Reject legislation that will increase costs, clog our courts, and enrich plaintiffs’ lawyers

• July 4, 2023

Plaintiffs’ lawyers are at it again. They are pushing for policies that will further drive up the cost of doing business in California and saddle our over-burdened courts with more unnecessary litigation. It should be no surprise these policies will make lawyers richer.

One of their favorite policy goals – to eliminate arbitration rights – is advancing through the Legislature, on the heels of AB 51, another anti-arbitration law, being struck down. Enacted by the California Legislature in 2019, AB 51 prohibited employers from requiring arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held in February of this year that AB 51 is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Action (FAA), which disallows state laws that restrict arbitration.

Arbitration allows workers, consumers, and businesses to resolve disputes without costly and time-consuming lawsuits. Instead of going to court, the parties meet in a less formal setting such as a conference room, and a neutral person, like a retired judge or a lawyer mutually selected by the parties, hears and decides the case.

The California Supreme Court has recognized that “arbitration has become an accepted and favored method of resolving disputes, praised by the courts as an expeditious and economical method of relieving overburdened civil calendars.” Madden v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, 17 Cal.3d 699, 706-707 (1976). Businesses often ask employees and consumers at the start of their relationship to agree that any disputes that arise will be resolved through arbitration.

Recent studies show that employees and consumers fare better with arbitration. Arbitration is faster and employees are three times more likely to win in arbitration than in court. Employees on average win twice as much in arbitration than in court, i.e., $520,630 versus $269,885. And consumers on average won more as well – over $10,000 more on average per case in arbitration rather than in court.

The group that benefits the least from arbitration are plaintiffs’ lawyers. The more that cases drag on in protracted, complex litigation, the higher their billable hours and attorneys’ fees awards.

This year, the plaintiffs’ lawyer lobby came up with a new approach to undermine arbitration. Authored by California Senator Scott Wiener, Senate Bill 365 proposes to eliminate automatic stays – a pause on a lawsuit from going forward – when the parties disagree over whether the case should go to arbitration. The reason for this is common sense. The point of arbitration is to avoid draining resources on court litigation, so if court litigation is allowed to go forward on a case that should go to arbitration, it undoes the benefits of arbitration and defeats the purpose of having an agreement to arbitrate.

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Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, held that federal district courts must grant stays of litigation while an appeal of a denial of arbitration is pending. Otherwise “many of the asserted benefits of arbitration (efficiency, less expense, less intrusive discovery, and the like) would be irretrievably lost.” (Coinbase, Inc. v. Bielski, 599 U.S. (2023).) The same rationale should apply to litigation in California courts.

In support of SB 365, the proponents allege that businesses are filing appeals to create delay, but this overlooks a business reality. Businesses want to resolve disputes quickly; the longer cases fester, including in conflicts over arbitration, the higher the costs they incur. They will appeal a denial to arbitrate, however, if required to protect and defend their important right to arbitrate.

At a time when our state is under extreme economic pressure, SB 365, if enacted, will waste resources. The wide use of arbitration agreements in California creates the potential for significant caseload increases for our clogged courts, as every lawsuit is allowed to go forward, even while the question of arbitration remains pending. The state will also be on the hook for significant costs if SB 365 is challenged in court as preempted by the FAA like AB 51, which was litigated for over three years.

We strongly urge our state leaders to reject SB 365.

Kyla Christoffersen Powell is president and CEO of the Civil Justice Association of California, a source of expertise in legal reform and advocacy for almost half a century.

​ Orange County Register 

Recipe: Have a lot of summer squash? Try making this salad

• July 4, 2023

This time of year, summer gardens and farmers markets yield an abundance of squash, primarily yellow crookneck, and zucchini. Here’s a delicious salad that uses both varieties raw, cut into 3/8-inch dice.

Olives make a great garnish for this colorful mix. Their salty brininess adds an appealing contrast. Olives with their pits still in place taste better than pitted, but if using the unpitted beauties, be sure to put them off to the side rather than atop each serving so guests have a better visual clue that they aren’t pitted.

For a vegetarian version, omit the salami.

Summer Squash Orzo Salad

Yield: 6 servings

1 teaspoon salt

8 ounces orzo (rice-shaped pasta)

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 medium yellow crookneck squash, trimmed, cut in 3/8-inch dice

2 medium zucchini squash, trimmed, cut in 3/8-inch dice

1/2 large red onion, cut in 1/4inch dice

1 red bell pepper, cored, seeded, cut into 3/8-inch dice

1 cup grape tomatoes or cherry, halved lengthwise

Minced zest of 1 lemon (colored portion of peel)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley

4 cups washed fresh baby spinach or mixed baby greens

1 ounce salami, cut in 1/8-inch dice

1/2 cup crumbled feta

1/2 cup drained olives, such as kalamata or Niçoise

Optional garnish: Microgreens

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring large pot of water to boil on high heat. Add 1 teaspoon salt and orzo; cook until al dente. Drain, refresh with cold water. Drain and toss with 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil. Set aside.

