The Statue of Income Tax

Inflatable Liberty
It’s a sign of the times. In our town, waving a sign isn’t just a job, it’s a career. Here we see Lady Liberty and her employees, on Lake Boulevard.
Sign guy
There is dignity in all labor, but you’d be hard pressed to identify that quality here; dressed up as a mock Statue of Liberty, hawking income tax services to passers by. I am in the car reflected in the window.

I was reminded only a little of the real statue. The original statue is a powerful monument, along with nearby Ellis Island, gateway to waves of hopeful immigrants. Below, we see one of my favorite family photos, from one of our trips to New York. It was taken by a passerby, who got on the ground with my camera to fit us in the frame with the non-inflatable version of Lady Liberty. It was a nice moment.

Family in New York

Our icons are disposable, apparently useful to the extent to which we can commercialize them. I just hope I don’t ever have to wave signs to eat.

Record Searchlight marijuana legalization stance is timely and courageous

Wow. Things have really changed in my hometown. Maybe you missed this giant sweep of the weather vane indicating the winds of change, but I do believe an editor of our local paper, the Record Searchlight, has just opined that we should legalize marijuana. No really. Seriously. Check it out HERE.

Ok, he only goes so far as to point to a blog that states the plainly obvious, but even that’s a big step. A huge step. Of course, he’s not the first person to hold a pro-marijuana opinion. Many people who get weed from places that are on a missouri dispensary list will advocate for full legalization, along with millions of others. Bruce Ross and I have had big differences of opinion, and I have often thought that the newspaper he edits reveals an alarming lack of common sense, but here he goes and proves me wrong. Go figure.

I am not an advocate of drug use. I am, however, an inhabitant of the real world and recognize that individuals are moral agents and should be able to decide for themselves what they put into their bodies – if they see products online that they would like to try out (https://www.leaf2go.co/INDICA_c_45.html), far be it from me to tell them otherwise. I would put marijuana use pretty low on the spectrum of illegal drug problems, unlike say meth, and the resulting tweakers. Marijuana enthusiasts can stay up date regarding the latest weed news by reading something like the speed greens blog. Marijuana is not really a major problem in society, but marijuana prohibition is pretty high up on the spectrum of societal costs, due to the resulting enabling of crime profits and criminalization of potheads. The Cheech and Chongs (and Michal Phelps) of this world are not the proportional threat to you and me that is represented by tweakers and Oxycontin addicts.

If it takes the guise of a budget problem in Sacramento to put an end to this lunacy, then so be it. All that really matters is that we examine and face the facts about the real costs versus the benefits of the current prohibition. I seriously wonder if taxing a weed that you can grow just about anywhere will actually provide any real revenue, but we really should end the idiocy and hypocrisy of our current arbitrary laws about this plant. New dispensaries opening in California will have to be compliant with california marijuana laws.

Our small town paper takes a bold stand for sanity, and I hope this puts the conversation in motion. It will be interesting to watch for the reaction. Thank you RS for your courage.

Friday night at the ER

Entrance to Mercy ER at night
Friday night was hoppin’ at Mercy’s ER. Busy busy. I gave a loved-one a ride. Nothing exactly life threatening, but there was no other choice for late-night medical care coming up on a weekend. There were lots of other folks in various circumstances as we waited. If you’ve been in Shasta County a while, you’ve probably been to an ER some night you’d rather be somewhere else, along with all the others with similar wishes to be anywhere but here. All waiting around. Perhaps you’ve been here more than you’d like to remember.
Entrance to Mercy ER at night
We are told we have the best medical care in the world in the US. In Redding, we do have good care indeed. I am very grateful for the facility and the staff, and I am totally sure I could not do what they do with their patience and pleasant demeanor. My hat’s off to those professionals, and to Mercy Medical Center. The workers were all friendly and chatty, to my happy surprise. I’m pretty sure that after just a short while working there on a busy night, I’d be stone faced, saying just “next.” Many of the people in the waiting room were fairly rude under stress. The staff was not. Kudos to you folks.

Watching the anxious patients and their families on busy Friday night at the ER, you have to wonder if there isn’t a better way to handle things that are not life threatening, though. Meanwhile you wait…..

Greeters at Rivers

Greeters in Redding
Wow, there are not many places I’d rather hold a Chamber of Commerce Greeters Meeting than Rivers Restaurant in Redding. That’s where we were this morning.
Greeters in Redding
There were about 150 people there, despite the dreary weather. That has to rank as one of the largest meetings we’ve held. Little wonder. The food was excellent, and the views, though muted by the weather, are unmatched in Redding.

Greeters in Redding
Greeters in Redding

Chef Cal DeMercurio described the astonishing lengths to which they go to deliver the best food and drink experience in town. They offer a compelling culinary experience, and it has been rewarded with heavy business since the restaurant’s inception a few months back. This is the place to be, and to be seen. As he put it, “there’s no need to ask for a window seat. They’re all window seats. True enough. The design takes total advantage of the blufftop site. Many years ago, Redding turned it’s back on the river that coursed through our town. This restaurant is evidence that those days are gone.
Greeters in Redding
It replaced a restaurant that was burned while remodeling. The total re-build is a smashing success and ranks as one of Redding’s finest amenities.

Redding’s first Flash Mob?

A weekend RS article about the Redding Electric Utility and their policy to evict residents who cannot pay for electricity drew hundreds of comments on Redding.com, making it easily among the most popular articles ever written there. A thread quickly developed that suggested a candlelight protest at a Council meeting. A quick read through reveals the usual level of these mostly anonymous “conversations” with interesting references to the Ruggles brothers lynching, and more negative commentary, mixed in with some possibly interesting ideas. It will be instructive to watch this unfold, if it does. Will this be Redding’s first Flash Mob?

