THE SAN JOAQUIN SENTINEL
"All the news that gives 'em fits"

(c) 2004, Mike Barkley
[Instead of wasting your time with lengthy downloads, most pages here are straight text with minimal html.]

• The Stony Creek Water Wars - Glenn County - Tehama County - Colusa County , California.
• For DWR, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer trashes the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. - DWR uses the "California Precondemnation Entry Statute" to gain access to lands for environmental review for projects it has no intention of building.
• The Nomi Lackee Monument -- Northern California's Trail of Tears.
  
  
• Four disasters: Katrina, Rita, the government's failure to build a proper New Orleans levee system, the government's failure to respond adequately to these two storms
• U.S. Civilian Hurricane Rescue Corps, first responders, Hurricane aftermath pickup-truck bring list:
• California Central Valley's Biggest Threat: A Repeat of the Floods of 1861-1862
  "One truck with every reporter"
  
  
• Retire in Northeastern Nevada - on Social Security alone (no, this is not a paid site)
  
  
• Locked Stairwells in the World Trade Center -- Criminal Negligence?
• The way things are now, it's easy to conclude that neither the government nor the airlines want us to travel by air.
• Anyone noticed an absence of the Stars & Bars since 9/11?
  
  
• Multiple Sclerosis Issues:
  • State of California and Social Security Administration successfully conspire to cheat Jeanne (and many others) out of her SSDI.
  • A list of our representatives who have ignored requests for relief of this conspiracy to cheat Jeanne out of her SSDI : Senator Diane Feinstein, Senator Barbara Boxer, President Bill Clinton, Congressman Richard W. Pombo
  • Kaiser Permanente Health Plan takes 38 years to diagnose multiple sclerosis, and then blames it on the patient.
  • EXCUSES for not curing multiple sclerosis.
  • So, let's assume for a moment you have multiple sclerosis and you're facing a slow, agonizing death over many years, and you have a spare hundred billion dollars burning a hole in your pocket. Would you spend that money getting rid of Saddam Hussein, or would you spend it on a cure for multiple sclerosis? Have you told your Congressman or Senators how you feel? They're just an email away.
    • email Congressmen
    • email Senators
  • A Bill for Congress: Outlawing discrimination by the Social Security Administration against Multiple Sclerosis victims (and other victims of long-term wasting diseases?).
  • Victims of Social Security Administration hardball : Google newsgroup search for "SSDI" yields 32,900 hits (of course, victims posting or even able to post to Usenet number far less than 100% of SSA's targets), or, if you prefer, searching for "Social Security" yields 755,000 hits, suggesting that all the case histories of all victims of SSA abuse would require the disk space of, oh, a Social Security Administration.
  • A list of organizations that should be supporting a halt to SSA's discrimination against victims of long-term wasting diseases, but aren't.
  • The California Social Security Disability Review Act - an act to require the State of California to review its participation in Social Security Disability reviews to ensure that the State acted fairly towards its own citizens, that it did not inadvertently or deliberately cheat its own citizens of earned Social Security benefits, and that it did not make mistaken recommendations that ultimately shifted costs from Social Security Disability to the State welfare infrastructure.
  • Farmer's Insurance cancels Jeanne's apartment building insurance because she has Multiple Sclerosis.
  • Restrooms for the two theatres at San Joaquin Delta College are not wheelchair accessible.
  • $10 charge for disabled people to use the elevators at San Joaquin Delta College - able-bodied people get to use the stairs for free.
  • Finding compact fluorescent light bulbs that can be tolerated by multiple sclerosis victims.
  • The Subaru Baja - the only all-wheel-drive vehicle that can carry both Jeanne and her power chair without an extra lift (using Handi-Ramp Handy Tracks to get the chair into the back - these tracks are also helpful in climbing steps of various relatives' homes)
  • Anyone looking into "prions" and MS?
  • United States Congress "Press Gallery" rules "soil" First Amendment Freedoms of Speech and Press.
  • A bumper sticker: "For what we spent on Iraq we could have cured cancer, MS, ALS, MD . . .",
  • Multiple sclerosis impacts U.S. Economy $20 billion a year , and impacts the Federal Government $3.6 billion a year which includes a miniscule 2.6% to find a cure.
  
