End of an Idyll
snichols has learned sad news: the Van Vleck Memorial Park on the Cosumnes River outside Sacramento will close soon. snichols is almost unable to cope with how lamentable she finds this development.

For the lucky few, this private park, run by Reaganite ranchers, provided a little slice of eden for months on end every year. Sweet, unreserved camping with no frills on the banks of a warm, clear, deep, slow-moving stretch of river--the best freshwater swimming you could possibly have without even leaving the county. snichols' kids can't even imagine their summer without it.

They say they're closing it due to extreme vandalism, that they "have no choice." But that's unlikely to be true. The entire creation of the private park by the late Stan Van Vleck Sr. was to deter the many many trespassers on Van Vleck Ranch who were desperate to swim and camp in this incomparable unspoiled stretch along with amazing wildlife, deer, egrets, turtles, beaver and coyote.

More likely the "no choice" decision results from the greedy manoeverings of a clan of landrich heirs who know that their only big opportunity for cash comes from selling large portions of this stretch to be annexed to the huge and already encroaching luxury golf retirement housing immediately adjacent to the property.

Stan senior used to lament how he lost half the ranch to one of ex-wives and she cashed it out to kick Rancho Murieta off.

The entire park is apparently already zoned residential; has been since the environmentalists lost the battle to stop Rancho Murieta from building at all, so it's difficult for even the creative advocates to figure an angle to stop the despoilment of this gorgeous land.

And regardless, the idyll is over for snicholsfamily and all her free-loading friends.

Ose and the Arena
snichols can't be bothered to read the papers, but then, she doesn't have to. She just talks to snicholspouse and all is revealed.

He salvaged one moment of a horrendously attenuated and poorly thought out meal at the Melting Pot with snicholsmom and kids this evening, with the one tidbit I didn't have to cook myself and dip in sauce to enjoy.

snicholspouse: Didja see the Natomas arena deal officially fell through today? I wish we could take credit for torpedoing it, but some proposals are so bad they sink of their own weight.

snichols: No. Cool. Hey, maybe I can get the manager to cancel the 3rd course if I wait for 15 minutes next to the kitchen.

[For the non-Sacramento centric amongst snichols' readers, we're speaking here of the prayed for death of a scheme which would have opened up the city's urban growth boundaries to develop and in the bargain supposedly generated enough money to expand the arena where the Sacramento Kings play passifying their restless owners the Maloofs]

later when the kids are asleep...

snicholspouse says something to the effect of, but snichols is completely mangling it: kind of ironic that {Republican suburban Congressman Doug} Ose was the one who brought it down. His family owns land in that area and he evidently didn't think it was great deal for them, so now he's lauding the importance of deciding this growth issue through better channels. He's always been fine with exploding the urban growth boundaries before.

snichols: Cool. I'm going downstairs to watch Sex in the City.

Weintraub v. Court
snichols doesn't like it when one of her adherents attacks another. Perhaps that's why she hasn't blogged lately.

Here's what happened:
snichols-adherent #1 (Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Weintraub--whom snichols thinks can rightly be called one of her adherents, even though they agree on only 2 things, because he reads snicholsblog and encourages her mightily in all endeavors) recently launched into snichols-adherent #2 (Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights President Jamie Court--although Jamie might argue that she should be more of an adherent of his than he of hers, she agrees with Jamie in virtually all things except occasionally his choice of tie) in Weintraub's blog, The California Insider . In relevant part:

You've got to love the arrogance of Jamie Court, he of Harvey Rosenfield's Consumer Watchdog outfit, lecturing Common Cause against its budding alliance with Schwarzenegger on redistricting reform...isn't it a little hypocritical for Court to be leading that charge, when his own organization, long suspected of being a front for the trial lawyer lobby, refuses to disclose the sources of its contributions?

