January 3, 2001

Two decades of Artichoke awards

This column marks the twentieth time I've presented the Artichoke Awards around this time of year. If you receive a Golden Artichoke, congratulations. You've done something right, at least in my estimation. A Purple Artichoke, on the other hand, as an item of food is undesirable. As an award? Not much better, but it's only my opinion, after all.

Posthumous Golden Artichokes to Grace McCarthy and Jack Billmire, two who will be missed. The many eulogies for Grace were appropriate and deserved, yet not enough to do her justice. Her long life was too short. Jack Billmire deserves, not an artichoke, but a fuchsia. He'd made himself an expert in this beautiful flower, the symbol of our city. That he's responsible for the Grace McCarthy Fuchsia is appropriate. That they died in such a short span of time is ironic. That the Pacifica branch of the American Fuchsia Society folded its wings almost immediately is even more ironic, especially in a city so proud of its fuchsias and with such an ideal climate for them.

A Purple Artichoke to Mary Sheppard for her criticism of the plantings In Linda Mar Center. Her recent letter to the editor wasn't necessarily all wrong, but it was negative and incomplete. If oleanders are the wrong choice, what would she suggest? What's the problem with pyracantha? I've given Linda Mar shopping center Purple Artichokes in the past, but it doesn't seem fair to criticize them so soon after the owners spent millions in a huge effort to revamp and update the place. It's vastly improved. If employees don't use employee parking spaces, perhaps some senior citizens should be hired to enforce the parking rules.

Ms. Sheppard's favorable comments on the plantings in the traffic islands on Linda Mar Blvd. caused me to take a closer look. Her praise is well-deserved.

A whole bouquet of Purple Artichokes to AT and T Broadband. TCI was bad enough. When AT&T took over it raised prices unreasonably, changed many of the channels in an arbitrary fashion, including Channel 8, and has given us all even less local control over this part of our lives than we had before. Monopolies give me a pain. And Lord Acton was right.

A Purple'un to all those businesses so concerned to save money on the folks who answer their phones they've forgotten why they're in business. If you anger or frustrate half your callers, have you advanced your own cause? With competition getting fiercer by the day, and big chains like Ward's, Penneys and Sears in such deep trouble, can any business afford to antagonize its customer base when they call? Recordings are no substitute for living people who can answer questions in five seconds that machines take ten annoying minutes to do and do badly or not at all.

Golden Artichokes to all the folks who've done so much work to revamp the schools of Laguna Salada. From the board and the administration to the teachers and non-teaching staff, they seem to have found the means and the energy to accomplish things needed for a long time. I don't know enough about the details to give the proper credit to all the right people, but it's obvious there's a lot going on and good things are happening. The kids will benefit.

Paul Azevedo has a new e mail address, thereactor@earthlink.net, and a new website listing, http://home.earthlink.net/~thereactor/