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Michael Fitzgerald
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- Two brave lives teach us to cherish every breath
Monthly Archives: July 2006
Sunday night’s blackout
I swore I’d never turn off my air conditioner again after sweating it out last week as an experiment. But Sunday night, PG&E turned it off for me.
Power went off to 1,400 homes in the Village Oaks and Quail Lakes area around 6 p.m. and stayed off until about 11:25. Meaning not only did my [...]
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Lodi jackasses make Reader’s Digest
The July issue of Reader’s Digest found room in its “Lawsuit Lunacy” story for Lodi’s Curtis Gokey. Gokey, a Lodi city worker, made headlines here in January when he backed a city truck into his pickup – then filed a claim against the city for damages!
When Lodi’s Council laughed his claim out of City Hall, [...]
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Lake Wobegon: a blue state
Of all people, Garrison Keillor of “A Prarie Home Companion” has written plain-spoken condemnation of the Republican party that is delicious in its merciless accuracy. Perhaps he underestimates Hastert, but everything else is spot on. A tasty sample:
It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not be allowed [...]
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Satan’s preview month
You know how Starz movie channel is offering a free movie month to attract customers? Maybe Satan is trying the same marketing approach on the Valley. Watch what you sign!
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Is global warming still "junk science?"
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association is reporting that average temperatures in the continental United States during the first six months of this year were the warmest half-year since records began in 1895. Anybody out there still think global warming is liberal “junk science?” Yes, and many of them are the very Valley conservatives who [...]
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An epitaph by John Wayne
Dennis “Buzz” Mazzuola, a tough and highly decorated Stockton cop, died last year at the age of 58. His tombstone, erected only recently, is probably the only gravestone in Stockton with an epitaph from a John Wayne movie.
The words by The Duke became the code of Buzz the Cop. “I won’t be wronged, I [...]
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When stuck in Lebanon, party
Claudia and Raymond Batar of Stockton flew to Lebanon May 9 for an extended visit – but since Israelis bombed Beruit’s airport, they‘re nervously wondering just how extended.
The Batars and their four children are staying with relatives in a small town near the northern city of Tripoli. That’s safely at the other end of the [...]
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Redevelopment: weird science
Stockton is carved up into six redevelopment districts. It’s interesting to watch redevelopment, not only for the grand buildings it produces and the decayed parts of town it rejuvenates, but for how it transforms government. Conservative Valley Republican leaders, supposedly believers in limited government, low taxes and individual responsibility morph into rabid big-government monsters. They [...]
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Update: Stockton’s oldest iron-pumper
We wrote about remarkable Mary Dominici, Stockton’s oldest gym freak, in 2004. At age 91 she was 20 years older than the next-oldest gym member toiling on the lat pull and the chest press.
How’s she doing? Well, she’s 93 now, and she stopped working out in December after a brush with heart trouble. But she [...]
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Stockton’s saddest woman