Court fails to dignify Weintraub's comments with a reply in his fabulous Arnold Watch , but he tells some of the rest of the story:

A conversation with staffers at the group confirms Common Cause opposes the redistricting ballot initiatives on file to be circulated for the November special election. The group is also against Arnold's "no limits" fundraising practices for the November...

Here's the thing:

snichols knows Jamie Court, and she knows the "trial lawyer lobby." Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has never, ever, been a "front group" for the latter. Does the Foundation solicit and accept contributions from individual plaintiff's lawyers? Undeniably.

Why do individual consumer attorneys give FTCR $? Because FTCR is the hardest-hitting consumer rights group in California (with an appropriate shout out to Richard Holober and snichols' homies at Consumer Federation of California who recently backed the Governator out of a series of proposals to remove appropriate oversight of various professions).

Can/do the consumer attorneys control FTCR? Not a chance. Believe me, there's been times when their old guard smoke-filled-room big boy lobbyist (whose stale tactics have long ceased working) would have loved to control Jamie Court, Doug Heller and their warriers for truth and justice. But they can't and they won't.

snichols knows that that both Jamie Court and Daniel Weintraub will keep pushing the Governor to do the right thing (although it might be time for Jamie to admit that he supported the recall).

Nurses Blast Arnold in NY Times Ad
See this great ad that the California Nurses Association put in the New York Times. Last night snichols and her kids went downtown to a wonderful protest of Arnold's red carpet treatment for the special interests at the premiere of the sequel to Get Shorty. Hundreds of people stood in the rain to ogle the stars and protest the Governator.

Snichols' children especially loved chanting "hey, hey, ho ho, Arnold has got to go!"

Now as long as they don't substitute "snichols" for "Arnold," the snicholsfamily will be a-okay.

Battle of the Bulge

Snichols received this information today--knew about the bulge rumors, but not the squashed articles. Anybody think this is real?

A scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab enhanced photos of the bulge on Bush’s back during the debates.

Here’s the link to the photos:

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/11/10_402.html

Here’s a story that is new about how the New York Times was ready to run the story, but quashed it at the last minute.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff02052005.html

Would Jesus Want to Bash in the Windshield of Every SUV he Sees with a Baseball Bat?

Lately snichols hears a lot of talk about What Would Jesus Drive? as a question about the morality of driving SUVs, and she is in complete agreement with all of it. snichols viscerally hates SUVs. Literally. Every time snichols sees one (the big ones, she means) she feels her blood rising, her pulse accelerating, bile coming up in her mouth. And she starts kind of actively scanning the area for a baseball bat or an indelible marker.

But the Buddhists (and others) say that whenever you hate you hate a part of yourself, that the strength of your reaction is an indication of serious healing work that needs to be done. And snichols wonders whether Jesus's fingers would be as itchy for the bat as hers are. Jesus might not drive an SUV, but would he hate them?

Then there's the problem of SUV owners--snichols knows and loves a lot of them. It puts snichols to mind of the classic lyric to Mary Poppins "Sister Suffragette" (apropo of men there) "...though we adore them individually, we agree that, as a group, they're ra-ther stu-pid--oh, cast off the shackles of yesterday! Shoulder to shoulder into the fray..."

What part of SUVs (and their owners) is in snichols? Does snichols secretly want to own a stretch hummer limo? We don't think so. Yet snichols may consume overly much in all kinds of other ways. snichols is a leather-guzzling shoe hog for example and lately she is an absolute humous pig, depleting the world's supply of garbanzo beans by the minute.

Offensive bloggage
Every topic, every thought, every expression that snichols thinks of having put forward in the blog today seems potentially offensive to some reader, or too deeply personal to come out with. snichols is paralyzed by too much thought this evening--help snichols!!! help!!!

Snichols a Deaniac?
Now that Howard Dean appears a shoe-in for DNC chair, snichols is considering trading-in her vitriolic hatred, scorn and loathing for Dean for a "hey, cool, wahooo!"

