Spring Training Trip Finally Off the Front Page
The news that San Jose had lost out on the $3 billion stem-cell research center came with a nonchalant shrug from the mayor who said, “At least you’re not talking about that damn Cactus League trip again.”
Contrary to the shock and awe of this most recent fiasco, political consultants are calling the failure of one of the mayor’s top priorities of the year a “shrewd political move.”
“This mayor is deflecting criticism from a previous malfunction - his MLB sales pitch,” explains political assassin-for-hire, Ed McGovern. “I always suggest that the only way to remove negative headlines is to make new negative headlines. This guy has hit it on the head. He is sneaky-smart.”
The spelling and grammar fiasco that was the mayor’s pitch to Major League Baseball for a home-town team, has been relegated to the small print on weblogs and the back pages of newspapers as details of San Jose’s failed bid for the research center are revealed.
“It was an incredibly comprehensive bid,” said a defensive mayoral spokesman David Vossbrink, pointing out that some of the incentives included free rent for ten years, lots of retail a short drive from downtown, two card clubs, and cheap housing in Tracy. “Unfortunately we got thrown out on a technicality.”
The bid was disqualified because the mayor forgot to sign the document in the upper right hand corner before he left for his historic biomedical mission in England. He was unavailable to staff as he brokered a $5 billion agreement that will have European stem-cell companies locating in the city of Cambridge, which is sure to transform that city into a world-renowned research center.
The setback, however painful and pitiful, has not curtailed the enthusiasm of mayoral staffers who continue to target major biomedical research facilities to locate their headquarters in San Jose. They point out that San Jose is one of five finalists in the quest for the seven-employee Chicken Pox Research Lab located in Chowchilla. Other finalists include Lodi, Ben Lomond, Chico and Kettleman City.
It’s kind of a bummer for San Jose. But why don’t we focus on clean streets, low crime rate, decent schools, working libraries and parks… thing that make it a great place to live, not just visit once in a while.
A diversion. this is all it is. take the focus off the mayor and council. They ALL must go.
Wake up people.
Smart business people see through Gonzales.
Move this P(ile)OS to King and Alum Rock or King and Story. I want this out of my neighborhood.
Garbino calling the shots??
Is this a reference to Carl Guardino?
He is not the one related to Ceppos, is he?
I mean we know Chuck is not, is he?
And we know Gonzales is too busy losing stem cell research projects and investing in ball parks before ball teams. and too busy losing neighborhoods. So who is?
Now that San Jose has missed-out on the stem-cell research center, there goes any chance that our young Nortenos and Surenos will shed their gang colors, drop their weapons, and get involved in the pursuit of hard science. Now they will just have to go back to what they’ve been doing; butchering each other on our streets, bringing fear and intimidation to our schools, and defacing our city with their tribal graffiti.
But, to be honest, maybe biotech was really a poor fit for the next generation of San Joseans; kids who’ve been encouraged to value racial pride, Quetzalcoatl, and Cesar Chavez above all else.
Let’s get the mayor going in a new direction; get him to target the acquisition of an institution that better reflects the three decades of commitment to diversity we have enjoyed, courtesy of our race-obsessed politicians, educators, and media weenies. With a growing population of Mexican flag-waving, tattooed, uncivilized, predatory morons, wouldn’t it be more appropriate for San Jose to become home to the Blanca Alvarado Prison Preparatory Academy?
Rumble on the Alameda! I think FInfan should bunker down and arm himself to the teeth. I’d also bury a healthy supply of Krugerrands in his flower bed. Also keep some extra petrol in the garage. Start building alliances with local merchants, and have an escape plan to the foothills. Dios Mio!
Finfan’s broad-based generalizations are offensive to all members of our community. Your anger, resentment, etc. would be more useful if you channeled it into doing and saying something positive that would make our community a better place rather than spewing insults—IMHO.
Sorry, lobbyist or consultant, who just replied. Howard Beale is part of a registered screenplay and therefore, you are risking copyright infringment. Perhaps as we know you are a lawyer as well, that you should change the moniker.
