We wake up tomorrow to primary election day in California, with status quo politicians arguing for more of the same and a series of opposition candidates arguing for dark MAGA behavior like clearing homeless encampments full of drug addicts and not pouring another hundred-billion-plus into the bizarre train project.
Having lived in Venice I've seen this scene played out many times:
—The activists (who “came to feed and support people”) are certain that the police are being cruel. “You take people to jail! You don’t help them!” and “Look at this abuser! Look how he abuses people!”
I even once saw a guy so enraged by the sight of cops doing this, he attacked them and got clipped for his trouble. (There were of course vigils and protests and more performance art aimed at the pigs and I'm sure the guy's family back East got a nice fat check from the city for their son's noble sacrifice.)
There is just something in the sun, the light, the air, the ocean that does things to people's brains out here, and that attracts people from all over the world (lost souls, dropouts, castoffs, outcasts, exiles etc) who really seem to believe that we're all entitled to an infinite supply of free manna in whatever form we prefer and that the gravest possible crime is a hurt feeling, a thwarted desire, an unexpressed impulse—but worst of all any type of STIGMA. Your self-esteem is the sacrosanct essence of your soul and anyone wounding it is committing a blasphemous and deeply uncool hate crime.
California is the last farthest West outpost of Western Civ and it seems to have a culture of eternal utopian haze where it is forbidden to forbid and where it seems cruel that not everyone on earth can live the "La dolce far niente" from cradle to grave—and this thwarted infantile utopian desire I think also explains the unhinged rage whenever one of these eternal children runs face-first into reality. Life's unfair, I blame society!
California really is the land of the golden OUGHT, which exists in opposition to the old cold IS. Elections and politicians might help or harm around the edges but society is rooted in its people and we are a transient tribe of strangers who are so tolerant we'd buy a 40 for an alcoholic and a new needle for a teen junkie. Everyone deserves their own little slice of Heaven! Never mind meth or fentanyl, California itself might be the strongest, most dangerous drug of all.
It isn't that there's something about California that draws these dregs, it's that Calif politicians, such as Newsom and Karen Bass love to provide whatever they want in the way of free drugs, free sex, free food, free everything - whatever these idiot politicians want that will completely ruin a state. This statements sums up the situation very well IMO:
"Third, “body brokers” recruit drug addicts all over the country and ship them to Los Angeles so rehab facilities can bill health insurance for them. This is how so many drug addicts end up in California."
I might just reverse chicken and egg: Cali has been a utopian outpost for almost its entire existence, even the Gold Rush and its gold fever counts and maybe the dreamers of early Hollywood too. It's not a coincidence that we even have a town named after the idealist George Berkeley, who believed nothing exists except what we think and feel about it.
Also, remember the Summer of Love and the Mansons etc, all of which took place before our current useless rulers were even born. There's a reason they ship all the junkies here and not to Iowa or Oklahoma—once you ship em here, they never come back!
All true but as I have said elsewhere it is difficult to believe that this is not the desired outcome. We can talk about the public money but I think there is more to that. Those in charge and the advocated prefer this. My bet is becasue they believe this is the result of capitalism but I cannot shake the thought that a more ancient demon is at work here
Post WWII (2,not 11), the population boomed with Vets who came for jobs in the Airline (new age of civilian air travel), Defense Contracting (Lockheed, JPL, Hughes, etc.) and all the myriad of services businesses required by those businesses and their employees. These were productive people with work ethic and morality, civility and they created families, the backbone of any great society! Very few came looking for a free lunch, free needles, or free housing!
California's natural Climate does not make people unproductive losers, California's current political and Educational Climate creates, imports and fosters destructive behaviors and corrupt humans who feast on the spread laid before them!
Being a telcoms and electrical infrastructure geek household, we had much occasion to study how CA's cities got settled (darling more often than I having to deal with previous decisions in designing/implementing new systems).
The particulars, e.g. behind PG&E's founding, and the making of Hetch Hetchy, and how come the spooks (i.e., glowies) settled where they did.
Gold fever.
The development of the Bay Area's electrical grid is fascinating. Basically it got thrown up like a kludged Bedouin tent...extracted for all the money its founders could get...then palmed off on the public sector/budget when the systems were no longer as lucrative.
The 2018 Camp Fire is blamed on a worn insulator--dating from iirc the 1930s--that let the power cable's metal come into contact with the metal of the tower.
I can't say I buy that, being an intrigued follower of arborist Robert Brame. But the specific conditions referred to are very accurate. Jim Doyle at the Chron wrote a great piece in I think 2001, "The Utility Giant that Grew from Gold Rush Roots and Became A 1930s Monopoly" I think it was called. I haven't looked for the link in awhile, but you might find it interesting if you find it.
And somewhere in the massive and magnificent layers of the Comstock House History blog are many many many articles on the electrification of California, and those who did it, and their tentacular interconnections.
The OUGHT you refer to was frequently a dream state imagined by these developers, and sold to others, as a way to get/keep their projects going. I'm not judging that; it may be a necessary element of all great works. I don't know. We always just got up and did what needed to be done, and were content to wait for heaven, or found it in the daily chores of our little life together.
I'm also something of a power/telecom industry geek, and spent enough time in northern California to observe how bad it really is. Of course, the great majority of the electrical power in northern California is supplied by Pacific Gas & Electric; which may be the worst power utility in the US.
There are some exceptionally hard-working folks at PG&E; especially in the operations end, such as linemen, etc. But PG&E's top and much of their middle level management is incompetent at-best. In some cases, though, it isn't their fault -- they're beholden to the state and local government regulators who essentially force every possible feel-good, green, and/or DEI requirement down PG&E's throat.
And intersects with something my darling and I talked about a lot. We concluded from observation that it wasn't anything about California per se...as the BELIEF IN California. As you're saying.
