If you were arrested for DUI, would you smile as police snapped your mugshot?

Most of us would be mortified to be in a veryserious situation as a DUI arrest. There are heavy financial penalties and the loss of a license.

But smile is exactly what a 19-year-old Turlock woman did on Dec. 2 when she was arrested in Ceres for DUI. It was just one of a rash of stories we have published in recent months (actually years) involving young people driving drunk and endangering others’ lives. Another story published last week was of a 32-year-old man who hit two parked cars while drunk. The week before that we ran a story about an intoxicated 29-year-old who drove his car into a house.

This is not just a holiday season occurrence.

Not only was this woman driving drunk, but she got her hands on booze which is also against the law since she’s under 21.

The smile is probably was prompted a host of comments on our Facebook posting on her arrest. A lot of folks saw her cutsy smiling pose as no sign that she wasn’t upset at all about a DUI arrest. It’s almost like somebody didn’t tell this young lady that it’s not a selfie moment to express how cute you think you are.

Hours after people added comments to our Friday post, the young lady called to ask us to remove the post, saying she was being harassed and besides we didn’t get her “permission” to report on her arrest.

This is an indictment on our public education system. Somehow kids aren’t learning about important things like the First Amendment. Maybe the Constitution needs to be taught in high school instead of the sixth grade. How did she not know about Freedom of Press, which means we don’t need her “permission” to run a story on her arrest.

After her plea, a relative begged for special treatment, saying the young lady was being “bullied.” Apparently public criticism is now considered “bullying” and we all know “bullying” is bad.

Other Facebook users ridiculed us for having a slow news week by publishing something as “insignificant” as a DUI. Smaller community newspapers often print stories that wouldn’t make the larger metro papers. But printing local news is a great community service because it’s about where you live and these stories affect you. People want to be aware of the folks who are moving menaces on the road because it’s your life and that of your family! Why people think someone should get a special pass because they are young and made a “mistake” is a disservice to everyone. If these folks were the only ones who got caught, think about how many else out there are doing the same thing and making our roads dangerous places!

According to a new study from Forbes Advisor revealed that California ranks #33 for the most dangerous place for drivers. Since 2019, California has experienced a 3% increase in car accident fatalities. In California, 32% of fatal car accidents are a result of speeding, while 36% are due to impaired driving.

No, she didn’ts kill anyone but she could have.  If this young lady had been one killed by a drunken driver, how loud do you think her family would be screaming about the problem of DUI and how Ceres Police didn’t do their job.

Folks have been conditioned by our society to think there should be no consequences – such as public scorn and ridicule – for dangerous behavior. Why should it take a tragic event until there is an expectation to crack down on a problem?

Too many parents come to the rescue of their kids when they must learn the lessons that life experiences offer.

I’ll tell you this: Had my son done what she did, I’d be the kind of parent to say, “It’s a tough lesson to learn, isn’t it, son? I hope you learned the most important lesson of your life.”

Life will go on and this incident will be a footnote in this woman’s past. But what a tough lesson to learn. We wish you well, Alyssa.

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The Bible spoke about this concept of people hearing what their “itching ears” want to hear, meaning what they want to hear.

Specifically, II Timothy 4:3 reads, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”

The passage is in reference to sound Christian doctrine but it also applies to other areas of life. We have all sorts of wonky ideas being propagated in the marketplace of free thought which defies logic.

When you’re young, you’ll believe anything you’ve been programmed to believe. Most of the input they receive today comes from social media – which we all now know has been manipulated against conservative thought – and from public education and universities filled with idealistic liberals.

Today’s kids are assaulted with this silly push to normalize mixed-up individuals who claim they “identify” as the opposite gender when biology couldn’t be clearer. I can no more change my gender than the person who denies reality to identify as a cow or a coffee table.

I show how gullibly nonsensical people on the Left are, Steven Crowder submitted a paper titled, “Embracing Fatness as Self-Care in the Era of Trump” to a university who bought it hook, line and sinker (probably because it mentioned Trump in a bad light).

Crowder impersonated himself as a fat pride woman named Sea Matheson for a Zoom talk for a university’s fat studies conference and delivered nonsensical talking points, such as, “Every scoop of Ben and Jerry’s should be seen as an act of resistance.” Rather than catch on to the bit, attendees met Crowder’s work with praise and his tremendous insight!

