Category: News

Sheriff Abuse Scandal Rocks Alternative Press

Everybody’s hoppin mad about county jail abuse and the sheriff’s department’s refusal to talk to reporters from the SNR and the Bee. Heckasac’s comments about Shornack and Mendonsa are particularly well-played.

I usually don’t have a comment about these sorts of issues. Maybe because you tend to get quotes like this one from local NAACP President Betty Williams: “In my opinion, these two newspapers are the newest ‘inmates’ of the Sacramento County Jail.” Ouch. So I’ll just say two things. First, it is unfortunate that this problem seems to have started when the Bee made factual errors in its news reports. When we at the Sac Rag condemn a public official, we promise to have either photographic evidence or nothing more than a hunch, nothing in between, and in neither case will we publish a correction.

And second of all, shouldn’t the sheriff be the one guy in town who doesn’t act all diva when he gets negative press? Just make like Gary Cooper and tell us that some dudes just need to get a beat down, Lou. Make us understand.

Sacramento Authors Balance the Scales

Sacramento takes its fair share of abuse. But one of the great things about our city is that it always knows how to make a comeback. Case in point: two Sacramento authors were among the winners at the 2005 National Book Awards ceremony held in New York City on Wednesday.

Now that’s what I’m talkin’ bout. Books! Reading! Sacramento!

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

Oh, greater Sacramento region, what are we going to do with you? Earlier this month we had to suffer through your offensive video introductions at the Kings game and now we learn that one of your local area high school football coaches is suing over an unfair coin flip?

Terhune is suing to have the “tiebreaker” overturned, arguing it violated the open-meeting requirements detailed in the state’s Brown Act. “It’s a technicality,” said Terhune. “Let’s say it like it is. It was decided only the ADs would toss, period.”

Seriously, is this an onion article?

Let’s put the football politics aside for a moment and talk about how three teams were going to be narrowed down to two by the flip of a coin? I can hear them at the Round Table now…

Ok, you three coaches call it in the air and whomever gets it right wins…oh wait, that won’t work…ok, we’ll flip the coin and one coach will call it in the air and before it lands the other two do a thumb war and the winner of that contest can move on to the elimination round…

Totally ridiculous…and besides, everyone knows that a situation like this called for Odd or Even.

UPDATE: The judgement is in. A superior judgement no less. Still no word on how a coin toss was going to make a decision between three parties.

Church Wars

Check out the third story about the church wars going on in Auburn. As my man RonTopofIt likes to say, this stuff writes itself:

Leaders of New Life Christian Church offered discounts on gas purchases worth about 50 cents per gallon. New Life Pastor Bill Jenkins said the idea was to show that God is interested in issues that affect people’s everyday lives.

…because you know, the way gas prices are, it’s making people question what God is actually interested in. And then we get:

But members of the Church of the Divide in Grass Valley protested on Sunday outside New Life services with signs proclaiming, “Jesus cares more about your sin and burning in hell than gas prices.”

High gas prices and burning in hell? They may not be so unrelated. In any case, the behavior of these churches may just make Jesus have to come back again, just to straighten these yahoos out.

(Oh, and Mike Bibby apparently goes to clubs with a group called Team Dime. What kind of stupid name is that for a posse? No wonder you got dumped on, Mike.)

Weekend Update: Missing Persons

I wanted to follow up on a few posts we’ve made here regarding the missing person cases of Christie Wilson & Geneva Brewer.

This morning’s homepage on News10.net (while second to Christie, again, and probably not even up for long) updates us on the Geneva Brewer case. Turns out that just being missing isn’t enough anymore to warrant a search party or even a search, like, at all.

Sacramento County Sheriff’s investigators said their initial investigation turned up no evidence of foul play and they do not consider Brewer an at-risk missing person. However, her family believes that her disapperance (sic – which should just be changed to “news10”) is enough evidence to show that something is very wrong.

So let me get this straight. The only difference between the disappearance of these two women is that one liked to gamble (security footage showing her leaving with the now murder suspect)? Because both families consider their loved one missing and are asking for help.
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Just Say No

CBS13 tells us that the California Correctional Peace Officers Association is suing the state of CA on behalf of Donald Cathey, who was ordered to remove his “Just say no to Arnold” shirt while on the job at a prison (doesn’t say which). I won’t get into the messy argument of free speech for public employees, I just want to point out that demanding that your employee not wear a shirt advocating disobedience of authorities kind of makes sense when you work at a prison.

Seeking the Sikhs in the River City

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Last weekend, the Sikhs of Yuba City held their annual festival and parade, commemorating the installation of their holy book (the Guru Granth Sahib) as their spiritual guide. This was a record setting event, as the celebration drew a crowd of 60,000 people from several countries.

As unfamiliar as Sikhs are to the average American, the presence of such a large Sikh community in Sacramento and the Central Valley is actually a unique characteristic of this area. Northern California is no stranger to Sikhs by any means. The area is known to Sikhs around the world for being a hub for the community in North America. Almost every Sikh has a relative or close friend living in this area, which has one of the largest Sikh populations in the United States – comparable to and quite likely exceeding New York or Los Angeles. So, who are the Sikhs? Since you didn’t ask, I’m going to tell you…
Continue reading “Seeking the Sikhs in the River City”