My 40-year class reunion is next month.

I’m shocked to learn that 37 or 38 classmates have passed away since graduation. I don’t know the circumstances of those deaths but I know of a few. Within months of graduation, car crashes took the lives of at least two – and those crashes the result of booze and speed. Others, I am certain, died of diseases such as cancer.

I emailed this information to Ceres City Attorney Tom Hallinan. You might see him as a well-dressed attorney; I see him as Tom Hallinan the formerly jean-clad goofball from junior high and fellow 1979 graduate of Oakdale High School.

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And yeah, a fair amount of classmates may have died from poor living habits as evidenced by a headline in the Sun: “Just last month, 53 Americans died in mass shootings … while 40,000 died from obesity.”

Misplaced national focus on guns and not the fork or spoon, perhaps?

The Sun article by Jane Moore notes that forensic pathologist Dr. ¬Richard Shepherd rarely examines dead slender bodies.

We live in a society that condemns anyone for criticizing any human behavior (such as boys who want to be girls) – the exception being that if you’re a Trump supporter then you’re fair game for verbal and physical assault and ad nauseum insult. But in our quest for tolerance, we seem to condone sedentary and unhealthy lifestyles and abuses of one’s physical state. And because of the rise in Type 2 diabetes and heart and liver disease, healthy people are paying for it in rising health insurance premiums. 

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So let me get this straight: two conservative Hispanic members of the Santa Ana City Council are the target of recalls because they voted against raises for police officers? While it appears that the Police Officers Association is driving the recall for obvious reasons, they’re veiling this bullying tactic under the guise that they are supporters of President Trump’s immigration policies and caging children – a practice that started under Obama I may add.

So the way I read this, police unions are tapping into Latino hatred of Trump – thank you MSNBC and CNN – when the idea here is get rid of council people who won’t pay them what they want.

Santa Ana Councilman Juan Villegas said accusations involving Trump’s immigration policies are “made up in order to play on the emotions of the voter and get them to sign.” God help us if voters are that gullible.

Imagine Linda Ryno or Mike Kline being recalled because they’re trying to be fiscally prudent.

Villegas is far from anti-police. In fact, he has worked for 29 years in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department as a Sheriff Special Officer. He’s just fiscally prudent – something our national leaders should be.

It’s scary to me that an easily manipulated public doesn’t attend council meetings, votes on emotion, and trusts a media biased against conservatives.

I hope this recall effort fails big time.

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Judging by the levels of crime, the public needs to see the consequences of bad behavior.

I was a bit disappointed when Oklahoma City KFOR-TV station abruptly ended live helicopter video broadcast of a Sept. 9 police chase of a murder suspect when the suspect bailed from his car and was blasted by a hail of police bullets complete with a pink spray of criminal tissue.

This effort to sanitize the news might be a reason so many young men go out and commit stupid crimes under the false belief that they are 10 feet tall, bulletproof and can outrun a police network. 

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Former NY Mayor Ruby Giuliani recently Tweeted a video of two female students violently attacking their female teacher with a comment about Gov. Gavin Newsom signing SB 419 that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to suspend students for willful defiance. (Before going on you should know the girls were black, the teacher white). SB 419 was passed after activist groups like the Voice of the Youth complained that the bill disproportionately affected black students and so-called LBBTQ students. According to the California Department of Education, black students make up 5.6 percent of California’s student population but account for 20 percent of suspensions. 

Let me ask a question: Might the primary reason for higher disturbances in the classroom among black students be related to the high rate of fatherlessness in the black community, an unacceptably high 57.6 percent compared to 20.7 percent for whites? Studies would say definitely so.

Giuliani called out the far-left teacher’s union, asking if they will “step up or cower.” (You would think the union would want to protect its teachers but it didn’t.)

I could care less what color you are or what gender you have sex with; if you can’t obey the rules then you don’t belong in a classroom disrupting the education of others who do realize a good education is necessary to get by in the world once they graduate while the rabble rousers turn to a life of crime as thieves, drug dealers, drug addicts and prostitutes.

If you guessed that the American Civil Liberties Union supported SB 419 you’d be spot on. The bill was opposed by the Charter Schools Development Center. Charter schools have come under attack by California Democrats but charter schools often serve as a school of last resort of students who’ve been expelled from traditional schools and these pupils thrive in a charter school environment.

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I’m troubled by the steady diet of stories of brazen criminals who just walk into local beauty supply or Apple stores and walk out the door with arms full of stolen merchandise – many with smiles on their faces as they do it.

It’s time to get real, folks. This is what happens when you elect politicians – and Sacramento is almost entirely Democrats – who write laws that mollycoddle criminals.

