Ash on Bakersfield streets, Yemeni cigarettes, and the Superdome syndrome - By N.L. Belardes
In case you didn’t notice why your car is dusty, what the little pieces of grey snow are that have been delicately falling all day, and why your sinuses have been itching, it’s the ash fallout from the Day Fire.
I don’t remember Bakersfield ever getting coated in ash. Tell me this isn’t what fallout was like in downtown Las Vegas in the 1950s when gamblers stopped pulling slots just long enough to go outside and see a mushroom cloud appear in the Nevadan skyline.
You can go to Mt. Charleston just thirty minutes northwest of Las Vegas and park at a vista lookout carved by the old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). From there you can see a map of the Nevada Test Site and a silhouette of the nearby mountain ranges. This was a popular spot to watch the explosions too. Lots of folks had picnics while watching the light show.
You didn’t see that on I Love Lucy.
Talk about American cancer clusters.
Here in the Central Valley we don’t need fallout from A-bombs or forest fires to get cancer. All you have to do is live in a small farming community like Delano or McFarland where toxins are still poured onto fields from airplanes and machines. Farmers do it because they’re obsessed with high productivity of agricultural output—numbers that consistently multiply the output of early 20th Century farms.
Bio-systems poisoned, cancer clusters, and soil wracked beyond repair—the cost of progress. Go organic when you can. The cost is higher, but society pays a smaller price in cancer medical bills. And the environment won’t get so wracked. (Read Blithe Tomato, the story of an organic farm and farmers’ market society. It’s a good book. It’s eye-opening).
I guarantee some of the readers of this blog have known young folks stricken with cancer in the Central Valley. Unexplained? Maybe. The truth? Think about it—kids playing in vineyards, parent fieldworkers eating grapes from the vine, sometimes gooey with pesticides.
Licking their fingers.
It’s called big money cover-up and news-suppression. That’s the valley we live in.
Google terms like “pesticides” and “Central Valley pesticides” for starters and see what kind of reports you come up with. It’s far worse than the stuffy noses we’ve all been getting from the Day Fire ash fallout.
Speaking of local news making national headlines within the last year or so: The Day Fire near Frazier Park is linked on major news networks—no news-suppression there; the intelligent design controversy and class closure at Frazier Park, the 40mm shell explosion in the Oleander area of Bakersfield, the Red Cross Katrina scam (Some perpetrators caught by our own Jesse Rivera I might add. He’s a damn hero. Why isn’t our All-American city honoring him?), Bill Thomas Shenanigans, Bakersfield as one of America’s most polluted cities (finally a ranking higher than Fresno!). No news-suppression there—except maybe in Bakersfield itself. I swear you can turn on the nightly news in Bakersfield and see the top of a gas mask nearly out of range as the local meteorologist out in the field says, “The weather today is Tony the Tiger grrrrreat in Bakersfield and its surrounding communities!” And then you see him reach for the mask as a Mauricios commercial starts screaming.
And then there’s the Yemeni-terrorist-Bakersfield-secret government document news story. This is the biggest news out of Bakersfield since the Lords of Bakersfield stories were exposed by conspiracy journalist Robert Price.
The local news was all over this story of scandal and secrets. Let’s talk terrorist associations in Bakersfield and question how many more are out there? I wrote about Hezbollah in Bakersfield, and then the Yemeni story happened? What’s next?
As a community, how do we deal with the knowledge of a Yemeni spy in our midst? If Amen Ahmed Ali was also trying to purchase government secrets, how do we cope with knowing he hated us while living among us?
On top of that, maybe you ate lunch with the Terrorism Task Force and you didn’t know it?
Google the incident. You’ll find Bakersfield news, national news, Yemen news, blog news. You’ll find mention of the story in the Shreveport Times, except no mention of “Bakersfield” whatsoever. Strange. Sounds like their reporter didn’t do proper fact checking.
I found MSN, SF Gate, Mercury News, and Fox News links to the story. The Yemen Times sent out a report about the incident in Bakersfield, Bossier City, and the knife in the book incident at a Detroit area airport. Knife in a book?
