It is not often that two local columnists speak out and put their necks on the lines. But we have to hand it to Rich Rifkin and Marcos Breton, who take on the power and uncomfortable truths.
I will give Rich Rifkin some props this week for speaking out on an issue that will probably get him more flak than praise. He calls on local Democratic leaders to repudiate Assemblymember Mariko Yamada.
Two quick points before getting into Mr. Rifkin’s piece. First, I have no love lost for the local Democratic “leaders.” As anyone can tell, who read my exposé on the party’s financial disclosure issues and failure to disclose these issues to the membership of the club, I lack confidence in their ability to lead.
Second, I have mixed views of Assemblymember Yamada. On some issues, I strongly support her – her legislation allowing Yolo County to have a pilot vote-by-mail program saved the local school district hundreds of thousands, her altering of the elections code to streamline the process for removing false and misleading ballot statements makes sense and her strong advocacy of the county in terms of the delta. I defended her support of the farmworker heat regulations.
However, I am disappointed with her lack of action and real interest in the family court system’s problems that have been well documented in her chamber. And I am disappointed with her legislation on the issue of municipal bankruptcy, her support for the firefighters union, and now her support on AB 2451. I think she has hung the local governments out to dry, and she has failed in her duties to adequately represent our region in Sacramento.
Mr. Rifkin takes a much stronger view on this than I do.
He writes pointedly, “Let this challenge be so recorded as a measure of pusillanimity by those who lack the fortitude to fight for what is right.”
He continues, “As with her efforts to pass a corrupt municipal bankruptcy law designed to maintain lucrative firefighter contracts – it was written by the California Professional Firefighters and Yamada was listed as a co-author – Yamada is at it again.”
“She endorsed and voted yes this session on AB 2451, another bill written by Yamada’s financial backers, the firefighters,” Mr. Rifkin adds. Noting parenthetically: “Our state senator, Lois Wolk, at least had the good sense, if not courage, to miss the vote when it passed on party lines in her chamber last week. When Wolk last bucked the firefighters, over Yamada’s bankruptcy bill, they had Wolk removed from all of her important committee assignments.”
As we reported previously, public safety officials would be entitled to new death benefits worth at least $300,000 and these are for people whose retirement benefits are quite lucrative to begin with, as we have noted all too many times.
“As the firefighters designed AB 2451, if a Davis fire captain retires in 2015 at age 50 with his $100,000 annual pension (which inflates automatically every year) and his lifetime free medical (which also covers his wife for life and his son up to age 26) and then he dies of a heart attack or cancer or AIDS or a variety of other maladies when he is age 95 in 2060, it will automatically be presumed that his death was work-related, and therefore those who were his dependents in 2015 will receive a massive death claim from workers compensation,” Mr. Rifkin write.
He calls the benefit “an unfunded mandate.”
“It won’t come out of Yamada’s $95,291 salary or her medical plan or her state pension,” he writes. “The city of Davis will be liable to pay out this award for each of our cops and firefighters. And Yolo County, which is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, will be liable for the employees of the Sheriff’s Department and the jail guards.”
He further adds, “Assemblywoman Yamada’s payoff to her campaign donors will add a back-breaking amount of debt to every local government agency; it might cripple the state, as well.”
This is the firefighter’s union bill. We have made much about the influence of that union on local policies, but it is time to expand it to statewide.
Mr. Rifkin writes, “But make no mistake: This is the firefighter unions at work.”
He notes: “They began purchasing Yamada’s vote last year. On Feb. 23, 2011, the California Professional Firefighters handed her a $1,000 check. Two and a half months later, they gave Yamada another $1,500. On Feb. 20, 2012, the firefighters donated $1,000 to our member of the Assembly. And on March 29 they gave another $2,253.30.
“In addition to the thousands of dollars the firefighters give to every elected Democrat willing to dirty his hands, they have spent millions of dollars over the years buying their party. During this two-year election cycle, firefighter unions have given $550,738 directly to the Democratic State Central Committee.”
Rich Rifkin concludes: “The real losers of this profile in cowardice will not only be the taxpayers expected to pick up the bill. It will be the poor children, the disabled, the mentally ill, the undernourished and the helpless elderly whose programs and funds will be cut, just so the gluttonous firefighters can further expand their waistlines and Mariko Yamada can perpetuate her power.”
