Monthly Archives: August 2006

The irony of levee reform

By Site Admin | Published: August 31, 2006 | Comments closed
If the much-needed levee reform bill makes it into law, thank the California Building Industry Association. The developer’s lobby opposes the bill, of course. Its members would like to keep bulidng in flood-prone areas. The Association made a $500,000 donation to Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata right around the time Perata mysteriously shelved all levee [...]
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An unfortunate party address

By Site Admin | Published: August 30, 2006 | Comments closed
St. Joseph’s Regional Cancer Center has sent out a festive flyer announcing its 17th Annual Gathering of Friends evening potluck picnic, which it bills as “a celebration honoring life.” Sounds like a very good event. The location, though, sounds a bit, um, out of keeping with the party’s life-affirming theme. The location is, “St. Joseph’s Medical [...]
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One carnivore’s comeback

By Site Admin | Published: August 29, 2006 | Comments closed
Speaking of vegetarians (see below), reader Cindy Grafius forwards the following photo.
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Carnivore collectibles

By Site Admin | Published: August 28, 2006 | Comments closed
I guess People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals liked the column I did recently on their Kentucky Fried Cruelty campaign. They sent me a gift. A half-dozen of PETA’s animal rights activists protested outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet on June 22 as part of their campaign to embarrass KFC into demanding more humane treatment [...]
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Turning off A/C: the payoff

By Site Admin | Published: August 28, 2006 | Comments closed
Remember when I stoically turned off my air conditioner for three days at the height of July’s heat wave? There was one upside to the misery I experienced: for once in my life I actually looked forward to my PG&E bill. Not that I assumed it would be low. But I had high hopes. Or would [...]
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Withdraw from Washington?

By Site Admin | Published: August 28, 2006 | Comments closed
Reader Harlan Pick sends along this thought, which is going around the Internet: “If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq Theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. “The rate in Washington D.C. [...]
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The heat wave in three stanzas

By Site Admin | Published: August 24, 2006 | Comments closed
Stockton’s superb poet Bill Humphreys has written a poem about the recent miserable heat wave and summer yielding mercifully to Fall. Here it is: Threshold August arrived like a blast furnace pouring steel ingots into each long hot day, scorching fire hydrant streets blistering the cattle prod death toll, chicken farms up and down the [...]
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Punishment for Perata

By Site Admin | Published: August 23, 2006 | Comments closed
With only a week left in the state’s current legislative session, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata has put the whole kaboodle of urgently needed flood-control measures on “pause” until next year. How quickly he forgets. Katrina. New Orleans. Last winter’s extreme rains which all but buckled levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Perata should be forced [...]
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Joe Rosenthal: A local angle

By Site Admin | Published: August 22, 2006 | Comments closed
The man on the left of the photo below is Joe Rosenthal, the photographer who snapped the famous shot of U.S. servicemen raising the flag on Iwo Jima. Rosenthal died Monday in Novato. He was 94. The man on the right is Jack Gulshen of Stockton. Gulshen, 79, a retired newspaperman and ex-Marine, knew Rosenthal. Both belonged to [...]
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Al Capone he’s not

By Site Admin | Published: August 22, 2006 | Comments closed
The police scanner just blurted that an alleged shoplifter is being detained–at a dollar store. My take: that crook isn’t setting very high career goals.
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