We reflected on how CA's golden era came after World War "Two." Humanity traumatized after 30 years of mechanized nightmare white-on-white civil war...families torn apart...economics increasingly run on the global/Bank of England/City of London model...culture increasingly produced by rootless cosmopolitans.
And then the lucrative chaos was over...and what was there to live for? Our generation grew up aspiring to our dads' and uncles' and granddads' work...and got Reaganomics and Greenspanismo instead.
And culture wasn't the rooted continuity but the flickering cave-wall shadows of all those people who left Weimar in the '30s and set up in LA as a center of "cultural production."
There were the hot shot test pilots and weapons developers and silicon geeks.
Then the increasing money sluiced into the UC system by corporations.
But when all was said and done, we felt that we were "Silent upon a peak in Darien." The sea as terminus.
We never resonated with the boomer "endless summer" thing, being younger. DEVO were from Ohio. Kraftwerk, Popul Vuh, Tangerine Dream, and Johann Sebastian Bach from poor battered Deutschland. The Residents--Shreveport of all places (shrimp and oil!). XTC--Swindon. Our "youth culture" didn't surf history, it ducked and covered (and London was drowning, and we, we lived by the river). Things were already settled by the time we came along, and we hated everything "Haight-Ashbury" and Laurel Canyon. Ugh.
But I will say that California had some of the sweetest motorcycling roads anywhere. Dear lord, rolling on at 135 on my sweet growler Katana on Nicasio Valley Road at 0500 on a summer solstice morning, past the reservoir...the t-intersection coming on so fast at that speed. And on the way back, pulling over with a pocketful of corn to feed the California quail/codornices. There were things to love, then. I feel sadness for those for whom California was always Home.
If you haven't been out there in a while, there is now a ton of traffic in Marin County on tiny little roads like Nicasio Valley. People are looking to go back to the 1950s, and it is still kinda up in that area of California, which is funny, because the residents out there are so woke now.
I think my last Sunday Morning Pre-Week Stress Download Zen Ride was 2000, Cal. A whole generation ago.
And I feel compelled to mention I always tried to be a good neighbor, going at hours when everyone was asleep/the roads were open/just past dawn, and my bike was custom muffled to be VERY quiet. (Intelligence is efficiency; noise is inefficient.) She growled, but it was an internal thrum, that low deep gorgeous flat-power-band Suzuki thrum; not a screaming roar. Darling's bike (VFR) sounded like a small Anime bird. It chirped even when soaring/scraping knee. We hated loud bikes/straight pipes.
I didn't know about the social/political changes there. When I rode there, and knew people in those parts, they were what today would be called pretty conservative. When I keynoted the California Farm Conference one year, it was super progressive in terms of ag methods/systems...but politically Hiram Johnson/Bull Moose. Republican with a small r.
Sadly it’s not super conservative now in Western Marín County. Nicasio is a beautiful spot. As a native Californio too bad it’s in CA. 🥺The Wokesters and Lefty, Progressives with Dinero from San Francisco and Silicon Valley have moved up there.
So the government promotes sex and drugs, without consequences (save for STDs and overdosing). Sounds like a tourism promo from the Chamber of Commerce.
Had a client once who owned a drug rehab halfway house outside Vegas. I don't know how many beds he had, but I do know it was 6k per OCCUPIED bed per month. Just typing that out it's obvious the incentive that is being created.
On a small lake in Northern California (note... on a LAKE), there are 2 so called "Rehab Facilities", one was the former resort property and the other, tucked back in the uber pricy Peninsula Estates cove, amongst multi-million dollar vacation homes, is a multi- million dollar, mini-manse that is also supposedly used as a Rehab facility!
So, as in the ritzy areas of the Los Angeles Basin and Coastline, we find these "Rehab Facilities" on one of the few lakes that allow residential properties and docks? Sounds like a scam and just exactly like the Democrat ideal of integrating single family neighborhoods with their cronies "half-way" houses back in the 1980's. The dirty little secret is that California's current Democrat Overlords are again shoe horning their ilk in the suburbs and now rural neighborhoods in the Sierra Foothills!
I started this 'thoughtful, nuanced' post--but fbomb it. Please LA! Please, please, please give Spencer a chance. If he absolutely trounces everyone tmrw in the Primary--like he gets 51% let's say--does he in fact become mayor?
If that happens, I can see it begin a tsunami of electoral wins across the nation.
So, no nuanced, thoughtful BS that I think makes me look smart. I will pray for LA tonight and tmrw. Please LA, choose to win.
Wow, who would have thought Marxists engaging in capitalist vertical integration?
Make cars? Own everything from the dealerships down to the tire manufacturers.
Creating a controlled, dependent dystopia? Own the needle dispensaries to the rented drug dens to the pleasure palaces and have a hammer lock on the import / export business.
So you have not been following Steve Hilton. Steve has a Podcast on which he invites journalists who do the deep dive into California's Legislative shenanigans and Other guests in grassroots Watch Dog groups all over the State. They track and discuss issues facing Californian's and smaller Cities and Towns. They talk about and interview Farmers and Business people held hostage by high taxes, draconian mandates and idiotic regulations!
I have. He's English and advised David Cameron, double strikes against him. 40 million people here in California and we can't produce one, rational, natural-born conservatuve candidate who can win? It seems half of our government overlords are transplants. I was born here, my parentswere born here, i’m tired of outsiders coming in and telling how they can fix a problem caused by the group of outsiders, like Pelosi, Weiner, Pan. I’d run, but I don't have the temperament, we'd be building scaffoldingfor ropes tomorrow. .
Pure insanity. I pray there's a special level of hell for these sick disgusting predators making money off the homeless, because God knows the best we can EVER hope for is a congressional investigation that costs more money and goes nowhere
The grifters who run the homeless industrial complex need to be made famous. Publicize who they are, where they live, and what they drive. Investigate all of them.