Meanwhile, Marcos Breton probably gets away with even more in his column about the Republican party.
“I could be Republican, but I’m not and the GOP has itself to blame for that,” Mr. Breton said.
He goes on to list off the reasons he should be a Republican: “I’m Catholic, fiscally conservative and save a little part of each day for prayer. I own a gun. I believe in equal protection, keeping the government out of our private lives, and I take a dim view of flag burning and other desecrations of our national symbols.”
He gets to the point: “I’m all teed up for you Republican guys, but you don’t want me. Not really.”
We just had a convention where 91 percent of the members were white.
Most columnists are not willing to hammer this point home, perhaps afraid of being labeled all sorts of things, and since his column drew over 200 comments on the Sacramento Bee website, I’m sure that he drew some choice words as well.
But Mr. Breton is undaunted.
He writes: “You use code words that fan the flames of a great myth – the one about President Barack Obama being born outside the United States.”
He adds even more provocatively, “I’d respect Donald Trump and the ‘birthers’ more if they simply verbalized their thought bubbles: ‘We’ve got to get that N-word out of the White House.’ “
OMG, he didn’t just say that, did he?
He does not stop there.
He adds, “Even Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential nominee, made a birther joke recently. His surrogates now say he regrets it, and who can blame him?”
“Outside of the cackles and knowing smirks Romney got from conservatives he is trying to attract to his base, a lot of us don’t think this birther stuff is very funny,” he writes. “It goes beyond disapproval of Obama’s views and policies and smacks of disapproval of Obama, the man with dark skin.”
He continues: “In California, we see an increasingly irrelevant Republican Party completely ignoring ready-made supporters – people who check the ‘Latino’ box on our census forms. I would be with you except you keep trotting out candidates who always get around to blaming our state’s problems on people from the birthplace of my parents, Mexico.”
“Are you nuts?” he asks.
The truth is tough to take, but he delivers it: “Demographers predict that the number of Latinos will surpass whites before the next presidential election in California. More than half the children in the state are Latino right now. They don’t deserve it, but Democrats are going to scoop these voters up by default – all because you guys don’t want them.”
The truth is Mr. Breton is not a great fan of the Democrats either, proclaiming, “Speaking for myself, I’m not thrilled with a Statehouse dominated by Democrats. I get sick of teacher and public safety unions pulling the strings at the Capitol and at Sacramento City Hall.”
He goes on: “I wish Republicans had the muscle and intellectual capacity to keep Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature honest. They don’t. Instead of broadcasting an attractive vision, they keep narrowly casting to a shrinking base fixated on empty tax pledges and prone to ethnic bashing for political gain.”
He concludes: “My vote could be up for grabs, but I’m not for that.”
Last week, the Vanguard‘s weekly column depicted the troubles and turmoil facing this nation, but instead its political leadership delivered a colloquy on rape and abortion that seemed to be from the wrong century.
It is time to wake up. I applaud Rich Rifkin and Marcos Breton for telling the truth this week. We need more of it.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
And I applaud you for a balanced presentation of two interesting views of our current political situation…..and for a much better representation of the statement statement that previously provoked me ; ). Well done.
David, Have you asked Yamada to interview her, so you might get her views on this? It is one way to push her on some of these issues. Maybe it doesn’t change things much, but it would help articulate to her more directly the views of her constituents.
“I wish Republicans had the muscle and intellectual capacity to keep Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature honest.”
This says it all. The Democrats have messed up the state but somehow it’s the GOP’s fault for not stopping them. LOL
[quote]”I wish Republicans had the muscle and intellectual capacity to keep Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature honest.”
This says it all. The Democrats have messed up the state but somehow it’s the GOP’s fault for not stopping them. LOL[/quote]
Well said!
Three is an easy to see difference between Rich Rifkin and Marcos Breton.
Mr. Rifkin gets it. He knows enough to have credibility on what he writes. It is fact-backed and non-emotive in its analysis; even as it is fiery in its delivery.
Marcos Breton does NOT get it. He does not understand. His arguments are not backed by facts, they are backed by subjective emotives that lead one to believe he does much of his research watching and reading the liberal entertainment media.
