“A Highway that Will Serve as a Model for the Future Development of Freeways in California”

 On July 20, 1940, a 3.7-mile section of the Arroyo Seco Parkway opened to vehicle traffic.

It was not only California’s first “freeway” – a high-speed divided road with onramps and off-ramps – but also the first to be built in the urban Western United States and a prototype for future super highways.    Read more »

More

More on State Parks

This from the Brown Administration:

 

Investigation and Audit of State Parks and Recreation Department Launched in Response to Budget Irregularities and Fiscal Mismanagement 

Governor Accepts Resignation of Parks Director and Orders Resources Secretary to Conduct Sweeping Review of Parks Management 

SACRAMENTO – At the request of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.,    Read more »

More

State Parks Director Resigns

Here’s the Sacramento Bee‘s acount.    Read more »

More

Gorgonian

“Of or resembling a Gorgon.”

The Gorgons were three sisters —  Stheno, Euryale and Medusa – with scale-covered bodies, hands of brass, razor-sharp fangs, snakes for hair, a beard and eyes that if looked into turned the beholder into stone. Medusa was turned to stone by Perseus when she saw her reflection in his shield.     Read more »

More

Fear and Greed

 

“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.”

— Warren Buffett    Read more »

More

The California Channel’s “California Conversations” with Willie Brown    Read more »

More

“When the Going Gets Weird, the Weird Turn Pro”

 

 July 18, 1937 is the birthday of Gonzo Journalist Hunter S. Thompson who also said:

“So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here — not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism.    Read more »

More

June Revenues $622 Million Above Estimates

Tax collections from June, now the state’s largest month for receipts, were more than $11.7 billion — $622 million above estimates by state budget writers in May. 

Since January, revenues are ahead of projections by $540 million chiefly because of higher-than-anticipated income tax payments, according to the Department of Finance’s July bulletin.    Read more »

More

Regulation of Commercial Balloon Companies Stays Local

Commercial hot air balloon operators won’t be returning to regulation by the state Public Utilities Commission In January, thanks to legislation signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

The measure – AB 1524 by Assemblyman Michael Allen, a Santa Rosa Democrat — permanently exempts the balloon companies from PUC jurisdiction as long as the companies carry a minimum of $1 million in liability insurance.    Read more »

More

Cleaning the Augean Stables*

Jerry Brown holds a 1961 Bachelor of Arts degree in Classics from the University of California at Berkeley. He’s the only California governor of the last 112 years whose collegiate focus was the study of languages, literature and philosophy from cultures that rose and fell a millennium or two ago.

His speeches and statements are peppered with references to ancient Greece and Rome with a smattering of Latin quotes, usually correctly declaimed, thrown in for sport.    Read more »

More