You've all heard her rant about Dean's ludicrous centrist record as governor of Vermont as a "springboard" for him to be the standard bearer for progressives, so she won't bore you with it again. For President, it was dangerous and offensive, but as head of a party, maybe not so much.

Cautiously optimistic on the eve of Deaniation is snichols.

64 Days of Nonviolence
At snichols' church (the Center for Spiritual Awareness in West Sacramento, since you ask) we're engaging in 64 days of nonviolence a period that starts with MLK, Jr.'s birthday and ends with something to do with Ghandi (his death maybe?). Each day we're supposed to do another peaceful or nonviolent conscious act.

snichols is trying to do this with her children, who currently mock her spiritual tradition so it's not going well. Yesterday's exercise was to "smile at 3 people who look different from you."

So snichols pitches this to her kids. And here's what 10 year old snicholson has to say: "that'll be easy, Mom," (rolling his eyes) " everyone looks different from me" (the duh is silent).

It took snichols a minute, but then she realized how absolutely wonderful a statement that was. It didn't even occur to him that some people look more like him than others. Everyone looks different. He's the only one who looks like him--marvelous.

It puts snichols to mind that when this same snicholson was in kindergarten or first grade he chose his very darkest-skinned friend (by snichols' generation's standards, the kid who looked least like him in his class) to be his "twin" for twins day.

Yup. Things have changed a bit since snichols was young....for the better.

Stop comparing Social Security "Crisis" to Clinton Health Care Crisis
Jesus, snichols is about to go snake on the punditocracy's ass. Thrice this week she has heard Democrats and their spokesmodels compare the Bush administration's manufactured social security "crisis" and their management of it with the Clinton administration's very real health care crisis and their management of it.

The comparison appeals to the insiders because they think it means that they get to smash the privatization of social security, throwing the Bush administration into a tailspin, forcing Laura Bush to wear headbands and fire whitehouse travel agency employees and thereby win back both houses of the Congress in 2006--hel-lo!?

Okay, much as snichols completely utterly embraces that as a lovely fantasy and chain of events, she's here to tell you that the comparison in-ept--these insiders don't know what they're talking about.

She knows this because she was an insider of a sort during the Clinton health care crisis (and used to like to think of herself as one of the principal critics of the Clinton health care plan, until she started to nostalgically yearn for Clinton as President and wish that every American got their health care from a "byzantine insurance-industry controlled bureacracy" as she used to like to trash talk it).

But this is the thing: 1) there really was (and still is) a health care crisis. And however misguided the Clinton plan might have been in addressing or solving that crisis, there was no doubt of there actually being a crisis; 2) to the extent that the Clinton health care debacle played a role in the midterm Republican gains (and there were other factors, mobilized gun nuts, the budget/tax increase), it seemed to predominantly play into anti-government sentiments.

The Dems should pursue their fantasy of using social security as a key issue in the 2006 elections, but they should drop the tactic (if it is one) of referring to the Clinton Health Care plan--it could really backfire--and they should resist the temptation to put up their own Social Security crisis remedy--that stupid tired serving of warmed up leftovers of Republican policy "strategy" has failed like seven times in the past couple of years and always leaves us doubly-screwed: the bad law gets made, with complete complicity by our "champions."

See Arnold Run
snichols watched the "better" part of Run, Arnold, Run tonight on A&E against her better judgment. She'd give it maybe one snout (:) -- mainly it was a poorly written puff piece. An infomercial, as her principal advisor and co-tv watcher put it, for Arnold's constitutional amendment.

Meanwhile, snichols has been putting her recently Saul Alinsky primer to use in application on Arnold:

Rule #1: Use your opponent's greatest strength against him.

Rule #2: Turn your greatest weakness into a strength.

Rule #3: Make it personal, never about a particular corporation or entity, but about a CEO or manager or bad actor (anyone come to mind as a "bad actor"?)