2. Place squash, red onion, bell pepper and tomatoes in large bowl. Gently toss. In small bowl or 4-cup measuring cup with handle, combine zest, juice, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt, pepper and parsley. Stir to thoroughly combine. Pour on vegetables and toss. Add orzo and toss. Taste and adjust seasoning.

3. Divide spinach between 6 small plates. Top with vegetable-orzo mixture. Sprinkle each serving with diced salami and crumble feta on top. Place a small pile of olives off to the side of each salad. If desired, scatter some microgreens (tiny immature greens) on top of salad.

Source: “Melissa’s Everyday Cooking with Organic Produce” by Cathy Thomas (Wiley)

Cooking question? Contact Cathy Thomas at [email protected]

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​ Orange County Register 

Community input needed to name new Santa Ana parks

• July 4, 2023

The city wants help from community members to name two new parks coming to Santa Ana.

One project at Standard and McFadden avenues is adding a park with a playground, an area for skateboarding, a basketball court, picnic tables, and a grassy area for lounging and picnicking. The park is expected to open to the public this October.

Residents can submit their name ideas in an online forum or vote for one of the pre-submitted options: Cornerstone Park, Gerardo Mouet Park or Hibiscus Park. Mouet served many years as Santa Ana’s parks and recreation director.

A rendering of the proposed dog park. Santa Ana dog owners, along with their pets, met with city officials in Santa Ana to discuss an undeveloped portion of Centennial Park. They are talking about building the city’s first dog park on Saturday September 7, 2022.(Photos by Karen Tapia, Contributing Photographer)

The second project needing a name will be a dog play space in Centennial Park. The city is remaking 4.6 acres of Centennial into a dog park that will have separate areas for large dogs, smaller dogs, and older and disabled dogs. Pets will also be able to enjoy a water play area to splash around in and a separate wash station. A new recreational area will include a walking path, bench seats and picnic tables.

This project has been identified as a priority by the city, officials said, and is in the early stages of development while funding is being identified. Some pre-selected name options are Bark Park at Centennial Park, Happy Tails at Centennial Park, Perros al Lado del Río en Centennial Park, Puskas Memorial Dog Park, and Tail Trails at Centennial Park. Puskas was a former police dog in the Santa Ana department.

If you want to suggest your own names for the parks, some guidelines the city has include names could reference distinct geographic, environmental or development features in the immediate area, reference the history of the subject site or its immediate area, or identify a notable community member, which could include officials, but not anyone who currently holds any such position.

The deadline to make suggestions or cast votes for names for both parks is July 14 and can be done at at santa-ana.org/help-us-name-our-parks. They will be reviewed at the next Parks, Recreation and Community Services Commission on July 27.

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​ Orange County Register 

Orange starts off Independence Day celebrations with July 3 fireworks

• July 4, 2023

The city of Orange kicked off the holiday this week with a bang.

The city has a tradition of kick-starting the celebration of American Independence with a fireworks show for the community on July 3. Crowds turned out at Grijalva Park for entertainment and the sky show.

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​ Orange County Register 

Beach Boys deliver Fourth of July ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ at Hollywood Bowl

• July 4, 2023

Is there anything more quintessentially SoCal than the Beach Boys at the Hollywood Bowl?

It’s indeed the perfect pairing of two of Los Angeles’ most notable music icons — which is why fans were so excited when it was announced that the heroes from Hawthorne would be playing three nights, July 2-4, at the 101-year-old venue.

The run adds to the lengthy history between the two entities, dating back to the first time the group played the Bowl, in 1963. Head Beach Boy Mike Love dubbed the 60-year stretch nothing short of a “miracle” during the band’s highly enjoyable concert on Monday night (July 3).

The band was at the Bowl as part of this year’s July Fourth Fireworks Spectacular — one of Los Angeles’ most beloved summertime traditions — and, as such, was joined onstage by the mighty Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, conducted in joyful fashion by Thomas Wilkins.

. @TheBeachBoys deliver hit after hit at @HollywoodBowl pic.twitter.com/zPZFWbU9DH

— Jim Harrington (@jimthecritic) July 4, 2023

The Beach Boys were also joined by actor and occasional band member John Stamos, who is still best known for playing Jesse Katsopolis on the ABC sitcom “Full House.”

“Because of the (writers) strike, I think he is more available to us than usual,” Love said of Stamos.

The TV star certainly earned his keep onstage, splitting his time between playing guitar and banging on a drum kit (both of which were done up in red, white and blue) as he worked hard to engage the crowd and cheer on his fellow musicians. He even sang lead vocals on one song — “Forever” (from the 1970 Beach Boys’ album “Sunflower”).

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The group sounded brilliant, especially with the accompaniment of the full orchestra, as it opened the show with “Do It Again” from 1969’s “20/20” and then raced even further back in time for the title track off the 1962 debut album “Surfin’ Safari.”