Marcos Breton appears to what many call a reverse racist. His low opinion of groups of white people is apparent. His quote: [i]”In California, we see an increasingly irrelevant Republican Party completely ignoring ready-made supporters – people who check the ‘Latino’ box on our census forms. I would be with you except you keep trotting out candidates who always get around to blaming our state’s problems on people from the birthplace of my parents, Mexico.”[/i] is particularly telling.
What Republicans blame our state’s problems on Mexicans? Show me that proof. Crickets….
The Republicans trot out candidates that blame the DEMOCRATS for the fiscal mess the DEMOCRATS have caused this state. It is this fiscal mess that is the root of the difficulty ALL residents – regardless of national origin and skin-tome – are feeling.
Let me give Mr. Breton a bit of advice. Move beyond this classist and racist rhetoric and really listen to what Republicans and conservatives are saying, not what Democrats and liberals are saying about them.
Let me simplify it a bit to see if I can break through the internal noise seeming to prevent any deep thinking for folks like Mr. Breton. The Republicans [b]DO NOT GIVE A SHIT[/b] about racial origins and skin tones. They are completely neutral. They don’t pander to racial groups to give them free shit to buy votes. They only care about values, ideas and behaviors. The reason they care about values, ideas and behaviors is because the KNOW that there are key ideas, values and behaviors that are the basis for a great American life. They want ALL Americans to have a great American life. They know if they had out free shit they will make people happy for a day, but then destroy their opportunities to have a great American life.
The reason that we see fewer and fewer people of color joining the Republican Party, is that there are more and more people like Marcos Breton and fewer and fewer people like Rich Rifkin. It is this lack of leadership combined with a growing population of narcissist looters bent on protecting their codependent relationship with a growing population of poor and uneducated people. Poor and uneducated people need help them compete for prosperity in the greatest country on God’s green earth. However, they need the type of tough-love help that Republicans provide. The type of help they get from Democrats these days is short-term, feel-good… and sets up a path of continued social and economic dependency.
I give the Democrat Party complements for how they have been able to leverage this racial and class wedge so well. Hugo Chavez has too.
Read the Special to the Enterprise by Victor Hanson.
[url]http://www.davisenterprise.com/forum/opinion-columns/there-is-no-california/[/url]
Nails it.
Jeff, thanks for the link to that article. How refreshing to read something so truthful where the author isn’t afraid to say it like it is.
JB: “Let me give Mr. Breton a bit of advice. Move beyond this classist and racist rhetoric and really listen to what Republicans and conservatives are saying, not what Democrats and liberals are saying about them.”
I agree that the Republicans are not specifically racist against Mexicans. But you completely miss the point, whether that is intentional or not. The issue is immigration. The Republicans have frequently sent the message that what ails our society is our immigration policy, that there are too many immigrants that are taking jobs away from “natives” and that they are destroying our culture in some way. You yourself have used these very arguments. If you have an affiliation with immigrants, either through family or social connections, those argument can come off as offensive.
G.W. and Jeb Bush have been able adopt language and policies that don’t turn off latinos, and they have been more successful Republican politicians at the ballot box. If Mitt Romney loses, Jeb Bush will look better and more credible as a Republican standard-bearer.
wdf1: It is not that they are destroying our culture, because “we” just move to places like Davis and San Francisco where we can be isolated from their culture.
Republicans want them to have that same good American life. I’m frankly not sure what Democrats want.
Don’t you think it is ironic that the Republicans tend to live in an among these Hispanic immigrants, and the Democrats that own the political and media platform of caring for them tend to live in more exclusive, more affluent and white communities?
The “caring” template is a bunch of crap. It is all co-dependency. The wealthy white coastal liberals need the poor immigrants as a project-tonic to sooth their crushing guilt for having moved so far away and for hording resources to ensure THEIR kids get the great education.
Does Obama care more for poor immigrants than Romney? Absolutely not. I would argue that both care as much, but each has a different set of ideas for making things better. So why then is there this template that Republicans don’t care? It is a template that comes from a Democrat Party strategy to divide and conquer and the predominantly liberal media is complicit in it. There is no media honesty here. There is no work being done to explain the other set of ideas. These are ideas that are more complicated because they exchange short-term pain for long-term gain. It requires that the current generation focus on their children and their children’s children. It is the way ALL immigrants have approached life in this great country. What has changed? I think I know, and I think you know if you were just honest with yourself about it.
