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Michael Fitzgerald
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Monthly Archives: March 2009
The millionth Stockton joke
The Onion mentions Stockton. I appreciate the humor. At bottom though is this city’s bad reputation. The roots of that stigma are poverty, crime, blight and unfamiliarity.
The poverty is regional. The city’s prospects can be improved, but the city can never be taken out of its low-wage agrarian context. Crime? A new jail is [...]
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Why Stocktonians can’t get out of jail
Because the bail bondsman doesn’t do underwater.
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New program for the Ted in all of us
If only Ted (”I thought that Cesar Chavez was a communist organizer”) Bestolarides had this software.
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Two hangovers and a black eye
No matter how you screw up, there’s a website that will publicize it.
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The human cost of rightsizing
Many people, particularly conservatives, see the recession as an opportunity to “rightsize” government. I, too, believe government needs rightsizing, not because I believe “government is the problem,” as Reaganites do, but because the excessive wages and benefits of public employees are breaking the municipal bank.
There’s a human cost to to rightsizing though. For that reason, I [...]
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The benign side of the food stamp scam
A U.S. Attorney, commenting on a downtown Stockton merchant busted for allegedly scamming food stamps:
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Lapham said this type of scheme is common. He prosecuted a large case in Stockton about 10 years ago, taking down three unscrupulous store owners. The reality is it enables substance abuse among customers, he said.
“If they’re choosing [...]
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Showing the world the bottom?
An economist and a housing expert, writing in the Los Angeles Times, say booming home resale activity in places like Stockton shows the bubble market has all but finished readjusting; the recession is bottoming out.
Declining prices, severe job losses and pervasive foreclosures are supposed to stifle the market, yet we see record sales and significantly reduced [...]
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Showing Stockton some love
A Lodi woman who teaches in Stockton writes a paean to Stockton in the Sacramento Bee. If this piece doesn’t make your day, nothing will.
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Cops who made YouTube vindicated
Reader Richard Paloma writes:
On your March 11 Blog you wrote about Harry Walters and his arrest by the SUSD Police for video taping him. Today, (March 25), Mr. Walters was found guilty of 148a PC- The section he was arrested for and charged with by the SUSD officers. It appears the 12 person jury of [...]
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Gottschalks and the hermaphrodite