“Disney Girls (1957)” was a definite highlight, featuring sweetly nostalgic lead vocals from Bruce Johnston and providing plenty of space for the orchestra’s string section to softly soar. The second half of the show featured a flurry of top-tier fan favorites, with the group at one point stringing together “God Only Knows,” “Sloop John B,” “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” “California Girls,” “Barbara Ann” and “Help Me, Rhonda” — aka, a half dozen of the best pop-rock songs ever written — without ever really pausing to take much of a breath.

The group closed the main set with the masterpiece “Good Vibrations” and then left the stage so that the symphony could provide a patriotic soundtrack for the brilliant overhead fireworks show. Then, as the rocket’s red glare faded from our eyes, the Beach Boys returned to serve up one more dish of “Fun, Fun, Fun.”

Fireworks and “Fun, Fun, Fun” as the legendary @TheBeachBoys celebrate Fourth of July at @HollywoodBowl pic.twitter.com/wXaGOnkF5E

— Jim Harrington (@jimthecritic) July 4, 2023

Setlist:

1. “Do It Again”

2. “Surfin’ Safari”

3. “Catch a Wave”

4. “Surfin’ U.S.A.”

5. “Surfer Girl”

6.”Don’t Worry Baby”

7. “Little Deuce Coupe”

8. “I Get Around”

9. “Be True to Your School”

10. “Getcha Back”

11. “Darlin’”

12. “Disney Girls (1957)”

13. “Forever”

14. “God Only Knows”

15. “Sloop John B”

16. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”

17. “California Girls”

18. “Barbara Ann”

19. “Help Me, Rhonda”

20. “Kokomo”

21. “Good Vibrations”

Encore

22. “Fun, Fun, Fun”

​ Orange County Register 

How David Smith and his wife Kelli are making a world of difference

• July 4, 2023

He was born into a world that did not understand him.

Hearing impaired since birth, he spent much of his young life searching through the silence and all its uncertainty, through his frustration, for a sense of place, a chance to be heard, for the most basic of human of needs: connection.

In sports, he found a place where the world could not ignore him.

On a court or field or playground he could not be avoided, dismissed.

Between the white lines David Smith found a home.

“For me, sports was who I am,” he said. “For me, especially growing up, it was a way to get on a level playing field. It doesn’t matter how well you speak or how well you can hear, you can go out there and you can kick a ball, shoot a ball, throw, run, hit whatever, you’re going to be accepted by kids. That’s all they care about at that age – can you hang with us?

“For me, sports was a way to show, hey, I can and I can even do it better than you sometimes. So to me that probably was the easiest way to connect with people and be part of a group and community.”

Smith, the former UC Irvine All-American and longtime middle blocker for Team USA, and his wife Kelli are still trying to level playing fields.

David Smith, now 38, is playing the best volleyball of a career that includes three Olympic Games as the U.S. heads into this week’s Volleyball Nations League at Anaheim Convention Center (July 4-9). Smith in May was named the most valuable player in the European Champions League Super Final after leading his club team, Poland’s Zaska Kedzierzyn-Kozle, to a third consecutive Champions League title.

Kelli Smith, meanwhile, with her grassroots fundraising and relentless problem solving has impacted hundreds of Ukrainian refugees who have flooded into Poland since Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

“My wife was especially moved to help those people because she knew as a mom and as a wife it’s tough to go to a country where you don’t speak the language, you don’t know a thing about the people around you, it’s scary,” Smith said. “So she wanted to give them some comfort, she wanted to give them some dignity.”

And a sense of connection.

A sense of belonging.

A SPARK

In the German tongue, in the Polish town

Scraped flat by the roller

Of wars, wars, wars

–”Daddy.” Sylvia Plath

At least once a month Kelli Smith, a cross country and track and field standout at UCI, runs through the thick forest that surrounds the village of Slawiecice near Kedzierzyn-Kozle.

David Smith played professionally in Germany, Spain and France before moving to Poland in 2016 to play for Czarni Radon in 2016 and eventually joining Zaska Kedzierzyn-Kozle in 2019.

“There was a sadness (in Poland) and I remember thinking, is it like this? Is this how Polish people are?” Kelli Smith said, recalling the family’s move to the country. “And instead of trying to judge them, I began reading more history, World War II and also Communism.”

She would also find the answer in the secrets of the woods.

In April 1942, the Nazis built a forced-labor camp for Jews known in the forest around Slawiecice, then part of Germany. When 120 workers contracted typhus they were transferred to Auschwitz where they were murdered. The remaining prisoners were moved to Blechhammer, a subcamp of Auschwitz concentration camp, built in April 1944 on 10 acres.

At least 5,500 prisoners from 15 countries would pass through Blechhammer, part of a network of Auschwitz sub-camps that contained 48,000 prisoners including 2,000 British POWs.