  
• A bill for the California Legislature to inhibit a recurrance of the San Francisco dog mauling murder.
• Let me see if I have this straight : the Republicans led by Pete Wilson sold California down the river to the energy companies, and then they lynched Governor Gray Davis for getting stuck with the resulting budget disaster? And the Number One Candidate was Arnold Schwarzenegger whose only political claim to fame is that he made the budget crunch WORSE by carving after-school fluff programs out of the school budgets?
• Beware the real Arnold Schwarzenegger: "old news", "girlie men", "losers".
• The best and fastest fix for the California energy crisis -- ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs.
• What role did the extraordinary conservation efforts by California energy consumers have on the fortunes of Enron?
• The War on Commercial Low-Income Housing in America - the homeless epidemic is just starting.
• Is the designation of elective offices in California as "non-partisan" violative of the rights of speech and association?
• The practice of using bogus telephone polls to destroy opponents in California elections.
• Electoral suicide: taking on developers at the ballot box.
• Developer foolishness: pushing residential development further into the California Delta in the face of the quadruple threat of global warming, high tides, storm surges, and seismic activity.
• The wholesale unlawful diversion of gas tax transit funds to street repair by California municipalities.
• The universal failure in California to impose commuter transit development fees on commuter residential developments as a required feasible mitigation under the California Environmental Quality Act.
• The need under CEQA to impose a ban on fireplaces in most areas of California.
• VIVA - Victims of Impaired Visibility Accidents (fog, blowing dust, smoke, etc.)
• Manteca Traffic Initiative - a systematic subversion of the right of initiative in California by a government out of control.
• California Initiative Rights Initiative - halting the erosion of the right to initiative by governments jealous of that right.
• California Traffic Signal Equal Access Initiative - eliminating "jackrabbit" signal lights, and guaranteeing that any vehicle or pedestrian has the same opportunity to proceed as any other.
• California Cigarette Butt Deposit Initiative - a penny a butt as a deposit to halt this source of fiery litter? and how about a dollar deposit on every disposable lighter?
• LUA - [San Joaquin/Stanislaus] Land Utilization Alliance - where did it go wrong?
• Manteca Flooding Victims - an epic struggle.
• A topic for meteorological study and treatise: The Manteca Meteorological "Hole" - an examination of the apparent 10-20 mile wide pocket of reduced rainfall centered on the the City of Manteca, California.
• It's about time that Transit Agencies for Solano, Yolo, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties develop a system of public transit transfer points between each of these counties. The insularity of these systems cheats the citizens of these counties out of employment opportunities.
• A needed bill for the California Legislature: where any two contiguous counties have county-wide transit systems, they must cooperate to establish at least one transfer point between these two transit systems. It's high time to eliminate these county-line barriers to employment opportunities for people who cannot afford an automobile.
• Finish the missing Interstate 5 freeway link : the I-205/I-505 link between Mountain House, Antioch, & Vacaville.
• Is it time to explore building California's prisons in Mexico?
  
  
• The Holocaust :
  • An Anne Frank Library
  • A Primo Levi Library - surviving Auschwitz and the survivor's disease only to be felled by the "caregiver's disease"
  • Gilbert (Martin Gilbert, "The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War", Henry Holt And Company/Owl, New York, 1985 ) at pp. 44, 87, and 288 mentions prosecutions for offenses against Jews in German-held territory in 1935, 1939, and 1942, prosecutions that failed. While Gilbert's work is obviously not a comprehensive survey on this issue, should blame for the Holocaust be placed, in part, upon the German legal profession (judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and civil lawyers) in that they failed to protect life, limb, liberty, property, and the institutions of government from the lawless intentions of the Nazis? Should this issue be studied?
  • Another moment of American shame: the failure of the U.S. in 1945 to insist that Raoul Wallenberg be released by the Soviets.
  • Sanitorium Furth, Schmidgasse 14, Vienna - Profiteering by the U.S. Government at the expense of Holocaust victims.
  • Is there any truth to the rumor that Manteca Public Schools exclude information on the Holocaust from the school libraries?
  