I have to wonder if the great ideological filtering we see today has something to do with the baby boomers… that generation afflicted with so many unresolved childhood issues and a perpetual need for emotional therapy. From my perspective it almost seems that they have not really every grown up… they still reject this thing called adulthood… maybe because they still resent the lack of acceptance from their parents of the Greatest Generation. They are still attracted to a guy like Obama… younger behaving and cool… even though he has been a disaster in terms of his performance. Romney seems to remind them of that father they resent because he didn’t hug them enough or was MIA.
I don’t know, but the continued love of Obama, Brown and Boxer, and the continued hate of ANY and ALL Republicans is very troubling and worthy of some deep and creative problem solving. Racial issues are just a proxy for a deeper root-cause IMO.
JB: [i] It is not that they are destroying our culture, because “we” just move to places like Davis and San Francisco where we can be isolated from their culture.[/i]
Speak for yourself.
[i]It is a template that comes from a Democrat Party strategy to divide and conquer and the predominantly liberal media is complicit in it. There is no media honesty here. There is no work being done to explain the other set of ideas. These are ideas that are more complicated because they exchange short-term pain for long-term gain. It requires that the current generation focus on their children and their children’s children. It is the way ALL immigrants have approached life in this great country.[/i]
You won’t get anywhere by blaming others that your message isn’t getting across. That’s like blaming the consumer and everyone else for not buying your product. You of all people should know better.
Again, GW and Jeb Bush have figured it out. Marco Rubio has interesting possibilities on this issue, but probably needs to develop more of a track record. Republicans will figure it out if they feel the genuine need to.
[i]Racial issues are just a proxy for a deeper root-cause IMO.[/i]
I agree. It’s a proxy for classism. If Jennifer Lopez moved to Davis and enrolled her kids at Montgomery Elementary or whatever other school, we would all be delighted to have them. Same thing if Barack and Michelle Obama & kids moved to Davis. But if a lot of low income latinos and/or African Americans move in, then attitudes change rather dramatically.
wdf1: [i]”You won’t get anywhere by blaming others that your message isn’t getting across. That’s like blaming the consumer and everyone else for not buying your product. You of all people should know better.”[/i]
wrong analogy. It is like Democrats are going deeper and deeper into debt handing out free cocaine and using race and class division rhetoric and working with the media to block the Republican message that the drug is bad for people, and the practice of giving it out for free is destroying the country… and then these same Democrats are reaping the political benefits of greater cocaine addiction.
[i]JB: It is not that they are destroying our culture, because “we” just move to places like Davis and San Francisco where we can be isolated from their culture. [/i]
Wf1: [i]Speak for yourself.[/i]
So, you deny that there are higher concentrations of white liberal Democrats living in these more affluent communities? Maybe you are an exception; but I was talking about the big picture here.
Oh and GW was routinely attacked by the left for being racist and anti-Latino even though he was a pro-amnesty kinda’ guy and have one of the most diverse cabinets in history. At the very least, his position didn’t budge the Hipanic vote away from that other Party promissing all the free stuff. Your point about Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio is laughable, because either of them running on the Presidential ticket would be ripped apart for not being in the racial, or gender, or sexual orientation (or… you pick the victim group) “caring” party. Sort of the same as what happened to Herman Cain (and this was before the news of his alleged infidelity) being labeled an Oreo).
I don’t recall Bush being attacked as anti-Hispanic. Maybe anti-Muslim, my recollection is Bush was primarily attacked for other things.
GW was blasted as being anti-black, anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-??? (again, just pick your favorite victims group)
My point was that his support of amnesty didn’t help the GOP Latino-related results one bit.
McCain was for amnesty too. That did not help him either.
If the GOP having leaders supporting amnesty does not help endear Latino voters to them, then why do it?
You just can’t compete with free stuff without an honest media to help deliver the message.
Part of the reason that GOPers want to turn back the clock on the number of illegal aliens in this country, is that the population has been corrupted by the free stuff and they are not doing the things that immigrants before them have done to grab that great American life experience. The effort to “clean up” the mess caused by so much illegal immigration and their exploitation by Democrats and a complicit media, is going to be monumental enough with just our population of legal immigrants.