Scary.
All I can say is, go research. And while you’re at it, think about a new kind of march in Bakersfield, one that’s anti-terrorist in nature.
Why not? We marched for immigration rights. More than once. And Saturday there is a march, a convergence of Bakersfield religious leaders. When will the people march against terrorism? When bodies are lying dead in Bakersfield streets?
When a GET bus explodes?
And then our community will want attention like some kind of monstrous Terrell Owens swallowing pills and then waving to the TV cameras as if every American cared if he were all right, or we were all right.
Are we all right, right now?
We choke on our own pollution. Will we eventually choke on terrorism in our midst too?
Maybe we should just talk football. It’s getting too hot in here.
I hear the football rhetoric against Owens. “He’s the guy with the big ego,” “Every team he joins thinks he’s going to be their savior,” and so on. And then he fails. And then the apparent suicide attempt by pills—in my mind, an attention-getting means to try to politely sit out a season without getting a physical injury. Have you known an athlete with a big ego who suddenly cries wolf?
This guy has a multi-million dollar football contract and he’s depressed? No, he’s not depressed. He wants to sit and collect a paycheck.
Give me a break. Go to his official site and soak in the ego.
On the outside he bears the same ultra-confidence as the American government. But what’s wrong on the inside?
Reminds me of the Superdome. Oh here we go. Plug your ears.
Did you see the game?
Did you wonder who would win?
Can you say, “Atlanta Falcons took a dive”?
Just how will any football team play to their potential against the Saints in the Superdome?
And the American propaganda feeding into that game? I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s one thing to feel bad about Louisiana’s hurricane wracked communities. It’s another to exploit human tragedy in the name of football to rally American sympathy and pocketbooks.
Did the Falcons take a dive?
Did you see the face of Michael Vick in the first quarter? Why did he have the look of defeat so early in the game? Isn’t he a professional? He’s built to win. Or did he know all along his team was going to lose?
Why did the cameras keep showing Michael Vick’s face?
I heard a comment during the game after Vick made one amazing scramble that sounded something like, “That’s what Vick needs to keep doing in this game…”
He didn’t. Why not? Why did he stay in the pocket, or do rollouts and not run and mangle the Saints defense?
He gave up.
And his line gave up. Have you ever seen such blocked kicks and field goals?
Atlanta was defeated before their bus arrived.
Even if the Atlanta Falcons didn’t throw the game, how could they even want to win in the Superdome, where people died and 30,000 people survived, many in near-death experiences? How?
Would you have performed to your potential?
In the end I wonder why American football has fallen prey to the Superdome syndrome and the antics of multi-millionaires like Terrell Owens.
All I can say is, looks like ash is falling all over America, and it’s not just from forest fires and Yemeni cigarettes.
I don’t remember Bakersfield ever getting coated in ash. Tell me this isn’t what fallout was like in downtown Las Vegas in the 1950s when gamblers stopped pulling slots just long enough to go outside and see a mushroom cloud appear in the Nevadan skyline.
You can go to Mt. Charleston just thirty minutes northwest of Las Vegas and park at a vista lookout carved by the old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). From there you can see a map of the Nevada Test Site and a silhouette of the nearby mountain ranges. This was a popular spot to watch the explosions too. Lots of folks had picnics while watching the light show.
You didn’t see that on I Love Lucy.
Talk about American cancer clusters.
Here in the Central Valley we don’t need fallout from A-bombs or forest fires to get cancer. All you have to do is live in a small farming community like Delano or McFarland where toxins are still poured onto fields from airplanes and machines. Farmers do it because they’re obsessed with high productivity of agricultural output—numbers that consistently multiply the output of early 20th Century farms.
Bio-systems poisoned, cancer clusters, and soil wracked beyond repair—the cost of progress. Go organic when you can. The cost is higher, but society pays a smaller price in cancer medical bills. And the environment won’t get so wracked. (Read Blithe Tomato, the story of an organic farm and farmers’ market society. It’s a good book. It’s eye-opening).