I’m glad San Jose didn’t get the Stem Cell Institute. Suppose some strange disease got out of the test tube, into the general population causing our leaders go nuts? They might come up with crazy ideas like building a baseball stadium without having a team, stopping BART short of the airport or putting a statue of a pile of doo doo in the downtown park! It’s a scary thought!!!!!
OK—I’ll check with my Mom and see if we can change the family name. Also, if anyone knows the real James Rowen they should contact him and let him know that somebody is using his name on this blog and writing all kinds of stuff that could hurt the reputation of the real James Rowen.
Hey Finfan, you told it like it is—it’s time to play hardball with these losers and the responses you got from your post are from people who think we should let thugs run wild lest we insult their cultural heritage. Hence the pile of crap that will never be scooped up out of the plaza because nobody has the guts to tell it like it is with that mess. It never belonged downtown in the first place, it belongs at the Mexican Heritage complex. But any effort to move it there would be considered an insult by the noise makers who managed to get it plopped into the plaza instead of the more appropriate and artistically pleasing Fallon piece. Maybe somebody needs to spray paint some Shakespeare all over it and see how they like it then. I guess all of those millions who watch the Grand Prix on TV this July will get a perfect shot of this pile now that the course has been revised, and we can all be proud that our town’s taste in public art will be seen the world over. I can’t believe how sorry this town has become. Somebody at City Hall move the shifter out of reverse, PLEASE!
Hey people…speaking of a mayor & council that needs to GO, anybody been to Santa Cruz lately??? Any possibility of getting in the running for the Chicken Pox Lab locale??
I like the way Mark T is talking.
He’s got me thinking that we should make a green-styled zone right here in the city. It will keep the unsavory elements out of here, let us manage the place better AND stabilize property values. Let’s get a team of dozers, a motivated police force, and bring in a contractor like Bechtel and have them build the wall at least 14’ high and at a minimum able to handle the blast energy from a Dodge Ram Van packed with C4.
The stem cell pitch and baseball pitch are trying to divert attention from the mayor and council? If that is Gonzales’s strategy then he really is dumber than I thought he was. Can he do anything right. Oh yea, BART. Wait, that is flailing too….
Hey Finfan,
I guess you were hoping that us Hispanics are too busy stealing hubcaps or having babies to use the internet. It is your kind of poisonous vitriol that allows for men like Goebbels and Limbaugh to keep their jobs. Where did your family emigrate from? And if you don’t mind me asking, where do you live now?
Ease up on FinFan.
What rational American citizen, who truly cares about the US, wouldn’t be frustrated with our federal leaders – Bush in particular – that refuse to secure the borders of this country?
We’ve got our own tidal wave of uneducated, no skill Americans coming out of our public school system – we sure as heck don’t need an additional tsunami of uneducated, no skill Mexicans coming into this country illegally.
Does Mexico allow waves of illegal immigrants in from Latin America via it’s southern border? Me thinks they don’t.
So build a 15 foot wall on both borders – Canada and Mexico. And make it especially high on the side closest to the French speaking part of Canada.
While in Europe, it was rumored that the Mayor secretly met with the College of Cardinals to convince them to move their conclave to San Jose. The Cardinals turned down the proposal after learning that the facility being offered was a tent behind the convention center with no chimney hook up.
This was a paragraph in the Mercury yesturday:
Gonzales, who issued a statement Wednesday while on a plane returning from England, said he was saddened the stem-cell institute had “become a victim of bureaucratic inflexibility that is inconsistent with its purpose of discovering breakthroughs.’‘
“Bureaucratic inflexibility”; he should try and open a business in downtown. He knows nothing about bureaucratic inflexibility!
John, you are a good writer.
The loss of the stem cell center and the loss of money for poor neighborhoods demonstrates where Larry Stone and Ron Gonzales are when it comes to helping this city. Out in the fantasy world of baseball cards. Maybe it is Larry who is related to Ceppos, it is not Chuck Reed, we all know that. How could this loss and the focus of time on baseball be so lightly covered by the MN. It is not Chuck who gets the fruit baskets on holidays from Knight Ridder, is it?
He can’t be the one.