My guess is that, this election, the GOP is going to cut a big hole out of the Democrat Party and hasten the decline of the old liberal media. Part of the reason for this is that their message WILL begin to resonate with more Hispanic voters. Because, other than free stuff, most Hispanic voters want a good-paying job. When they start to understand that we are going to have to cut the free stuff because Democrats had been using debt to pay for it, they will again focus on who is the better choice for providing jobs. The GOP is going to win this election without the help of the mainscream media. And it will bring light to what that institution really is… a proxy propaganda device for the left. The left will just whine and cry that big corporations bought the election, but the truth will be that Democrats lost the election because of their tendency to pander and politic instead of lead.
For example…
[quote]The Gore campaign said in a statement Bush had an appalling record on Hispanic issues in Texas.
“As governor of Texas, Bush has consistently ignored the impoverished living conditions in the ‘colonias’ — unincorporated Hispanic neighborhoods along the Southwest U.S. border that lack basic water and sewer systems, power connections, paved roads, accessible health care and adequate educational and employment opportunities,” the statement said.
“Bush has never visited any one of the 1,500 colonias and vetoed a bill that would have improved the quality of life for Hispanic families in these communities,” it added.[/quote]
Did GW benefit politically from his pro-amnesty stance, and his past record reaching out to Latino voters? Not really…
[img]http://www.cscdc.org/miscjeff/2004latinovote.jpg[/img]
JB: You’re looking at the data wrong. Electorally, the goal is not to “win” a particular demographic group. The goal is to win enough a percentage of certain demographic group so as to neutralize the advantage for your opponent. Bush’s totals for Latino’s were great compared to McCain’s and Romney’s (current) support among Latinos.
I think that Rich wrote a great piece and made some good points.
I don’t have any idea what point Marcos Marcos was trying to make (other than hinting that Republicans are Racists without coming out and saying it in the same way he gets upset that some Republicans hint that Obama was born outside the US without coming out and saying it).
I’m no fan of the Republican party, and agree that the number of Republicans in the state is dropping, but so are the number of WW II veterans and practicing Catholics and observant Jews. Things change, so what…
Marcos writes:
> Demographers predict that the number of Latinos will
> surpass whites before the next presidential election
> in California. More than half the children in the state
> are Latino right now.
By pointing out that there are a lot of Latinos, but not a lot of Latino Republicans he seems to want us to assume that Republicans are racist. While I’m sure that there are some racist Republicans I don’t think that the percentage is any different from the number of racist Democrats (or racist members of the Peace & Freedom Party).
[quote]The Republicans DO NOT GIVE A s**t about racial origins and skin tones.[/quote]
I do not think this is an accurate characterization for a number of voters regardless of their party affiliation:
1) I consider the Birther movement to be largely Republican and essentially a proxy issue for race:
Prominent Republicans either pushing this issue or at least not repudiating it include: Mitt Romney,
Paul Ryan, Governor Bobby Jindal, Governor Rick Scott, Former Governor Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump
and multiple lesser figures such as Joe Arapaio, and my personal favorite, Jules Manson with his call
“…. regards to President Obama ‘Assassinate the f***en n***er and his monkey children.’
Before you describe this is some “nut case” consider the number of politicians who are willing to make more
subtle, but clear references to Obama not being a true American.
2) The religion issue. I think Republicans as a group care deeply about this. If this is not true, and they are
not discriminatory, then how do you explain all the attempts to portray Obama as Muslim. Once again I will
ask, if one is not acting on a discriminatory basis, why would it matter if he were Muslim ?
Vote for Yamada send her money too. If you don’t vote for Yamada you get John Munn another anti-tax anti-everything Taxpayer Association Grover Norquist style Republican.