  
• "Battle Stations", Columbia Pictures, 1956
• Introducing "The All Disaster Channel"
  
  
• The Consumer Corner:
  • In memoriam - favorite stores and products that have disappeared
  • So, you're taking a ride on Greyhound and you watch the driver buckle his seat belt and shoulder harness and you reach for yours and discover there isn't one. What is this? It's unsafe for the driver to drive without a seat belt, but not for his passengers?
  • AT&T Broadband tech spiked my computer's mother board and ruined the computer - before allowing their installer to open your computer, back up your system and make sure all power sources and/or peripherals are unplugged and the technician grounds himself to the chassis. They eventually compensated me for the damage, but it took some time and effort.
  • So, AT&T Broadband got gobbled up by Comcast, and along comes Comcast and replaces the local precipitation radar sequences on The Weather Channel with an extra slate of commercials. How rude. Do they also bump hurricane and tornado warnings? [since then they stopped this practice, but, sheesh!]
  • Beware of McAfee renewal notices - they seem to have multiple divisions vying for your computer security dollar, and if you answer a "renewal notice" from the wrong one as I did, you can wind up with a new subscription rather than an actual renewal, and no, they will not fix it or stop the practice. What's more, each time you exchange email about it, they act like they've never heard of it - they don't choose to look it up in their own records, and having to start over each time means they never actually address the problem.
  • Break one of the little kickstands off your HP keyboard? HP says you must buy an entire new keyboard if you want to fix it. (Has anyone told the California Solid Waste Management Board?)
  • Have a non-smoking reservation at Radisson? Beware, it's company policy to ignore non-smoking reservations when they feel like it.
  • The last time I rented a car from Hertz, the trunk was not lockable because the lock had been punched out completely, and the car smelled like an ash tray. That was 20 years ago and I've never been back.
  • Ever notice how all of the plastic wrap in the supermarket, regardless of what brand, is just a little too narrow for your average serving platter?
  • PG&E Billing mischief : an $814.96 bill for gas for one month for an empty apartment with the only gas appliance, a furnace, turned off and the pilot light turned off - PG&E changed their billing system in fall 2002, and admits that the wrong meter was read for that apartment, but also states that they don't know how to fix the billing problem, the erroneous linking of the wrong meter to an address. Took them six months to correct the erroneous billing. Keep an eye on your PG&E Bills.
  • Unfair Consumer Credit Stranglehold: Remember the days when your lenders made their decisions based on who you are, what you did, and how you paid? Well, not any longer. Your credit has been taken over by a company that abuses your credit-worthiness for its own profit - FICO scores discriminate unfairly if the consumer does not fit the wage-earner/homeowner template, and especially discriminates against people who own & operate their own businesses. See Fair Isaac Corporation and "MyFICO"; and it's just too bad for you.
  • Golden parachutes? Golden parasites.
  • Best way to fix the Oakland Raiders? Trade Al Davis.
  • Ever notice how here, in the middle of tomato country and in the middle of tomato season, when you order tomatos at a restaurant such as Denny's they are pale, tasteless and have the consistency of styrofoam? And this, with perfectly wonderful tomatoes at the supermarket next door. What's up with that?
  • Mikey's No-Potato Diet - How I went from obese to normal without pills, artificial sweeteners, or additional exercise.
  • Help! I'm being held prisoner in a checkout line at Wal-Mart!
  • American Express consumer alert, 11/30/05
  