Prisoners at Blechhammer were housed in wooden barracks that had no toilets or running water. Prisoners determined unable to work by the SS were transferred to Auschwitz where they were murdered. Fifteen-hundred prisoners died at Blechammer and were burned in the camp’s crematorium. Healthy prisoners at Auschwitz were moved to Blechhammer.

With the Soviet arms fast approaching, the Nazis abandoned Blechhammer on January 21, 1945, and sent 4,000 prisoners on a 13 day death march to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Prisoners were given half a loaf of bread, a small portion of honey and margarine and half a sausage for the trip. More than 800 died or were murdered on the way to Gross-Rosen where they were put on trains and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Five days after the evacuation of Blechhammer, Nazi soldiers returned to the camp and began shooting some of the 100 or so prisoners who had been left in the camp’s infirmary. Prisoners still capable of walking were ordered to carry the dead to open trenches where they too were shot. The bodies were then covered in straw and gasoline and lit on fire.

On her first run through the forest near Slawiecice, Smith came across remnants of Blechhammer, the camp’s gate and the crematorium, its guard towers.

“Poland is not that far out of some very serious things going on politically,” she said. “So you have to look at everything through that lens and I was actually surprised by the immediate, initial response from Polish people because Polish-Ukrainian relations are fairly complicated historically but Polish people also know what it’s like to be conquered and to have a war in their country and to almost be obliterated as a country and so I think that resonated and people were like, we have to help.”

The Smiths felt a similar calling.

Kelli Smith had previously worked with non-profit groups dealing with child advocacy, literacy and addressing poverty in India.

“The second the invasion happened and the second she had an opportunity to help the people in Ukraine, I just saw the immediate reaction,” David Smith said. “She was just immediately drawn to the pain and the suffering, what she could do to help. She was not, well she never is, content to just sit back and let the world pass her by. She wants to be a voice of change. She wants to be a spark.”

She connected with a local group sending goods to groups working with refugees on the Poland-Ukraine border.

“We were collecting goods to send to the border and so we started buying diapers and had some old cell phones to donate and was posting about that and a couple people from the U.S. said, ‘Oh, can I send you money and you buy stuff on our behalf and send it to the refugees as well?’” Kelli Smith recalled. “And at the time that was kind of the gateway and I mentioned to a couple of people I met here, like, ‘Hey, if something bigger comes up, I think I might be able to raise a little bit of money to do something bigger.’ My thought was maybe I can raise like $10,000 dollars. So I told a few people here that I knew and I think maybe a week into it a friend got back to me and said there’s something we need help with. And it was just kind of interesting that their idea of a bigger thing was so different from my idea of a bigger thing.”

Among the thousands of Ukrainian refugees coming into the area near Kedzierzyn-Kozle were children who had been forced to abandon among other things their education. The Smiths were made aware through friends that also among the refugees was a teacher. The woman, however, could not legally teach in Poland until her teaching credential was translated from Ukrainian to Polish.

“She didn’t have any money,” David Smith said. “She literally just fled across the border with a backpack. That’s all she had. She didn’t have the couple hundred bucks to translate this document so she couldn’t turn around and help a class of Ukrainian children, orphan kids. Have a class so they can have an education. Have a place where they could go be with friends who are in a similar situation as them.”

Kelli Smith recalled, “The big ask was $250 U.S.”

“I could have done that myself but I was like, let me engage my friends and see if someone wants to help and I posted on social media and within 10, 15 minutes we had more than double that amount,” she continued. “So I was like, ‘OK, maybe I really could do something more.’”

Team USA libero Erik Shoji also plays for Zaska Kedzierzyn-Kozle and lives in a downstairs apartment in the home where the Smiths and their two children, Cohen and Amelie, live. Shoji has nearly 200,000 followers on Instagram.

Kelli scheduled a follow-up meeting with the person trying to put together a school for the refugee children and then took to social media, including posting on Shoji’s account during a Zaska match.

“I was thinking let’s raise around $10,000, and within the first 2 ½ days, just saying on social media, ‘Hey, friends, I’m going to raise some money, it’s going to go directly to Ukrainians but I don’t know what that will look like, I don’t know anything right now, I have a meeting on Monday with somebody who’s really hands-on helping people, but if you know me you can trust me, I’m going to give every dollar directly there,’” Smith recalled. “And I just posted my Venmo and my PayPal and said any transaction cost, don’t worry about that, I’ll cover that, it’s all going to go dollar for dollar to Ukrainians. So by the time we had that meeting, we had about $17,000. So it well exceeded our goal, our expectations. So that day we were able to commit to around $10,000 to that contact. He had this big dream of starting some classes for Ukrainian kids in this small village.”

Within a week, Smith’s fundraising had opened a classroom for 18 Ukrainian students. It also covered a clothing allowance and school supplies for each student, and a printer for the classroom.

Before long Smith had also raised enough money to open and furnish a preschool in a cleared-out attic. She raised money for a junior high classroom and purchased a laptop for each student so they could also stay connected with their schools back in Ukraine.