I guarantee some of the readers of this blog have known young folks stricken with cancer in the Central Valley. Unexplained? Maybe. The truth? Think about it—kids playing in vineyards, parent fieldworkers eating grapes from the vine, sometimes gooey with pesticides.
Licking their fingers.
It’s called big money cover-up and news-suppression. That’s the valley we live in.
Google terms like “pesticides” and “Central Valley pesticides” for starters and see what kind of reports you come up with. It’s far worse than the stuffy noses we’ve all been getting from the Day Fire ash fallout.
Speaking of local news making national headlines within the last year or so: The Day Fire near Frazier Park is linked on major news networks—no news-suppression there; the intelligent design controversy and class closure at Frazier Park, the 40mm shell explosion in the Oleander area of Bakersfield, the Red Cross Katrina scam (Some perpetrators caught by our own Jesse Rivera I might add. He’s a damn hero. Why isn’t our All-American city honoring him?), Bill Thomas Shenanigans, Bakersfield as one of America’s most polluted cities (finally a ranking higher than Fresno!). No news-suppression there—except maybe in Bakersfield itself. I swear you can turn on the nightly news in Bakersfield and see the top of a gas mask nearly out of range as the local meteorologist out in the field says, “The weather today is Tony the Tiger grrrrreat in Bakersfield and its surrounding communities!” And then you see him reach for the mask as a Mauricios commercial starts screaming.
And then there’s the Yemeni-terrorist-Bakersfield-secret government document news story. This is the biggest news out of Bakersfield since the Lords of Bakersfield stories were exposed by conspiracy journalist Robert Price.
The local news was all over this story of scandal and secrets. Let’s talk terrorist associations in Bakersfield and question how many more are out there? I wrote about Hezbollah in Bakersfield, and then the Yemeni story happened? What’s next?
As a community, how do we deal with the knowledge of a Yemeni spy in our midst? If Amen Ahmed Ali was also trying to purchase government secrets, how do we cope with knowing he hated us while living among us?
On top of that, maybe you ate lunch with the Terrorism Task Force and you didn’t know it?
Google the incident. You’ll find Bakersfield news, national news, Yemen news, blog news. You’ll find mention of the story in the Shreveport Times, except no mention of “Bakersfield” whatsoever. Strange. Sounds like their reporter didn’t do proper fact checking.
I found MSN, SF Gate, Mercury News, and Fox News links to the story. The Yemen Times sent out a report about the incident in Bakersfield, Bossier City, and the knife in the book incident at a Detroit area airport. Knife in a book?
Scary.
All I can say is, go research. And while you’re at it, think about a new kind of march in Bakersfield, one that’s anti-terrorist in nature.
Why not? We marched for immigration rights. More than once. And Saturday there is a march, a convergence of Bakersfield religious leaders. When will the people march against terrorism? When bodies are lying dead in Bakersfield streets?
When a GET bus explodes?
And then our community will want attention like some kind of monstrous Terrell Owens swallowing pills and then waving to the TV cameras as if every American cared if he were all right, or we were all right.
Are we all right, right now?
We choke on our own pollution. Will we eventually choke on terrorism in our midst too?
Maybe we should just talk football. It’s getting too hot in here.
I hear the football rhetoric against Owens. “He’s the guy with the big ego,” “Every team he joins thinks he’s going to be their savior,” and so on. And then he fails. And then the apparent suicide attempt by pills—in my mind, an attention-getting means to try to politely sit out a season without getting a physical injury. Have you known an athlete with a big ego who suddenly cries wolf?
This guy has a multi-million dollar football contract and he’s depressed? No, he’s not depressed. He wants to sit and collect a paycheck.
Give me a break. Go to his official site and soak in the ego.
On the outside he bears the same ultra-confidence as the American government. But what’s wrong on the inside?
Reminds me of the Superdome. Oh here we go. Plug your ears.
Did you see the game?
Did you wonder who would win?
Can you say, “Atlanta Falcons took a dive”?
Just how will any football team play to their potential against the Saints in the Superdome?
