Are you prepared to buy a Chinese made private automobile? You might not be, but your frugal neighbors are.
Americans decided long ago that we didn't give a shit about quality. Remember Ford's old slogan from 1981 "Quality is Job 1?" Remember the Ford Tempo? That car was built to fuckin' last, wasn't it? There are still hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of them plying our roadways today...a rolling testament to our quality efforts of the '80s.
Yeah, right.
No, we paid lip service to good tools, good cars, good machines, and good motors, but we failed to pay American laborers living wages to build them. These jobs first migrated to Japan, but as Japanese workers demand higher wages, manufacturers today are migrating to South Korea, and tomorrow they'll migrate to Vietnam, Bangladesh...or China!
China! Land of the cheapest labor. Land of the cheapest materials, cheapest quality controls, cheapest environmental policies...but the average American won't give a shit about any of that if they can buy a new car for $5,400! Wa-hey! We decided decades ago that the cheapest price now is all that matters -- hence the rise of big box retailers, wholesale merchandisers, and depot-sized home improvement centers, where you can buy mayonnaise by the five gallon tub and a nifty new tool can transform the weekend homeowner into an instant journeyman carpenter. No need to pay for skilled labor anymore. Stuff that mayo tub into the third refrigerator in the basement.
Ford may have successfully used the slogan Quality is Job One, but today their workers are lining up at the EDD, looking for Job None. There will come a time, in the very near future, that a daughter of a former Ford employee in St. Paul, MN will drive her new Chery S12 to state college as an Apparel Marketing major and thumb her nose past the decrepit factory her father worked at to get her there.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Inconvenient Darkness
The California constitution is eight times longer than the US constitution and has been amended over five hundred times in its life. Some of those amendments led to the two-thirds majority requirement to both pass a budget and to raise taxes. And with our polarized populace, along with (wa-hey) only two parties, nothing can get done.
I should vote no on all these propositions tomorrow strictly in the interest of seeing Financial Armageddon up close. These aren't going to pass anyway, so to vote no really ensures defeat, and ensures we will get left with a $21 billion crater instead of a $15 billion one.
What do you suppose twenty one billion looks like? Well, this morning I rode my bicycle past the DMV to grass a foot and a half high, grass not being mowed as regularly. Maybe that's all a $21,000,000,000 deficit looks like. Unmowed grass. Yeeeaaaahhhh...that's it. We'll just forgo mowing our pretty landscape grass for a little while, and that should wipe out our little state budget problem in no time. As for the one hundred and eighty million dollar Sacramento county deficit...we'll just turn out the lights at the Sacramento Softball Complex at 10:30 instead of 11:00, and that should wipe out our little county budget problem in no time. Yeeeaaaahhhh...that's it. That should take care of it.
That's Armageddon for ya. Some taller grass and some inconvenient darkness. We're all just humming along now aren't we, skipping happily alongside a rising stock market and rising homebuilder confidence, thinking those green shoots are now 10-gallon transplants and soon we'll be returning to 3.5% growth -- by the third quarter, no less.
Yeeeaaaahhh...that's it.
I should vote no on all these propositions tomorrow strictly in the interest of seeing Financial Armageddon up close. These aren't going to pass anyway, so to vote no really ensures defeat, and ensures we will get left with a $21 billion crater instead of a $15 billion one.
What do you suppose twenty one billion looks like? Well, this morning I rode my bicycle past the DMV to grass a foot and a half high, grass not being mowed as regularly. Maybe that's all a $21,000,000,000 deficit looks like. Unmowed grass. Yeeeaaaahhhh...that's it. We'll just forgo mowing our pretty landscape grass for a little while, and that should wipe out our little state budget problem in no time. As for the one hundred and eighty million dollar Sacramento county deficit...we'll just turn out the lights at the Sacramento Softball Complex at 10:30 instead of 11:00, and that should wipe out our little county budget problem in no time. Yeeeaaaahhhh...that's it. That should take care of it.
That's Armageddon for ya. Some taller grass and some inconvenient darkness. We're all just humming along now aren't we, skipping happily alongside a rising stock market and rising homebuilder confidence, thinking those green shoots are now 10-gallon transplants and soon we'll be returning to 3.5% growth -- by the third quarter, no less.