“So from there it just kind of snowballed and I have a good friend here, named Marta, who is like my right hand and people here knew I was trying to help the Ukrainians, so they’d call her and say, ‘Hey, this family just arrived,’ they need clothes or a bike or they need food.” Smith said. “And so it just went like that and we made more and more contacts for people here that we really came to trust and as of right now we’ve raised $88,000. Which is just like crazy, through my Venmo and my PayPal. And it’s just become word of mouth. At the beginning it was just a lot of people that I knew personally, again, through my church community, through my non-profit work, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing tons of people who have had similar passions and feelings toward giving to other people, from there they shared, ‘Hey, I know Kelli personally, I trust her, she’s going to do what she says.’ So that led to kids doing bake sales in Hawaii raising thousands of dollars, people I’ve never met.”

A pair of eighth grade boys in New York sent $1,000 they made as part of a class project selling snacks to their classmates. Mariners Elementary School in Newport Harbor, the school Cohen Smith attends when the family is in the U.S., raised around $5,000.

“It’s gone beyond what I ever thought,” Kelli said. “I never thought it would go on this long. Here we are at the end of June. Not just the war, but my efforts. Last year I usually come home to the U.S. so I thought by April, I would be done and it was like I still have a lot of money so I kept working with my partners, even when I was in the U.S., and it’s like every time I get close to having almost zero, something has popped up and there’s new donations. I still haven’t had to say no to anything.”

For a time, Smith said, “it was basically my full-time job, shopping 8 hours of time. Five hundred pounds of potatoes, 200 pounds of onions. Buy them from a local farmer. So I’m helping the farmer but I’m helping the Ukrainians. Which is interesting. People saw they gave money and then they saw exactly what I was doing. It’s really a concrete thing to see a huge crate of vegetables that I bought and to see that, ‘Oh, my goodness, $250 bought like hundreds of pounds of dry goods.’”

Smith’s efforts have continued even as she has battled the lingering effects of COVID. She has suffered from asthma since high school, a condition made all the more worse by her two bouts of COVID.

“Post COVID, my lungs just aren’t the same and I have to medicate daily just to keep it, weird symptoms at bay, vomit, dizzying,” she said. “Every three to four months having chest pains like having a 10 pound (weight) sitting on my chest at all times. Get dizzy, lightheaded, legs like jello.”

Smith was hospitalized for three days in December.

She refused, however, to be slowed.

Quarantined because of COVID, Smith created a running path around her backyard.

“Thirty laps around the garden is a mile,” she said. “Got up to nine miles. 270 laps. Too much. Erik would take time lapses from his kitchen window, half concrete, half snow, you could see the exact path I ran.”

Her impact can also be seen all over her community.

Recently Smith’s efforts helped fund a renovation and conversion of a building into a community center. Funds have paid for swim passes for families at a local facility, bikes and scooters for children, things to help create a sense of normalcy and connection in a new and often strange place.

“There are some growing pains for some of them,” Kelli said. “Some of them are doing really well and some of them are having growing pains with just different situations so I’m just available to help in those growing pains and financial situations because of this or that. But also I want to help families just have a normal life and be able to do different things. Like, be able to go to the swimming pool and not have to sacrifice their real necessities, to allow their kids to have a normal moment, a normal childhood. So that’s been a big emphasis the whole time: sometimes there are things that are necessities but there are also things, like we all have, preferences and just because you’re a refugee doesn’t mean you don’t get to have a preference.

“Like the old woman who asked, ‘May I buy just one lipstick at the pharmacy on our shopping trip?’ And I said, ‘Of course.’ It’s buying scooters and bikes for kids. They don’t need scooters and bikes, but it lets them be regular kids because they’ve experienced things they shouldn’t have to. So it’s really been about building community relationships. It’s just being ready for whatever comes. Sometimes there are weeks where I don’t hear from anyone and sometimes there are a few things that hit right in a row.

“I just keep waiting for the next thing to see what it is.”

THE SMOJIS

David Smith has never used his hearing impairment as an excuse.

His mother, Nancy, wouldn’t have let him even if he had wanted to.

While getting her teaching credential at Cal State Northridge, Nancy Smith also learned American Sign Language. She went on to teach deaf students in the LAUSD.

“Just happenstance,” David Smith said, shaking his head.

“It just so happened that when I was born she was more equipped than she thought she would be,” Smith continued. “Obviously they didn’t know right away but it was just a miracle how that happened. I think she probably had a little more confidence in how to deal with the situation and advocate for me.

“I think a lot of people with a disability, whether it’s hearing, vision or developmental, it, you’re overwhelmed if you haven’t had any experience with that. But my Mom knew a lot of people who are deaf, even more than I am, but are very capable. So it wasn’t like, ‘Oh, woe is me. Woe is my child.’ It was like I can do this and they can do this too. She’s been my advocate for me, she’s been a rock for me, especially early on in my life.

“Didn’t allow me to go to that default excuse of why I can’t do things. No, you can do it.”

