Calhouns Can(n)ons

Yup, Déjà vu Some More

I’m sure Neil Ferrell’s excellent report in the latest Bay News (www.tolosapress.com) on the Local Parks plan to possibly put up an entry kiosk at Montana de Oro and charge an entry fee will start up the usual howls of protest. But it’s all déjà vu to me.

It seems like only yesterday, the head State Park Ranger assigned to the county here, came out to Los Osos to propose just such an entry kiosk and the cry from the audience sent shivers down his spine. Nooooo, NOOOOOO, BOOOOOO! BOOOOOO! they said. And since the county owned the road and declined to allow the state to put up an entry kiosk, the whole plan went nowhere.

But now, it’s Baaaaack. Pete Jenny, our new county parks director, is again in the same pickle he’s been in for years: No Money. Poor guy’s trying to run a park system which, like so much in our society, is suffering from the End Game of the Reagan Revolution.

Years ago, Americans decided they valued The Commons wherein all paid a few shekels to create a Commons for all to enjoy, even . . . . .EEEUUUUUUU . . . “poor people.” The RR changed all that. The RR said, bleep “poor people.” Ya want a. . . eeeeuuuuu . . .“public” park, pay for it yourself when you use it. Why should people like MOI pay any money out so . . . eeeuuuuu. . . “poor people” can go sit in a park, paid for with some of MOI money, and enjoy a baloney sandwich with their families on a Sunday Afternoon. If "those people" want a park they can jolly well get together and go buy one. Feh!

And so forth. So one by one our parks, road, schools, bridges sank into the slough of despond and crumbled into crap or disappeared into the arms of private developers (privatize that road and turn it into a money making toll road!) and various park managers had to struggle along doing more with less and less.

Meantime, of course, more and more rich and . . . eeeeuuuuuu . . . poor alike continued to use the various public parks, convinced that THE OTHER GUY was paying for them.

So, here we are. Ya wanna go out to see Montana de Oro, you’ll likely have to cough up $5 bucks for something that will be called a “day use pass,” or a “parking pass” or you can buy an annual pass, good for unlimited visits.

Or, Americans can once again sit down and have a conversation among themselves about the Value of the Commons and do they, as they once did before Reagan, all cough up a bit so that all may enjoy fully funded, excellently maintained, (with more park land acquired before it’s lost forever) parks, roads, bridges, schools & other publicly held amenities. And decide whether these things are valuable assets to be held in common or merely commodities to be sold to the highest bidder for the benefit and enrichment of the few.

Yes, Your Little Girl Is Being Brought Up In An Isolated Culture To Believe That God Want Her To “Marry” and Have Underage Sex With Her Old Creepy Uncle? Grand Nephew? Grandpa? (The DNA Isn’t Yet Clear) And Have Lots Of Babies, But That’s O.K., She’s Only 11 Now And So Isn’t In Any Danger, YET. We’ll Check Back With You Next Year And See How Close Her Old Creepy Uncle Is Getting To “Marrying” Her, THEN We May Step In To Keep Her From Being Sexually Abused, But Not Before, Because To Do That Would Interfere With This Girl’s Religion And Family And If We’re Off By A Couple Of Weeks And Creepy UncleNephewGrandpa Does The Deed, We’ll Run Some DNA Tests To See Who Creepy Old Daddy Is Then Smack Him Around Some, Meantime, We’re Returning Her To The Bosom Of Her Loving Family.

Near as I can tell, that’s the legal reasoning behind the recent Texas court’s ordering that many of the children seized from the FLDS mothers must now be returned to their Mummies. Since most of the kids were too young to have been sexually abused by the men they were being groomed to “marry,” they’re in no present danger and so can be returned to the mothers and the culture that will now restart grooming them for their eventual fate. And the grooming of the young boys to grow up and get into positions of power so they can have many “wives” can continue unabated, including the very real possibility that if they’re excess men in that culture, they may face expulsion, certainly a life with no wife, lurking on the edges, as all excess males are wont to do in polygamous societies. (Interestingly, to date, I haven’t read about the State attempting to portray this society as one “unfit” for children, or “depraved” or other such code words that usually are used, for example, to remove kids from a family of drunks, or crackheads & etc. In those cases, the kid isn’t being given drugs or booze directly, but is certainly being raised in an “unfit” environment, one not particularly conducive to a healthy upbringing, one you could say will doom him to a certain life choice that will likely end badly. Wonder what the difference here is? Maybe as this case proceeds forward, Texas will ‘splain.)

At any rate, apparently all of this is (for now) O.K. with the Texas courts, since it’s the right of the parents to raise their kids as they see fit and the state can only interfere if and when sexual abuse takes place, i.e. Creepy old uncles “marry” and consummate the marriage with their underage half-daughters? nieces? Half-neices? Grandchildren? And someone complains or notices that fourteen year-old girls are running around with babes on their hips. Their babies. And so forth.

Ah, America.

Ah, Em Mah Own Granpaw, Twang-Twang-Twang

And now, this. The Tribune reports that, according to State Senator Abel Maldonado’s campaign manager, “‘Abel’s mother, who is a Democrat, said, “Son, I want to vote for you in the Democratic primary, and I want it to count.’”

So Sen Moldanado gets his name on the Democratic primary ballot so he can run both as a Democrat AND a Republican.

Sez Moldanado, “Why not give Democrats a chance to vote for me and have their votes count?”

Sez the Tribune, “If Maldanado won the write-in race, it could save him the effort of campaigning in the fall – as well as the money he would spend.”

Sez Mark Buchman, chairman of the SLO Democratic Central Committee, “It’s really weird . . . I can’t imagine why somebody that’s been an assemblyman and a senator and supposedly touts himself as being successful would feel like he needs to do this.”

Sez me: Ah, yes. The money. It's always about The Money, isn't it?

Sez me also: Good God! Is there NOTHING that man won’t do to get his name and picture in the paper? Remember when he was using any excuse in the books to get himself snugged up next to Schwartzenegger just to get himself photographed next to the big guy? He reminds me of Sammy Davis Junior HUGGING Nixon fer Chrissakes. Or John McCain HUGGING Bush after Bush’s minions had trashed his family. All while the cameras were rolling, of course.

Politicians who pull this kind of crap have no character. Don’t we have enough of those people already in office? Enough all ready.