Monthly Archives: March 2009

Gottschalks and the hermaphrodite

By Site Admin | Published: March 31, 2009 | Comments closed
One of the benefits of near-complete indifference to shopping is near-complete indifference to retail closures. The latest is Gottschalks. The liquidators have outbidded the cheapo Red Chinese for its assets. They will close the chain. My shrug factor is high. I never felt I belonged in this Fresno-based department store. Why I cannot say. The retail version of [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

The millionth Stockton joke

By Site Admin | Published: March 31, 2009 | Comments closed
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 [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Why Stocktonians can’t get out of jail

By Site Admin | Published: March 31, 2009 | Comments closed
Because the bail bondsman doesn’t do underwater. 
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

New program for the Ted in all of us

By Site Admin | Published: March 31, 2009 | Comments closed
If only Ted (”I thought that Cesar Chavez was a communist organizer”) Bestolarides had this software.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Two hangovers and a black eye

By Site Admin | Published: March 30, 2009 | Comments closed
No matter how you screw up, there’s a website that will publicize it.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

The human cost of rightsizing

By Site Admin | Published: March 30, 2009 | Comments closed
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 [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

The benign side of the food stamp scam

By Site Admin | Published: March 30, 2009 | Comments closed
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 [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Showing the world the bottom?

By Site Admin | Published: March 30, 2009 | Comments closed
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 [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Showing Stockton some love

By Site Admin | Published: March 27, 2009 | Comments closed
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. 
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed

Cops who made YouTube vindicated

By Site Admin | Published: March 27, 2009 | Comments closed
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 [...]
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments closed