russ said. “It just wouldn’t. I hope we can get back to that.”

MORE NEWS

Fountain Valley firefighters battle a house fire as the the Airport fire burns in the Santa Ana Mountains on Sept. 10.

• The Airport fire that began in Orange County’s Trabuco Canyon on the afternoon of Sept. 9 and rapidly began chewing up acreage from there into Riverside County is still being battled. As of yesterday afternoon, fire officials reported it had consumed 23,519 acres and was 31% contained. Resources assigned to fight it included 2,037 personnel, 17 helicopters, 102 engines, 25 dozers, 34 water tenders and 65 crews. A total of 160 structures had been destroyed, 34 damaged and 14 injuries had been confirmed. TimesOC reported Sunday that within 20 minutes after the fire was first reported an email went out to volunteers with the Orange County Animal Response Team seeking assistance in rescuing horses in its path. That call to action was heard. In all, 154 horses were hauled to safety by volunteers that first day and 168 more were evacuated the next day.

• Garden Grove pastor David Lin, who was imprisoned in China for 20 years, was released over the weekend and has returned to the United States, the L.A. Times reports. The 68-year-old Lin was one of three Americans considered by the State Department to be “wrongfully detained” in China. He had been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of contract fraud related to his efforts raising money to build a church in China, a charge his family and the State Department denied.

A speaker addresses the City Council about recalling Westminster council member Amy Phan West.

• Westminster residents would be wise to take a close look their representatives on the City Council. According to recent TimesOC stories including this one that ran over the weekend, the panel has become somewhat dysfunctional, and chaotic meetings have become the norm.

PUBLIC SAFETY & COURTS

Cars are diverted Sunday off the 73 freeway, where a wrong-way collision resulted in a vehicle fire that killed a driver.

• One motorist was killed and another hospitalized Sunday night after a wrong-way vehicle crash on the Corona Del Mar (73) Freeway in Newport Beach closed all southbound lanes for several hours, the California Highway Patrol confirmed Monday. Officers received the call at 9:26 p.m. alerting them to an SUV traveling northbound in southbound lanes. Moments later it was reported the SUV, which turned out to be a Land Rover, had collided head-on with a BMW sedan. It was the wrong-way driver who died in the crash.

• Huntington Beach Police Department’s Major Crimes Unit is investigating an incident being treated as a homicide that took place at around 2 a.m. Sunday near the intersection of Olive Avenue and Main Street, where a man whose identity was not immediately released to the public was found with significant unspecified injuries by officers responding to a call. The man died of those injuries after being transported to a hospital. Longboard Restaurant & Bar, 217 Main St., posted on social media that the incident took place in front of the restaurant.

SPORTS

Chicago White Sox's Jacob Amaya, below, scores on a single by Luis Robert Jr.

• The Angels racked up their 90th loss of the season Monday when they fell to the last-place White Sox, 8-4. It was their sixth straight loss and it came in the team’s 150th game, the earliest it has reached that mark in franchise history, the Associated Press reported. The two teams met again in Angel Stadium last night, after newsletter deadline.

• The AP also reported three-time American League MVP Mike Trout is open to discussing a position change with the Angels after he has missed 370 games during the past four seasons due to injuries. “Everything’s on the table,” he told reporters before Monday night’s game.

• Mark Phillip Oster, 64, a Huntington Beach resident who served as a referee and coach in the American Youth Soccer Organization pleaded guilty last Wednesday to a federal charge, admitting that he hid a camera in a location where he knew an underage girl in his care would disrobe and persuaded a second child in a foreign country to send him nude photos of herself. Oster was associated with AYSO from 2015 through 2021.

LIFE & LEISURE

Light peeks through a window inside Youth Training School, a former youth prison in Chino.

• Brea photographer David Reeve passed one of the state’s most violent youth prisons, the Heman G. Stark Youth Correction Facility in Chino, on his daily work commute. Intrigued, he researched the defunct facility also known as Youth Training School and reached out to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for permission to go into the dilapidated facility to document what he could find inside. Through his photographs and website, Gladiator School, he’s made connections with some of its former residents and in doing so, reunited one of them with a boxing trophy the man had won decades ago but left behind when he was set free. For this moving feature story, my Daily Pilot colleague Eric Licas interviewed Reeve and Tony “The Tiger” Espinosa, the one-time boxing champ who recalled the grim reality of his years there.

CALENDAR THIS

A Newport Beach resident picks up small pieces of trash along the jetty at the mouth of the Santa Ana River.

• California Coastal Cleanup Day is this Saturday. Locally, Newport Bay Conservancy is among the nonprofits that will sponsor a cleanup from 9 a.m. to noon. Volunteers will meet directly at a dozen different mini-cleanup day sites around the 11-mile bay including the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center, Newport Aquatic Center, Big Canyon, Vista Point, Jamboree Bridge, etc. Register here to lend a hand.

• The Doyzinki Harvest Festival showcasing Polish culture will take place this weekend at Pope John Paul II Polish Center, at 3999 Rose Drive in Yorba Linda. Polish folk dancers in traditional costumes will perform, and food such as freshly prepared stuffed cabbage, traditional pierogi, Polska kielbasa and Polish beer will be served. Saturday’s hours are noon to 11 p.m.; Sunday begins with a Polish Mass and Harvest Procession at 10:30 a.m., and activities continue through 4 p.m.

• A screening of the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival World Tour will be hosted by Orange Coast College Friends of the Library on Wednesday, Sept. 25. The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Robert B. Moore Theatre on the OCC campus in Costa Mesa and feature an international selection of films presenting a wide range of outdoor adventures. Advance tickets can be purchased for $16 or $20 the day of the screening. Tickets for current OCC students with ID are $10. Advance tickets can be purchased online at OCC.

Until next Wednesday!

Best,
Carol

KEEP IN TOUCH

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