And the American propaganda feeding into that game? I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s one thing to feel bad about Louisiana’s hurricane wracked communities. It’s another to exploit human tragedy in the name of football to rally American sympathy and pocketbooks.
Did the Falcons take a dive?
Did you see the face of Michael Vick in the first quarter? Why did he have the look of defeat so early in the game? Isn’t he a professional? He’s built to win. Or did he know all along his team was going to lose?
Why did the cameras keep showing Michael Vick’s face?
I heard a comment during the game after Vick made one amazing scramble that sounded something like, “That’s what Vick needs to keep doing in this game…”
He didn’t. Why not? Why did he stay in the pocket, or do rollouts and not run and mangle the Saints defense?
He gave up.
And his line gave up. Have you ever seen such blocked kicks and field goals?
Atlanta was defeated before their bus arrived.
Even if the Atlanta Falcons didn’t throw the game, how could they even want to win in the Superdome, where people died and 30,000 people survived, many in near-death experiences? How?
Would you have performed to your potential?
In the end I wonder why American football has fallen prey to the Superdome syndrome and the antics of multi-millionaires like Terrell Owens.
All I can say is, looks like ash is falling all over America, and it’s not just from forest fires and Yemeni cigarettes.
This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on
Thursday, September 28, 2006.
You can leave your response.
The Shreveport Times now reports Bakersfield in it.
I was wondering why I felt like god was flicking his ciggy ash on me the last couple of days.
Wow, this was a really great article. You know I'm not a new junkie... far from it in fact, I had no idea that people used to watch missle testing or whatever that was in Vegas! You're right I never saw that on I Love Lucy and I'm a huge fan of that show, seen every episode many many times.
The Fire, the Red Cross Scandal, and everything else that Bakersfield seems to be making the national news for lately is just sad. Why can't we make national news for good things, for youth achievements or some such thing? Yes, Jessie Riviera should be celebrated for having the integrity to speak up against those taking advantage of the Red Cross and the victims of Hurrican Katrina, but instead he's not. Integrity like Jessie's is something Bakersfield could use a lot more of.
The Superdome Syndrome-- well I don't know if that game was rigged or not... but I know the people of New Orleans and the rest of America needed that "come back" that renewal of home and spirit to say New Orleans didn't die in Katrina. It may be all show, all PR or contrived for the American public on national TV, but showing survival and how the people are rallying around their football team and rebuilding their city was nice to see. Perhaps I bought into the marketing scheme that was Monday night's football game at the Superdome.
Sure, we all need rallying points. But we must be careful as a society. Sites of tragedies become hallowed ground. Can you imagine a football field on top of the Twin Towers remains at Ground Zero, and then playing on it? What would the mindset be? katrina was a terrible American disaster... let's just beware of Superdome syndrome.
NL Belardes: making Bako denizens read a damn newspaper since 1985. Nice job, rabbit. And thank you for not being warm-fuzzy touchy-feely p.c. about the superdome thing. It's terribly tragic what happened. But I don't think any opposing team is going to feel completely ethical winning there.
Nick, the Falcons got beat. Pain and simple. I guess the Superdone Syndrome followed the Saints during their first two games on the road too? They shut down the Browns and beat the Packers at their homes. Did you ever notice that Michael Vick never leads in any passing category? It's because he can't pass. Duhhh. It was pretty apparent during the game with so many balls off que. I didn't notice Warrick Dunn running any less harder, or their line blocking any less harder. If the fix was in, someone forgot to tell the rest of the team. Maybe Vick's face looked that way because he knew the world was against his team. If you look at the stats of the first two games the Saints played, it is pretty apparent that they are just playing hard. They will win the division and make the playoffs. Do you tink that the new coaching staff had something to do with their turn around? Did you know that they have 24 new members on their roster that they didn't have last year? Hummm? You're off on this one bud. But you're still pretty brave:)
Am I really off? Do armchair warriors who live their lives on football stats and potato chips really understand the implications of the media frenzy that was on hand that day?
Is that how you would gage a war too?
It's all stats, right?
