George Rebane

Hillary Hodge running for Nevada County’s District #3 supervisor?!  And claiming that "as a non-profit executive in Nevada County specializing in small business development, I know we can revitalize our community with innovative solutions."  This from a former Union columnist who has publicly been refreshingly frank about her store of knowledge concerning anything having to do with business?  We recall that by her own admission selling her skillset to anyone hereabouts who had to pay her out of his own pocket has proved to be a challenge.  Now as Exec Dir of the non-profit, OPM-funded Sierra Commons (here), we can see what kind of innovative small business development the good lady has in mind for revitalizing our community.   Would I be that far off to doubt that even the Sierra Business Council would have a hard time endorsing her as our county’s revitalizing sparkplug?  Well, maybe.

Bracing for Ms Hodge’s candidacy is the current District #3 supervisor Dan Miller who writes (here) in the 1aug17 Union to ask why our county’s famed pot growers don’t contribute to the good works which abound in our community.  Pro-pot promoters volubly crow (even on these pages) about the money these people earn and the contribution they make to our local economy.  So Supervisor Miller makes the good point that – It is often mentioned the cannabis industry brings in boatloads of money to our county. Where is it? The Cannabis Alliance reports that they have several hundred members. When you add the nonmember growers to that number, you have a sizable economic engine that ultimately could be used to put cash flow back into the homeless needs. Since the growers do not pay taxes yet, this challenge provides an opportunity for them to participate in a jumpstart of goodwill. … If the cannabis-growing community is truly committed to the welfare of Nevada County, then this idea should resonate with their leadership. Now, we invite them to join us in becoming part of the tradition.

[update] In today’s Union we have an expose by a Mr Richard Stormgaard who attempts to take to task Ms Cindy Hren’s 17feb17 piece on the form of US governance as defined by our Constitution.  Sadly, what the Nevada City resident winds up exposing to one and all is that he gives new meaning to the notion of light thinking.  In disputing Ms Hren’s excellent pedagogy on pure democracy vs constitutional republic, Stormgaard gives no evidence that he is up to the task.  In the anti-Republican vitriol, founded on forged facts, which makes up the lion’s share of his offering, he doesn’t even define the contending notions.  But he does expose his grossly malformed line of reasoning in claiming that the Right still hews to ‘1828 values’ on governance since the Merriam-Webster definitions of ‘democracy’ and ‘republic’ he attributes to Hren have not changed in the last two hundred years.  The gentleman will no doubt similarly argue that anyone who still defines ‘cat’ as they did in 1150AD is guilty of practicing medieval zoology.  For him semantics are as malleable as they are to Carroll’s Queen of Hearts.  But in all fairness, to get a true measure of the man, do read his contribution (here).

[4aug17 update]  For the history buffs among us – this we in the west knew more than a hundred years ago –  Winston Churchill 1899: "Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world."  We now live in the extended shadow of that religion.

[5aug17 update]  Union columnist Darrell Berkheimer is yet another big government progressive unclear on the difference between affordable housing and low cost housing.  In his 5aug17 ‘Isn’t affordable housing key to western Nevada County’s future?' he goes through the usual liberal song and dance about affordable housing being our absent attractant for middle class families wanting to move and work here.  He goes to great lengths in specifying what kinds of ‘affordable units’ the government should allow to be built by developers who must survive in a world much different from the one he sees.  On top of it all he shows no understanding of the past effectiveness of government mandated ‘affordable housing’ programs in achieving the aims he outlines.  And he is, of course, blind to the chicken/egg reality that jobs have to arrive in tight formation with the availability of LOW COST HOUSING that their workers can buy/rent, and which will subsequently serve as an appreciating asset for their families which they can dispose of as they wish.  Developers know how and where to build low cost housing that sells, if only the government would let them.  Affordable housing is another misguided notion by the central planning elites that is disconnected from how a thriving world works, and another reason that Nevada County is in economic doldrums.

When I have argued that people like to be with similar people in these pages, our leftwing readers have castigated me and agreeing readers as being un-American, racist, and even traitorous to just entertain such thoughts.  That this is a seminal and existential feature of human beings is rejected in their ideology of class-based Marxism.  Now the pendulum definitely appears to be swinging in the other direction.  The Left today is becoming active in their practice of exclusionary cultural Marxism in their attempts to divide America into more and more distinct ethno-racial groups, in the process contending that America’s historic promotion of assimilation is nothing more than a white supremacist ruse for control and domination.  We should no longer seek to remain a dynamically shifting amalgam with the passage of time, but assume distinct ‘race-ethnic’ groups who will contend for their share of the American pie mainly through becoming federally recognized minority cohorts who are due federal funding and preferential treatment under federal law.  The newest of these race-ethnic groups being proposed for the next US census is called MENA (Middle East and North Africa).  Given the already established separation of our Hispanic class, I wonder how our leftwing will now revise their newspeak so as to make seamless this course change for destroying America. (more here)

[6aug17 update]  The rabid Left is well-known for its successful efforts to stifle free speech that counters the strident collectivist ideology.  Its recent advances in such censorship in academe have now entered the historical lexicon of America.  A reader sent me news of how this constructive proscription of our First Amendment rights has now entered the domain of performance art, specifically in the field of classical music. (more here) As I have asserted in previous commentaries, this no longer is ignorance or stupidity, it is simply evil.