UPDATED AGAIN: Important Follow Up Story…

UPDATED 4:00 pm:  If you weren’t able to hear the live broadcast of “Insight” featuring writers from the Sac Rag today, you can check out the archived audio here.  Listen especially closely for the moment when sac-eats’s and Stickie’s breathing peaks and their hearts stop as Jeffrey Callison says, “I did a search on The Sac Rag and came across the following piece about me…”   You can almost hear Stickie and sac-eats thinking to themselves, “What stupid thing did we say about this fine gentleman that we’re now going to regret for the rest of our lives?”  It’s what live radio is all about.   

The Sac Rag was featured on “Insight,” the local topics show hosted by Jeffrey Callison on KXJZ. 

Insight-90.9 KXJZ, 2-3pm

August 1- “The Writers of The Sac Rag”

Breton keeps to Bee party line on Slavic Christians

bee
This is one of the good ones.

Marcos Breton’s Metro column today features his take on the search for the men responsible for the murder of Satender Singh a month ago. Once again it’s important for me to state that those people need to be caught and punished, and that Singh’s death is a real tragedy.

Breton takes Sacramento to task for being the kind of place where culprits don’t walk into the police station and turn themselves in routinely. He also brings up the “unwanted attention” this case brings on the area’s “Slavic community.” Although he acknowledges that only “some members” of that community belong to Evangelical churches who have engaged in anti-gay protests, he goes right on ahead and assumes that the attackers should turn themselves in because “[a]ttacking a man, causing his death and then hiding from the law is the opposite of Christian principles.” He’s obviously read his stuff, this Marcos Breton.

Continue reading “Breton keeps to Bee party line on Slavic Christians”

Speaking of fact or fiction…

There is an interesting article on money.cnn.com about JetBlue’s new fall fare sale. Flights from Sacramento, CA to/from New York/JFK are priced at $149 each way and Sacramento to/from Long Beach are $49 each way. However, the detail that caught my eye was JetBlue’s announcement that they have been named…

“The Official Airline of Springfield” — the hometown city of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie Simpson — to celebrate the summer theatrical release of The Simpsons Movie.

Uh, uh, say what? This is an airline, right? That flies high in the air with hundreds of human beings on board? Oh wait, there’s more you say?

In honor of America’s favorite animated family of comedy, JetBlue also unveiled its first-ever specialty aircraft, christened “Woo-Hoo, JetBlue!” and featuring an image of Homer along with a permanent logo of its new Springfield status. To celebrate Fall travel, the low-fare airline is offering special sale fares for Springfielders and non-Springfielders across the country.

What’s next? Do I get a Bart Simpson Black Box toy with each round trip ticket purchased? Perhaps a Milhouse fuselage complete with air sickness bags?

Nuts to all that!

Fox has a “fake news” comedy show called “The 1/2 Hour News Hour.” Haven’t seen it, can’t comment on its laugh-generating ability. But the show’s companion Web site OfficialNewsAgency.com has a winner with a very funny spoof of the mandatory neutering legislation (for pets, gentlemen! for pets!) recently shelved in the state Senate. (Update: The site isn’t associated with the show. I got that idea from their About page, which I now see has been changed to clearly show that they’re making fun of the Fox show, for people like me who are too dopey to get it. Ha!)

The story is being circulated all over the Internets as true, which is what spoof writers live for:

A marble monument to service dogs, originally set to be displayed in Sacramento, California, may be on its way out of the golden state. The reason? The statue’s “manhood” is still intact.

Proponents of the recently-tabled state assembly bill AB-1634, the so-called “California Healthy Pets Act”, which would require that most of the state’s dogs and cats over the age of 6 months be sterilized, claim that placing the image of an intact male dog on public property is harmful and sends the wrong message to California pet owners.

“Its not an appropriate display, in a state that carries out three million euthanasias a year.” said Dan Nender, a 1634 supporter who filed suit in Sacramento Federal Court to have the monument altered.

Pressed about the number, since most reputable sources set that number at 400,000, Nender replied, “One is too many. Concentrate on the point I’m making, not the numbers.”

Pretty good stuff, and very believable if you followed any of the heated rhetoric on both sides of the issue. (Which I very much did, like, um, full-time for weeks.)

Best part of all:

“As California government officials […] will attest to, Sacramento is a testicle-free zone.”

Well, OK, so maybe it’s not all a spoof. We are talking about a town full of politicians, after all.

What’s Your Frequency, Jeffrey?

Jeffrey Callison is dead sexy!90.9 actually.  That’s where we’ll be tomorrow, August 1, between 2-3pm.  The Sac Rag will be featured on “Insight,” the local topics show hosted by Jeffrey Callison on KXJZ.  Keep an ear to your Filco and you might hear the dulcet tones of sac-eats and CoolDMZ mixing with the subtle Scottish brogue of the show’s host.  If you do miss it, check out the archive here.

Insight-90.9 KXJZ, 2-3pm

August- “The Writers of The Sac Rag”

…aaaaaaaaaaand We’re Back!

Sorry for the outage folks.  If you tried to connect to the ‘Rag this morning and were rudely turned away, we apologize.  No helping those pesky technical difficulties. 

Two media notes today:

1) The “Perfect Timing” award goes to “Sactown” magazine for featuring Natalie Gulbis, local LPGA golfer, on the cover of their most recent issue.  Despite her good looks and good game, Gulbis had never won an LPGA event as of printing.  Gulbis just won her first LPGA event yesterday in France.   Nice timing, guys.

2) Thanks to Sam McManis at the Bee for including CoolDMZ in his recent piece about local blogs.  Also, thanks to Jennifer at Sacatomato.com for her kind words.

Damn those mossies!

So I’m reading that four northern counties will undergo aerial spraying for West Nile virus beginning Monday and I couldn’t help but wonder how this came about so quickly.  Then I hop over to sacbee.com and check out an article about two new cases of West Nile being discovered this week.

From the Sac Bee article:

District officials were sharply criticized in 2005 when, during a West Nile epidemic, they began aerial spraying in Sacramento and Yolo counties with little public notice. As a result, the district initiated an intensive awareness campaign to publicize every facet of its mosquito control efforts.

From the News 10 article:

The decision follows Thursday’s announcement that two human cases of the virus have been detected in the county.

Now that’s an intense effort to publicize EVERY facet, huh?

Who Said the ‘Burbs Were Boring?

From the Bee article “Rancho Cordova officer shoots suspect during traffic stop”:

Martynov allegedly tried to run the officer over, Curran said. The police officer fired multiple shots at the car as it sped away, Curran said.

Martynov drove to Watt Avenue, where he headed north toward Arden Way. Once on Arden, he drove east toward Eastern Avenue, where a Sacramento sheriff’s deputy had placed a tack strip across the road, Curran said.

Thankfully, all police personnel came away uninjured.  Also, amazingly, the suspect did not, at any time, run into a building.

Why lie, Keith Lowell Jensen needs more exposure

Why lie, Keith Lowell Jensen needs a drinkAn early screening of local comedian and filmmaker Keith Lowell Jensen’s new feature-length documentary, “Why Lie? I Need A Drink,” based on his blog of the same name, is being presented tomorrow night at Fools Foundation. KLJ will be in attendance to answer your questions and will take your comments on the rough cut of his film. Chances are he won’t be wearing the banana costume for that.