We sure got fucked up in Vietnam.
It's not all as it seems.
Yeah, yeah, stats can be shown to manipulate anything but in Football they are a little more accurate to what happend; and no I don't feel that way about the war. So are you saying that the Browns and the Packers were abiding by the same memo as the Falcons during the previous two weeks? I don’t think so. I WILL say that it didn't just seem like coincidence when “the Patriots” beat the Raiders in the AFC championship game because of the “tuck rule” during the same year 911 happened. Come on, Vick played like shit. The rest on the team played hard. I bet if you talked to D’ Angleo Hall, he would slap you for suggesting such a thing. I know several current and former NFL players that would probably cuss you out if you suggested to them what you are implying.
I have something interesting for you to write about- What about all the illegal aliens shipped in for their labor to help the state of New Orleans recover? Now, some of the business owners and victims are trying to help the illegal aliens attain amnesty to be able to stay and work in New Orleans. Not too many people even know about that. Go to dictionary.com and look up the word ‘alien’. It’s funny how the wordings in those definitions have changed in the past couple of years.
Anonymous. You have a name? Or are you just trying to be a statistic on here? :)
You have good points, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't challenge the Superdome Syndrome.
Stats are just stats. How do you explain upsets if football and sports revolve around stats?
I don't have a problem with amnesty for immigrants. Immigrants have always helped build American interests, from railroads and coalmines to Hoover Dam and beyond...
I admit Vick played like shit. But why?
Oh, and try reading a 17th Century dictionary. I used to own one of those.
Talk about definition changes over time... Even between dictionaries.
Dictionaries are not unlike like politicians.
love the pipehead comics! The burping bug on the new one too! Yeah, you know bugs emit gas from their little bodies too! No one ever talks about those stats! Maybe we should be blaming global warming on the kazillion bugs inhabiting this planet!!!...and I looked up the word "statistic" in my little dictionary...in the column across from it was another word-"stench", and the definition:"evil smell"...hmmm...
For now, I will continue to be a stat:)
I know what you do, I just happened to like some of your stuff which I why I occasionally contribute to your blogs.
Upset: to defeat or overthrow an opponent that is considered more formidable, as in war, politics, or sports. (which is why they are called upsets)
Vick is way overrated. He couldn’t pass his way out of a Bakersfield freeway at 1a.m.. What running QB ever won an Super Bowl? Are you a Falcons fan? Vick reminds me of one of those inbred pit bull’s; stupid but athletic. Wait did I just describe 80% of all pro athletes?
Here’s another thing to write about: How often do athletes get their grades fixed in High School and College, and juice, to go to the next level? What percentage of them are what races? Hummm, but I guess if that didn’t happen, us armchair warriors would have less entertainment;) By the way, I don’t eat potato chips.
There's good stuff in this conversation. I dig anonymous. But DW, those are fighting words! You owe me two strawberry smoothies now! Oh wait, I think I owe you 7.
Peace to the Buckaroo. And thanks for liking pipehead.
I'macowboyfan... there I said it.
damn it.
*hiding*
Speaking of changing definitions and dictionaries. Did you know that bootylicious is a real word now? hahahahah
Main Entry: bootylicious
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: sexually attractive, esp. in the buttocks
--
Ok... and now back to your regularly scheduled football talk that I don't pretend to understand and looks like this to me:
(&*&(^ Dallas sucks *(&$#(^^%
Crud. I shoulda been anonymous about my football team.
chingpea likes the forty-whiners.
slinking through ...
HA! chingpea's gonna kick your ass when she reads that. And I'm going to video tape it. And sell the tape at the swap meet.
Oh T.O., flirtingly tragic T.O.
Go bow your nose
On one of those million dollar
Bill folds.
Someone give him a hug, some anti depressants and a shot of haldol before he accidentally takes 35 vicodan again.
Hey NL, do you think it was a suicide attempt or an accident?