I watched the speeches at the RNC last night. Did you see Marco Rubio! Why didn’t Romney choose Rubio as his running mate? It was a no brainer. Instead he chose Ryan who sank GW Bush’s second term and has more baggage than Sancho Panza to be his number two. I guess he had to nail down his conservative Dixiecrat base and the charismatic Rubio wasn’t acceptable to you dinosaurs. Too bad Romney could have bagged Florida with Rubio instead Florida is still in play and Wisconsin probably isn’t. When will the GOP ever learn? Oh when will they ever learn.
medwoman wrote:
> I consider the Birther movement to be
> largely Republican and essentially a
> proxy issue for race:
I agree that most of the “birthers” are Republicans, but it is not a “race” issue it is a “political” issue (just like Romney’s tax returns and Obamas school records) and there are a lot of real unanswered questions about Obamas past including where he was born and where he spent his entire childhood. If this was a “race” issue would’t the Republicans do this to another “forign looking” Democrat? I can’t think of a single other politician (other than a Latino guy that was running for president about 20 years ago that claimed he was born in a boxcar just across the US Mexican border) that had a large number of people questioning that he was born in America (this might be because other Democrats were never listed on official college documents as “foriegn exchange students”).
> The religion issue. I think Republicans
> as a group care deeply about this. If this
> is not true, and they are not discriminatory,
> then how do you explain all the attempts to
> portray Obama as Muslim.
Are the Democrats “discriminatory” for pointing out that Romney is Mormon and Ryan is Catholic. It is a fact that Obama went to a Muslim school. If Paul Ryan spent his childhood in a Jewish school (and wrote about it in his book) would it be “discriminatory” for the Democrats to point this out?
> Once again I will ask, if one is not acting on a
> discriminatory basis, why would it matter if he
> were Muslim ?
If we were to search Lexis Nexis I bet that there are more left leaning articles in the past year that mention that Ronmey is a Mormon or Ryan is a Catholic that articles that talk about Obama’s Muslim Dad, Step Dad or School.
[quote]I bet that there are more left leaning articles in the past year that mention that Ronmey is a Mormon or Ryan is a Catholic [/quote]
Are you really equating the two given that both Romney and Ryan completely agree that they do belong to the religions that are mentioned in association with them whereas Obama has repeatedly stated that he is a Christian and yet those who oppose him continue to try to claim that he is really Muslim ?
Also Romney and Ryan both claim their Christian backgrounds as central to their value system, so again, why would you see this as equivalent ?
[i]I agree that most of the “birthers” are Republicans, but it is not a “race” issue[/i]
Ha ha ha!!! Ooooh ha ha! Oh, that’s good. Thanks for the laugh!
[i]and there are a lot of real unanswered questions about Obamas past including where he was born and where he spent his entire childhood.[/i]
No, actually there aren’t. There are just some people who, for various reasons, don’t want to believe the answers. And those reasons seem to involve portraying President Obama as not being American or something.
[i]Are the Democrats “discriminatory” for pointing out that Romney is Mormon and Ryan is Catholic.[/i]
I suppose that depends on whether they, or you, think people would consider that undesirable. I’m not aware of any who are making a big deal about it. I do get totally false YouTube videos from Republican/Tea Party/conservative friends about how Obama ‘admitted’ to being Muslim. You’d think they’d check Snopes before forwarding those. Unless they had some other motive than truth.
[i]If we were to search Lexis Nexis I bet that there are more left leaning articles in the past year that mention that Ronmey is a Mormon or Ryan is a Catholic that articles that talk about Obama’s Muslim Dad, Step Dad or School.[/i]
I doubt it. Questioning Obama’s upbringing is practically a cottage industry on the right. Just check out any Tea Party forum. But if you still know how to access Lexis Nexis, let us know.
It is no mystery to anyone, except possibly a few Republicans, as to why California Latinos shy away from their party.
As to voting for John Munn, Rifkin has given some interesting arguments why people should not vote for Mariko. But it would be important to know how John would participate as a legislator on budget issues and other legislation. Would he hew to the absolute no-new-taxes policy of his fellow Assembly Republicans? Or would he be willing to work with the governor?
“Would he hew to the absolute no-new-taxes policy of his fellow Assembly Republicans?”
Of course he would. Isn’t he President of the Yolo County Taxpayers Association? isn’t that the position he held when he ran against Lois Wolk? Don’t take it om my word ask John yourself.
Don Shor: [i]As to voting for John Munn, Rifkin has given some interesting arguments why people should not vote for Mariko. But it would be important to know how John would participate as a legislator on budget issues and other legislation. Would he hew to the absolute no-new-taxes policy of his fellow Assembly Republicans? Or would he be willing to work with the governor?[/i]
I suppose whether he signed “the tax pledge” or not would determine what kind of legislator he would probably be. I searched his website and the website for the Americans for Tax Reform and I couldn’t tell.