Yeeeaaaahhh...that's it.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
$XX.X
I am going to be one of the few Californians voting this Tuesday.
It really doesn't matter what path I choose on these propositions, because they are all going to go down in flames...and if that wasn't the first thing that ran through every legislator's mind when they passed their last budget, well, it should have been. It was obvious from the start that voters wouldn't extend their own taxation.
Californians want fires extinguished by firemen, they want their criminals guarded by prison guards, they want every road gold plated and pothole free -- but they don't want to pay for them. In fact, the results on Tuesday will show that Californians will refuse to pay for these services. Only 1F will pass, preventing legislator pay raises in deficit years. Wa-hey.
So a portion of our state's $XX.X billion dollar deficit will, this Tuesday night, be attributed to the failure of the voters to approve these measures. Excellent. Bass of the assembly will on Wednesday proclaim that the budget implosion is now the fault of the public. Garamendi will on Thursday say that both Bass and the public are at fault. And I on Friday will be revising my DE-4 from single zero to married two, because I have a gut feeling that getting any 2009 state refund might now become a lot harder to get.
I have always enjoyed a state refund each year. I started this fifteen years ago as a college student when the taxman cameth and I didn't have the money to pay, and I vowed I'd never owe like that again. It also forced me to learn to live below my means as it reduces my monthly take home. It's too bad my Elk Grove, my state, and my federal government somehow has never learned to do that. It couldn't have been more fucking obvious to even the most casual observer that our economy wasn't going to tear up year over year ad infinitum. Slowdowns, pullbacks, or recessions are inevitable with the way our system is designed, but no, we collectively refused to think that the good times wouldn't last forever.
For me, the good times of receiving a refund are now over. I will just have to learn to live with an increased monthly salary. Wa-hey.
It really doesn't matter what path I choose on these propositions, because they are all going to go down in flames...and if that wasn't the first thing that ran through every legislator's mind when they passed their last budget, well, it should have been. It was obvious from the start that voters wouldn't extend their own taxation.
Californians want fires extinguished by firemen, they want their criminals guarded by prison guards, they want every road gold plated and pothole free -- but they don't want to pay for them. In fact, the results on Tuesday will show that Californians will refuse to pay for these services. Only 1F will pass, preventing legislator pay raises in deficit years. Wa-hey.
So a portion of our state's $XX.X billion dollar deficit will, this Tuesday night, be attributed to the failure of the voters to approve these measures. Excellent. Bass of the assembly will on Wednesday proclaim that the budget implosion is now the fault of the public. Garamendi will on Thursday say that both Bass and the public are at fault. And I on Friday will be revising my DE-4 from single zero to married two, because I have a gut feeling that getting any 2009 state refund might now become a lot harder to get.
I have always enjoyed a state refund each year. I started this fifteen years ago as a college student when the taxman cameth and I didn't have the money to pay, and I vowed I'd never owe like that again. It also forced me to learn to live below my means as it reduces my monthly take home. It's too bad my Elk Grove, my state, and my federal government somehow has never learned to do that. It couldn't have been more fucking obvious to even the most casual observer that our economy wasn't going to tear up year over year ad infinitum. Slowdowns, pullbacks, or recessions are inevitable with the way our system is designed, but no, we collectively refused to think that the good times wouldn't last forever.
For me, the good times of receiving a refund are now over. I will just have to learn to live with an increased monthly salary. Wa-hey.
What We Are Is What We Buy
Amid all the dour economic news comes one important fact: Merikans are saving more.
According to government statistics, even I have only ever managed about a 5% savings rate, because this savings rate is tied to discretionary income only...capital gains and pensions are not included.
For me, the government failed to account for gains from the sale of a rental that I plowed into my own mortgage. The government failed to account for me spending the last nineteen years overpaying my mortgage so I could pay that damn thing off. The government failed to account for the 12% I plow into retirement. Apparently, this isn't considered "savings."
