Can’t Improve on the Lede of This Article

Jan. 8, 1976, Page C-2 

By Nancy Skelton, McClatchy Newspaper Services 

Sacramento – Peyote. Snakes. Pocketknives. Pregnant goats.

An odd combination to begin with.

Odder, still, when they come up, front and center, at a Governor’s Prayer Breakfast.

But these were subjects chosen this morning by anthropologist-writer Gregory Bateson, who delivered the main address at the annual gathering held to seek God’s help for state leaders during the coming year.

His aim, he indicated in a text released earlier, was to show that the words “religion” and “prayer” have a lot of different meanings to a lot of people.

Some [....]

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Couldn’t Resist: Gov. Brown Issues Short Statement on Think Long Committee’s Decision

SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. released the following statement in response to the Think Long Committee’s decision today to place a long-term tax reform measure on the 2014 ballot: 

“Think Long is doing very important work and I look forward to working with them on the critical issue of more permanent tax reform.”

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A Rare Moment of Self-Awareness?

 ”Never have so many gathered for so little.”

  — Gov. Jerry Brown, welcoming reporters to a Dec. 27, 2011 press availability

(It’s a riff, of course, on Winston Churchill’s line about the heroics of Royal Air Force pilots during the Battle of Britain in 1940.)

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Another Lesson in Latin and Roman History From California’s Governor (Annotated)

California’s governor holds a 1961 degree in classics from the University of California at Berkeley.

Invariably, at some point during encounters with the press he offers some bit of Latin or allusion to Roman history in order to prove it.

(There has been some grumbling among the Greco-philes of the Capitol Press Corps about the Fairness Doctrine.)

Brown’s December 27 offering included a quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famed orator, author, statesman and consul fromthe Roman Republic.

Brown said the phrase came to mind while jogging a few days before.

The line: “O tempora, o mores.”

Translated: “Oh what times. Oh [....]

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Another Lesson in Latin and Roman History from California’s Governor

California’s governor holds a 1961 degree in classics from the University of California at Berkeley. Invariably, at some point during encounters with the press he offers some bit of Latin or allusion to Roman history in order to prove it. (There has been some grumbling among the Greco-philes of the Capitol Press Corps about the Fairness Doctrine.) Brown’s December 27 offering included a quote from Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famed orator, author, statesman and consul from the Roman Republic. Brown said the phrase came to mind while jogging a few days before. The line: “O tempora, o mores.” Translated: “Oh what times. [....]

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Brown the Elder & Brown the Younger

At a wide-ranging meeting with reporters to discuss his accomplishments in 2011, Gov. Jerry Brown “invoked” — his verb — his father, Gov. Pat Brown several times.

Discussing the role of the chief executive and the Legislature and how, in the interest of “comity” the governor sometimes signs bills with little impact or import merely to forge a better working relationship with lawmakers, Brown noted that his father was “very hesitant to veto” bills that had a “strong vote” in the Legislature. 

Asked what was different about his third time as governor, the 73-year-old Democrat said, “I’m more focused on being [....]

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For the Edification of Governor Brown: “Income Inequality in the Roman Empire”

A subscriber forwards this article by Tim de Chant, a science writer.

In the piece, he examines an academic study that measures how much wealth was concentrated in how few hands during the height of the Roman Empire in 150 C.E.*

At a December 13 press conference, Gov. Jerry Brown, holder of a 1961 degree in classics from the University of California at Berkeley, said the current gulf between America’s haves and have-nots is akin to Ancient Rome where “it was the same fight between the aristocrats and the plebians.” 

Not exactly  – as De Chant and the study by Walter Schiedel and [....]

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Today’s Latin Lesson Comes from The Governor of The Great State of California

Gov. Jerry Brown’s 1961 undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley is in Classics.

Lest there was some doubt, at a December 13 Capitol press conference explaining that California must exercise fiscal disicpline and spend within its means, Brown said:

“Nemo dat quod non habet.”

Translated: “No man gives what he doesn’t have.”

Brown left out the “quod” when he used the line but aides assured that secretly he meant to say it.

As icing on the cake, Brown assessed the nation’s electorate as “frustrated and discontent.” Troubled, too, by the inequities highlighted by the Occupy protesters. 

“In Ancient Rome [....]

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The Great Cost Cutter Cometh

Edmund G. Brown Jr., the Tight-With-a-Taxpayer-Dime Democratic governor hath issued an executive order, his signature affixed thereto, this day (December 12) in the Year of Our Lord 2011 ordering “agency secretaries and department directors (to) prepare a list of all reports that they are required to submit to the Legislature and identify those that may no longer be of significant value to the Legislature.”

According to the Great Cost Cutter, “substantial efforts and costs are expended in preparing, tracking and filing these reports.”

There are approximately 2,600 such reports required annually, sayeth the GCC, according to an audit by his Department of Finance.

[....]

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Sound Familiar?

“I am concerned about the uncertain and increasing tax burden created by many publicly sponsored pension systems. This particular bill goes too far when it authorizes local jurisdictions to pay 50 percent of the employees’ pension contributions and at the same time permits employees who leave the job before retirement to receive a windfall in the form of a refund of all such employer contibutions.”

   –Gov. Jerry Brown, SB 1398 veto message, June 22, 1976

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