But .. The California Legislature (nearly 95% Democrats, Gerrymandering), just passed a Bill in the House chamber to "Stop" independent journalistic investigations and any photo evidence of their cronies and their families involvement in GRIFTING taxpayer funds. the Bill is waiting for a hearing and vote in the State Senate.
So, you see, they are scurrying around like the COCKROACHES they are, since Nick Shirley dared to shine a light on their Armenian Constituents Slush Fund/Hospice Providers!
They're just another species of slumlord, drawing parasitical profit from the misery of others.
Worse, in my opinion, than the one percenters the Left would rather focus our attention on. Not that I'm a fan of Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, et al, but they've arguably done more good for society than these vermin, who as far as I can tell have added *nothing*.
Sorry to tell you this but Gates, Zuckerberg etc. all work together with the "grifters running the homeless industrial complex". They are all trying to bring communism to the world and are all trying to destroy humanity. That is their goal. I've watched them most of my life, and I'm in my 70s.
To the extent they're involved in the grift, they deserve our contempt and just punishment.
I didn't say they were blameless, or even that the moral balance sheet comes out in their favor. Only that they have made *some* valuable contributions to society. Unlike many others involved in the grift.
They provide tens of thousands of jobs in California alone, likely more. They allow people to feed themselves Amazon driver, and purchase homes, have families (Face Book/Meta employees, Microsoft, etc) The businesses and employees need services and products and employ nannies, gardeners, maid services, dry cleaners, use restaurant, pay into gas taxes, income and property taxes, et cetera.
The Grifters and their NGO's just take from the tax payer and add to the national debt! All these faux Medical facilities, Rehab Centers, all tap into our taxes through Health Services funding! Why do you think California was on the frontlines of demonizing Elon and Trump's DOGE???
Government inefficacy is the primary way these politician's funnel/launder money to their crony constituancies!
This is happening in Washington State also. The new Mayor of Seattle, Katie Wilson (cute name for a rich hardcore socialist) is driving the high end wealth out of the region with her “tax the millionaires” mantra.
She laughs at that predictable outcome because she knows that when they’re gone and the city goes broke, she can turn to the middle class to fund her utopian delusions.
And she’s only one of the DSA politicians up there working to tear it all down while goblins dance in the rubble.
Just a very quick dig. But yet again it appears that the bulk of the largesse--both tax and donations--funds jobs for people in the Homeless Services Sector.
> Mark Casanova brings extensive expertise in development, outreach, fundraising, and managing community-led programs that aim to resolve the issues surrounding homelessness.
"Resolve the issues SURROUNDING homelessness." Not resolve homelessness.
Salaries and other compensation 20,500,000 (rounded)
Other expenses 10,000,000 (rounded)
—All the heck over the place, see Part IX
"Over the years, [CEO] Bruce [Boardman] has helped expand Social Model Recovery Systems into an organization that offers treatment, housing, support, and connection throughout Los Angeles County."
Well that's what I look for regarding homelessness. Not ending it. Expanding its organizations.
But who is going to be the first to step up and say so, if their rice bowl depends on these enormous funding streams? And really, what does it matter? You know--the poor you'll have with you always. Might as well wrangle them for profit.
I worked as a therapist for many years and have 15 yrs myself in recovery from alcohol. NO AMOUNT of drugs/alcohol is safe for anyone who is serious about getting into and remaining drug/alcohol-free. NO AMOUNT. I was horrified when they introduced "harm reduction." I knew it would never work and it doesn't.
Two very extraordinary men. They saved literally millions of lives through their work. I am forever grateful to those 2 men, who shone a huge light in the darkness.
Unfortunately the progressives aren't the ones learning from their experiments. The only conclusion they draw from the results is that more money is needed.
(Oh, and that their opponents need to stop undermining the program with their negativity. It's bound to work if we would just all think good thoughts. You believe in fairies, don't you? Do you want Tinkerbell to DIE?!?)
The idealistic ones at the lower levels, on the ground aren't learning from the experiments.
The strategic ones at the upper levels directing it all are learning, and already had learned *their* experiments would fail to do what the idealistics were trying to do. Succeeding at what the strategics are trying to do: chaos, disorder, societal breakdown to "build back better" from. With the bonus of "useless eaters' removing themselves from the gene pool.
Remember, POSIWID. The purpose of something is what it does.
Yes. The Left has always been about free handouts. "Take from the rich and give to the poor", with no consideration for the consequences. It's the politics of beggars and of soft-hearted (and soft-minded) do-gooders -- and, as we've been discussing here, of cynical grifters exploiting both of them.
I have reduced my expectation to, I hope tha bad guys have to frantically and embarrassingly cheat so much this time, it brings attention and our elections get cleaner,
I see numbers like this in every sector and then I think about my tax bills…sales, property, income, registration w/ a side of emissions testing, licenses…..I’m about to puke .
“Council votes to regulate” means another side gig for the “regulators.” Parking fees, licenses, inspections, permits. Oooh. A other cash cow. Rents rise, the lady and her pit bull will have to find someplace else to live. Proud place. LA.
Val, I read somehwere in the past couple days that...um, somewhere (MN? CA?)...was newly requiring annual permitting for ALL floatable devices. Your kayak, your swim tube, your paddleboard, your canoe. They didn't mention your kindergartener's water wings, but probably that too. And the fines for not complying were really stiff, like $1500 per incident or something. I wish I'd made a note.
