Crime is up? Wha?Are you sure.
Because like, I thought it wasn’t.

Via Joe Sacramento (hey Joe, whaddya know!), don’t miss Daniel Weintraub’s piece from earlier this week about Mayor Heather Fargo’s dangerously out-of-it reactions to being confronted with the city’s crime rates, which I have blogged about here often. So often I’m not going to bother to provide links.

“My sense is that we are tracking at about the same pace as other cities,” says Fargo when asked her explanation for Sacramento’s soaring crime rate. The numbers are staggering — Sacramento has close to the worst crime rate in the state, and the rate has risen 50%… fifty percent!! … during Fargo’s term.

Continue reading “Fargo out of it on city’s out of control crime rate” »

So if you’re a registered voter you’ve probably received your pamphlet for the upcoming June 3 primary election. First of all, they probably should have come up with a better name than “primary election,” it’s so played out, what with the other primary election we had less than 90 days ago. (Sure fine, one was a presidential primary and this one is statewide.) But more importantly, your pamphlet for this election contains 2 things: Propositions 98 and 99. Which — without boring you by actually doing any research into the props — are for all practical purposes opposing pieces of legislation. Both descriptions contain language to the effect that if this one passes the other one most likely won’t take effect. This is where things get interesting.

Continue reading “Whose eminent domain is it anyway?” »

Nick Miller blogs at Sound Advice today that the words “Sac Hates Hip Hop” have been tagged on boarded-up former site of the Library, which closed last year after a fatal shooting.

What would it take to prove that Sac does not hate hip hop? Would it entail a single Sacramentan saying they love hip hop? Would a hip hop issue of Sac Mag settle the deal? Would Mayor Fargo have to freestyle at city council meetings?

Eau contraire, mon graffito, I think it is you who hate painted walls.

from News10 story

Parents down in Elk Grove must be so relieved that nothing tragic happened this week when a fourth-grader brought a loaded gun to Charles Mack Elementary School. Some parents in particular, like the parents of Devon and Donovan Smith (pictured at right) who apparently “held bullets” for the kid with the gun.

“They were wrong for not telling anybody” the boys’ mother, Tabatha Weitnauer, says, before going ahead and bringing up that the boys have been diagnosed with ADHD. Perhaps they were also wrong for carrying ammunition to their elementary school. Not to be outdone, the father of the boy who brought the gun released a zinger of a written statement…

Continue reading “What, me feel responsible?” »

Actual conversation I had this morning while waiting for a bus by the Downtown Plaza:

SCENE: Downtown plaza. COOLDMZ, casually dressed and devestatingly handsome, is approached by normal seeming early 20s YOUNG MAN.

YOUNG MAN: (Looking at the cloudless sky) Beautiful day.
COOLDMZ: Yeah… Bit chilly, but nice. It’s going to be in the 60s today.
YOUNG MAN: Yeah, it’s nice. (Beat.) So, what do you think of this North American Union they’re gonna do?
COOLDMZ: The what now?
Continue reading “Morning conversation” »

They said it couldn’t happen but they have been known to be wrong in the past. Check out Sam McManis’ fresh post: 21Q - ‘Good Day Sac’ reporter gives beer to the homeless

Jay Henderson, a reader from Folsom, writes to say he was stunned on Monday morning to see “Good Day Sacramento” reporter Chris Burrous (left) give a case of beer and a bag of McDonald’s food to a homeless woman during a live segment.

Why kill brain cells on eggnog and turkey-tinis when you can just turn on VH1 and catch a local or two on “America’s Most Smartest Model.”

Grass Valley native VJ is still in the running, while Sacramentan Jesse has already been sent home. Some may remember Slavco (also already sent packing) from VH1’s “Kept” from 2004.

Thankfully, I’ve only caught one full episode, so there’s still hope for a full recovery. The one redeeming quality of this show is that it is co-hosted by the wry Ben Stein; although, I’d love to see guest appearances by Tyra, Miss Jay, Benny Ninja — and just for kicks, Michael Kors and Tim Gunn (just keep Padma away, por favor.)

This controversy over free publications makes me think of ripping down someone else’s “Vote for me!” student council campaign sign and replacing it with your own:

A Natomas media rivalry has turned ugly, with owners of two local publications each claiming the other has stolen stacks of the competitor’s periodicals from the rack.

In one case, Natomas Journal publisher Will Craig was caught on surveillance tape in August picking up a stack of N Magazines from the South Natomas Community Center, replacing them with his own newspaper and dumping the rival publication in an outside recycling bin…

Craig said he simply was sending a message to the people connected with N Magazine because he believes they have been stripping his racks for 21 months.

I understand, only remotely, that it’s important to the publishers to tell advertisers what their circulation is and where their publication is offered; however, doesn’t getting rid of the rival’s rag artificially increase the number of publications being taken?

At least he’s recycling them.

We’re at the point here at the Sac Rag that we don’t even bother reporting on “normal” crashes involving a vehicle and a living room (unless it’s a two-fer, of course), but this one is different. While Sacramento isn’t making a name for itself on any “best place to…” list, it does continue to bring its “A” game in this arena.

Sacramento police say around 9:20 p.m. one of its officers and the driver of a Honda crashed into one another on Village Star Drive and Franklin Boulevard. The impact sent the Honda into the living room of a nearby home.

Wow, huh? I wonder what happened. High speed pursuit? Drunk driver? Man, what could it have been? I must read on…

Police say there are no indications that speed or alcohol lead to the crash.

Oh, ok, Police, sure that’s enough for me. I’ll move on now.

I’m wondering what other people think about the Bee’s stirring article yesterday on “wounds that have festered for some time between Sacramento’s gay community and members of the Slavic evangelical community,” brought to clearer light by the beating death on July 1 of Satender Singh at Lake Natoma.

But I think it’s irresponsible for the Bee to make the jump that the attackers are part of that church. The tragedy of Satender Singh’s death is a reality. The danger represented by the tensions between the gay community and anti-gay Slavic Christians is a reality. But the lone thread connecting those two stories is that the attackers spoke Russian.

One need only read the comments on the Bee’s article to see how quickly readers picked up on the Bee’s assumption that these attackers were motivated in any way by their church. Some commenters go so far as to advocate closing the nation’s borders to prevent entry by “these people.” The only reason such commenters think this has anything to do with Christians is because the Bee made that assumption.

I feel like this might only inflame those tensions by putting it in the minds of readers that all Russian-speaking Sacramentans are necessarily bigots. If it’s true that those bastards, when they are caught, were influenced by the church’s rhetoric, then we have a problem. But until that is known, isn’t it irresponsible to cast the net as wide as the Bee has done?