After graduating from Saugus High School, he led UCI to the NCAA title in 2007. Two years later he joined the U.S. national team.

Since the 2010-11 season, club teams featuring Smith as the middle have won 18 league titles or national cups. In four seasons with Zaska Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Smith has won a Polish league title, three Polish Cups, two Polish Super Cups and the last three Champions League crowns.

“David Smith has been one of the most important players for Zaksa throughout their incredible run of success in the CEV Champions League Volley in the last three seasons,” read the Champions League news release announcing Smith as the league’s MVP. “The American middle blocker’s performance in the SuperFinals this past weekend cannot be fully described by just looking at the statistics. His 13 points (4 kill blocks/2 aces) came at the perfect time for his team, almost choosing the hardest moments of the match to shine.”

Shoji, 33, has also played a major role in Zaska’s success.

Shoji, college volleyball’s first ever four-year All-American while at Stanford, comes from volleyball royalty. His father Dave Shoji is the winningest coach in women’s Division I college history, guiding Hawaii to four national championships before retiring in 2017. Erik’s older brother Kawika was an All-American setter at Stanford and longtime member of the U.S. national team, joining Erik and Smith in claiming a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

In the Smiths, Shoji has found a second family in Poland.

Shoji has an apartment with its own entrance on the first floor of the Smith’s house but usually can be found upstairs with the family.

“I wonder in the beginning,” Kelli said, recalling when her husband first invited Shoji to move into the house. “We weren’t that close. Knew his brother better than Erik. Will he be annoyed by us, you know two kids?”

But Shoji and the Smiths have become so close that they created a new family name on social media: the Smojis.

“We just decided, combine our names together,” Shoji said. “I’m part of the family.”

To Cohen and Amelie, Shoji is “Uncle E.”

Cohen, 11, recently had to do a report for school detailing where in the world he would like to go and with whom.

He wrote, “Go to Tokyo with Uncle E because he’ll know all the great places to eat.”

“I joke he’s like my third child because I feed him most of the time,” Kelli said. “He’ll text me, especially after games, ‘What do we have to eat?’ Erik and I really connect really well. Really good friendship. We get each other. So sometimes I feel like I’m his person here when he needs to vent something. He knows he can do that with me. It’s funny because last year when I went home in April. His dad texted me, ‘Who is going to take care of Erik now?’”

“I was like he’s fine. He can take care of himself.”

David Smith has come to view Shoji as more than just a teammate.

“It’s a friendship that has been taken to another level just because we can spend so much time together,” Smith said. “We rely on each other a lot, and my wife, and my kids love him as well. I love him as a teammate and a friend and we’ve developed a really good relationship over the last couple of years. We’ve spent so much time together that people just joke that we’re just one family and we are. Not by blood, but by circumstance, what we’ve gone through.”

That journey includes the disappointment of failing to medal at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, a memory that continues to haunt Smith and Shoji as they head into this week’s Nations League play.

“To get to the top, to get that gold medal at the next Olympics that’s obviously our main goal, our main target for the next year,” Smith said “We always talk about the margin being thin, razor thin, the difference between good and great is like one ball. How do we have the discipline and muscle memory and chemistry that those points count when you need to? So I don’t think there needs to be a whole overhaul of offensive systems, defensive systems, blah, blah, blah. I think it’s really about playing a little bit more efficiently together and at the end, you need a little bit of luck for sure. The ball touches the line, ball’s out a centimeter and it changes the whole game sometimes. But I truly do believe you make your own luck and put yourself in that situation to take advantage of that luck every once in a while. I think we have a great group. I think we have a ton of talent, ton of experience and I’m super excited to see the direction of this program over the next year. I think we have a great group of guys, I love playing with them. I think we’re all focused on making something special in Paris.”

A big reason for Team USA’s confidence going into Nations League play, and the Olympic qualifying tournament in Japan later this fall, is the play of the 6-foot-7 Smith.

“He’s playing some of the best volleyball of his career at age 36, 37, 38,” Shoji said. “So it’s been really inspiring to watch as someone who has seen him now for 11, 12 years on the court, I can honestly say this is the best volleyball he’s played, I think, in his career and he’s doing it at that age in this position that he’s in. I think it’s basically unheard of, so he’s kind of just an inspiration for us to see as younger players that you can still go, still do it and he’s become more of a leader. He’s kind of this silent leader that leads by example. Because maybe you might not notice him but at the end and you’re looking at the stats, he’s hitting for a great percentage, touching a lot of balls and getting a lot of blocks.

“He’s really come into a role that maybe he didn’t quite embrace when he was younger. He is a little bit undersized in the volleyball world at 6-7, 6-8, you know he’s undersized. But he’s accepted that in the last couple of years, and he goes, ‘I might be undersized but I’m going to carve you up, I’m going to beat you and get great touches.’ I think in the past he’s compared himself to a 6-10, 6-11, and 7-footers and now he’s not doing that and just kind of coming into his own and performing the best he has in a while.”