Ugh. Haven't heard that term since Scamdemic Summer, 2020, in the "Free State" of Florida. There was a boat parade on the 4th of July, intercoastal, lots of people showed up at parks along the parade route. But they had an official ban on people being in parks, too social and all to be outdoors, that super scary and dangerous "coronavirus" was all around us, especially other dirty people breathing dirty air, outdoors we might kill each other being in parks and all. Did I mention this was in the "free state" of Florida?...on the 4th of July?...which the many people in the parks were violating - Unless - they were in the water on some sort of floatable device. Kayak, swim tube, paddleboard, etc. But not water wings. Those did not count. And if you were caught in the park on the intercoastal just on the beach or swimming in the water without a floatable device they had county sheriffs patrolling in boats to kick you out of the park. Threatening the scofflaws with citations and/or arrests if they didn't leave. Did I mention this was in the "free state" of Florida? On the 4th of July?
Many left, those who had rafts, floatables devices were told by the sheriffs that they were okay to stay. But we didn't. So my wife and I decided to duck into some bushes. Until the eagle-eyes on a patrol boat spotted us and told us they saw us hiding, directed us to leave. We pretended to leave, waited for the patrol boat to sail off, found a new spot to hang out again, catch the rest of the holiday on the shore and there came that damn patrol boat again. This time the sheriffs pulled in close to shore, threw lines on it, began to pull themselves in to physically confront us for not leaving. The escalation and threat prompted us to go for real that time. Did I mention this was in the "free state" of Florida? On the 4th of July?
My wife was pissed that they were picking on us. I wasn't happy, either. There were a dozen other people who we knew were on the shore not far from us, not all with floatable devices, who the sheriffs weren't harassing, they were focused on us. Maybe they didn't see them? Who knows. I tried to console her, and myself, with notions that while the sheriffs were focused on us that allowed others doing what we were trying to do to at least have a good time. We drew the attention away from them, "took one for the team." Reasoning that if more people did what we did, not only there, then, but for all the Scamdemic restrictions, they would never have enough law enforcement to get all of us, and the whole damn thing would collapse. When civil disobedience reaches a critical mass control breaks down. As is on display in LA, NJ, wherever the rent-a-mob protesters are deployed. They know this. Too bad there weren't enough willing to civilly disobey the Scamdemic restrictions to form a critical mass, pretty much anywhere. Not even in the "free state" of Florida. On the 4th of July, 2020.
That's my "floatable device" story for you. Multi-layered with a takeaway message. Even pulled it back to Chris's topic! Nice 'weave' if I don't say so myself!!
Well, it sounds like MN, but I didn't find anything other than if you're in a boat on water, everyone has to have a life jacket or equivalent. That the state/county has to have a rule to regulate common sense, well, makes no sense.
Bingo! That is not allowed! Despite paying property taxes on your own property, you can only live in an RV, for a short stint, while building your brick and mortar taxation unit!
As with all laws and crippling legislation and taxes in Climafornia, only the lawful citizen, landowner is subject to Code Enforcement and tax audits!
Let me take this occasion to point out once again that in the leftist mind property is theft and must be punished. Property taxes are "sin taxes", like the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, intended to discourage things our betters disapprove of.
"You'll own nothing and be happy" isn't a prediction, it's a command!
I started reading your post and cattle farming immediately came to mind. The farmer loads a wagon and goes to feed his cattle in the pasture. He knows where they will be and they know the routine. He would never take the cattle home with him and he knows they are being fattened for slaughter. The cattle are oblivious. Apparently, in Dem cities, that passes for expressing dignity.
Having lived in Venice I've seen this scene played out many times:
—The activists (who “came to feed and support people”) are certain that the police are being cruel. “You take people to jail! You don’t help them!” and “Look at this abuser! Look how he abuses people!”
I even once saw a guy so enraged by the sight of cops doing this, he attacked them and got clipped for his trouble. (There were of course vigils and protests and more performance art aimed at the pigs and I'm sure the guy's family back East got a nice fat check from the city for their son's noble sacrifice.)
There is just something in the sun, the light, the air, the ocean that does things to people's brains out here, and that attracts people from all over the world (lost souls, dropouts, castoffs, outcasts, exiles etc) who really seem to believe that we're all entitled to an infinite supply of free manna in whatever form we prefer and that the gravest possible crime is a hurt feeling, a thwarted desire, an unexpressed impulse—but worst of all any type of STIGMA. Your self-esteem is the sacrosanct essence of your soul and anyone wounding it is committing a blasphemous and deeply uncool hate crime.
California is the last farthest West outpost of Western Civ and it seems to have a culture of eternal utopian haze where it is forbidden to forbid and where it seems cruel that not everyone on earth can live the "La dolce far niente" from cradle to grave—and this thwarted infantile utopian desire I think also explains the unhinged rage whenever one of these eternal children runs face-first into reality. Life's unfair, I blame society!
California really is the land of the golden OUGHT, which exists in opposition to the old cold IS. Elections and politicians might help or harm around the edges but society is rooted in its people and we are a transient tribe of strangers who are so tolerant we'd buy a 40 for an alcoholic and a new needle for a teen junkie. Everyone deserves their own little slice of Heaven! Never mind meth or fentanyl, California itself might be the strongest, most dangerous drug of all.
It isn't that there's something about California that draws these dregs, it's that Calif politicians, such as Newsom and Karen Bass love to provide whatever they want in the way of free drugs, free sex, free food, free everything - whatever these idiot politicians want that will completely ruin a state. This statements sums up the situation very well IMO:
"Third, “body brokers” recruit drug addicts all over the country and ship them to Los Angeles so rehab facilities can bill health insurance for them. This is how so many drug addicts end up in California."
I might just reverse chicken and egg: Cali has been a utopian outpost for almost its entire existence, even the Gold Rush and its gold fever counts and maybe the dreamers of early Hollywood too. It's not a coincidence that we even have a town named after the idealist George Berkeley, who believed nothing exists except what we think and feel about it.
Also, remember the Summer of Love and the Mansons etc, all of which took place before our current useless rulers were even born. There's a reason they ship all the junkies here and not to Iowa or Oklahoma—once you ship em here, they never come back!
