It’s summer now. It is also very, very hot. There have been no severe blackouts yet, but it is hard to tell if that situation will last. In the world of politics, there seems to be a calm that has descended on our city. This quiet is a much-appreciated relief from the tumult and shouting and headlines of the last few months. Many like to pick up the paper and read—nothing.
How long will it continue?
This is also the season of festivals and events; a time to celebrate and enjoy our community and either returning from or departing on your summer travels. Although it has had a strange and controversial germination, the Grand Prix holds out the hope of a new and exciting July for our citizens. The eyes of a lot of sports fans will be trained on us and we will get tremendous attention from the national media for the long weekend. I hope it works. I trust that many of the bugs have been worked out and that the bridges will function. It will be a thankless effort and many are looking for it to fail, and fail miserably.
A real question is how the heavy agenda of municipal events—i.e., the election—will proceed in the remaining days of summer and into the fall. It is certain that few, beyond consultants and the families of candidates, are paying the slightest attention to the mayor’s race. Even the travails of the current mayor are little discussed or mentioned except in the occasional article chronicling some court direction. I think the break is good.
And so the summer is advancing to its midpoint; a time when people will begin to think about returning to school, getting their summer clothes put away, and preparing their lists of fall events, and even checking the opening of college football season. All is as it should be for July—calm, quiet, and hot.
Tom,
A comment by finfan on Single Gal’s post yesterday begs a question to you: What do the police do with the homeless and the crazy’s during times like these (the Granad Prix)? Do they roust them all and take them to SF? Put them in jail for the weekend? Simply move them farther south? Tell them not to show their faces downtown until Monday? I read a report by the City Manager a few weeks ago that commented that the police and destroyed several encampments along the Guadalupe. Where do they think these people will go? Just moving them around isn’t going to help the bigger picture of homelessnes and mental illness. They just end up in someone else’s back yard. And then they return. So what’s the point? How does a city effectivley deal with these problems?
No serious blackouts! Tell that to the 28,000 san jose residents without power for over 3 days!
Will the cycling Tour of California come through San Jose next february? I’m in serious withdrawl now that the Tour de France is over…
Has anyone considered the deep irony of our community’s handwringing over global warming and environmental degradation while at the same time our tax dollars are sponsoring a totally pointless emission explosion known as the San Jose Gran Prix? I need to drive all alone in my SUV to the Sierra Club meeting while drinking water shipped from Poland to consider that one. grrr.
RGD (#5),
Don’t hold your breath waiting for the hypocrisy to clear. We’ve spent the last week hearing from all the usual big mouths in government and the media about the heat wave’s unprecedented strain on our energy grid and the need for all of us to conserve—even suffer a bit for the cause. Not mentioned, not even by those analyzing or criticizing PG&E’s performance, was the added demand placed on our energy grid by the millions of illegal aliens living here. We’ve become so disingenuous in our public dialogue that we expect our services to meet the demands of a bulging population that remains beyond anyone’s accounting or planning. Take a rundown apartment built for three, add seven relatives and four extension cords, multiply the scenario by a million, then compute the increased electricity demands and ancillary impact on our environment.
In other words, good job PG&E.
Uncontrolled borders + silent environmentalists = hypocrisy. The smug finger-waggers have lost their right to preach to anyone.
Starting this evening, I’ll be manning a card table out in front of Whole Foods. The goal is to get enough signatures to switch next year’s race format to Prius racing.
I know I know, I’ll never get people to stop and sign the petition right?
Got that covered in spades.
I’ll be providing free samples of “Soy Sprouts” for the sprout intolerant to lure in the intestinally challenged healthier than thou types. And when they see it’s about Prius – BAM! John Hancock is in the book.
Hope people are making a small effort to reduce global warming. If not go see “An Inconvenient Truth” the Al Gore movie, especailly after suffering through this tremendous hit waves across the country. Also, on you agaenda should be the movie ” Who killed The Electric Car” shows the stupidity and selfishness of the big corporations and the California Air Resource Board and their sellout. What a shame when we had a great Electric car 10 years ago that they destroyed it. The world is falling apart and I’m not chicken little. We need to do something now! Not only would it have affected are air quailty and reduced global warming but it would, and this is really important,
would have taken money away from the terrorists in the middle east by reducing oil comsumption. Where is a great leader when we need him or her.
San Jose Grand Prix ( 1.5-mile course) should next year have a Electric Car race between Tesla Motors 130 mph electric cars that do 0-60 in about 4 seconds can trun for up to 250 miles before recharging. The race car electricty could be provied by a demonstration solar panels from local Silicon Valley solar panel companies It would be a real Silicon Valley demonstation of envirnomental friendly, useful and available technology
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/07/20/tesla-roadster-unveiling-in-santa-monica/
It ” blows away a Ferrari 360 Spider and a Porsche Carrera GT in drag races, and whose 0-to-60 acceleration time ranks it among the fastest production autos in the world. In fact, it’s second only to the French-made Bugatti Veyron, a 1,000-horsepower, 16-cylinder beast that hits 60 mph half a second faster and goes for $1.25 million.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/04/technology/business2_wrightspeed/
I was drivin around he other day and a thought occured me. I had also just read a women’s comment about how taxation was lower in Sunnyvale and the quality of life was …wel.. better. What in the world is going on with the endless road construction? Example? the airport, how many different ways can we change the roadways going in and out? My kid could design something more sensible and why did we redo the offramp and then tear it up and do it again?
I guess I’m missing something or is there another backdoor deal going on to keep the construction industry well fed from our tax dollars? I gotta keep asking myself why I live here.
Get economic facts – Sunnyvale has more taxes and jobs per person thus more city revenue to pay for more city staff and services while San Jose as one of poorest cities in California has to cut services and staff and needs fee income or will have more service or staff cuts
When is the last time our big business regional Chamber did anything for San Jose without asking for millions in city tax handouts for it’s multi millionaire developers and billionaire high tech corporate members resulting in less community services and staff?
Ok but still not a bad city to live in (Sunnyvale). So I think you answered my question. If I take it right, something is very wrong with San Jose, for it to be next to the heart of Silicon Valley Inovation capitol) and be such a mess. Really why can’t this city get it together?
Oh and I almost forgot, why are the San Jose Grand Prix and the Gilroy Garlic Festival scheduled for the same weekend two years running? Why would anyone plan two very popular events on the same weekend?
Nathalie # 3: Yes, one stage will end in SJ, as it did last year. However, the individual time trial has been moved closer to the finish day, since last years winmner of the time trial here was so far ahead that he won the race. Was it Landis?
If you take #4’s suggestion and see “Inconvenient Truth” bring lots of speed to keep you awake. Once again Al Gore takes a serious and important subject and bores you to death with his tone and delivery.
The fellow next to me was asleep within 15 minutes, and pretty much stayed asleep, as each time he woke up, The Gorester’s drone would knock him out yet again.
I had to keep munching on popcorn to stay awake.
The producers need to retape the audio portion …no, reshoot all the commentary and have someone with a pulse deliver it, and just weave in Al’s charts and graphs.