For good reason, I have not joined in this thread. I emailed what happened to me to David, and I will copy that here:
Just so you know, I was hit by a car while riding my bike this morning.
The car’s driver supposedly told the cops that he was driving 35 mph. I doubt that. Where I was, on Road 29 in rural Yolo County at 7:30 am, except for farm trucks and tractors, cars go 60 mph or more.
My bike helmet was crushed and I was knocked out cold. I have no memory of the accident. I recall a bunch of people (all out in the middle of nowhere standing there) when I came to. I don’t remember waiting for the ambulance, which likely came in 10 or 15 minutes.
They took me to a trauma center in Vacaville, where I had CT scans on my brain and a whole bunch of x-rays. My worst problem was a severe concussion. No other brain damage. I am still smart as a whip.
I broke a bone in my right ring finger–same one I had mangled playing rugby at UCSB. I also got 5 stitches to repair a cut over my left eye.
And while I am quite sore in various places, all my other physical signs of the crash are bruises and scrapes, now covered by bandages.
I just got back from the CHP office in Woodland, where my bike was being stored. I think it is repairable. But it is in very bad shape, as you might expect from getting hit that hard by a car.
After about 4.5 hours in the ER, I was sent home. My next door neighbor, John, picked me up.
The fault, of course, is with the car driver. I was riding as far to the right as I could, as I always do. I have no memory of hearing him approaching me from behind. A serious problem at that time of day was the sunrise. It made it hard for me to look far down Road 29, heading east. It must have been the same for the driver, and part of the reason he did not see me.
I must add that my experience riding (every day) on rural roads in this region is that truck drivers and farm equipment operators use much more caution when approaching bikes. They will drive far left of bikes when passing. But many passenger car drivers lack that good sense. Many of them will stay completely in their lane and don’t seem to understand what a danger they are to bikes, esp. given the fact that we lack bike lanes on rural roads. Hi failure to move to the left very likely was another factor in my case.
If I get my bike repaired, my hope is that by Sept. 10 (after I get home from Lake Almanor), I will be able to ride again.
That’s enough for now.
Rich
P.S. Due to the splint on my right ring finger, it’s a chore to type.
one more thing: if there is a political slant to my accident, it is that the county needs better traffic-separated bike lanes. i think a small gas tax (1/4 cent/gallon) would be enough. i am not sure if that is legal, now, at the county level.
Wow, Rich! Glad to know that you were coherent enough to write! Hope you get past the fallout soon enough.
Rich
” I am still smart as a whip”
Am greatly relieved to see that you are still your same humble, modest self. Get better soon !
Rifkin you are lucky to be alive.
Rich wrote:
> Just so you know, I was hit by a car while riding
> my bike this morning.
Glad to hear you are OK (and doing well enough to type)…
> The car’s driver supposedly told the cops that he
> was driving 35 mph. I doubt that. Where I was, on Road
> 29 in rural Yolo County at 7:30 am, except for farm
> trucks and tractors, cars go 60 mph or more.
Back in the 80’s I would often ride the Russell to Railroad to Road 29 to Pole Line loop and other than the section of Russell between downtown and 113 99.99% of the cars and trucks are going closer to 60 than 35. I would often see Dave Scott on that loop and one day (when I was feeling extra strong) I was able to hang on his wheel for about 15 minutes before he dropped me…
> My bike helmet was crushed and I was knocked out cold.
> I have no memory of the accident. I recall a bunch of
> people (all out in the middle of nowhere standing there)
I stopped riding on the road in the 90’s after getting hit by a couple cars, but not having to go to the hospital (and having a few friends hit harder than Rich that were life flighted to hospitals). Around 2002 I started doing triathlons again and bought a used Lightspeed tri bike with a D9 gruppo but still did most of my training on my mountain bike and the spin class, but slowly started riding on the road more and more.
When I moved back to the Davis area I started riding the Russell to Railroad to Road 29 to Pole Line loop again and did what I thought I would never do “buy a rear view mirror that clips to my helmet”. I still don’t have fenders on any of my bikes, but since I think I’m around Rich’s age (close to the 50 year minimum age to join Davis Senior Citizens) I thought it was OK to buy the rear view mirror that makes me feel a lot safer riding on the rural roads around Davis (where no one drives 35)…
Rich glad you’re alive Those roads are scary for bikes
Thank God you are ok Rich. We need better bike lanes on our country roads. The amount of traffic keeps growing increasing the odds that bikers and stupid and/or unskilled drivers will tangle. Too bad we are giving all our money to public employee unions and cannot afford bike safety infrastructure.