Four dead in March the statistics now show
but no one spoke a word
It’s more important to pretend not to know
than to risk you might be heard
Four killed in March by a vicious few
but your family is not afraid
Nortenos, Surenos, it’s red versus blue
over there just plying their trade
A city grows up and its senses grow numb
core values begin to erode
Partisans scramble for every crumb
and lost is the cultural code
Good rules attacked and standards dropped
racism in each word and line
Now just to demand that the violence be stopped
will provoke the “Racism” whine
This is not about race or rich versus poor
though there’s money to pretend it it so
It was tolerance that stoked and fueled this war
how far will you let it go?
Had the youngsters been taken another way
if race were not a card
Black, brown, and white would wait not even a day
to call out the National Guard
To frustrated FinFan..
Then leave San Jose.
Based on your poor diction, I am going to guess your current home probably has wheels and can be easily moved. I might recommend a red state such as Kansas or Mississippi where other mouth-breathers share your views. No more pesky evolution-talkin’ teachers pollutin’ your young’ins heads, no sir. Spend your afternoon at an Arby’s talkin’ bout the Rapture and blamin them Colored’s and Jew Liberals for the nations problems. I am going to stay here in this city that I love with people that I love and work to make San Jose even better.
Gee, Howard, are you trying to use prior restraint there?
I am sure your old friend, from college, Angela Osborne, would not like it.
Great writing Mister John but to all of those who have started a fight over the Mexicans and illegals. I would like to say that they are not un-skilled they are amazing workers who do most of the great work and craftsmanship in our building industry and many other industries. The illigals that come over here are like every other emmigrant who wants to help their family and better there place in life. You might be right about their education but you can’t say they arent’ a value and important part of our economy. Now if the congress only listens to Bush and grants some sort of visitor pass for them we may be able to stop the really illegals that want to come here for bad purposes. the move a day without a Mexican shows us where we’d be without them.
Dear Mr A Maslow:
You are right on!. SJ needs to first take care of it’s lower needs—-like security of a good jobs that a stem cell center could provide. After that, the mayor, city council and labor can sit around and discuss ethic and cultural community enrichment.
Who would have ever thought that a complaint about murderous street gangs (and the failed leadership that created them) would have sparked such a defense? I wrote not a single word attacking immigrants (legal or illegal) or any race of people. I attacked the gangs and placed the blame for their existence on our capitulating local leaders. But to those blinded by their own race-related psychosis it didn’t matter, as they cannot digest a message as it is served, absent the condiments of hate or racism. From the passion so evident in their posts, I am left with little choice other than to assume that they support the Nortenos and Surenos to whose defense they have rushed. I am surprised because, up until now, I thought that gang supporters wrote only with spray paint.
Every single murder committed in San Jose last month was the work of gang members. Apparently these punks believe that our streets should serve as their killing fields. I don’t believe they should, and further think that too many people are standing silent as the carnage mounts. True, it’s not as exciting a topic as getting a big league team, but it impacts tens of thousands of people and it deserves to be addressed immediately. It is a task that is within the government’s reach (and responsibility). For those of you who send your kids to safe schools and live in nice neighborhoods, if you think that allows you not to care about the plight of your less fortunate fellow citizens, then I dare you to reveal that to your children and neighbors.
As for Lupe Carvajal: you may believe that you were attacking an intolerant racist, but your methods revealed much that was disturbing about you. You assumed I was poor, then made disparaging comments about people who live in trailer parks. You assumed I was a racist, then made insulting comments about people simply because they live in states you perceive as backwards, white, and fundamentalist. You recommended that I move to one of those states, so that you can stay here and enjoy the culture you love. Answer me this: would you like to erect border guards around Kansas and Mississippi to keep “those people” from coming here and impacting your culture? Perhaps you and the people of your choice can stage your own little Minuteman Project out there in the nation’s heartland.
Clearly you look down on the poor, hold extremely racist and intolerant views about certain classes of people, but believe yourself to be enlightened and open-minded. This, to me, smells like a college education, California recent; maybe a degree in ethnic studies or some other field where people learn lots of handy phrases but are never challenged to think. Despite your obvious outrage at my post you contradicted nothing, relying instead on ad hominem attacks. To be so clueless and yet still so self-righteous makes me think you haven’t learned anything out in the real world, so I have to ask: what branch of government do you work for?