The issue is complex. There are no simple answers. Nobody wants families thrown on the street. Many of those commenting seem to have only a vague notion of what it really means to live without power. Several comments spoke about kerosene heating, solar power, candles, batteries, etc. allowing one to live indoors without power.
The reality is far different.

As a listing agent for bank foreclosures, I saw the remaining evidence of families living in darkness. I saw the candles melted into puddles, and the resulting fire damage, large and small. I saw that the lack of a vacuum cleaner and hot temperatures result in carpets of flea swarms, and imagined children covered in bites. I saw children’s toys scattered amongst rat feces in the cold darkness. I saw food stored in unsafe temperatures and conditions. And back when there were dozens of families living in an abandoned and powerless work camp off Shasta Dam Boulevard, my wife, who is a schoolteacher, saw kids in her class with diseases nobody around here had seen since the nineteenth century. That’s the reality of living without electricity. No candlelight vigil will change that.

Maybe.

Like, I said, it will be interesting to see how it unfolds. The subtext of the comments was predictably blaming REU as heartless, serving as the straw man for trolling. The folks of REU are your friends and neighbors. They don’t want to kick families into the street either, but living without power causes big problems. What’s the answer? I don’t know. It will be interesting to see if the flash mob/protesters have anything positive to offer besides the usual anonymous comments.

Meanwhile about a dozen homeless folks hold a City Hall vigil of their own, out of the rain, in the bleachers just west of the Civic Center. Photo taken a few minutes ago. They are not watching a game, and they are likely not online posting anonymous comments either.

Low gas prices continue to amaze

Gold Bentley Hummer not in Redding
Auto Fuel went up a bit this week, but is still astonishingly low. While it’s lovely to fill up for $25, and definitely bringing out the fuel guzzler classics and monster trucks around town again, it is also somewhat disconcerting. Fuel prices dropped far and fast. There was no abrupt increase in supply. Either the price variation reflects huge loss of demand, or deliberate manipulation of prices. Neither prospect is comforting to consider. There is talk of raising a gas tax. I will be surprised if anyone has the guts to do that, but then it’s been a surprising year.
Chrome-Mercedes-SLR definitely not in Redding
You can’t get much more ostentatious than this Chrome Mercedes McLaren SLR. At least not yet. Surely the opposite of “green” is chrome.

Urgent- If you value safety and communication

Perhaps you read that the National Park Service is trying to eliminate the communications equipment from the top of Shasta Bally. Their concerns revolve around aesthetics and views for the park.
Shasta Bally near Redding
Those concerns are valid, but only to a point. The laws of nature and physics dictate the best positioning for this equipment, not aesthetic judgments. The antennae and equipment pre-date the park. It was put there by (apparently wiser) citizens some 50 years ago, who saw the site as the only viable and practical location for complete coverage. The Park Service seems to have very little concern for local communication, only their vision for a prettier mountaintop. It’s an admirable idea, on paper. The reality is that Shasta Bally is not Half Dome, and the man-made lake it overlooks is not Tahoe. While it is lovely to consider a pristine mountaintop presiding over our park, that vision is trumped by the absolute necessity of getting clear communication in an emergency in our mountainous areas. This is not an aesthetic concern, it is a concrete reality of the electromagnetic spectrum. We should not lose this irreplaceable communication resource for the vague goal of an idealized mountaintop. Your life may well depend on it someday.

Eliminating this local resource will be harmful to the local population. Tell the Park Service Bureaucrats how you feel about this at their website HERE. In attendance at the hearing in Redding last night, it seemed apparent that the decision has already been made, and your interests and safety are secondary. Imagine CalFire unable to communicate, or an auto accident on 299. If you think those antennae aren’t pretty today, I guarantee you will feel differently in an emergency. The Park Service individuals making this decision may no need to live with this after they retire to wherever, but YOU WILL.

Big business bailouts inherently unfair

Amusing but disturbing fake advertisment for bailout

This image is making the rounds on the internet. Sort of funny and not funny, all at once.

Yesterday, local Red Bluff Ford announced they were declaring bankruptcy. And Miller Auto of Redding announced they would be abandoning Mitsubishi. Today, we learn they won’t be selling Suzuki or Cadillacs, leaving only Jeep. Obviously, local auto sellers are struggling. Should they be bailed out too? Where does the bailout end? Who decides?

I think the bailout raises a lot of questions. I don’t see those questions being asked as we race to bailout the big players, while local small businesses fail without a similar lifeboat.

The fake ad implies that US Automakers failed because their products sucked. Elsewhere in my blog I wrote that we made a business decision specifically to buy American cars, and in our case Cadillacs, to be supportive, and (we thought) to show some national pride. But my Cadillacs have had serious and expensive problems, in and out of warranty. It’s very disappointing. Should their lack of quality be rewarded with a bailout? Also, a large part of the big automaker’s financial problems stem from their very generous labor contracts. Their workers and retirees enjoy excellent pay and benefits, which is great for those workers. But as I look around my town, it becomes apparent that excellent pay and benefits are rare indeed. Should the poorly paid workers in my town be expected to bail them out?

Oh well, nobody said life was fair. Unless you’re getting a bailout.

Our kids will thank us.

Where was this Fred Thompson when he was running for president?

That’s the problem with actor/politicians. You never know when it was just the script they were reading.