From the Land of Fruits and Nuts

This morning I wasted an entire hour watching the weather channel just to see if they would mention California.  Not a word!  There was the map of the west coast with the temperatures of cities on the left side of the screen in type so tiny it is virtually impossible to read.  The entire hour was about the east coast, mid-west, south-west, south east and Texas, the temperatures in those cities and the really awful weather they are having there with the remnants of Hurricane Odile dumping inches of rain and causing flooding.  But nothing about California and our temperatures, which can vary by tens of degrees in just 40 miles; nothing about our awful drought and the massive wild fires as a result, nothing about the fog that is truly unseasonal here – nada, zip, zilch, nothing!! 

It is not only the weather channel that does this.  Not too long ago an evening news announcer had a lengthy discussion about what to do about the states that have gerrymandered their Congressional Districts in insure that only Republicans can be elected.  Amid much hand wringing and pontificating about how terrible this is, there was further pontificating about how nothing could be done about it.  Well, California did something about our gerrymandered state.  We had an initiative establishing a bi-partisan commission to redraw the Congressional District lines to be more equitable to both parties.  Of course, the Republican Party did the same thing then they are doing with the ballots in Wisconsin – filed suit, in our case because the new lines did not benefit the Republicans, and in the case of the Wisconsin ballots because the Democrats appeared first on the ballot and this did not benefit the Republicans.  Nothing was mentioned there that in 2012 the Republicans were first on the ballot because Scott Walker had won in 2010, and the Democrats were first now because the top vote getter had been Barack Obama in 2012.  Californians recognize these problems and do something about them.   

And then tax increases in California have allowed for some improvements in our school systems, roads, libraries, and increases to county and city revenue which provide essential services to citizens which were in a terrible state after Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Of course, Gray Davis had a short term in there, but was recalled because of manipulation of our electrical system freaking out Californians who couldn’t believe that right wing radicals could be so crass.   County government makes sure that all necessary services are (or should be, if not) run efficiently and truly provide the oversight of the services they provide.  Consequently, our quality of life is far superior to that of citizens of the red states that refuse to believe that government can do anything and therefore should not be funded.  I guess instead of duly elected officials overseeing how government is run, the red states would prefer that corporations take over the provision of these services, the citizens will still pay taxes, but these dollars would go to the corporations.  It is known as privatization of services.  Nothing is ever said that the citizen’s tax dollars would be going to provide a profit to the corporations, and who would be making certain that the corporations were actually providing the services they had contracted to provide?   

There is one news announcer, Jose Luis-Balart, whoever even mentions California.  We fortunately have a satellite dish, and can record him for my later in the morning consumption.  It would really be helpful both to California listeners as well as to others in this country that might be able to learn a tad from how California does things.  And what our weather is like, regardless of the assumption that California does not have weather!