I think he belongs in a psychiatric hospital until they can put him on the right medications. I think he needs something other than the opportunity to be a millionaire role model.
oh just put it on my space:)
hey I hate the ash in the air,,my kid has asthma,, so,,
you know my tia used to work the fields and she too remembers going throu nevada and seeing the mushrooms from the testing,and they would sit there and awww at it,, sick huh,,
OMG... d.w. I just went back to look at the burping roachie one more time then noticed the one on the top right hand side is FARTING. hahahahahaha
OMG... that is GREAT! So funny. Yes, I AM that easily amused. I love Pipehead comics! :)
Cancer clusters? For a while we would get these reports in McFarland telling us whether the water was safe to drink that month or not. Only problem is, the report was for the MONTH BEFORE? I never understood that one.
i like the controversy in this article... i like how it flows too.
ash in bako - SUCKS... but we live with it.
yemini ciggies - it happened. no one likes to talk about it.
superdome syndrome - yeah. i see it .
cancer clusters - hits too close to home since i'm a survivor who came from that area.
mr. anonymous statistic - i respect what you're saying, but if you can't leave your name then why should we care? i love football and with everything you said, i think you judged and stereotyped athletes to your own opinions. we all have our own. so what? be real. so you know some athletes who play professionally... so what? it's not only skill, it's luck. there are plenty of athletes with the same if not beter talent who aren't in the nfl so those professional players should learn to just let opinions roll off their backs like ducks because they're public figures. who cares what people think about them? do they? they still play the sport they love and make tons of money doing it. chill out.
nl - yes, i'm a 49ers fan and so what of it?! at least i'm proud, win or lose and not like a lot of bandwagon- closet fans who hide when their team(s) aren't up to par. lol.
norma - you're right... get that camera ready and roll in the dough from the swap meet.
ya the never "solved " that cancer cluster in mcfarland,,you have to be an idiot to think it JUST happened,and this ash is US breathing it in for A LONG LONG time,, do they care? nope,, we have to live in hollywood for them to care.
Stats aren't everything, "anonymous." You're being a stereotypical, judgemental bastard. Watch the games with some sense! Smart ass!
Superdome syndrome will be alive with the Saints at and away from home. They're finally playing with a sense of belong since they were displaced not too long ago.
lol! N.L. I love ya man! ok, ok...I'll get ya some smoothies and biscuits...geez...you're so testy lately...but seriously, Mcfarland cover up is an awful deal. Lots of cover ups in this town/county. Football is boring-watch tennis it's more exciting! But really, just don't watch too much T.V. on any day, and you'll feel better. But then, I just got home from the fair tonight and saw fresh graffiti on my block wall! Yippee! "Gangsta Paradise Drive", it's my new address...
Dave, you rock. Now let's go wash that wall!
I soaked in the ego...
I'm unbearable now.
Wondered what all that ash was. I thought it was my neighbor's bonfire.
The Dalloways Blog
Ruined by Books Blog
Bakersfield British Car Club
the U.N. council took a daily break and went to the zoo. they found a lonely bear sitting in the corner of his pen. one of the council members had a few EGGO waffles in his briefcase, so he threw them to the bear. the bear quickly took the waffles over to his water bowl and dunked them before he ate them. the U.N. council members decided to adopt him as their new mascot and named him ABLE.
the newspaper headline read:
U.N. BEAR ABLE
SOAKS EGGO
I don't see what the big deal about the Saints game is anyway. But saying that the Falcons threw the game is really demeaning the New Orleans team, they went into their first home game undefeated.
I'm from Lafayette, LA, 2 hours west of New Orleans and yea no one gave a flying fuck about that city or the state of Louisiana before the HURRICANES, funny how Rita is just forgotten about. And a year later it's just a fake concern over the mess anyway.
Everyone there sees thru it.
back to the football.
Even if Atlanta did throw the game, who cares. It's just football and it's actually the first postive thing for the city of New Orleans in so many years. The Saints aren't just some random team in a good sized city. That football team is actually part of the city. People live for it. The passion for that team, even when they are among the worst in the leauge cannot be explained. It's something you just have to expirence for yoself.
PS
Sorry for the horrible spelling. But right now I'm too lazy to fix it.
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