Often, Smith, who has a degree in civil engineering, has also simply outsmarted opponents.

“Well I think he’s smarter than most people in this world just from an academic side, someone who can analyze a game and numbers and statistics and where people are on the court and figure out a way to get the job done,” Shoji said. “So I think in general he’s just a smart person. But he’s very analytical, he’s an engineer, he can look at something and deconstruct it and figure out a way to get it done.”

Smith’s success, both with Team USA and Zaska in recent years, followed a series of honest conversations with Kelli.

“He’s truly passionate about the game and he’s always trying to make himself better,” Kelli said. “Probably around 34, 35, there was a lot of talk about, oh, he’s getting older, he’s getting older and he started to express that as well, ‘Oh, maybe it’s because he’s getting older and I refused to allow that to be an excuse. That’s my personality. I was like no, you’re going to keep going. If you’re going to go, go. Don’t even say that anymore because now he’s just like just whatever, joking about it. Then, I think it was sinking in a little too much and I was thinking, like, if you even keep talking about that it’s going to get in your head and at this level you need to be operating with the most confidence that you can.

“And so he’s been really blessed to not have a lot of injuries. I think his body was made to do what he’s doing. He’s got a wife at home and I don’t accept complacency because I’ve said we have to all, all of us, have to be all in for this to work.

“I have to be. That’s my personality and it’s not his personality. On the court, you see a very aggressive David Smith who is really passionate and fiery and he’ll yell. In real life, he’s much more mild-mannered and passive. So sometimes in his career, he’s needed a little bit of a shove to say, ‘Hey, is this all you’ve got? Are you giving it all because again this is a team effort at home as well.”

David Smith was asked how much longer he saw himself playing.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I thought, I genuinely thought I would be done after Tokyo. That was the end game. But my body has been great. My family has been great. They love living overseas in Poland. We have a great club that takes care of us there. Obviously we’re super successful, we’re back to back to back European champions right now. So there’s been no reason to stop. The main goal is to make it to Paris, make an Olympic team. But we’ll see what happens after that. My son is old enough that it would be nice to give him some stability for my child that I remember having. He’s around that age and I would love to give him that experience. But it would be nice to settle down and see him thrive and see what he’s interested in. I’m still motivated and inspired.

“Right now I just have next summer in my mind.”

SHOWING THAT YOU CARE

Cohen Smith is his parent’s son.

Recently he informed David and Kelli that he had a new classmate, a boy whose family fled Ukraine.

“And my wife and I were trying to get him to think about it a little bit,” David recalled, “Who is it? Where is he from? Why is he here? How do you think he’s feeling right now? My son was like, ‘Oh, wait, he’s probably a little nervous, probably a little scared, probably out of place, just like I was when I first came to (Kedzierzyn-Kozle).”

David Smith is also still trying to connect, still trying to level life’s playing field.

Families with deaf children will drive hours to meet Smith at Zaska matches. Before a match four years ago he was approached by a friend. A mother had a deaf child and would Smith mind meeting her?

Smith agreed.

“She just had some questions and you could see the second you met her it was just a mom like so many out there, ‘I just don’t know what to do. I have a child, I love my child, I want what’s best for my child and I don’t know how to do it.’

“And I said, ‘You’re doing a great job first of all, you’re doing enough, you’re doing more than enough, just this conversation shows that you care.’ Meeting the child, so he can see someone growing up, because I really didn’t have that growing up, it wasn’t like I had a deaf athlete (to look up to), ‘Oh, I can do that.’ I was super happy about that.”

Today the boy is a champion swimmer.

“The cool thing about sign language is it’s not an international language but I can understand Polish sign language, a shared sign understanding.”

Kelli Smith is driven by her own sense of understanding, shaped both by her natural instinct and the place she now calls home, always moving forward, looking not waiting for opportunities to change her section of the world.

She is back running through the forest around Blechhammer regularly, past the camp’s gate, past its moss covered crumbling walls, past the crematorium, past the watchtowers, history’s ghosts tracking a dreamer as she moves through a nightmare, soft steps over a hard and bloody past.

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​ Orange County Register 

Angels’ Mike Trout diagnosed with left wrist fracture

• July 4, 2023

SAN DIEGO — Mike Trout fractured the hamate bone in his left wrist on Monday night, the Angels announced on Tuesday. The injury typically costs a player four to eight weeks.

The Angels’ star suffered the injury on a swing in the eighth inning of a loss to the Padres.

As the three-time MVP spoke to reporters while he awaited the test results on Monday, he was distraught at the prospect of another injury.

“Just praying the results come back clean,” he said. “It doesn’t feel great.”

It turned out to be an injury that is fairly common among baseball players. Normally it occurs during a swing, when the knob of the bat presses against the bone at the base of the hand by the wrist. The bone is typically removed during surgery, and a player can return to action once the surgical wounds have healed and strength is restored.

Boston Red Sox infielder Yu Chang suffered a fractured hamate on April 24. He began a rehab assignment about a month later, but felt some discomfort and needed another month. He is currently on another rehab assignment.