We all know that in defeating John Kerry, Karl Rove applied these rules brilliantly.

Here in California almost every campaign the good guys engage in on every issue follows its' own opposite rules:

#1: Attack your opponent's greatest weakness.
#2: Lead with your own strength.
#3: Make it about the special interests.

Examples abound: the budget, health care, education, various initiative fights come to mind.

The closest kin to a campaign being waged in the tradition of Alinsky/Rove (is Alinsky rolling over in his grave? Is he even dead?) is the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Right's ongoing Arnoldwatch.org.

One could argue that Arnold's greatest strength is his commitment to "clean up Sacramento" and thus any and all allusions to his strong ties to special interests taint this strength of his. Moreover one could argue that by attacking him rather than the special interests, you ARE making it personal, and it will stick in the public's mind. So there's real merit to this approach.

But is it working? It seems that Arnold's popularity is falling, but is that enough to achieve the policy goals we all have? And is Arnold's perceived "cleanliness" really his greatest strength?

snichols thinks that perhaps Arnold's greatest strength is the degree to which he has generally accomplished what he puts his mind to: he set forth to be the world's best known body builder, a movie star and the Governor of California and no one can deny that he accomplished all those things.

Most recently he set his intention to pass or defeat certain initiatives, and he (mostly) did that too.

If Arnold is to be focussed on, argues snichols, why not take that strength squarely on? He's a strong man, a bully, a man who gets his way no matter who stands in his way. snichols thinks it might not stick to him or even be relevant to the average voter that he collects tons of special interest money to achieve his goals. This only makes him seem that much more powerful and attractive. So every single time we hype the money and the corresponding payoff in public policy, we're drawing attention to the degree to which this Austrian muscle-boy has people pay $100,000 a pop to eat breakfast with him and then gets his stuff donen using their money, and you don't.

What if instead, we went for the jugular? What if we could make this ultimate success story the ultimate failure? The budget is the perfect place to do it. Don't make the story the special interests are the problem, or Arnold's ambitions are the problems. Make the story: Arnold can't do it. He's too weak. He's too scared. He's met his match in the legislature. He's a baby. He has to go to the initiatives because he doesn't know how to do it. There's ample evidence to back up these claims, and some of it even overcomes some of the Democratically controlled legislature's greatest perceived weaknesses.

He's absolutely got to respond to the goading. This is why he constantly goads. If you kick sand in this 100 pound weakling of a governor's face, he's bound to over-react and show his cards. This tactic has worked for bullies and strong men from time immemorium, and it'll work here.

snichols will apply rule 2 tomorrow.

Iraqi Vote Blah Blah Blah
Is there anyone else out there who is sick to death about hearing about the impending Iraqi election? Well, snichols is. She knows it perhumps (as her grandmother used to say) doesn't speak very well for her, but she is sick of it anyway.

For one thing, the chart on the front page of the Sacramento Bee today told snichols more about the Iraqi election system than she's ever seen explained in any newspaper about the American election system.

Every single time this completely farcical election is reported upon as if it's anything less than a completely farcical election, the reporter is effectively hiding the truth about the war in Iraq.

And the degree to which the media have been predicting violence in the elections tomorrow for months prior is the degree to which we'll be treated to a raft of news stories tomorrow with headlines such as "Despite Predictions of violence, millions of Iraqis vote" or "Violence breaks out during voting, as expected" instead of the only possible acceptable headline to snichols:

"TRAGIC AND HORRIBLE DEATHS ACROSS IRAQ TODAY DURING LUDICROUS SO-CALLED ELECTION PROVE BUSH ADMINISTRATION HORRIBLY HORRIBLY WRONG"

Back to you.

in snichols' mind
To increase the eerie but annoying quality of referring to herself in the 3rd-person, snichols has often frightened her children by narrating aloud their day as if they were all in a cheezy potboiler--it goes something like this:

"As she picked up N--- and E---, she smiled, looking forward to their weekend together. These were good times and these were good kids and they're especially cute this afternoon clad in the 'CU Later Alligator' and ripped dinosaur t-shirt and pants replete with bathrobes that have sufficed for a sleepy rainy Friday pajama day at school. So she expected a good time and a good welcome.

