Stupid is a condition. Ignorance is a choice.

Lorena Arenas. Reading about someone like this poor excuse for a mother makes me better understand the expression, "It takes a village to raise a child."
She was in court recently to receive her sentence from Superior Court Judge Edward Bullard. After denying her request a new trial, he sentenced her to life in prison with the possibility of parole in seven years.
Why has she been given the possibility of parole? So she can get out of prison, have another baby and harm that one? Jiminy Christmas! A cat is a better mother than she is.
This woman tortured her 2 year old daughter by putting her hands in scalding hot water for playing with her cosmetics.
Because that in itself wasn't bad enough, she didn’t take her daughter to the hospital until early the next morning after she determined her burn injuries were serious and not improving.
This little girl suffered such severe second and third degree burns she had to be sent to Grossman Burn Center to received specialized treatment.
Apparently Arenas doesn't know right from wrong since she testified that she scalded her daughter, because she was pushed to do so by the girl’s abusive father, Jose Gonzalez.

Unbelievably, Arenas will be eligible for parole in four years because she has already served three years.
Gonzalez, by the way, pleaded guilty to child abuse and accepted a plea deal and has finished serving his time.
I'm not going to assume that these two got all the way through high school, but if they did, were they, as well as other students offered classes to at least try to teach would-be parents, how to parent? Are there any? Or, are classes like this as frowned upon as sex education, birth control education and preventing STDs? Surely I cannot be the only one who knows that some high school kids have active sexual lives. Babies are innocent lives that require care, love and attention. They're NOT accessories, nor are they tickets to cash payments from AFDC.
In their effort to win a new trial for Arenas, the defense unsuccessfully argued that the number of, and gruesome nature of photographs shown during the first trial distracted the jury and did not show intent to torture. A member of Arenas' defense team asked that the case be treated as a child abuse case instead of a torture trial.
The judge however, ruled in favor of the deputy district attorney, who argued that the court had already limited the number of photographs and decided that the intent was to torture.

Is our All-American City now Gangland Central?

Back in 1998 Santa Maria was awarded the All-American City designation. This award is given to communities whose citizens "work together to identify and tackle community-wide challenges and achieve uncommon results."

Interesting terminolgy for something that's nothing more than a marketing tool. Nonetheless, then-Mayor Abel Maldonado pushed for the designation, since he more than likely viewed it as a feather in his cap while on his way to bigger and better things for himself.

That's right, soon after, he got himself elected the the California State Assembly for this district. After watching him and seeing him speak, I'm still amazed he got any votes. Oh well.

Moving on, it's important to mention that a mere eight years prior to this award, mail carrier-cum-mayor George Hobbs announced that Santa Maria had a "Mexican problem." His claim was that "immigrants were destroying Santa Maria's neighborhoods by crowding into rental houses, drinking beer outdoors and urinating in yards." Additionally, "they kept junk cars all over the place and were draining the state's social and medical programs." Despite this racist rant, Hobbs was re-elected mayor in 1992. I guess people have short memories.

Not surprisingly, it turned out that the bigger "Mexican problem" in town was that this faction was unable to come together to mount a concerted effort to oust him as mayor. Meetings were held, opinions were aired, pontificating occurred along with the requisite number of Letters to the Editor. Unfortunately, because everything got bogged down due to disagreements over who the leader was going to be, nothing productive happened.

So, here we are in 2011, and while the city might still have the All-American designation, We've got another big problem. We're living with big city style gangland killings. On December 8th, 24 year old gang member Samyr Ceballos was shot to death by the police who were there to arrest him. Perhaps if he hadn't pulled a gun, he'd have only lost one Christmas instead of losing his life. Then on December 9th, another gang member, 32 year old Alberto Diaz Jr. was stabbed to death. Last August, Maria DeJesus Martinez was shot to death by her gang-affiliated soon to be ex-husband.

Considering that violent crimes in Santa Maria have almost doubled since 1999, the question is, "Why"?

What city-wide programs, beginning in grade schools, has been pushed? What has been put in place to help the obviously overworked and overwhelmed parents? It's painfully obvious that education is the key here, preferably to both parent and child. 

What has been done by the city council and other "movers and shakers" to combat this problem? When I say "movers and shakers" I mean someone other than me. I have a big mouth, but that's all I have. Perhaps someone more important could get the ball rolling. 

Despite the naysayers, it just might be true that "it takes a village to raise a child." Sometimes the parents just aren't up to the task. Lack of parenting skills can oftentimes create criminals, other times it creates non-productive members of society. Surely I'm not alone in this belief.

I know this first hand. I have an aunt who was such poor mother material that her children got the short shrift, and as a result, her grandchildren got the shaft. How could her children be effective parents when they didn't learn anything from her? Think about it.

We must all come to terms with the fact that something terrible is happening to our youth when they feel that their only option is joining a gang. Somewhere along the line they lose their way, their hope, their self-esteem. Something must be done, otherwise those neglected and abused children could one day grow up to prey on the very people who ignored their plight in their formative years.

