The Brambles

Sactosphere Roundup

Something very special happened in the Sactosphere today. One Sacto-blogger linked to the blog of another Sacto-blogger, and neither of the said bloggers were me.

DB, film reviewer at the SN&R and curator of the E Street Film Society, can now be heard talking movies every Friday at 4:40 p.m on KFBK 1530 AM.

The NorCal Explorer, tspauld, has a nice photo-essay of The Vintage Neon Signs of Marysville & Yuba City. I’m in the planning stages of writing an essay about photographic visions of Sacramento that I’m going to publish here or maybe at Sacramento Press, and tspauld’s photographs of neon signs will be one of the subjects under consideration.

Don’t let anyone tell you Sacramento isn’t world-class. We have birthers, too! I was so excited when I saw this blog that I had to provide a link and a screenshot.

It will be interesting to see whether the “socialism” epithet will ultimately have the sting that birthers think that it does. I think it was Matt Yglasias who pointed out that during the Cold War conservatives got a lot of traction out of linking socialism with the Soviet Union, which was obviously an evil totalitarian regime and, more importantly, viewed that way by the majority of Americans, but now the term is more likely to evoke Western Europe and, more specifically, Scandinavia. The birthers are going to have to work extra, extra hard to paint Denmark as a land of breadlines and Gulag Archipelagos.

Not that I doubt for a moment that they will try.

One word: Stagflation.

Sactosphere Roundup

The Buzz provides photographic evidence that the City is violating its own Water Conservation Ordinance.

Heckasac came uncomfortably close yesterday to killing the mystique that makes her blog so special. Praise Jehovah for Gaussian blur.

It’s time to vote in the SN&R’s Reader’s Choice Awards. You’ve got to, because I’m probably not going to get around to doing it. Vote for your favorite frozen yogurt place, favorite sex toy vendor, favorite newscaster’s hair, favorite blog… Oh wait, does this explain why Heckasac was giving away free kittens the other day? (Play nice now, Jeff).

The Lady’s Man has got nothing on Dumbworld’s Handsome Dave. (I’m dating myself with this reference, aren’t I?)

RT Rider explains why free parking is just not affordable any more.

The Sacramento Press publishes a pot issue: see here and here.

If you’ve curious about how how members of the Assembly and State Senate voted on the budget measures, the California Progress Report names names.

Finally, to step outside the Sactosphere a moment, the USA Today has an article about California’s drought and environmental restrictions on water use.

Sactosphere Roundup

The snarky communards over at the Rag should all quit their day jobs and do nothing else but blog about the travels and travails of Mark S. Allen.

Hey, Midtown Gridsters, did you know that your erection quality “can be affected by anxiety, hormones, level of intoxication etc.”

Thank goodness, erection quality is something we dwellers of the Greater Sacramento suburbs don’t have to worry about. For us, a two year supply of Viagra comes gratis when you vote Republican.

Speaking of Republicans and the suburbs, the Democrats are already eying the seat for California’s 3rd Congressional District, currently being kept warm by Rep. Dan Lungren. I wonder why.

21Q is reporting that local TV news veteran, Jennifer Smith, has stepped down as an anchor for KXTV News 10. She has been reassigned to a position the station is calling a “multimedia journalist.” “Multimedia journalist is what people would normally call a reporter, but encompasses broader duties, including Web production,” says 21Q.

What’s up, Smith, you becoming a blogger, too?

Sacramento Foreclosures via Google Maps.

Heckasac is giving away free kittens.

How many made it to the 10th annual Music and Film Festival? I’m going tomorrow, specifically to watch a film based on a story that one of my writer’s group fellows wrote. His brother directed the film or was in some other way involved in it. We drink a lot of beer at our writer’s group meetings, so details often get confused.

Sactosphere Roundup

This is a little old, but this interview with the publishers of the Sacramento Book Review is riveting.

Don’t call me on your cell phone tomorrow if you are driving.

Bone up on California’s water resource issues. There are like fifty links here. Something is bound to grab you.

This blog makes me want to get back outdoors, despite the heat, and take some nature photos.

(Editor’s note: The Sactosphere was a little thin on content that interested me today, so I’m padding the Roundup with some opinion. Think of this as the Joe Sacramento portion of the post, except with better opinions).

What should California’s “progressives” or left-leaning liberals make of the budget capitulation? Will the cuts spell nothing more than the dismantling of the social safety net and a cementing of class inequality in the Golden State? It is hard to see much good coming from the lay-offs that will follow the cuts to city and county governments and the belt-tightening that will come about when state workers began to calculate what their furlough days are costing them, but I’m also queasy about progressives clinging too desperately to the status quo. In fact, if we only consider California’s underclass, namely, the people who are most vulnerable to the economic shocks that the cuts are likely to cause, by what metric shall we say the underclass has actually benefited from California’s social safety net, and, what’s more, whose policies exactly are to blame for growing the underclass over the last two decades? I can’t get myself to quite countenance Žižek’s notion of Divine Violence, but I also can’t think of any institution more worthy of it than the California State Legislature. It built a failed system, and then it let it fail in the most spectacular way.

I’m with Clint Reilly. The progressive cause in California should be to defeat “Capitol-ism” and build something better in its place.

Sactosphere Roundup

Colleen Belcher, at the Sacramento Press, wonders why corporate chain restaurants top the list of the Sacramento Magazine’s readers’ choice awards. Douglas Rushkoff might have an idea about that. Let’s watch.

Then again, maybe it just all the IQ-killing valley smog.

Midtown grid reports that the summer crops are arriving at your friendly neighborhood urban farm stand. Here is the list of locations.

Flatmancrooked, the Sacramento-based literary journal, is starting something called Launch to promote the careers of its new writers. They will be selecting an author and releasing one of his or her short stories as a stand-alone book. But before the story hits the newsstands, readers of the journal will be able to buy a signed and numbered copy of it. FMC gets money to help cover its front-end costs, and the readers get the chance to own a signed copy of possibly the next Hills Like White Elephants.

Pinchtweeting? #wtf?

The SacRag is happy to see that Jim Kozimor got himself a new gig.

If you’re like me and find fashion boring (“Greek dress was in its essence inartistic. Nothing should reveal the body but the body.” —Oscar Wilde), then you probably don’t care that bow&arrows has a new blog.

UPDATE: Oops, I forgot to add this Snog post about McClatchy’s impending bankruptcy.

Sactosphere Roundup

Robert Cruickshank offers a downbeat assessment of the horse trading going on in the Capitol. He considers it a horse wrangle rather than a trade and says, ” It’s taken 31 years, but Howard Jarvis is finally going to get the wholesale destruction of public services he always wanted.”

Fireballs in Midtown land two in jail. “Ire performers” may be a better appellation for these two.

Cougar spotted in West Sac…okay, I’m not even going to waste your time with a punchline.

The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District have a shiny new website, and so does MOBS.

Rep. Matsui secures $93,750,000 for flood protection projects. Now if she could only do something about the drought.

And speaking of the drought, if you drive south on I-5 long enough, you’ll start to see these signs along the road. To sum up: humans can’t be to blame for global warming, but congress can create a dust bowl.

You’re on notice, Home Depot, for messing with old ladies.

Oh shit! I am, too.