Do I understand you are at the lake? I am up here through Monday early evening. Let me know if you need anything. (e.g., aspirin, beer, etc..)
I am heading up to Prattville on Friday, Jeff.
And thanks to all who have sent good wishes. I am sore, but recovering. And yes, I do feel lucky to have survived this as well as I have.
[quote]We need better bike lanes on our country roads. The amount of traffic keeps growing increasing the odds that bikers and stupid and/or unskilled drivers will tangle.[/quote]In my opinion, based on 52 years of riding bicycles, 42 years of driving a motor vehicle, and backed by a lot of studies, the “first” point, will not solve the “second”… particularly the stupid/unskilled parts. The volumes of riders/motorists may well affect the # of collisions, but probably not the ‘rates’ (collisions/miles traveled by each/both.
Don’t get me wrong… bike lanes aren’t useless (greater width [b]does[/b] help, whether striped or not), neither are they a panacea.
Rich has given two likely problems as the primary collision factors… low sun angle (vision), and the more intriguing one, report of a vehicle going 35 mph on a roadway that is by law, a 55 mph limit (85% of the drivers of MV probably going at or below 65 mph). Dealing with stupidity, inexperience or IMPAIRMENT would probably yield much greater
safety improvements than bike lanes. Besides the ‘normal’ impairments (drugs/alcohol), there are fatigue, loss of visual acuity and/or reaction time (often associated with effects of aging), and others. These need to be addressed at least as much as road widening, striping, and the ‘forever’ maintenance of both.
I add my best wishes to Rich for a speedy and full recovery.
To Rich Rifkin: I wish you a speedy recovery. Was the driver charged with anything? There is no question on the country roads the bike lanes/shoulders are inadequate for bike riding or cars. Often you have shoulders that are about 2 feet wide, and then a huge irrigation ditch. I suspect this is why many cars that go off the road flip over. There needs to be adequate shoulders on these roads for cars and bikes. However, with the state of the nation’s/CA’s economy, I don’t see it happening anytime soon…
Elaine
[quote]There needs to be adequate shoulders on these roads for cars and bikes. However, with the state of the nation’s/CA’s economy, I don’t see it happening anytime soon…[/quote]
This might be a good diversion for some of our military expenditures.
medwoman, I got so caught up in thinking about the never ending bicycle/auto environment, I neglected to support your observations about how the Birther/race and religion topics play out on the political scene.
The fact that so many Republican leaders either contribute to and or won’t discredit Birther commentary is astonishing. But, it isn’t at all that they believe that Hawaii is not Obama’s birthplace, but that they see political advantage in keeping this phony issue alive and playing to the ignorant and the racist who’ll still accept such tripe. It’s a disgrace that politics is operating at this level.
No “Profiles in Courage” here; in fact, the deviousness of those you listed puts them on the “all time worst” list. Their successful intentions are to keep in play such “observations” as the following:
“I agree that most of the ‘birthers’ are Republicans, but it is not a ‘race’ issue it is a ‘political’ issue (just like Romney’s tax returns and Obamas school records) and there are a lot of real unanswered questions about Obamas past including where he was born and where he spent his entire childhood.”
[i]I watched the speeches at the RNC last night. Did you see Marco Rubio! Why didn’t Romney choose Rubio as his running mate?[/i]
I have been meaning to answer this question from Mr. Toad.
The reason is that the GOP has a ticket of two people with the best qualifications to fix our budget and economy. Rubio is a great person and a fantastic politician. He might very well be our first President of Hispanic origins. However, it is Democrats that are attracted to candidates that make them feel good. Republicans already love themselves and God and don’t need a leader that makes them feel good. They want leaders that can fix problems. Romney and Ryan are two of the most qualified candidates we could ask for to address the country’s fiscal and economic problems.
Look what happens when we elect candidates that make us feel good.
Obama is like a boat… the two happiest days are when you acquire it then get rid of it.