All true but as I have said elsewhere it is difficult to believe that this is not the desired outcome. We can talk about the public money but I think there is more to that. Those in charge and the advocated prefer this. My bet is becasue they believe this is the result of capitalism but I cannot shake the thought that a more ancient demon is at work here
People have been going to California to be led into temptation.
Post WWII (2,not 11), the population boomed with Vets who came for jobs in the Airline (new age of civilian air travel), Defense Contracting (Lockheed, JPL, Hughes, etc.) and all the myriad of services businesses required by those businesses and their employees. These were productive people with work ethic and morality, civility and they created families, the backbone of any great society! Very few came looking for a free lunch, free needles, or free housing!
California's natural Climate does not make people unproductive losers, California's current political and Educational Climate creates, imports and fosters destructive behaviors and corrupt humans who feast on the spread laid before them!
YES.
Being a telcoms and electrical infrastructure geek household, we had much occasion to study how CA's cities got settled (darling more often than I having to deal with previous decisions in designing/implementing new systems).
The particulars, e.g. behind PG&E's founding, and the making of Hetch Hetchy, and how come the spooks (i.e., glowies) settled where they did.
Gold fever.
The development of the Bay Area's electrical grid is fascinating. Basically it got thrown up like a kludged Bedouin tent...extracted for all the money its founders could get...then palmed off on the public sector/budget when the systems were no longer as lucrative.
The 2018 Camp Fire is blamed on a worn insulator--dating from iirc the 1930s--that let the power cable's metal come into contact with the metal of the tower.
I can't say I buy that, being an intrigued follower of arborist Robert Brame. But the specific conditions referred to are very accurate. Jim Doyle at the Chron wrote a great piece in I think 2001, "The Utility Giant that Grew from Gold Rush Roots and Became A 1930s Monopoly" I think it was called. I haven't looked for the link in awhile, but you might find it interesting if you find it.
And somewhere in the massive and magnificent layers of the Comstock House History blog are many many many articles on the electrification of California, and those who did it, and their tentacular interconnections.
https://comstockhousehistory.blogspot.com
The OUGHT you refer to was frequently a dream state imagined by these developers, and sold to others, as a way to get/keep their projects going. I'm not judging that; it may be a necessary element of all great works. I don't know. We always just got up and did what needed to be done, and were content to wait for heaven, or found it in the daily chores of our little life together.
I'm also something of a power/telecom industry geek, and spent enough time in northern California to observe how bad it really is. Of course, the great majority of the electrical power in northern California is supplied by Pacific Gas & Electric; which may be the worst power utility in the US.
There are some exceptionally hard-working folks at PG&E; especially in the operations end, such as linemen, etc. But PG&E's top and much of their middle level management is incompetent at-best. In some cases, though, it isn't their fault -- they're beholden to the state and local government regulators who essentially force every possible feel-good, green, and/or DEI requirement down PG&E's throat.
I agree with you 100% about this, Calif truly was the Golden State, a wonderful place to live - but has been going downhill for quite awhile, sadly.
Also perhaps not a coincidence that California was named because explorers thought they had found an island from a work of fiction.
great point!
our entire state is a work of fiction! ;))
Pseu, thanks; it resonated, you wondrous spirit.
And intersects with something my darling and I talked about a lot. We concluded from observation that it wasn't anything about California per se...as the BELIEF IN California. As you're saying.
We reflected on how CA's golden era came after World War "Two." Humanity traumatized after 30 years of mechanized nightmare white-on-white civil war...families torn apart...economics increasingly run on the global/Bank of England/City of London model...culture increasingly produced by rootless cosmopolitans.
And then the lucrative chaos was over...and what was there to live for? Our generation grew up aspiring to our dads' and uncles' and granddads' work...and got Reaganomics and Greenspanismo instead.
And culture wasn't the rooted continuity but the flickering cave-wall shadows of all those people who left Weimar in the '30s and set up in LA as a center of "cultural production."
There were the hot shot test pilots and weapons developers and silicon geeks.
Then the increasing money sluiced into the UC system by corporations.
But when all was said and done, we felt that we were "Silent upon a peak in Darien." The sea as terminus.
We never resonated with the boomer "endless summer" thing, being younger. DEVO were from Ohio. Kraftwerk, Popul Vuh, Tangerine Dream, and Johann Sebastian Bach from poor battered Deutschland. The Residents--Shreveport of all places (shrimp and oil!). XTC--Swindon. Our "youth culture" didn't surf history, it ducked and covered (and London was drowning, and we, we lived by the river). Things were already settled by the time we came along, and we hated everything "Haight-Ashbury" and Laurel Canyon. Ugh.
But I will say that California had some of the sweetest motorcycling roads anywhere. Dear lord, rolling on at 135 on my sweet growler Katana on Nicasio Valley Road at 0500 on a summer solstice morning, past the reservoir...the t-intersection coming on so fast at that speed. And on the way back, pulling over with a pocketful of corn to feed the California quail/codornices. There were things to love, then. I feel sadness for those for whom California was always Home.
If you haven't been out there in a while, there is now a ton of traffic in Marin County on tiny little roads like Nicasio Valley. People are looking to go back to the 1950s, and it is still kinda up in that area of California, which is funny, because the residents out there are so woke now.
I think my last Sunday Morning Pre-Week Stress Download Zen Ride was 2000, Cal. A whole generation ago.
And I feel compelled to mention I always tried to be a good neighbor, going at hours when everyone was asleep/the roads were open/just past dawn, and my bike was custom muffled to be VERY quiet. (Intelligence is efficiency; noise is inefficient.) She growled, but it was an internal thrum, that low deep gorgeous flat-power-band Suzuki thrum; not a screaming roar. Darling's bike (VFR) sounded like a small Anime bird. It chirped even when soaring/scraping knee. We hated loud bikes/straight pipes.