What she got was this, 'no!!!! I don't want to go to gymnastics. I'm tired. I just want to enjoy my Friday. You never let me enjoy my Fridays!' And this, 'what? oh no. Is she going to scream about gymnastics again? Do I have to go too. I've done all my homework and I don't have anything left to read, I don't have anything left to d0-oo.'"

At this point, her narrating aloud the events has only caused the screaming to increase. "'Stop narrating!!! You're not being nice at all! I don't love you anymore!' 'Wait. I like the narrating. Keep narrating, mom. It's cool.' She begins to wonder whether the afternoon will be so sweet and fun afterall, and whether, in the final analysis, she'll wish that she were chained to the proverbial desk, watching the clock and trying to keep from eating that last cookie in the lunchroom."

Kondoleeza Kickback?
snichols takes it as an encouraging sign that yesterday all eight Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against confirming White House counsel Albert Gonzales as Attorney General.

Judging from the strong and unequivocal quality by which (traditional swing votress) Senator Diane Feinstein of California voiced her concerns with Gonzales, snichols detects a possible kickback from the combined power of her sisterly suckup to now SS Rice through the committee last week with her decision to run for re-election--Feinstein apparently was indundated by thousands of calls protesting her Rice-uh oh (pronounced "risotto") (snichols' call among them).

Feinstein apparently distinguishes the 2 positions with a belief that AG requires "perceived independence" while the SS does not. See SF Chronicle for full story. Could a filibuster on a cabinet appointment be in the offing?

Meanwhile here in Cah-lee-4-knee-a, Schwarzenegger's poll numbers are dropping (not as quickly as snow in the high sierras, but they are falling).

Great Week
snichols is having a fabulous week--almost too fabulous to blog about. Her mother has miraculously recovered from her debilitating sciatic pain; her career is going fabulously her brother is blogging constantly and her husband is doing so well that he would rather not be mentioned by name.

Put that in your blog and link it.

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Rules for Radicals
After years of meaning to, snichols finally finished reading the bible of grassroots organizing, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals.

By checking it out from the public library, she has no doubt now placed herself on some sort of high level enemy combatant list. So in her remaining moments of freedom, she should say this:

The book is totally different from how she thought it would be. snichols found the book not at all dated and indeed extremely applicable almost prescient of today's political dilemmas.

The chapter on means/end calculations in politics includes a devastating myth-shattering analysis of Ghandi's (and the civil rights movement's) nonviolent tactics as merely pragmatic not driven solely by belief, and not applicable to many other political situations.

And the chapter on calculating tactics to use your opponent's strength against him could be used more effectively by every advocate snichols knows.

Read this book (but better buy a copy--can you blog from Guantanamo, anyone know? Anyone want to take over the blog?)

Productivity at office vs. home
snichols is currently fascinated by the topic of whether it is possible to be as productive working from home as the office. A dear friend recently went back to daily office work after years of working out of her house.

She reports, "I'm afraid I have to confirm the worst fear of the part-time working mommy, I am way more productive working out of an office than from the house--there's no comparison."

Running it by another friend, friend 2 tried to flatter snichols by claiming that while that might be true of others, it would be less true of snichols, since snichols was always so productive.

And while snichols appreciates any and all flattery (bring it on), she demurs. Today she spent a mere 2 hours working out of a would-be office and it yielded about a day's worth of phone calls and insights (not to mention an over-priced salad and latte--oh how she missed those!) and she absolutely loved it.

At home the problem has not been the lure of the refrigerator, the tv or the couch. Those are mere background noise, no more troublesome than the plate of cookies in the staff lounge or that cute new guy in cubicle four might be to a weaker soul.

