P O V - Point Of View 

Ojai, Lockwood Valley, the Sespe, and me.

I spent a few years of my childhood in Ojai - my dad worked variously on the Rincon, in the LA area, in the South Pacific, and at the Nevada Test Site, but we “lived” in Upper Ojai, halfway from Ojai Old Town to Oxnard.  We moved to Old Town Ojai in 1954, spent a couple of years there, went to school at Monica Ros’s private place (Mom taught there, didn’t need a certificate since it was private….); moved back to Texas in between but then lived in Upper Ojai from 1956 to 1959 (at which point we moved to Vegas….another whole life and story….)

So the fire there is of major interest to me.  So far, it’s burned places we used to watch the condors soar, have picnics, play in the snow….

Sad.  I don’t like California’s overweening millions (all of whom want to bring their big bucks here, and turn my nice quiet country life into their version of paradise/my version of hell), but I’m very sad that this fire is destroying so much that I remember with fondness from a child’s pespective.

Old houses have an undeniable mystique:  the moans, the groans, the history, the mystery.

This one’s no exception, and the latest chapter in its life bids fair to be the crown:  the Lamb Manor will sail, by barge, down the Manatee River from Palmetto, FL to its new “home life” in Ruskin on the Little Manatee River - a journey of 25 miles and nearly a century in “relativity”.

Special…. very much so…. bless the Corbetts, and whatever they choose to do with the Manor once in place and “living” again, more power to them!

I and a couple of friends are now blogging about just that.  Find us here:  Taking a HARD look at the Business of Politics.  We promise to administer Discipline, and it’s NOT going to feel good.

It’s a dirty job, but we’re up to the task!

Think you’re immune? Listen to a friend from Texas before you blithely assume…. In her own words:

I spent the last month fighting the Health Insurance wars and in the depths of despair over the continued unemployment of my husband. We couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t even get a job as a greeter at Wal-Mart-besides the obvious fact that he is way too young. Well, sit down ladies, for I am about to give you a brief thumbnail sketch of the fallout of the Brady bill; the wonders of technology and internet database access; last, but not least, the incredible ignorance of the rednecks residing in Austin, Travis County, Texas. And forgive me if I offend anyone’s politics, but the redneck currently residing in Washington, but lest you despair, soon to grace us Texans with his return.

The groundwork having been laid—here goes. Sometime around 1978—1979 a felon was traveling through the glorious state of Texas. He liked what he saw and decided to stay for a time. Well this felon just couldn’t help himself. He had to go and do something stupid, pass forged prescriptions. If that wasn’t enough, he had to get busted. That didn’t satisfy his need for fun and adventure. To make it just a little more exciting, he decided to borrow someone else’s name, social security number and date of birth during booking. That name was James Scott Ford. The other identifying information, well that belonged to James Scott Ford also. To add yet more excitement, this felon with the alias of James Scott Ford decided to jump bond and escape from custody.

That is it in summary. Except that this gentleman had 16 prior arrests and/or convictions for various adventures. We discovered in 1985 when Scott tried to get his driver’s license renewed that he had been a victim of criminal identity theft. Fortunately we were in El Paso and I was working for a man there who was very close friends with the DA, so they let Scott go instead of extraditing him to Austin. He submitted to being fingerprinted and of course- so you say? -the prints didn’t match. He got a letter from our Texas Rangers saying they had purged the record of his name and identity.

In 1994 when he went to get a gun license, he discovered that someone else or was it the same felon’s record was again showing up under his name, but this time for two convictions for aggravated burglary. Of course, because all felons have rights, Scott wasn’t allowed to get a copy of any of the details of the information on those entries. Well, he again submitted to fingerprinting. Again – guess what, the sloppy burglar was not the real Scott Ford. But behold, the feds refused to purge that record, merely making a note that the convicted felon and my James Scott Ford had different driver’s license numbers. They so kindly sent him a letter telling him they had verified that it wasn’t him and he could take his letter and get his gun.

Well, then came the tragedy of 9/11 and the increase of criminal background checks for subcontractors & prospective employees. The James Scott Ford never thought anything about it. While he didn’t live the life of a Saint, he had never been arrested, booked, or charged with any misdemeanor or felony. James Scott Ford gave every possible employer carte blanche to check his criminal record. And that is where the story gets interesting.

Scott went to get his handguns out of hock – been unemployed for a year – and he discovered that he couldn’t get his guns back. Why you ask. Well he was now the proud owner of 17 felony arrests and/or convictions that took 8 pages to print out. Wal-Mart obviously didn’t want a convicted felon handing out carts to their elite clientele. As you probably imagine that is not the end of the saga. We are still trying to get someone, anyone in the District Attorney’s office, local police department, government official, or hit man, to help clear Scott’s record.

Stay tuned….

This gentleman’s blog has a GREAT post: Net Neutrality and the DMCA. I highly recommend you read it thoroughly, and then pass it on to everyone you know who’s concerned about the whole ‘net neut stink. For instance, before I even posted this myself, I emailed it to my friend bj because I KNEW she would blog about it asap.

This could be VERY IMPORTANT!

In the mid-60s while I was still in high school, every kid whose parents refused to by him or her a GTO wanted (well, okay - had to be happy with….) a VW Beetle. Ugly as sin, so ugly they were cute - almost….

Anyway, at this same time in my life, I was a member of the “Pep Club” - not quite cheerleaders, this was the group in which those of us uncoordinated and not only not beautiful but not Mormon either wound up [um - caveat-time: I lived in Las Vegas, and the population at the time was PREDOMINANTLY Mormon….] It was fun, and it gave us the illusion of being part of the whole “jock and cheerleader” mystique.

What does this have to do with the post title? Well…. you know the mind does funny things, and this morning mine produced the juxtaposition of the VW Beetle with one of the Pep Club cheers from high school (Flee! Flee fly! Flee fly flow! Vista! Beet-beatly-oaten-doaten, Bo-Bo- badeeten-dotten…. You had to have been there….)

So here’s what I see:

A red Beetle leaving a city, “fleeing” for the mountains in the distance (okay, I’m seeing Munich - and the Swiss Alps), while you hear “Flee!” chanted in the background. Then slow-dissolve to sky and clouds with a hawk soaring: “Flee fly!” Next frame-switch to a river as you near the mountains: “Flee fly flow!” And finally, zoom in on the Alps or whatever: “Vista!”

With the “Beet-beatly” in the background, the little red Beetle tools happily off into the sunset….

Probably would never sell a car, but I found it an interesting and valid commentary on the associations a wandering mind can produce….

I spend a lot of time being nasty about the fact that the ambulance chasing attorneys get to advertise on tv etc. in this state.

It’s rare when I run across someone who seems to feel the same way: read the latest post at Tom’s Design Journal.