We are no strangers to fires in California. But the concept that tropical island Hawaii could face the same fate was something I never believed could happen. Not in a place so green and surrounded by so much blue.
The fires that devastated Maui, Hawaii felt personal to me.
I’ve only been to the island once in my life and that was in 1995, 28 years ago last month. My father lived in Kihei, which is on the west side of the island and we stayed at a condo unit right on the water in a complex that he was managing. It was a memorable week and the only time I got to swim with tropical fish of beautiful colors. We got to tour Lahaina and I remember the massive world famous banyon tree that may be forever destroyed. I remember visiting the famous Hilo Hattie’s shop.
It’s all mostly destroyed now.
But aside from my personal visit to that side of Maui, my brother Jason is a resident on the west side of Maui and has shared with me how emotionally devastating things are now. Imagine how you’d feel to see most of your home town in ashes. The pall of death is far reaching.
Eighty percent of Maui’s economy is built on tourism, which translates to disaster when a fire of this magnitude. Jason’s condo unit was spared but most of his income comes from the rent of a second unit. If his renters can’t pay rent, my brother may not have the income he needs to live on.
Hawaii will rebuild and return but it could take years before any sense of normalcy returns.
Keep Hawaii – and my brother and all the people who lost their family – in your prayers.
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I know, I know. The news that O’Reilly’s Auto Parts wants to build yet another store in Ceres is not going to excite anyone. It’s like hearing, Ceres is getting another AM/PM. Or Ceres is getting another car wash.
We’re gonna hear that same old “Ceres doesn’t get anything we want.”
There are some exciting things on the horizon which have been approved but not yet constructed. They include a Family Pizza one block to the east on Whitmore Avenue. Approximately 6,465 square feet will be set aside for family dining, kids’ video games, arcade machines and play areas. The remaining 5,435 square feet will consist of a cocktail lounge (bar) with dining area and pool tables.
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I am baffled that in the city’s quest to clean up Ceres through beefed up code enforcement unit how not a single city leader has taken any initiative to clean up the biggest eyesore of all – which happens to be owned by the city!
I’m talking about the embarrassing appearance of the Ceres water tower.
Many citizens has expressed concern about how the tower looks – it’s seen by hundreds of thousands of Highway 99 users every day – yet the council’s priority is to spend a half million dollars in ARPA funds on a gazebo that nobody has really voiced needed to be replaced.
The city should cite itself for its own blight. If anyone on that council gives one flip about the condition of the tallest structure in Ceres they have never stated their concern at a council meeting.
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Nick and Eileen Stokman just returned from a trip to Ireland where they visited Ceres. They took with them a signed copy my 2010 book published by Arcadia Publishing to present to friends.
They brought back some interesting information on the – get this – 22 places in the world named Ceres.
There are eight towns with the name Ceres in the United States. There are two Ceres in South Africa, two in the Netherlands and two in Italy. There are also towns or cities named Ceres in Romania, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, Cuba, Brazil, Australia and Argentina.
A person could visit all these locations but surely not the biggest of all things named Ceres, the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter first discovered in 1801.
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Does anyone else see the irony in a governor for years signing all kinds of soft-on-crime bills into law and reducing consequences for stealing, closing prisons, grabbing more tax dollars away from local government (read that as police) and seeing theft go out of control only now to get the CHP involved in theft ring crackdowns after realizing he’d better clean up the mess he made?
So now that the CHP’s attention is being partially diverted from patrolling California roads to do the job of local police, will we start seeing an increase in speeding and traffic deaths?
I have a better idea: start increasing sentencing and building more prisons. Send a message to the thieves that this cannot be tolerated.
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Gump’s, which sells luxury furnishings and jewelry in downtown San Francisco since 1861, wrote an open letter to Governor Newsom, Mayor London Breed, and the city’s Board of Supervisors, pleading for them to act on what he describes as the city’s worsening downtown conditions.
Gump’s owner John Chachas wrote: “Today, as we prepare for our 166th holiday season at 250 Post Street, we fear this may be our last.”
He stated that: “San Francisco now suffers from a ‘tyranny of the minority’ —behavior and actions of the few that jeopardize the livelihood of the many. The ramifications of COVID policies advising people to abandon their offices are only beginning to be understood. Equally devastating have been a litany of destructive San Francisco strategies, including allowing the homeless to occupy our sidewalks, to openly distribute and use illegal drugs, to harass the public and to defile the city’s streets. Such abject disregard for civilized conduct makes San Francisco unlivable for its residents, unsafe for our employees, and unwelcoming to visitors from around the world.”
He called for officials to take immediate actions, including cleaning the city streets, removing homeless encampments, enforcement of city and state ordinances, and returning “San Francisco to its rightful place as one of America’s shining beacons of urban society.”
Earlier this year the SF Chronicle reported San Francisco had more than 7,754 homeless people, with approximately 4,400 of them sleeping on the streets, in a tent or in a vehicle in 2022.
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The beat down of a brazen shoplifter attempting to rake as much merchandise as he could from the shelves of a Stockton 7-Eleven into a plastic garbage can to steal it all, won the applause of millions who saw the viral video. One store employee finally had enough of the disregard for others’ property by administering some good old fashioned justice, whacking the would-be thief in the legs until he was a blubbering cry baby. This was after the man was told to stop and he threatened to stab the men stopping him.
