Farewell and Good Luck

Posted by Jack Van Zandt on Thursday, December 11, 2008

For more than three years, I have had the pleasure of being the editor of San Jose Inside. It has been a lot of fun and I have learned much about myself and our community and fellow citizens. That’s why today is a sad day for me as it will be the last time I will write as a regular contributor to the site. Alas, I must give up the editorship of SJI to make more time for other projects.

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Life on the Home Front

Posted by Jack Van Zandt on Thursday, December 04, 2008

New History San Jose Exhibit Portrays Santa Clara County’s World War II

Those of us younger than 60 usually think of World War II in terms of our fathers or grandfathers battling enemies in far-off Pacific island jungles and snow-covered European fields, or through iconic images of Iwo Jima, D-Day and the atomic bomb. We often forget that the last formally declared U.S. war also absorbed the entire population of our country in a massive coordinated effort to defeat ideologically driven enemies that really did threaten our very existence as a nation. A fascinating new History San Jose (HSJ) exhibition in the Pacific Hotel Gallery at History Park in Kelley Park shows how Santa Clara County, on the western domestic front of the war, played a significant part in that effort and how the war affected the everyday lives of people in the valley.

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Thanksgiving and the Ray of Light

Posted by Jack Van Zandt on Thursday, November 27, 2008

Food for Thought

While you would be forgiven for thinking the national situation is looking pretty dark on Thanksgiving Day 2008, consider the bleak view President Lincoln must have had from the White House when he declared the national holiday on October 3, 1863.

After a period where it looked like the Union would not be spared, Lincoln finally had a few victories to celebrate, but at a terrible price. A year before, the worst single battle casualties in American history had been suffered at Antietam. The Union forces prevailed and Lee’s army was pushed out of Maryland. It gave Lincoln the strength and political will to issue the Emancipation Proclamation the following week on September 22, 1862.

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California’s Abused Referendum Process

Posted by Jack Van Zandt on Thursday, November 20, 2008

Food for Thought

If there is one important lesson to be learned from the last election it is that the referendum process in California is broken and being abused. There is something wrong when any individual or group with unlimited funds to flood the airwaves with propaganda and the malls and grocery store parking lots of the state with petition signature gatherers paid on commission can attempt to either legislate morality based on religion or enrich themselves at the expense of the taxpayers. More to the point, many such measures violate both the spirit and letter of the fundamental documents of our democracy, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, as well as the structure and process of government in a federal republic. Let’s take three cases in point.

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Brother Can You Spare a Dime?

Posted by Jack Van Zandt on Thursday, November 13, 2008

Food for Thought

Now that the excitement, tears, and post-election euphoria of the presidential election has receded, the headlines have returned to the country’s very serious economic woes, and the news gets worse by the day. It is becoming more evident that the “top-down” bailout of Wall Street pushed by the Bush Administration is not working at the current funding level and the lame duck and his banking-insider treasury secretary will soon be asking for more. Already, AIG—whose executives continue to enjoy lavish getaways, now at the public’s expense—got yet another nearly $40 billion in the past few days. The corporate capitalists that control our government who constantly whine about “socialism” for ordinary citizens every time a new program like universal health care is proposed, have no compunctions about seeing that the rich get it in a sleight-of-hand inversion of the Robin Hood method.

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