I didn't know about the social/political changes there. When I rode there, and knew people in those parts, they were what today would be called pretty conservative. When I keynoted the California Farm Conference one year, it was super progressive in terms of ag methods/systems...but politically Hiram Johnson/Bull Moose. Republican with a small r.
Sadly it’s not super conservative now in Western Marín County. Nicasio is a beautiful spot. As a native Californio too bad it’s in CA. 🥺The Wokesters and Lefty, Progressives with Dinero from San Francisco and Silicon Valley have moved up there.
Traffic is terrible in that area. Many over-burden two lane roads that should have been updated to four lanes decades ago.
Wow.. really well written and spot on.
Thanks!
So the government promotes sex and drugs, without consequences (save for STDs and overdosing). Sounds like a tourism promo from the Chamber of Commerce.
Yep....perfect
Excellent commentary as always, CP.
Thanks!
You nailed it! Denial of what's real is the opiate of what passes for "the people".
Thank you for this great comment which I enjoyed so much I read it three times.
Had a client once who owned a drug rehab halfway house outside Vegas. I don't know how many beds he had, but I do know it was 6k per OCCUPIED bed per month. Just typing that out it's obvious the incentive that is being created.
Cure would be the worst possible outcome.
The fish are always biting....
If you are a bait salesman.
That would make a great Political billboard!
This money should be going to take care of regular older Americans who need to be in rehab, a nursing home, or a memory care facility.
In 2017-18 the Orange County Register did a special series on drug rehab centers. Eye-opening:
"Rehab Riviera - An Investigation into how and why California has become a hub for rehabs, drug treatment centers, and sober living homes"
"https://www.ocregister.com/rehab-riviera/
On a small lake in Northern California (note... on a LAKE), there are 2 so called "Rehab Facilities", one was the former resort property and the other, tucked back in the uber pricy Peninsula Estates cove, amongst multi-million dollar vacation homes, is a multi- million dollar, mini-manse that is also supposedly used as a Rehab facility!
So, as in the ritzy areas of the Los Angeles Basin and Coastline, we find these "Rehab Facilities" on one of the few lakes that allow residential properties and docks? Sounds like a scam and just exactly like the Democrat ideal of integrating single family neighborhoods with their cronies "half-way" houses back in the 1980's. The dirty little secret is that California's current Democrat Overlords are again shoe horning their ilk in the suburbs and now rural neighborhoods in the Sierra Foothills!
I started this 'thoughtful, nuanced' post--but fbomb it. Please LA! Please, please, please give Spencer a chance. If he absolutely trounces everyone tmrw in the Primary--like he gets 51% let's say--does he in fact become mayor?
If that happens, I can see it begin a tsunami of electoral wins across the nation.
So, no nuanced, thoughtful BS that I think makes me look smart. I will pray for LA tonight and tmrw. Please LA, choose to win.
bsn
I was born in early 1950s and raised in L.A. - I truly hate what has become of it. I will be praying right alongside you, sir.
Vote the Democrat way: Early and often. No voter ID’s required so how they gonna know?? They made the rules, you’d just be following them.
Yes, if he gets 51%, it’s done - he’ll be mayor - there will be no need for a runoff.
30% is his top potential. So many of you seem to think that California is functioning democracy.
Think East Germany with surfers.
East Germany in 1950 maybe. Today the East German states are fed up with liberals except for pockets (sprockets?) of Berlin.
Not sure LA can sustain another 65 years at it's current rate of decline!
Wow, who would have thought Marxists engaging in capitalist vertical integration?
Make cars? Own everything from the dealerships down to the tire manufacturers.
Creating a controlled, dependent dystopia? Own the needle dispensaries to the rented drug dens to the pleasure palaces and have a hammer lock on the import / export business.
It's a Harvard Business School case study!
Bill, this is a really really REALLY useful observation. I thank you.
You're right, "left" vs "right" doesn't really describe our political allegiances any more. "Insane" vs "Sane" seems pretty accurate though.
How much sane do we really have out here? Not in the governor's race, for sure.
So you have not been following Steve Hilton. Steve has a Podcast on which he invites journalists who do the deep dive into California's Legislative shenanigans and Other guests in grassroots Watch Dog groups all over the State. They track and discuss issues facing Californian's and smaller Cities and Towns. They talk about and interview Farmers and Business people held hostage by high taxes, draconian mandates and idiotic regulations!
I have. He's English and advised David Cameron, double strikes against him. 40 million people here in California and we can't produce one, rational, natural-born conservatuve candidate who can win? It seems half of our government overlords are transplants. I was born here, my parentswere born here, i’m tired of outsiders coming in and telling how they can fix a problem caused by the group of outsiders, like Pelosi, Weiner, Pan. I’d run, but I don't have the temperament, we'd be building scaffoldingfor ropes tomorrow. .
Pure insanity. I pray there's a special level of hell for these sick disgusting predators making money off the homeless, because God knows the best we can EVER hope for is a congressional investigation that costs more money and goes nowhere
The grifters who run the homeless industrial complex need to be made famous. Publicize who they are, where they live, and what they drive. Investigate all of them.
But .. The California Legislature (nearly 95% Democrats, Gerrymandering), just passed a Bill in the House chamber to "Stop" independent journalistic investigations and any photo evidence of their cronies and their families involvement in GRIFTING taxpayer funds. the Bill is waiting for a hearing and vote in the State Senate.
So, you see, they are scurrying around like the COCKROACHES they are, since Nick Shirley dared to shine a light on their Armenian Constituents Slush Fund/Hospice Providers!
Oh what a tangled web they do weave!
That is a GREAT idea!
They're just another species of slumlord, drawing parasitical profit from the misery of others.
Worse, in my opinion, than the one percenters the Left would rather focus our attention on. Not that I'm a fan of Gates, Zuckerberg, Bezos, et al, but they've arguably done more good for society than these vermin, who as far as I can tell have added *nothing*.