Tampa Bay Rays shortstop Wander Franco was out two months with a fractured hamate last year.

Last year, Andrew Benintendi broke his hamate on Sept. 2 and had surgery on Sept. 6, and he did not make it back with the Yankees, who were eliminated from the postseason on Oct. 23.

In 2019, Cleveland’s José Ramirez missed just four weeks with a broken hamate.

The Angels recalled Jo Adell from Triple-A to replace Trout on the active roster. Adell was hitting .271 with 23 homers — most in the minors — and a .956 OPS.

For Trout, this marks the third straight year that he’s missing a chunk of the season with a significant injury. He suffered a strained calf in May 2021, costing him the rest of the season. Last July he hurt his back, missing five weeks.

The Angels had been proactive in trying to prevent soft-tissue injuries with Trout by giving him regular days off. He had been out of the lineup eight times in the Angels’ first 87 games, with a plan to reduce those days off as the schedule provided more off days in the second half. Trout last played more than 140 games in 2016.

This injury, a broken bone, was seemingly not preventable with rest, though.

The recent of run of injuries will cost Trout another opportunity to play in the All-Star Game. Although he was elected as the starter for the 10th time, this will be the fourth time that he’s unable to play. He missed the game in 2017, 2021 and 2022 because of injuries. With the 2020 All-Star Game canceled because of the pandemic, Trout has not played in the All-Star Game since 2019.

The bigger concern is the impact on the Angels’ season.

The Angels are 45-42, six games back in the American League West and three games back in the wild card race. Although they were on a hot streak early in June that vaulted them into the thick of the race, they’ve lost nine of their last 13 games.

Trout had been in a slump, by his standard, for much of the season, but he said he was starting to feel better over the previous couple weeks. He hit .340 with four homers and an OPS of 1.121 in his last 14 games.

For the season, Trout is hitting .263 with 18 homers and an .863 OPS.

Trout joins second baseman Brandon Drury, shortstop Zach Neto and catcher Logan O’Hoppe among the Angels’ everyday players on the injured list. The Angels are hoping to get Drury and Neto back just after the All-Star break. O’Hoppe could be back in late August, at the earliest. Third baseman Anthony Rendon has been on the injured list twice, but he’s healthy now. They have already lost Gio Urshela for the season.

“We’ve talked all along about our depth and it’s been tested,” Nevin said on Monday night, before Trout’s diagnosis was known. “We’ve been adding to that. We’ve lost some big pieces to this. We’ve talked about having the next guy up. Same thing in this case.”

In other news, the Angels optioned right-hander Victor Mederos to Triple-A and recalled right-hander Gerardo Reyes.

More to come on this story.

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​ Orange County Register 

Reaffirming our nation’s independence

• July 4, 2023

The Fourth of July, Independence Day, is a good time not only for hot dogs and fireworks, but to reflect for a moment on what makes this country unique, the qualities that enabled it to become in some ways the most successful country in history, and to contemplate the extent to which those qualities still animate Americans.

It has been said that the United States is the only country founded on an idea, or a set of ideas, rather than on ethnic or racial similarities, kinship, conquest or the simple fact of a relatively homogeneous group of people living in the same geographic region for centuries. Those ideas are summed up in the Declaration of Independence, the document whose signing and promulgation we celebrate. In some ways it can lay claim to being the most revolutionary public document in human history.

Aspects of the idea that people are not just vassals of the powers that be, interchangeable cogs in the great machinery of society presided over by leaders who had by and large established themselves through conquest and pillage, had been growing for centuries before 1776. But the circumstances surrounding the decision of the colonists to separate from Great Britain offered the opportunity to summarize emerging principles in a uniquely eloquent manner.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” the Declaration proclaims, “that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” By “created equal,” of course, the founders were not so naïve as to believe that we were all equally tall, intelligent, beautiful or worthy, but that we have equal value in the sight of God or Natural Law and should receive equal treatment rather than preferences or punishment based on our status from government. Every human being has a certain inherent dignity, and decent people respect that.

It has become fashionable to talk of certain privileges or amenities bestowed by government as “rights,” but the Declaration is clear that people are “endowed by their Creator,” with certain rights, and that these rights exist prior to and take precedence over any claims by government. This was and still is truly revolutionary. The rights discussed — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — are genuine rights in that they can be exercised without impinging on the equal rights of other human beings.

So what is government’s job in a system that recognizes unalienable rights? Simply “to secure these rights.” This implies a government of limited powers, for a government of unlimited powers will surely become a threat to rather than a securer of personal rights.

Our government has grown in scope, power and ambition far beyond the imaginings of those who put their lives on the line (and, in some cases, lost them) by signing the Declaration of Independence. Yet the spirit of independence, the healthy distrust of overweening government power, remains a stubborn American characteristic. Long may it thrive.

This editorial was originally published July 4, 2009.

​ Orange County Register