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As one gets older, one gets a perspective that young people don’t have because they haven’t seen life before, say, 2005.

So pardon me if I don’t believe in the swill of climate crisis.

Newsom recently told us that “the hots are getting a lot hotter, the dries are getting a lot drier, we have atmospheric rivers – we’ve unprecedented extremes, leaving us in a position where we’re dealing with unprecedented drought and wildlife.”

When will he come out and speak about our wet December? He won’t. You can’t politicize rain because rain is good – unless too much comes down all at once, to which he would – and has – gladly claim is the result of mankind ruining the planet. He can’t push an agenda if things are “normal.” But that’s the point – weather is constantly changing and always has. The planet had droughts and monstrous floods in the biblical days – eons before the invention of the internal combustion engine.

The climate change agenda – which is inserted into just about every news story as Nora O’Donnell gives the news on CBS – comes with government controls and taxes. That’s why we have a governor trying to outlaw cars that burn gas and a billionaire calling for folks to quit eating beef. (Those cows fart methane, you know).

Even some adults who should know better will repeat the climate change crisis nonsense. A Florida woman in her late 60s who I know told me about the rising sea levels flooding parts of Florida. I asked her specifics and asked why the coastline of California hasn’t raised since I was a kid. There is still as much beach at Ocean Beach in San Francisco as when Buffalo Bill sat in the saddle of a horse there when he appeared in 1902. All she could do is say she read it somewhere online. Again, itching ears.

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Democrats like Biden and Harris and Obama pronounce great faith in science – except when they deny basic biology to accept that men can be women and women men. Much of the government funded science is junk science.

The government came up with Climate Solutions Act based on a paper cited by Jane Lubchenco, the Deputy Director for Climate and the Environment at the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy. That paper suggested that closing more of the ocean to fishing can increase catches of fish.

The paper was ridiculed by experts. Lubchenco didn’t disclose an obvious conflict of interest in that the paper was written by her brother-in-law and that she edited his said paper. 

The paper was retracted. While the National Academy of Sciences has banned her for her dishonesty, Biden promoted her as co-head of his Scientific Integrity Task Force. So much for holding dishonest folks in government accountable.

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Another thing that becomes abundantly clear to one as they get older is that problems don’t get solved by government throwing more money at them. Look at the obscene amount of billions of dollars being thrown at homelessness, yet it worsens. That’s because we haven’t fixed people nor figured out how to keep more from joining them.

We have a spiritual malaise in our land. We have people who are spiritually dead and seek to find significance and medicate their sick souls. We have a family breakdown where kids don’t have responsible dads. We have a moral problem when people choose to put great value on making money over human lives by selling drugs that poison and destroy. When a person allows drugs or alcohol to take over their lives, they can’t cope and end up homeless.

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I just love how clueless MSN reporters are.

As you know by now, President Biden made a deal with Russia to free a WNBA athlete who despises her country for an arms dealer who was aiming to kill Americans. There is widespread outrage.

There was little sympathy for Brittney Griner who was jailed for smuggling hashish oil into the Soviet Union. The reason? She seemed like an ungrateful, America hater who despite her success as an overpaid basketball player advocated trashing the National Anthem. It was almost poetic justice that the American basher athlete lost all of her freedom for months.

But what does MSN do? It writes a ridiculous story that suggests there is a “scientific theory” why Americans didn’t want Griner to come back home. The author of the piece went to some liberal university professor who suggested that it had more to do with Griner being black and lesbian. Spare me.

The controversial remarks made by Griner included her disrespect of the National Anthem because, as she is obsessed with camping on the fact that when Francis Scott Key wrong the poem in 1814 black folks didn’t have many rights. Never mind that the country has spun a 180 since then and blacks have all the freedoms that she enjoys today – even getting paid a lot of money to play sports. 

Talk all you want about supporting fellow Americans, but the thing that unites us as Americans is our love for freedom and appreciation for our system that gives us that freedom. But when you show little gratitude for living in the greatest country on earth, don’t expect us to shed any tears if you get caught in another country bringing in illegal substances.

Let’s also talk about who just got freed for Griner’s stupidity. His name is Viktor Bout and in 2011 he was convicted of conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens and officials, delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, and providing aid to a terrorist organization, and was sentenced to the minimum 25 years’ imprisonment.

Talk about an off-balanced trade.

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