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Michael Fitzgerald
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Monthly Archives: June 2009
Older then the didgeridoo?
Reader Tim Nunes, responding to the column about the didgeridoo player:
I’m afraid the didj is not “the world’s oldest wind instrument” (which you would’ve known if you followed my Twitter the way I follow yours (smile)). Here’s a link to an article I tweeted about last week.
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Reason, from the heart of the water charade
This is where we get to decide if we are a society of grown-ups.
We must admit the truth to ourselves.
The world we built must adjust to reality.
A Visalia columnist tells the truth about water. They’ll probably run him out of town.
Interesting point about being grown up. So much of being a grown up is [...]
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Mike to the fair: A little more shade, please
Videos from the San Joaquin County Fair. The thing that struck me this year was the heat. Of course, I went by day, not after work, when the temperature is lower; when the day is around 100, though, the early evening is no picnic either.
For that reason, I passed up the Neville Brothers’s show and [...]
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Suing Pleasanton to help Stockton
When city leaders met with Attorney General Jerry Brown on the General Plan last spring, they complained about housing policies in Pleasanton and Livermore. These cities create jobs but refuse to build homes. So they export all their workers to San Joaquin. Pleasanton gets all the revenue but none of the costs created by residents.
Brown must have listened. He’s going [...]
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Stockton’s enterprize zone not working?
Does Stockton’s enterprize zone create jobs? A new study by the Public Policy Institute says no. My own feeling is a tool like this is necessary in Stockton. It helps level the playing field for downtown employers trying to compete with other parts of town. But if the data says they don’t work — to [...]
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USA’s top book mentions Stockton
Vince Perrin, the retired Arts Commissioner, writes:
“I don’t know if you read detective novelist Michael Connelly, but his just-out new book, “The Scarecrow,” debuted on The New York Times best-seller list at No. 1 this week. In it there’s a reference to Stockton, California. It’s not giving anything away to say that on Page 114 [...]
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Ramdom shots from the county fair
I always seek the unusual at the fair: marginal characters such as carnys; feverish Veg-O-Matic-type pitchmen; White Mountain the Giant Steer (”10,000 hamburgers on the hoof – Alive!”).
Tomorrow’s column is on such a subject.
In the meantime, here’s a fair worker caught up in the excitement.
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Quote for the day
“That’s what got our country through the Great Depression because people helped each other. They were there for each other any way they could and they filled in where government could not and that’s what we ask of our citizens today.”
–Mayor Ann Johnston, talking about police layoffs, but aso government — or lack of government — [...]
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Encounter with a county fair judge
Trawling for the unusual at the San Joaquin County Fair on Wednesday, I happened upon a vegetable judge doing his thing.
Lee Bucknell said it takes “experience focus, perseverence” to be a good vegetable judge.
I asked him how much experience he had. He replied he ran a farm for 43 years. I conceded that’s a lot [...]
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Whole Lotta Nothin’ Goin’ On