Category: News

If a car crashes into a building in Sacramento, does anybody hear?

I’ve spent the better part of my career here at Sac Rag HQ trying to bring awareness to one of our most pressing local issues.  Arena? Blah.  Crime? Who cares!

Nay, Ragfolk.  It’s the attraction of our motor vehicles to the front doors of our local buildings.  It’s epidemic.  And, even when I haven’t been making my weekly announcements about the most recent crash, many of you have been sending me your stories and tips of the most recent building-car encounter.  We’re becoming aware and I will say this, Sacramento: good on ya. You’ve been vigilant on my behalf, and I really think we’re in a car careening down a road towards a building called “Something Special”.  Hit the gas, because here’s another one…

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More layoffs announced…sort of

Cbs13.com reports that Intel will lay off 159 workers from its Folsom campus over the next several months. 117 of those workers will come from Intel’s information technology department, which handles the company’s internal network operations.

In a letter to Folsom and Sacramento County officials yesterday, Intel said the company has informed some of the workers, but most of the cuts will come October 26th.

Uh, some of the workers?

If you’re in IT…and work for Intel…in Folsom, CA…I’d suggest not coming in on the 26th of October. Or the 27th, or the 28th…the 29th isn’t look good either. Because, you know, they can’t fire you if they can’t find you. It worked for Peter in Office Space, right?

Also…and you didn’t hear this from me…but doesn’t IT oversee computers? And the network and overall communication tools? I know I’d be very “distracted” if my network experienced some major downtime…

Goethe had flare

One of the most common search engine queries that land on the Sac Rag is “goethe pronounce“. They land here because, of course, it’s Sacramento related and thusly has been written about on this here web log. Wikipedia has it as “Gay-tee” named after Charles Goethe (as Runnergirl noted) the famous, you know, eugenicist.

Goethe (pronounced “Gay-tee”) wrote admiringly of California’s Forty-Niners and the State’s giant redwood trees. Goethe also recommended compulsory sterilization of the ‘socially unfit’, opposed immigration, and praised German scientists who used a comprehensive sterilization program to ‘purify’ the Aryan race before the outbreak of World War II. Goethe also funded anti-Asian campaigns, praised the Nazis before and after World War II, and practiced discrimination in his business dealings, refusing to sell real estate to Mexicans and Asians.

Yikes. And all we care about his how to pronounce the dude’s name? I’m no Sacramento historian so I bounced around the Internet for a few minutes and found an article on the statehornet.com Web site about renaming the C.M. Goethe Arboretum early last year. This spawned a Web site, changethesign.org, which serves to “begin a public debate over how to approach the history of the relationship between Goethe and CSUS.”

So what’s the deal with this guy, CSUS, and the park in Rancho Cordova? And how can we blame Julie Durda for this?

More signs that SacTown is going to hell in a handbasket with a broken handle

Beancounters admits she no longer holds garage sales because the stealing gets on her nerves:

Stealing from sales has gotten more rampant. I get unreasonably mad at people who steal from my sale. Or bundle stuff tightly under their arms and come up to me and try to offer me a quarter for everything. Or hide stuff under their clothes. Or pass unpurchased stuff to a confederate who has already made her purchases. Or make their kids distract me while the adults throw shit into their car trunks or into the milk crates on the back of their decrepit bicycles, and then take off and meet the kids around the block.

When I see this behavior, I get. really. mad. It’s stupid, but I do. I am the first to tell you that the Rules of Garage Sale Engagement are sometimes nebulous, but the line is drawn at actual stealing! If you don’t know that, you are not fit to be out in polite society.

So, I hear myself yelling impossibly surreal things like “Yes, I see that Travel Scrabble game under your t-shirt, and it’s still fifty cents!”

Read the rest …

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

As a nine-year Pocket area dweller, I grew accustomed to having my 95831 brethren say “hello” or give a smile and a wave as our paths crossed while I was out running and they were running, walking dogs, or pushing kids in strollers. One of my Pocket “friends” sits in a folding chair in his garage and watches the activities at Garcia Bend Park as his American and USMC flags billow in the Delta Breeze. I’d worry when I didn’t see him out there, and we always exchanged pleasantries as I trotted by. I have no idea what his name is, nor he mine, but it feels like we’ve known each other forever just from our ever-so-brief exchanges.

I feel the same way about the people who work at Bel Air on Rush River Drive — it was sad to leave, as many of them have worked there the entire time I’d lived there. Everyday was like the “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland, complete with the line of, “There is just one moon and one shining sun, and a smile means friendship to everyone.”