Sorry to tell you this but Gates, Zuckerberg etc. all work together with the "grifters running the homeless industrial complex". They are all trying to bring communism to the world and are all trying to destroy humanity. That is their goal. I've watched them most of my life, and I'm in my 70s.
To the extent they're involved in the grift, they deserve our contempt and just punishment.
I didn't say they were blameless, or even that the moral balance sheet comes out in their favor. Only that they have made *some* valuable contributions to society. Unlike many others involved in the grift.
You think Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg have done good for society? Are you serious?!
They provide tens of thousands of jobs in California alone, likely more. They allow people to feed themselves Amazon driver, and purchase homes, have families (Face Book/Meta employees, Microsoft, etc) The businesses and employees need services and products and employ nannies, gardeners, maid services, dry cleaners, use restaurant, pay into gas taxes, income and property taxes, et cetera.
The Grifters and their NGO's just take from the tax payer and add to the national debt! All these faux Medical facilities, Rehab Centers, all tap into our taxes through Health Services funding! Why do you think California was on the frontlines of demonizing Elon and Trump's DOGE???
Government inefficacy is the primary way these politician's funnel/launder money to their crony constituancies!
Thank you, Lisa.
This is happening in Washington State also. The new Mayor of Seattle, Katie Wilson (cute name for a rich hardcore socialist) is driving the high end wealth out of the region with her “tax the millionaires” mantra.
She laughs at that predictable outcome because she knows that when they’re gone and the city goes broke, she can turn to the middle class to fund her utopian delusions.
And she’s only one of the DSA politicians up there working to tear it all down while goblins dance in the rubble.
You and I aren’t to agree about this. I note you omitted all the horrible things Gates has done to people.
Performative compassion and toxic altruism...it explains a lot.
Potholes.
Addiction.
Shit in public spaces.
Two candidates.
Candidate A: “I don’t see any potholes. I don’t see any addiction. What even are you talking about people don’t shit in the park you’re crazy.”
Candidate B: “there are potholes and addiction and we have no public spaces. I see these things and they are real and they are bad.”
Even if that’s ALL you ever get from Candidate B it’s a no-brainer.
the plantation has been modernized, and no longer produces food
Boom! Spot on!
LA is truly a Dystopian dream some Movie producer and writer created when they were on an LSD trip!
Just a very quick dig. But yet again it appears that the bulk of the largesse--both tax and donations--funds jobs for people in the Homeless Services Sector.
••Homeless Health Care of Los Angeles
Form 990 ending June 2024:
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/954074970/202531229349301143/full
Revenue 20,000,000 (rounded)
Salaries and other compensation 12,000,000 (rounded)
Other expenses 7,500,000 (rounded) including:
—Subcontractors 3,350,826
—Facilities/repair maintain and outside services 865,000
—Other expenses 1,734,000 (rounded)
Director Mark Casanova:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-casanova-talks-homelessness-solutions/id1619169795?i=1000557535789
> Mark Casanova brings extensive expertise in development, outreach, fundraising, and managing community-led programs that aim to resolve the issues surrounding homelessness.
"Resolve the issues SURROUNDING homelessness." Not resolve homelessness.
••Social Model Recovery Systems
Form 990 FY 2025 filed March 2026
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/954079133
Revenue 33,663,000 (rounded)
Salaries and other compensation 20,500,000 (rounded)
Other expenses 10,000,000 (rounded)
—All the heck over the place, see Part IX
"Over the years, [CEO] Bruce [Boardman] has helped expand Social Model Recovery Systems into an organization that offers treatment, housing, support, and connection throughout Los Angeles County."
Well that's what I look for regarding homelessness. Not ending it. Expanding its organizations.
•• Wesley Health Centers
Not sure—see here
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/search?q=wesley++health+centers
The model is absolutely positively NOT WORKING.
But who is going to be the first to step up and say so, if their rice bowl depends on these enormous funding streams? And really, what does it matter? You know--the poor you'll have with you always. Might as well wrangle them for profit.
I’d say their model is absolutely working! For the government grifters, that is.
Thank you great research
“Harm reduction” sounded like a good idea when I first heard it decades ago, but like so many progressive innovations, it failed.
I worked as a therapist for many years and have 15 yrs myself in recovery from alcohol. NO AMOUNT of drugs/alcohol is safe for anyone who is serious about getting into and remaining drug/alcohol-free. NO AMOUNT. I was horrified when they introduced "harm reduction." I knew it would never work and it doesn't.
Bill W. showed the way back. Bless him, and Dr Bob.
Two very extraordinary men. They saved literally millions of lives through their work. I am forever grateful to those 2 men, who shone a huge light in the darkness.
It works well for the pocketbooks of the bureaucracy.
Same here. Watching the failure of one progressive idea after another has been a learning experience, to be sure.
Unfortunately the progressives aren't the ones learning from their experiments. The only conclusion they draw from the results is that more money is needed.
(Oh, and that their opponents need to stop undermining the program with their negativity. It's bound to work if we would just all think good thoughts. You believe in fairies, don't you? Do you want Tinkerbell to DIE?!?)
Maybe we separate the progressives into tiers?
The idealistic ones at the lower levels, on the ground aren't learning from the experiments.
The strategic ones at the upper levels directing it all are learning, and already had learned *their* experiments would fail to do what the idealistics were trying to do. Succeeding at what the strategics are trying to do: chaos, disorder, societal breakdown to "build back better" from. With the bonus of "useless eaters' removing themselves from the gene pool.
Remember, POSIWID. The purpose of something is what it does.
Think of THE CHILDREN!
The Progressive either abort or traffic the children (education) for more tax dollars, more kiddy porn and more useful Borg type enablers.
Well that's the thing.
> Huh, these people have an interesting idea. Let's try it, revisit in a year or two, see how it's going.