No, the problem has been the sheer fact that no one else under the sun gives a flying fenwick whether she produces anything at all. And no one can tell. After all, there's no one there.

So bring on the office space; bring on the windows that don't open, the endless carpet and the walk down the hall to the loo, but for god's sake, let it come with someone who cares.

On politics
It may have come to snichols' readers attention the degree to which she has not been blogging about politics since a certain election in early November of aught four. It's as if some sort of political depression descended over, and she has yet to awaken.

Oh, she still follows things, sort of. Here's some stuff that's interesting her but not enough to write about it:

*Barbara Boxer becoming the Paul Wellstone (or here in California, we might say, "the Tom Hayden") of the U.S. Senate with her lone stance forcing a formal vote to ratify the electoral college results of the presidential election followed by (last week) her pummeling of Condoleeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzza (snichols would like it if she'd pummel DiFi too while she's at it).

*Leader Pro Tem of the California Senate Don Perata (presumed to be worse, or less liberal than his powerful predecessor John Burton) introducing and pushing a single payer full government health care plan for California.

*And ever, as always, the strong and abiding death wish of the national and state Democratic party.

These are topics that interest snichols enough to keep her awake at night. Perhaps she will blog about them soon.

Bill on Hotel Rwanda
snichols' kids got unexpected sleepovers tonight (a great perk for the middle-aged parents of middle-aged kids) so snichols and snicholsqueeze went out for Spanish food then to Hotel Rwanda.

(:)(:)(:) for Restaurant Aioli Bodega at 1800 L in Sacramento--excellent tapas and tomato-based seafood dish with equally dishy French (go figure) waiter. Only downside was when snichols spilled ice-cold water on the husbandry, but it strategically got them moved to a better table.

After Hotel Rwanda at the beautifully renovated (take a clue, Tower) Crest Theater in downtown Sacto, home for, among other treats, an interview with Bill on the movie.

"Using a snout-based rating system, how many snouts up would you give Hotel Rwanda?" said snichols to him as he's brushing his teeth.

Rinse, spit. "Oh I don't know, whatever's the most, I guess." More brushing.

"You don't know what the highest number of snouts is?!" snichols screams. "Everyone who reads snicholsblog knows what the highest number of snouts is!"

More brushing.

sigh. "Okay, what else would you want to tell the readers about Hotel Rwanda?"

Rinse. Spit. "That they should go see it, I guess."

"Anything else?"

Now leering. "Not that I want to put in the blog..."

"Okay."
-----------------------------------

So that's it. (:)(:)(:)(:) for Hotel Rwanda, a powerful and ultimately uplifting story about a quiet hero in the midst of hell. To read a real review, click here.

(:)(:)(: for A Very Long Engagement
First, unrelated to the movie, a shout out to snichols' brother Evan and his blog. He's been blogging every day since January 1. And snichols has challenged herself to do the same.

So first, 2 1/2 snouts up for A Very Long Engagement which snichols saw on January 3rd in a jet-lagged-cabo-then-christmas-than-virgin-islands-what-a-month haze and then never reviewed.

snichols would not recommend this for the jet-lagged set. Granted, the seppia-toned cinematography is gor-juz and the script, cast and acting is more than adequate. And snichols is normally nothing if not up for (or down for depending on your decade) a long, slow-moving French film at Sacramento's delightfully run-down Tower Theater, n'est-ce pas?

But, again maybe it's the 4 time-zone trip talkin', but snichols could not begin to follow or care about the riveting decades old "detective" tale. Everytime she would get up to pee (and people were starting to whisper "when's the baby due" to her by the 4th or 5th time so next time she's wearing a Depends (tm) undergarment to the movies) she would hiss "whad I miss?" to her husband who would ignore her, so she basically has no fucking idea what the movie was about.

So that's the review. Ain't you glad snichols is blogging again? Well ain't chew?