Our "Post Racial Society"

Let's take a moment and look at all of the reasons why all of this talk about a post-racial America by various blowhards is so absurd.

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when nearly 40 percent of black children under the age of 5 live at or below the poverty line?

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when the level of school segregation for Hispanics is at its highest in forty years and segregation of blacks is back to levels not seen since the late 1960s?

How can we claim to be living in post-racial America when the gaps in wealth, income, education and health care have widened over the last eight years?

In 2006, 20.3 percent of blacks were not covered by health insurance, 34.1 percent of Hispanics were not covered by health insurance, compared to only 10.8 percent of whites.

In 2007, the unemployment rate for blacks was twice as high as that for whites.

There are those who will continue to insist that the gap in wealth, income, health care and education is due to an inherent culture of victimization.

There are some who will continue to say, "If people of color only worked harder, they’d be fine."

Well, to put it bluntly, that's an idiotic assumption.

This economy has never provided enough jobs for everyone.

The manner in which education is funded gives a leg up to those who grow up in wealthy districts.

Health insurance is a necessity, more so to those without the means, since they rarely see a doctor.

Like it or not, admit it or not, institutional racism persists.

President Obama once said, “Our union can be perfected. What we’ve already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.”

His election and his words redeem some of the sacrifices of so many during the protests at lunch counters and on Southern roads. However, it does not fix nor will it make the racism and bigotry go away overnight.

You still think that we've achieved a post-racial society simply because we have a black president? Well then, consider one more thing, the vast disparities still remaining between the conditions of blacks and whites in America. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median black worker earns just over $600/week, about 80% of what the median white worker makes. Black men are incarcerated at 6.6 times the rate of white men, with almost one in twenty black men in prison. Unemployment rates are nearly twice as high for blacks as for whites in almost every demographic category. Almost half of all young black men without a high school education are out of work nationally.

So much more needs to change before we start spouting off about a "post-racial" society.

Central Coast Cross Burning

People in these here parts are shocked, shocked to think that hate, racism and bigotry has reached the Central Coast. Apparently some of them are under the illusion that those thoughts and feelings don't exist in their little community. Well yeah, it must be nice living inside their heads with Peter Pan, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.

For example, Reverend Stephanie Raphael, president of the San Luis Obispo Ministerial Association who said, "I was horrified. We live in a paradise, and I think the first thought was, this can't really be real."

Stephanie needs to get her head out of the sand and focus on what entitled whites do to people of color every day of the year.

Reverend Steph also offered, "Any kind of hate crime is not a joke, it's not a prank. It's designed to intimidate and frighten. We live in a beautiful area, but it's only beautiful if every single person feels safe conducting their lives and living here."
She needs to get herself out into the community and talk to a greater variety of people. She might want to take a translator along to get a clearer picture of how things really are up and down the coast. Reading a few letters to the editors of the area newspapers might give insight as well.

Police assigned extra patrols to the neighborhood in Arroyo Grande — a city that hasn't seen a hate crime in nearly a decade — and rewards were offered for information leading to an arrest.

FBI agents and investigators from the county and the state Department of Justice were involved in the arson and hate-crime probe. Police said $3,500 in rewards were offered.

Officials are saying that there was no evidence that an organized racist group was involved.

So I guess these investigators believe that all racist assholes shave their heads and carry Nazi flags? How obtuse is that?

According to police Cmdr. John Hough, the 11 foot cross was stolen from a garden at Saint John's Lutheran Church weeks ago and set ablaze Friday in a lot behind the house where the family lives.
One of the residents, a 19 year old, saw the flaming cross from her bedroom window. She called the cops who used a garden hose to put out the fire.

Police declined to release the names of the family because the incident was considered a hate crime — the first since 2002 in the city of 17,000 in mostly rural San Luis Obispo County, a region of vast farms, picturesque towns and a state university campus.

More than 30 clergy members signed a letter to the editor of the San Luis Obispo Tribune urging that the crime be taken seriously.

Well that's nice, but shouldn't their letter have gone to the cops or the FBI?

The 100 pound cross was usually bolted to a base in the garden, but each year it was taken inside the sanctuary during the Lenten season before being moved to a beach two miles away to be decorated with flowers for an Easter sunrise service.

Pastor Randy Ouimette said that the theft at the church was discovered March 5 but that the robbery may have occurred weeks earlier, indicating that they're not really all that good at keeping an eye on things.

More than 100 members of the congregation signed a giant card of compassion they planned to deliver to the family with two handmade prayer quilts — even though they didn't know the family. The pastor said, "We wanted to bathe this family in prayer and love. Obviously they're feeling rejection and ... hate."

Well guess what pastor? The chances are excellent that this was done by Bible-totin' fire-breathing assholes who attend church and call themselves Christian.