  
• Does Attorney General John Ashcroft make you nervous? [Whew! He's gone. He is gone, isn't he?]
• Are you a wage earner or minority? Look in the mirror. See the boot heel on your neck? The boot is the Republican party's, the party of oppression. Why would you EVER vote for the boot that oppresses you?
• The Democrat philosophy: How may I help you?
  The Republican philosophy: I've got mine.
• 11/02/04, A triumph of moral values: lying, bigotry, greed, sloth, cowardice, malice, and stupidity over compassion and tolerance.
• The " Swift Boat Veterans for Truth " legacy: all over America Vietnam veterans are hiding their medals.
• How can you tell when a government official is lying?
• When the government lies, prevaricates, or even "spins" in litigation, is it a failure of due process?
• The Martha Stewart Rule: It's OK for the government to lie to you, but it's a crime for you to lie to the government.
• Is it time to repeal the Second Amendment ?
• Does the designation of criminal prosecutions as "The People vs. ---" unfairly prejudice trials in that it tends to remind the judge and the jury that they are "the people" and thus automatically on the opposing side of the defendant they are expected to judge?
• Isn't the charge "Obstructing Justice" inherently deceptive? Isn't it presumptive and arrogant for a prosecutorial agency to describe itself as "dispensing justice"? Shouldn't the charge be "Obstructing Investigation and Prosecution"?
• The media regularly reports "agents removed boxes of 'evidence' from [wherever]. . ." This is false reporting - it should be "agents removed boxes of 'stuff' from [wherever] hoping that they might find evidence somewhere in there."
• Why isn't the sentencing of prisoners to an environment where sodomic rape is guaranteed inherently "cruel and unusual punishment"?
  
  
• Is it time to restore Taiwan to the Chinese? but the only right way is for all of China to return under the rule of the Taiwanese government....
• What to do about Israel and Palestine? Do we have any obligation to help solve it? Yes? No? As the World's Policeman? Or even though we are supporting Israel with huge annual Foreign Aid payments? How about if we offer full U.S. Citizenship to every Israeli combined with a generous monetary immigration allowance, and thereafter cut off Foreign Aid, that is, use the aid for a solution rather than to perpetuate the problem? Certainly the Israelis are entitled to their own country but so are the Palestinians. Can they co-exist? If not, what more can we do than offer our fullest hospitality to end the unsolvable confrontation?
• Tired of Iraq yet? Well then, how about if we trade the Shi'ite portions of Iraq with their oil fields to Iran for the Kurdish portions of Iran plus Iran's guarantee to halt and scrap all nuclear weapons programs backed by weapons inspections, trade some or all of Sunni Iraq (plus Syria?) including a guarantee of oil from the Mosul oil fields to Turkey for the Kurdish portions of Turkey, and then adding Turkish Kurdish territory and Iranian Kurdish territory to Iraqi Kurdish territory including the Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields to form a united independent Kurdistan governed by a coalition of our Kurdish allies since these are the Iraqis who have been helpful and appreciative in this war (or if Turkey is not interested, raffle off what remains of Sunni Iraq to whichever of Syria, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia wants it)? Can't do it? Sez who? Surely, arguments against it cannot revolve around Iraqi sovereignty since we've already violated that.
• So, what is it that makes Iraq worth the life of even one U.S. soldier?
  
  
• Yes, but who made God?
• "Walk before me, and be thou perfect", Genesis 17:1 AKJV
  
  
• Links - California on-line activist / alternative / progressive newsletters / newspapers / e-zines

THE SAN JOAQUIN SENTINEL, WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? - over the past 2 decades some 300 to 400 of my letters to the editor have been published by various newspapers and magazines, locally as well as clear across the country. In each instance, authoritative cites may not be displayed, quoted in full, etc. And many important stories are so convoluted and of such narrow interest they would never be properly addressed in the establishment press where space is at a premium, such as the continuing saga of the Stony Creek Water Wars.

Now comes the Internet. Now there is an opportunity to present to you full stories, with full, authoritative documentation and citation. The world has changed, delivery of news has improved. The ability of a power structure to stifle dissent and bury the truth is waning. The gloves are off, and it's now possible to publish in full. The goal remains : present the whole truth, the full story, with proper authorities, citations, documentation, noting the presence of opposing sides where there is any credibility in them, and presenting enough to allow the reader to form his or her own opinions. This is a higher standard than that followed by the establishment press.

THE SAN JOAQUIN SENTINEL : We're watching.

I welcome your comment and input. If I like it, I will publish it here, with full credit to you. If I don't like it but believe the truth you put forth, I will still publish it. If neither? Well, then, start your own e-zine. Thank you.

--Mike Barkley, 161 N. Sheridan Ave. #1, Manteca, CA 95336 (H) 209/823-4817
mjbarkl@inreach.com
No more excuses! - Cure Multiple Sclerosis now!