> [year or two later] Hm, it doesn't seem to be working.
> DECISION PATHWAY: either stop doing what doesn't work
> Or insist it WOULD work if the right rain dances and bare-handed stone-knife heart extractions were done, in sufficient number.
Like most Progressive Notions, it was never designed to work, it was always designed as a transfer of wealth!
Yes. The Left has always been about free handouts. "Take from the rich and give to the poor", with no consideration for the consequences. It's the politics of beggars and of soft-hearted (and soft-minded) do-gooders -- and, as we've been discussing here, of cynical grifters exploiting both of them.
Depends on who’s harm is being reduced. Prolonging the addicts agony reduces the harm the individuals in the ngos have.
I'm waiting with bated breath for the election results.
I have reduced my expectation to, I hope tha bad guys have to frantically and embarrassingly cheat so much this time, it brings attention and our elections get cleaner,
Pipe dream, I know.
I've lost faith in California. I was lucky to enjoy it back in the day. Sunshine and palm trees. No visible homeless/drug addicts.
I see numbers like this in every sector and then I think about my tax bills…sales, property, income, registration w/ a side of emissions testing, licenses…..I’m about to puke .
Perfect opportunity, do a film, an update, an LA version of Dante's Inferno, levels of hell, insanity etc
Remember this Onion piece?
https://theonion.com/tenth-circle-added-to-rapidly-growing-hell-1819564878/
link to la times article on vanlords: https://web.archive.org/web/20240202170846/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-08-29/la-city-council-votes-to-regulate-vanlords-who-rent-rvs-to-the-homeless
“Council votes to regulate” means another side gig for the “regulators.” Parking fees, licenses, inspections, permits. Oooh. A other cash cow. Rents rise, the lady and her pit bull will have to find someplace else to live. Proud place. LA.
Val, I read somehwere in the past couple days that...um, somewhere (MN? CA?)...was newly requiring annual permitting for ALL floatable devices. Your kayak, your swim tube, your paddleboard, your canoe. They didn't mention your kindergartener's water wings, but probably that too. And the fines for not complying were really stiff, like $1500 per incident or something. I wish I'd made a note.
"Floatable device"
Ugh. Haven't heard that term since Scamdemic Summer, 2020, in the "Free State" of Florida. There was a boat parade on the 4th of July, intercoastal, lots of people showed up at parks along the parade route. But they had an official ban on people being in parks, too social and all to be outdoors, that super scary and dangerous "coronavirus" was all around us, especially other dirty people breathing dirty air, outdoors we might kill each other being in parks and all. Did I mention this was in the "free state" of Florida?...on the 4th of July?...which the many people in the parks were violating - Unless - they were in the water on some sort of floatable device. Kayak, swim tube, paddleboard, etc. But not water wings. Those did not count. And if you were caught in the park on the intercoastal just on the beach or swimming in the water without a floatable device they had county sheriffs patrolling in boats to kick you out of the park. Threatening the scofflaws with citations and/or arrests if they didn't leave. Did I mention this was in the "free state" of Florida? On the 4th of July?
Many left, those who had rafts, floatables devices were told by the sheriffs that they were okay to stay. But we didn't. So my wife and I decided to duck into some bushes. Until the eagle-eyes on a patrol boat spotted us and told us they saw us hiding, directed us to leave. We pretended to leave, waited for the patrol boat to sail off, found a new spot to hang out again, catch the rest of the holiday on the shore and there came that damn patrol boat again. This time the sheriffs pulled in close to shore, threw lines on it, began to pull themselves in to physically confront us for not leaving. The escalation and threat prompted us to go for real that time. Did I mention this was in the "free state" of Florida? On the 4th of July?
My wife was pissed that they were picking on us. I wasn't happy, either. There were a dozen other people who we knew were on the shore not far from us, not all with floatable devices, who the sheriffs weren't harassing, they were focused on us. Maybe they didn't see them? Who knows. I tried to console her, and myself, with notions that while the sheriffs were focused on us that allowed others doing what we were trying to do to at least have a good time. We drew the attention away from them, "took one for the team." Reasoning that if more people did what we did, not only there, then, but for all the Scamdemic restrictions, they would never have enough law enforcement to get all of us, and the whole damn thing would collapse. When civil disobedience reaches a critical mass control breaks down. As is on display in LA, NJ, wherever the rent-a-mob protesters are deployed. They know this. Too bad there weren't enough willing to civilly disobey the Scamdemic restrictions to form a critical mass, pretty much anywhere. Not even in the "free state" of Florida. On the 4th of July, 2020.
That's my "floatable device" story for you. Multi-layered with a takeaway message. Even pulled it back to Chris's topic! Nice 'weave' if I don't say so myself!!
Well, it sounds like MN, but I didn't find anything other than if you're in a boat on water, everyone has to have a life jacket or equivalent. That the state/county has to have a rule to regulate common sense, well, makes no sense.
Possibly Oregon?
couldn't help but notice how living in your own RV on your own property could be outlawed
Bingo! That is not allowed! Despite paying property taxes on your own property, you can only live in an RV, for a short stint, while building your brick and mortar taxation unit!
As with all laws and crippling legislation and taxes in Climafornia, only the lawful citizen, landowner is subject to Code Enforcement and tax audits!
Let me take this occasion to point out once again that in the leftist mind property is theft and must be punished. Property taxes are "sin taxes", like the taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, intended to discourage things our betters disapprove of.
"You'll own nothing and be happy" isn't a prediction, it's a command!
I started reading your post and cattle farming immediately came to mind. The farmer loads a wagon and goes to feed his cattle in the pasture. He knows where they will be and they know the routine. He would never take the cattle home with him and he knows they are being fattened for slaughter. The cattle are oblivious. Apparently, in Dem cities, that passes for expressing dignity.
This analogy ties in with the theory of the new Democrat Plantation.