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This weather is beginning to make me crazy. Humidity and I do not get along well. Every time I have traveled to other places where I have encountered it, like Chicago and Atlanta, I was more than relieved when I returned home to my little enclave here in Southern California. I am praying that this is just a passing phase and not the beginning of a new local weather trend as some of the weather talking heads have alluded to.
But why shouldn’t the weather join the rest of the world in change? The global community nowadays has morphed into such a horror show that it barely resembles the world of my youth. When I was growing up we had our own set of worries with nuclear war, communism, and the Russian threat. Despite all the warnings, none of these fears ever came close to reality, with the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis. And even then, we didn’t know how close we were to danger until after the fact.
We can thank the fact that our news media at the time was less intrusive and didn’t have the technology to tell us every little detail in real time coverage. Now every time we capture another terrorist and interrogate him we start climbing up the Home Security scale and our stress levels go right up with it.
There are enough things that I see everyday closer to home that I find more frustrating than a potential terrorist threat. Things that never seem to make the evening news but are doing as much damage to our American way of life as any bomb going off. It happens everywhere and I am seeing it more and more here locally.
Lately there has been a lot of focus on elderly drivers based on two recent accidents where lives were lost. To me, it’s not the age of the driver, it’s their ability behind the wheel. I don’t know how many times I’ve called attention to the absolutely horrible drivers around this area, but I know it’s been a lot. The last few times I’ve written about the problem, I have suggested that there are either numerous unlicensed drivers out there, or that something is going on at the DMV that is allowing bad drivers to get a license. So why aren’t we seeing reporters doing investigative reports on this topic? I know this problem is not exclusive to our area, it’s just seems like the worst drivers gravitate here. Either way, it is as dangerous as driving a bomb when you don’t use it properly.
Another problem that’s intensified here, but also not excusive to our community, are the multiple families living in a single dwelling that has either been built oversized for that purpose or existing homes that are being added on to. Why is it that nobody in the news media finds this problem newsworthy? Is it because it would require finding somebody who is involved in this practice to step forward and admit it?
I could see where it would be a challenge. The people building the houses don’t want to see their businesses impacted even though they know that it adversely affects the community. The multitude of people who claim to be family members who have pooled their money together to buy the dwelling are not going to open their mouths, adhering to some cult like code of silence. So whichever of these hot shot reporters who would step up would have to actually do some investigating, instead of reporting on lame ass stories like a woman walking her goose on the beach. Honestly, this story was on the news all day long this past Wednesday. Rather newsworthy wouldn’t you say?
Now I know some of you are saying Bill, what difference does it make to you whether or not 20 people pretending to be family members move in down the block from you or in your city? I’ll tell you why, because it saps the county, city, and state resources on all levels. It creates overcrowding that congests our streets, schools, and hospital emergency rooms. They are sucking out resources that are already so depleted in this state, thanks for your help on that front Gray, that recovery, recall or not, will be a long time in coming.
Something that should be reported on, especially in this time of one of the worst budgets ever presented here in the Golden State, is the wholesale theft and fraud that is being committed through the welfare system. This program, as all hard working Americans know, was put in place so that if you suddenly find yourself unemployed you don’t starve and find yourself homeless. It is supposed to be a temporary fix, not a way of life.
But many of our newest residents, especially those who are here illegally or on expired student visas, have come here with this in mind and as part of their overall plan. They have been tipped off by friends and relatives who came to the Golden State and found just that, gold. Once word gets back to the homeland, all they need to do is book passage on the next cargo freighter headed this way. Once here their support structure will show them the ropes.
The gold they found is a system so easy to manipulate that once they join into the community that lives in a single home they are in some cases actually buying an interest in the home they are living in. Or if they have particularly flush friends or relatives to stay with, all they have to do, in essence, is become a squatter. They can sit on their welfare checks and use their food stamps to eat, and save their cash for a down payment for a house. I don’t think that’s what our fore fathers had in mind when they came up with the American Dream.
Now before you dismiss my ravings as the hallucinations of a paranoid mind, I have had personal proof presented to me, thanks to miss-delivered mail in the form of welfare checks. When I checked the addresses on them and drove by a house that is 5 times bigger than mine, with a Mercedes in front that is getting welfare checks, as they say, something is wrong with this picture. As further follow up a letter carrier with one of our local post offices informed me, what I saw was not the exception, it was the rule. The Golden State Rule.
So why don’t some of those overpaid reporters report on any one of these American nightmares? If they would just dig deep enough they might even win an Emmy, or better still, they could help put an end to an antiquated system that is bleeding our state dry and putting bad drivers on the road.
The Shrub Speaks: And the other lesson is that there are people who can't stand what America stands for, and desire to conflict great harm on the American people. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 28, 2003.
B.D.’s response: I can only hope that conflicting great harm is worse than inflicting great harm!
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