California Dreaming

Good morning everyone.  How are you all doing?  Good I hope.  Same here to be honest.  That's a recent sunrise as photographed from my sun room here in San Diego.  I chose to lead with that picture as it is reflective of a new day.  One that is actually looking pretty bright.  I often wax political here, and will do some a lot of that today, but I don't think you all mind too much.  I'd expect that many Chanters are of a similar political bent as me, but even if some aren't, I usually vent with what I think are well thought out and polite opinions backed up by facts.  I'll try to keep that going with this post as well.  It's far nicer than how the other side often works anyway.

Why am I writing today?  Well, it's for a couple of reasons.  Besides having something to say, and the time to do it, Juvat sort of goaded me into it.  I guess I'm easily goaded.  His post on Monday March 2nd practically begged me, Lush, or Beans to help out a little.  Sarge has definitely been on a roll recently, with some excellent historical posts, and Juvat has been such a regular feature here, that I will sometimes check to blog to confirm it's Monday.  Being the semi-good Catholic boy, guilt can be used against me quite successfully, as it did when I sat down to write this post.  Nice Job Juvat- your timing is impeccable seeing how it's Lent.  Lent is that time in the Catholic Church where we joyfully celebrate self-reflection, penance and guilt!  Doesn't that sound fun?

My body is like a temple.  Ok, more like a Catholic Church- full of bread, wine and guilt.

I've often said that the worst part about San Diego is that it's in California.  Best weather in the country, great beaches,  lots to do, no traffic, affordable housing, conservative bent, etc.  Thirty-four years ago when I moved back to San Diego for college, it had all those qualities, and really was a fairly conservative town.  We had a big military contingent, plenty of large defense contractors, and a laid-back populous that just wanted to be left alone.  Since then, the population has boomed, with a large youth, gay, and Hispanic contingent, among others of course.  The military is still here, but the Defense Industrial Complex has contracted quite a bit.

But times change, and people have too.  We're more vocal, and social media plus the all-powerful liberal media have amplified those voices, many of them not very learned.  And those listening are easily swayed and have grown up envious.  So the populace here has shifted from right, to somewhat far left.  The California legislature has a super-majority of Democrats so liberal laws, many not well thought out as to the secondary and tertiary effects, are passed with ease and abandon.  The 2018 general election here saw no less than six propositions or ballot measures that would increase taxes, float bonds, (paid off later through increased property taxes), or increase the overall cost of living.  And every one of them not only passed, but went into the state's general fund, not locked off for what they claim it was for.  We approved grocery bag fees to help the environment, but the fees only went into the grocery till, not for any conservation efforts.  It was intended to be an incentive for using your own reusable bags, but most people aren't, choosing to now pay for thicker, less degradable bags.  We allowed a higher gas tax that will increase the cost of food and other goods and services, (a very regressive tax hurting the poor most of all) under the guise of road repair funding, but it has since been raided for a high speed rail to nowhere, and is likely being used to prop up the state pension deficit like all the other taxes.   

So while 2018 was a huge step towards bigger government and more reliance on Sacramento to fix all our problems, Super Tuesday here surprised me.  While Comrade Bernie won handily as I expected, a few other items give me hope.  First off, several state and Congressional seats were contested with strong conservative candidates.  This isn't always the case here, many not trying because the state is so left.  These candidates had strong showings and might have a chance of winning in November.  Apparently this happened across the country, with one of the largest classes of registered candidates in 20 years.  Maybe they're upset about something. 

We had a ballot initiative to float yet another bond, supposedly to help schools so we can get rid of deadly asbestos.  Is that still a thing?  Going again into the general fund, and eventually requiring property taxes to pay off, the voters saw right through it and voted it down handily.  We've had multiple bond measures over the past 20 years to help improve school infrastructure, and the lottery was supposed to go for that as well, so the citizenry are tired of the false emotional pleas from the state capital.

Locally we voted down another mega development that will just make traffic worse, as well as a measure to raise hotel taxes to fund a convention center expansion.  That one is somewhat of a head-scratcher in that it's a tax on tourists, not locals, and the expansion would bring in more larger conventions, and thus more taxes.  But I think we're all just tired of the ever increasing tax burden here.  The politicians are also doing very little for the existing problems, with the homeless population booming and medieval diseases making a comeback in the huge shanty-towns in LA and SF.  Yet they are too busy fighting for illegal immigrant rights instead of helping homeless citizens.  They claim it's a housing issue, but it's more basic than that, with cities coddling them, not enforcing what I'll call personal sanitation and drug violations, and putting little towards mental health.  We see all that and we're sick of inaction.

So things seem to be looking up.  California will be forever left, but maybe, just maybe, with some sanity thrown in.  The longer Sacramento proves they can't deliver on their promises and with ever increasing taxes making life for working families harder and harder, the sanity will slowly return.  Or maybe I'm just dreaming.  On a personal note, things are pretty bright as well.  I just made the last room and board payment for The Artist- aka my beautiful daughter graduating college in May with an animation degree.  We expect her to head for LA to work at one of the animation studios.  Also, my beautiful wife and I just paid off our house last month, so even less demand on my paycheck.

I'm sure we'll figure out a way to spend more soon enough, with a house that has had some maintenance deferred for far too long, and some bathrooms that could use updating, but Sarge knows a good contractor.  If COVID-19 doesn't kill us all (it won't), maybe I'll be writing about those exploits.  Have a great week.