Shortly, I will be exposing some things the Grand Jury overlooked, passed over, or covered up regarding Cipolla and Tucker. Unfortunately some VTA boardmembers might be implicated (Gonzales, Chavez). Stay Tuned folks this gets worse. Oh, yes, I work for VTA, and I voted for Measure A 2000. I would never vote for another tax measure unless Cipolla and Tucker and a hanful of other are gone. And a New plan was offered. They have mislead the public and some BODs. They have committed fraud.
This is the biggest Con Job being pulled on the Voters of Santa Clara County.
BART TO SILICON VALLEY – WHAT’S NEXT?
Transportation Forum on extending Bay Area Rapid Transit to Santa Clara
County
Extending BART to Silicon Valley is the greatest public works challenge
facing Santa Clara County. The project lacks sufficient financing
because of lower than expected sales tax revenues and changes in federal
funding guidelines.
Lupe and Moshe are mad at me. Lupe, who assumes that my post reveals my ethnicity (stereotyping, are we?), believes that the problem is my poisonous vitriol. I believe that the more important problem is that almost every murder in San Jose is due to the gang punks. Lupe’s defensive reaction will just get us more denials, more excuses, more violence. My offensive approach is intended as an impolite, fed-up, call for help.
Moshe must live out of reach of the gangs or else he just doesn’t care that thousands of good people who work hard and love their children live in REAL fear in this city.
Thank you finfan,
You have validated what I have been saying all along. There are so many people like you in our community. Perhaps too many. Your message allows us u a people to understand the depth of our own dispare. Your message reveals too much of who you are. That is good! The missing link is your identity!! I am going to send your responce to Dear Abby. Perhaps she will know what to advise in your depressed and critical condition. Have you ever thought about an endorphin addiction?
Isn’t it funny, just saw that film review about the role of Beale that Peter Finch played, perhaps you all need to get that royalty check.
“saying things”
Hmm, this guy now telling us to watch it??
if we don’t????
have not heard from the penny sacks man lately
Gee, Chuck got praised again in the editorial page today, does the Mercury News, a Knight Ridder Paper want to help him out here with this Ceppos connection rumor. Tell you what, we will give them all the Woodward and Bernstein rule, within one day, if it is not true, and I do not think it is, it gets clarified, then we can all move on, if not, then we can assume right it is? I am sure it is not, right?
“His death was the fourth of six gang-related killings in San Jose so far this year—a number already surpassing the total from all of last year. “
Looks like FinFan scooped the weepy, hand wringing ‘journalists’ at the merc by a couple of days.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/11417119.htm
Reader tip. Hitting yourself in the head repeatedly with a 5 lb. sack of pennies helps turn James’ posts into veritable mcnuggets of insight and wisdom.
Rich, if you are too frightened to use your name anymore, please stop using references to the late 1970s, early ‘80s.
What’s next, a missive from Angel Martin?
James,
Before you submit your next post, pause a minute, review, and pretend that many of the readers of this board can’t read your mind and thus don’t know about the SJSU Dance team, the ceppos connection, Angela Osborn, or your history with Joe Trippi, etc.
I tried googling for ‘ceppos’ but the only interesting thing I came up with was this lovely piece that the Mercury News fabricated a while back – http://archives.cjr.org/year/97/4/mercury.asp
Finfan for Mayor! Finfan for Mayor!
Lupe, you and all the rest of the uppity types who don’t even know when it’s NOT appropriate to defend a certain segment of your “culture” (the one that irresponsibly cranks out future gang members on a daily basis) are only serving to make the gang problem worse. Even as a lifelong liberal, I have heard enough from the likes of you on this subject. It’s time to tell it like it is, and Finfan, thank you for doing so.
I love this town.It will be a great day when it rises above the Mexicentracy imposed by racists amongst us.Thankfully our town is so diverse,those days are fading.With the coming push of workplace verification of the right to work here,their just desert awaits.