Badlands Journal

Here in Merced CA, where some of us have been doing environmental work for 30 years, we supported Obama for historical reasons, held out vague hopes for national and international improvement, and stayed focused on our local issues.

Members of the Badlands Journal editorial board wish to apologize to our readers for the spelling in yesterday's post, originally titled, "Socery." As soon as we discovered it, we changed it to try to restore our dignity. The offending, spelling-disadvantaged editor is currently halfway through his assignment, writing the word, "Sorcery," 500 times on the Badlands blackboard.

"You make fun of somebody misspelling a really complicated word like "Chihuahua" (spelled "Chiewahwah" on a sign observed in town) and those young scientists out at UC Merced for spelling "spirit" "sprit," and you can't spell a perfectly ordinary three-syllable English word!" said the outraged board to the offender. "Judge not, if you cannot spell it! Your membership on the editorial board is hanging by a thread."

The offender offered no explanation, hung his head, accepted his punishment and is now covering the blackboard with "sorcery." We hope that this exercise will exorcise the Misspelling Demon running free in town from Badlands and we urge local journalists and PR practitioners to take prophylactic action. Remain calm but hang dictionaries in every doorway.

Badlands Journal editorial board

This letter to the editor by Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa gave us a headache.

The issue is why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, popularly known as the "stimulus package" did not include funds for a fix in the Delta, called the "Two Gate Solution," that would protect the Delta Smelt, whose population is plummetting to extinction due to over-pumping since the Colorado River Agreement.

Consider the congressman's logic.

He is shocked that the project was not included in the final list for funding. He castigates the bill as Obama's "massive spending plan under the pretense of creating or saving American jobs." As is well known, every farmworker in the San Joaquin Valley is an American citizen or is a legal permanent resident.

He voted against the bill and now damns the funding for "going to projects that improve the environment." The vote from the Valley congressmen went down on straight party lines, Democrats McNerney, Cardoza and Costa, Aye, Radanovich and Nunes, Nay, right in line with California's entire congressional delegation. Actually, the Two Gates project sort of looks like an environmental project itself, to protect an endangered species, with the added boon to mankind of allowing more pumping to the south Valley, where an estimated 40,000 seasonal agricultural jobs are in jeopardy. His fellow Republican, Nunes, has said as high as 80,000 jobs are threatened.

As Badlands pointed out recently, there is a new young couple among the Valley's witless Democratic congressmen, the Costoza, replacing the Pomboza, which met a timely demise with the dis-election of former Rep. Richard Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, in 2006. The swing man in both duos is Rep. Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer-Annapolis MD, who still claims to represent the 18th Congressional District of California, which includes three cities with some of the worst foreclosure rates in America, Merced, Modesto and Stockton and one county, Merced, with the second highest unemployment rate in the nation this month.

The Badlands Journal editorial board was concerned about how UC Merced would pay for Michelle Obama's visit this Saturday. We are great fans of Mrs. Obama and would not like to see the glory of her visit tarnished by any more unpaid debts owed by UC Merced.  

Asking around, we were told that the Oldest Living Valley Advanceman would know how such glorious events actually worked. We found him in a 6-bedroom McMansion recently repurchased on the courthouse steps and reopened as a Home for Old Hacks.  We asked Mr. Oldest how it was done Back in the Day When California was This Great Big Number One State of Ours and before it became the Basket State.

"First," he said, "realize that your national advance teams do not give a (bleep) about how you pay for anything. Second, on a deal like this from the White House, you exist to obey. Third, the people who will hound you to your grave are the patriotic bunting dealers. You can probably make a deal with most of the other vendors or providers, but do not cross the bunting people."

He shook a fist full of angry-looking letters in our face.

"And I been out of the game since early '75," he said.

Speak Memory: During the entire run-up to approval of UC Merced and construction of its first phase, including all the bogus environmental review documents and the illegal water and sewer hookups with the City of Merced, boosters from the Regents to UC presidents Roger Atkinson and Robert Dynes, UC Merced's first chancellor, Carol Tomlinson-Keasey ("the Cowgirl Chancellor"),  representatives Gary Condit and Dennis Cardoza and their talented staffs, former state Sen. Dick Monteith (who declared the campus a "done deal" before it was, actually, a done deal), every realtor, bank and local land owner and local elected official (if a distinction between these classes can be discerned), every planner, our own Sonny Star, the local gigolo press, and most of all, the Great Valley Center (now a UC Merced partner), declared that the campus would be a "high-tech, bio-tech engine for growth in the San Joaquin Valley." We were promised another Silicon Valley right on the banks of Bear Creek, bright young things full of bright young ideas would be starting companies right and left, so we had to build proper housing for them here, there, and everywhere.

The now famous UC Merced Valentine campaign to invite First Lady Michelle Obama to speak at the May 16 commencement exercises featured the following legend, found at this link:

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-story_images/story/684187.html

Education to Elegance with a Sprit of Tradition
UC Merced Commencment May 16, 2009

Since, as we say in the press, this message had pass through many sets of eyes, we wondered if "sprit" had an academic meaning that has escaped us all these years. However, the only definition we could find was:

sprit: a spar that crosses a fore-and-aft sail diagonally. (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)

The now famous UC Merced Valentine campaign to invite First Lady Michelle Obama to speak at the May 16 commencement exercises featured the following legend, found at this link:

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-story_images/story/684187.html

Education to Elegance with a Sprit of Tradition
UC Merced Commencment May 16, 2009

Since, as we say in the press, this message had pass through many sets of eyes, we wondered if "sprit" had an academic meaning that has escaped us all these years. However, the only definition we could find was:

sprit: a spar that crosses a fore-and-aft sail diagonally. (Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)