Archive By Section - Local Columns
Newsom finds new way to stick it to cigarette smokers
You've got to love sin taxes. They allow politicians to make "bold moves" by cutting the weak politically from the herd of taxpayers and then slowly bleeding them to death for their sins. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has sharpened his hunting skills targeting weak victims to a high art. Smokers - who the state can ill afford to have them kick the habit due to how much they are taxing them per pack – ...
Foreclosures are good thing in long run for Manteca
Good times are coming to Manteca. And we owe it all to the collapse of the housing market. That may sound completely nuts with Manteca unemployment at 13.8 percent while schools are being rocked with funding cuts and declines in sales and property taxes are delivering a one-two punch to the city. Good times, though, are coming. It won't be the go-go days of the 1990s and early part of this decade. Instead, it is ...
2,000 reasons why you’d be insane to vote for Newsom
Gavin Newsom wants to be our next governor. If you think he's the man to help pull California out of the bottomless pit of debt Sacramento has managed to create, guess again. The mayor of San Francisco is boldly taking government to where even the now-defunct central Planning Committees of the old Soviet Union dared not go. Newsom on Thursday celebrated the success of spending $500,000 in city money as enticements for people to improve ...
Time to dismantle Sacramento and rebuild from the ground up
A crisis, they say, brings out the best in people. True leaders rise to the occasion. Dark times call for bold and decisive moves.
Get ready for same old mush from update on SJ General Plan
It's time San Joaquin County stopped lusting for Bay Area paychecks and dropped the same-old, same-old planning for growth that produced predictable template-style policies and zoning.
It’s no sweat to stay cool in valley summer
Sweating is highly underrated. It sounds crazy, but to understand it you have to be a real valley boy. Going for a four-mile jog at 1 o'clock in the 100-degree heat Sunday I worked up a decent sweat. It wasn't until I got home, though, and pulled up a patio chair underneath the crab apple tree and just let it drip that I remembered what I like so much about Central Valley summers. There is ...
Let your neighbors know about your loved one’s service
We bellyache a lot. But when you come down to it how bad do we really have it? Actually, this is a pretty good life most of us are leading even with job losses, a retraction of government services, large class sizes on the way and just about any economic malady you want to cite. Am I crazy? No, just thankful. Even if we're living on the proverbial edge today it's a much better place ...
NOTRE DAME
President Obama's planned commencement address today at Notre Dame has re-opened wounds still festering since last November's presidential elections. There, the Catholic Church split in half (that is, with 70% of registered Catholics voting, 45% chose McCain, 54% voted for Obama.)
Paying the price Tuesday for class size reduction
Manteca Unified – and much of California – took the bite out of the forbidden fruit and are paying for it big time.
It’s ‘hasta la vista’ time, California
Pssst. Wanna buy San Quentin Prison? Perhaps Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could interest you in the Los Angeles Coliseum. The governor is turning the state's budget crisis into a B-grade horror movie with days to go before Tuesday's special election by proposing to sell off California's landmarks to raise possibly $1 billion to go toward a deficit that is now pushing $23.1 billion. The list includes everything from the Cow Palace and Cal Expo to the ...
Admittedly it was a bad choice of words for a sensitive story
It wasn't one of my finest moments. A reader questioned why we ran a story on the front page of Wednesday's Manteca Bulletin on the beating incident triggered by drinking and a gay-related remark the victim made to the alleged attacker. I have no problem justifying why we ran the story. More about that in a moment. The thing that bothered me was what I saw after I picked up the Bulletin in the morning ...
Is $1M justified for staffing an aerial fire truck?
Does Manteca really need nine firefighters to man the 100-foot aerial platform fire truck 24/7?
It is time to pull the plug on California’s government
Santa Barbara is burning. The water levels behind Oroville are precariously low. The nation's Appalachia Valley of the 21st century in terms of poverty – the Southern San Joaquin – reels under unemployment approaching nearly 20 percent. California – despite all of its potential and wealth both natural and economic – has gotten it all wrong. We haven't altered land development patterns that make conditions ripe for annual wildfires that wipe out thousands of homes ...
I still listen for the pitter-patter of paws
It all started when John Grogran first got the idea to publish his tales about life with a young Labrador that instantly captured the heart of America. And for those of us who grew up with a lab in our house, the pages that Grogan filled in that book became almost a verbatim recount of the things encountered with the wiry but outrageously loyal animals. But there was a darker tinge in that story – ...
This is your Mother’s Day card, mom
Dear readers: My mother, Cynthia, recently visited from Washington State. Having recently completed 81 years, she still surprises me with her energy. Raised Christian Scientist by her parents in the Boston environment, she learned that maintaining good health requires a real balancing act. Loving the outdoors, she became early on a camp counselor. Wanting to promote the health of others, she studied physical therapy and perfected her art on the island of Guam. Knowing what ...
Articles by Section - Local Columns
Twin Tunnels: $24B won’t assure adequate water supplies for 25 million people
Let the distortions begin.
A pawn, a $350,000 study & taking $12M out of people’s pockets
One man's due diligence is costing more than 40,000 households, business, and farmers $12 million a year.
A virtually empty garage may be un-American by today’s standards
I'm a prime candidate for the Homeland Security watch list.
Apple isn’t rotten but the American taxing system is
Why does Uncle Sam insist on subsidizing rich people?
Twin Tunnels: Get ready for Owens Valley 2.0
Want to see the future of the Northern San Joaquin Valley?
Traffic officer: Toughest job in Manteca?
The toughest job in Manteca might just be the men who are part of the Manteca Police Department's traffic enforcement unit.
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