Who had a problem with it? The Modesto Bee editorial board, which is ever out of step with the people in the Valley. Even Laura Ingraham called out the Bee as “bleeding hearts” after they wrote: “Thrashing the guy with a big rod, viciously and repeatedly, is not a lawful response … Street justice may be popular in movies or among frustrated citizens, but it has no place in a society governed by the rule of law.”
I wholeheartedly disagree. It’s precisely because of the failed policies of politicians the McClatchy newspapers endorse and support that people are forced to take drastic measures to spare their property and their lives.
This crime wave is occurring because of laws Democrats have passed while everyone has rolled over and played dead while the thugs and thieves march in to steal, kill and destroy disrupt life. If we had more floggings like the one in Stockton, maybe this crap would stop. Until then, it’s time the voters got serious and voted for folks who will end this, and I must say Stanislaus County did well to elect Juan Alanis to the state Assembly over that liberal Jessica Self. Sacramento is overrun by too many of her type.
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Obama buddy Rahm Emmanuel once said “never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
Well, I don’t know if hot summer temperatures are a crisis but it’s funny how one state legislator evoked fear in introducing yet another round of climate bills which will drive up the cost of housing even higher. California is already one to two million housing units short and there is no longer affordable housing anywhere in this once Golden State.
The governmental regime has attacked our cows, our cars, our diesel trucks, our gas stoves and our water heaters. But there desire for control knows no bounds.
Last week California State Senator Josh Becker and Assemblyman Matt Haney held a press conference using the gimmick of a melting ice sculpture (like we don’t know ice will melt on a hot summer day) to introduce a version of AOC’s Green New Deal package. The press release announcing the conference starts out this way: “With triple-digit temperatures once again in the forecast in Sacramento this week, California lawmakers and advocates will hold a press conference on Thursday on the steps of the Capitol Building to launch a new campaign to pass California’s most comprehensive package of climate legislation for buildings in state history, which will ensure homes, buildings, and schools are climate-ready.”
It always gets hot in the Valley. Nothing new for those of us who grew up in the Central Valley. I remember extremely hot days in Oakdale in the 1970s before Matt Haney was born. But I must say we’ve had a pretty mild year until this last month when things have heated up as they always do.
The fear-mongering of the press release states: “Four out of every five humans globally experienced climate-fueled heat in July, a month that will go down as the hottest in recorded history, and perhaps the hottest in at least 120,000 years.”
Let’s dissect this ridiculous statement. Climate fueled heat? Isn’t heat part of the climate just as cold days or very nice days? How can anyone possibly suggest that this year has “perhaps” been the hottest in at least 120,000 years?
The outright exaggeration that is used to keep driving up the cost of living in California!
His press release says this: “In a state where 25% of homes lack cooling, extreme heat poses a major health threat to Californians.”
I don’t need to tell you that those homes are in coastal areas where it’s always cooler so spare me the pity.
One of the bills of the so-called “Upgrade California” package is AB 593 (Haney) which he crafted in the vein of pollution is racist, claiming “99% of low-income and working-class communities of color are impacted by severe pollution.” (Where is God’s name do they come up with baseless and incredulous statements like that?)
We all know California’s power grid is pushed to the limit while legislators seek to make us all convert from gas appliances to electrical and abandon our gas burning cars to electric vehicles.
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Mandated reporter is a term we’ve been used to for years now.
Current law requires a health practitioner to report to law enforcement if a patient is suspected of being physically abused, even when the injured patient does not want to make a report. State Assemblyman Tina McKinnor (a Southern California Democrat) suggests that some abuse victims are afraid to seek help or share information with their health care providers because it might make matters worse with their abusers so her AB 1028 has been introduced to do away with that requirement! Is her reasoning really the excuse or does she just want to save the abuser from going to prison?
According to McKinnor, in a survey of survivors who had experienced mandated reporting, 83 percent stated mandatory reporting made the situation much worse, somewhat worse, or did nothing to improve the domestic violence situation.
Embedded in her description is possibly the real reason: “… mandatory reporting laws can discourage immigrant survivors from seeking health care … due to fear that law enforcement involvement could lead to detention or deportation for themselves or their family in cases where they lack protected status.”
Ahah. I see now. Protected status should not belong to people who snuck across the border. This is one reason why our state is turning into the massive Third World welfare state that it is.
McKinnor wants to instead “create a survivor-centered, trauma-informed approach and limit non-consensual and potentially dangerous referrals to law enforcement.” Read that as? Limit police from knowing about the SOB doing the abusing. She prefers that the victim is referred to a local domestic violence and sexual violence advocacy program or the National Domestic Violence hotline.
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Who’s side is he on, anyway?
President Biden has been selling off the $260 million in materials funded by taxpayers to finish the border wall but not built because he stopped the work on Day One. The Republicans have introduced legislation to use the materials for their intended purpose or give it to U.S. border governors who will finish the job he’s unwilling to do.
Biden put the unused border wall panels in storage at 22 facilities the day he became president and the bill for that has been $300 million, or $130,000 per day, according to U.S. Senator Tom Cotton. To add insult to injury, the Biden White House is selling this valuable material for two cents on the dollar. Senator Roger Wicker’s bill would stop that and was approved by the Senate .
Cotton said: “The administration is racing to try to sell off all these materials because they would rather have the taxpayers take a massive hit of hundreds of thousands of dollars than give them to the governor of Texas, for instance, to build the border wall, or to allow them to sit around and be used to build the border wall when Republicans take back the White House in January of 2025.”
This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com