Of course, the voters were wrong in 2014 to pass Prop. 47 which bar prosecutors from pressing felony charges involving less than $950 in stolen goods unless the defendant has a criminal record. A November 2015 report issued by the Stanford University Justice Advocacy Project – the group that co-authored Proposition 47 – suggests that Proposition 47 reduced the state’s prison population by 13,000 and saved the state about $150 million that year. Problem is, the thieves became more emboldened and instead of being contained in jail or prison, they’re roaming the streets looking to rip off you and me.

Besides, with a budget surplus of $30 billion, don’t you think $150 million is a drop in the bucket to build more prisons? I’d spend $150 million to make the streets secure, wouldn’t you?

And have you ever asked yourself this: If the state has that much money lying around, doesn’t that mean that they’ve overtaxed us Californians and need to be honest and give us a refund?

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This is one from the “Hard to Believe” files:

Jerry Madwell posted photos on Facebook of a rural Ceres car crash and this narrative: “Watched a Ford blow through an intersection on Service and Faith Home while talking on the phone and run head-on into a telephone pole. The husband jumps out to check the baby in the back seat. The Ford is smoking, airbags are deployed.

“The wife, the driver, starts backing up and almost runs over her own husband and baby. The husband tosses the baby back into the back seat (hopefully it landed somewhat back in the car seat) then jumps in the front and they take off.”

Unless they were on their way to the hospital before the crash, I’d have to assume some very politically incorrect thoughts about why the couple behaved as they did. The first would be: no license, no insurance and maybe not even supposed to be in the USA.

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Liberals had conniptions when President Trump came to Southern California last week. Someone burned the American flag and fights broke out.

The joker we have for a governor had the audacity to say Trump has “got to find the areas where we’re not performing and that’s the issue of poverty, affordability and homelessness, and exploit those as a way of tearing down a new governing philosophy.”

To Newsom: Dude, you have no idea how many Californians want you out of the governor’s office. Homelessness is rampant thanks to your policies.

I remember seeing Newsom in Salida in July 2017 citing how bad poverty has gotten in California under his party’s watch and thinking, who in their right mind would continue turning to Democrats for leadership?

I guess California gets the government  it deserves. It’s sad the rest of us who vote the other way have to put up with this barrage of nonsensical policy.

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The Courier Facebook posting teasing the story, “Three male student-athletes earn spots on CV’s cheer,” generated some controversy. Women posted generally supportive comments, one even thanking the boys for “breaking down the barriers for young boys everywhere” – as if young boys everywhere clamor to become cheerleaders. Others were less enthusiastic, even troubled. The entry of males into the traditionally female arena of cheerleading and competing against girls in sports bothers many. Lori Salsa-Scheftic suggested that everything women have worked for is “going down the drain!” Michael Choate said “the inclusion movement by groups and government to what was boys’ sports for girls now is showing what happens when you go down the road of all inclusion and ‘gender is fluid’ ideas.”

Jimmy Horn’s comment of “Sad” generated some shaming of him. Iris Rodriguez specifically suggested his single-word comment of “sad” was “insulting” to the “children.” She suggested that “there’s no longer male- or female-only sports. It’s 2019, not 1950.”

Those suggesting that there are no longer male- or female-only sports have a point but their push to make male and female equal flies in the face of simple biology. The Left can deny biology and the vast differences of males and females – particularly the significance of testosterone – but men and women are built differently and perform differently. You won’t see many women playing rough and tumble football in the NFL. Aside from one night of powder puff football, I think a vast majority of people won’t privately say they are cool with women playing football as boys cheer.

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Wow. Talk about trying to buy votes. That’s all the Democrat candidates for president are offering – freebies. Hey, we’d all like to give our kids cars and houses but we can’t afford them. Neither can the U.S. taxpayers.

Beto O’Rourke is unhinged with his creative new policies to win over liberals.

No lie: he wants to not only expand marijuana freedoms but he wants to give reparations to people who have been locked up because they couldn’t contain themselves and broke laws on selling drugs.

In Oakland the failed Senate candidate said: “We need to not only end the prohibition on marijuana, but also repair the damage done to the communities of color disproportionately locked up in our criminal justice system or locked out of opportunity because of the War on Drugs.”

He goes on to blame whitey: “These inequalities have compounded for decades, as predominantly white communities have been given the vast majority of lucrative business opportunities, while communities of color still face over-policing and criminalization. It’s our responsibility to begin to remedy the injustices of the past and help the people and communities most impacted by this misguided war.”

Their class and racial warfare is getting old.

This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or Morris Newspaper Corp. of CA. How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com