Now that I’m living and running in a new ‘hood, I’m disenchanted that the people aren’t nearly as friendly.
Continue reading “Who are the people in your neighborhood?”

Nightmare in Meadowview

My heart goes out to the people in the Meadowview neighborhood, who are currently suffering through the most murderous year in the city’s recent history–one killing a month this year, and staggeringly three in the last week. Overall, 42 murders in the city YTD represent a 35 percent increase over 2005.

Firstly, after my last string of posts about crime in the city and the Commissioner’s public response, I want to make sure I put it on record that the men and women on the street fighting crime have my respect and support. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that I think the uniformed cops and detectives are not trying hard to win the war. My beef is with the attitude expressed in the leadership’s public statements–that people in crime-challeneged neighborhoods should not worry because most of the violent crime is being committed by hardened criminals.

Well, they are at it again regarding the situation in Meadowview…
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Robbery @ Arden Fair

While running an errand at Arden Fair this afternoon, I heard the sound of breaking glass — not like someone dropping an item on the hard floor, but like a large window breaking.

A few of us were able to see bits and pieces of the scene unfold as we looked down from the second level into DeVons Jewelers where we could see sales staff cowered under their display cases while a trio of robbers smashed cases and loaded up on jewelry. Naturally, many folks in the mall were on their cell phones to the local authorities.
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Crime, Cops, and CoolDMZ, part 3

Read part 1 and part 2…

Our own sac-eats tipped me to the Bee’s coverage of the home invasion robbery in Arden Park that a commenter brought my attention to the other day. (Ain’t the internet great?) Though the victim in this instance escaped with only a head injury (from a gunshot wound!) the Bee piece is notable for some of the details that back up what I’ve been saying.

Sacramento Police Sgt. Terrell Marshall said officers saw a spike in home-invasion robberies in May but said most of them stemmed from drug thefts, disputes over property or fights within families.

“I don’t want people in the community to have fear that they’ll be the next victim, because statistically speaking, that’s not true,” Marshall said.

“Statistically speaking it’s possible” and “statistically speaking it’s not possible” are both truthtful statements, wouldn’t you agree? Also, don’t we have a little more on our side than statistics? You know, those guys who go around in blue suits and drive black and white cars? Aren’t they involved in keeping us from being victimized? I wonder why this sentiment is being voiced by the cops at this point in time. Could it be because they realize they have an increasingly brazen and violent criminal population on their hands and they need to do some damage control by downplaying the risk? It sure seems to me like the cops are exhibiting a little more CYA than usual these days.
Continue reading “Crime, Cops, and CoolDMZ, part 3”

More on Nájera

An anonymous tipper reminded me that I left off the end of his, err I mean Graswich’s bit about Nájera the other day. This was an oversight on my part, because to my mind it is likewise worthy of snark:

Albert wants to study why young people join gangs and turn violent. “Why is the key,” he said. …

Ooh yes, let’s cozy up to the fireplace with some port and dive into the academics of the situation. “Please ignore the fact that I just told you the murder rate is up, I have some major studying to do.” Sac-eats, there’s your “sensitive” PoPo man. While I do appreciate the need to turn around gang recruitment numbers, I’d like to ask why this is such an important factor to study, if the public is not meant to worry about gang murder?
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“Perspective” on the crime wave

I don’t know how R.E. Graswich gets the quotes he uses for his bits, specifically the ones from local newsmakers and politicians. But I’d like to thank him today for giving Police Chief Albert Nájera a chance to show his true colors.

“Without context, crime statistics mean nothing,” the chief said. “It’s too easy to come out and scare people by saying, ‘The murder rate is up.’ In Sacramento, the vast majority of murders are committed by drug dealers and gang members and felons. Take away those categories and domestic violence, and you are left with maybe four people a year killed by random violence in Sacramento. That’s four too many, but it gives perspective.”

So by “context” you mean “ignorance”? That is really helpful. Especially to the families of the victims of domestic violence (you have to be kidding me! did he really say that Bob?) and any innocent victims of drug dealers and gang members and felons (seriously Bob, you’re putting us on, right?). Murders committed by gang members don’t count? What if they take place in broad daylight in front of a crowded shopping mall? That seems like the kind of thing you think, but don’t say outside the police locker room. I’m going to go ahead and speak for all citizens everywhere: We are concerned about murders commited by gang members, drug dealers, and felons. Go ahead and include those when you run the numbers.
Continue reading ““Perspective” on the crime wave”