In the last two decades politics in America have become more polarized than ever. Everyone either “Loves America” or “Hates America”. What ever happened to people being able to cope with differing opinions? This “Us or Them” frame of mind has been the downfall of American political culture for some time now.

The entire political process has turned into a mudslinging/popularity contest and is basically a mockery of itself. George Washington is spinning in his damn grave right now.

I’m sick of people saying things like “Well they’re a progressive so they obviously hate America” or “They’re a conservative so they’re obviously inbred dimwits”. There is a middle ground somewhere people, and this middle ground is the reality that we end up living.

Compromise: America needs to relearn it.

Overturning the 1907 ban, these Supreme Court justices have ushered in an age of corporate spending for political reasons that will be far greater than anything we have seen before. The only part of the ban that remains in place is that corporations cannot directly give candidates themselves money from their vaults.

Corporations have had a lot of power in getting laws passed and politicians elected in the past, but now, come election season, our ears and eyes will be assaulted by mudslinging advertisements on television, radio, and the internet – all paid for by corporate America. By making this ruling a reality these justices have turned something that was already extremely corrupt, into something that is a downright mess.

Walmart for Palin? Ikea for Obama? These are not phrases I want to hear – now or ever.

We need some new legislation to tighten up the floodgates on this at least somewhat, as they’ve been suddenly ripped open allowing for an outpouring of corporate money into the hands of political campaigns across the nation. At least PAC’s made it somewhat more difficult for corporations to directly effect the political outcome in this country. Now the unions and corporations have free reign to run all the “attack ads” they want.

Sometimes congress is a parody of itself.

Read more about it here, at ABC30.com

The Fresno Monsters have started their season and word on the street is attendance hasn’t exactly skyrocketed. There has been a hockey team in Fresno for a long time, so there are bound to be a decently sized group of die hard fans, but I’m not sure that entertaining this group of people is worth the incredible cost that a hockey team brings to the city.

Fresno is low on money. Very, very, extremely, impossibly low on money. Millions in the red. We need to be cutting costs in every way that we can that doesn’t effect something vital to our city. Cutting safety, education, or public sanitation and beautification is no way to get through the tough times. We need to cut back on some of the “Big City Dreams” that exist here in Fresno.

Fresno wants to be Los Angeles, and Fresno wants to be San Francisco. Sports teams help to bring the big city feel to downtown, but Fresno is a very long ways from being the same size as those two cities, and right now we need to be acting fiscally conservative in order to preserve what we have so that we can continue building upwards towards our dreams in the future.

The Grizzlies should not have been renewed. Chukchansi Park should have never been built. The Falcons shouldn’t have been replaced. And Fresno should get back to preserving its roots instead of pushing upwards trying to be a major destination. Fresno is about raising families and small business and farming. It will never be a caffeine injected, steel-glinted metropolis. If anyone in Fresno is looking for that type of place, my only suggestion is to move there.

Fresno needs to get back to the basics, while at the same time putting an end to urban sprawl. We need to utilize the space we have inside of our city instead of pushing outwards. Fresno is a great place, we just have to embrace what we have instead of looking to change into something we will never be.

As everyone knows, and as I talked about in a previous blog post, disaster has struck Haiti. I don’t know much about charities but I do know they need help.

Here’s what I’m asking from you:

• Respond with your favorite and what you feel is the most reputable charity so others know where to direct their good will.
• Click the Google Ad on the top right hand of this page. It doesn’t generate a whole lot (I suspect we might be able to generate $5-10 as a whole), but I will match whatever is raised by the ad, and donate the sum of both amounts to the charity who seems most reputable from your comments.

I know there is the Red Cross and Wyclef Jeans charity, but I feel there might be some better organizations out there to give our money to.

-Ron

Two weeks ago a young man began robbing pharmacies in the Fresno/Clovis area in order to procure the prescription pain medication ‘Oxycontin’. He was caught on multiple survaillance cameras at multiple pharmacies. Several pharmacy technicians came face-to-face with him as he demanded the painkiller while claiming to possess a gun.

Shortly afterwards, the Fresno Police Department released some grainy images of the suspect that were taken from quite possibly the worst angle imaginable. All the was visible was the bottom left corner of the thief’s jaw line and the top of his hat. This image was released to all of the local news outlets in an attempt to employ the public in naming the robber (saving the Fresno PD a whole lot of time).

As it turns out, one grainy photograph was not enough to jog anyones memory as to the identity of the person being sought. The Fresno Police had basically come upon a dead end. A young robber, possibly not even from this city, had made it away from four robberies without even a minor confrontation with police.

With the first strategy of asking the public having failed, the Fresno Police Department has moved onto a more aggressive campaign to seek out this pharmacy-robbing young man. The Fresno Police Department is now using a large amount of resources to tail, watch, and harass members of the public they believe to be using or dealing in the drug.

The head of the Fresno Police Department Oxycontin Task Force, a man who’s name is Dan, has been contacting the supposed “drug users” and offering them cash for leads on where to find the man robbing the pharmacies, as well as information on where to find more cash and drugs. Dan has been going around offering many college students in the area money for information, as it’s no secret that Oxycontin is the most popular drug in Fresno right now.

Dan of the Fresno Police Department Oxycontin Task Force has offered the following amounts of dough for you to snitch on your friends:

• $100 for every ten Oxycontin pills
• $200 for each hand gun
• $1,000 for any assault rifle type weapon (AK-47, etc)

So it looks like they have no leads or ability to do actual police work if this is the type of brute force direction they’re going to take in this situation.

If someone from the Fresno Police Department contacts you or a loved one and accuses you of being involved with Oxycontin, talk with your attorney before giving them any information and know your rights as an American citizen.