Hmmm....why would that be? What about my "savings" of $168,000 by paying only $56,000 in total interest instead of $224,000? Doesn't count. That kind of shit doesn't grow our economy. Not plowing it into a bank that would lend that money to others to spend, build, or create. I'm hoarding it, so to speak.
Of course, as Americans have now gone from a negative savings rate to something just north of 4%, that 5+% has now also been "removed" from our economy. As 70% of what we are is made up of what we buy, that's a sizable chunk removed, and it's worsening our economic woes.
We ought to have an economy that doesn't need to "grow." We ought to have an economy that produces simply what we need and only what we need. Service based local economies. Sure, we would all have materially less, we would all be less wealthy relative to today's "standards of living," but we'd define another standard. One that considers human interactions in the calculus, one that provides completely for its citizens, and one that doesn't require the eventual depletion of all our natural resources to keep on "growing."
According to government statistics, even I have only ever managed about a 5% savings rate, because this savings rate is tied to discretionary income only...capital gains and pensions are not included.
For me, the government failed to account for gains from the sale of a rental that I plowed into my own mortgage. The government failed to account for me spending the last nineteen years overpaying my mortgage so I could pay that damn thing off. The government failed to account for the 12% I plow into retirement. Apparently, this isn't considered "savings."
Hmmm....why would that be? What about my "savings" of $168,000 by paying only $56,000 in total interest instead of $224,000? Doesn't count. That kind of shit doesn't grow our economy. Not plowing it into a bank that would lend that money to others to spend, build, or create. I'm hoarding it, so to speak.
Of course, as Americans have now gone from a negative savings rate to something just north of 4%, that 5+% has now also been "removed" from our economy. As 70% of what we are is made up of what we buy, that's a sizable chunk removed, and it's worsening our economic woes.
We ought to have an economy that doesn't need to "grow." We ought to have an economy that produces simply what we need and only what we need. Service based local economies. Sure, we would all have materially less, we would all be less wealthy relative to today's "standards of living," but we'd define another standard. One that considers human interactions in the calculus, one that provides completely for its citizens, and one that doesn't require the eventual depletion of all our natural resources to keep on "growing."
Saturday, May 16, 2009
No More Asparagus
The last asparagus of northern California was eaten this evening. The final spears of spring have come and gone.
Unless, of course, you've come to expect asparagus at any time, any season. Unless you have the unalienable right to eat whatever you want whenever you want. Asparagus in November? Yep, imported from southern Mexico. Oranges in July? Sure, imported from Brazil.
See, eating out-of-season food (what it represents) really is no different than every other issue we currently have in America; imported oil and the concomitant wars to ensure its liberal supply, massive federal debts to support a standard of living beyond our willingness to pay for it, housal prices so far removed from reality that we can only describe it through bubbles, personal debts so far removed from our ability to pay that we foreclose, short sale, walk away, declare bankruptcy, or remain mired in debt in perpetuity.
The first shoots of this season's asparagus coincided with our "green shoots" of economic recovery, didn't they. The asparagus crop is harvested, it's been consumed, and the plant has returned to replenishing its carbohydrate stores to prepare for next year's shoots. In much the same way, the green shoots of our economy have been harvested, steamed and eaten, and now all that's left is a Chrysler bankruptcy, thousands of dealerships getting culled, GM on the verge of doing the same, Florida's BankUnited about to collapse, the state of California ready to steal billions in property taxes from counties and municipalities who are themselves hundreds of millions in the red, and a bankrupt General Growth Properties, leaving my little Elk Grovian half-finished mall gathering weeds on the brown edge of our suburban hinterlands...waiting...waiting...
These were our green shoots.
Unless, of course, you've come to expect asparagus at any time, any season. Unless you have the unalienable right to eat whatever you want whenever you want. Asparagus in November? Yep, imported from southern Mexico. Oranges in July? Sure, imported from Brazil.
See, eating out-of-season food (what it represents) really is no different than every other issue we currently have in America; imported oil and the concomitant wars to ensure its liberal supply, massive federal debts to support a standard of living beyond our willingness to pay for it, housal prices so far removed from reality that we can only describe it through bubbles, personal debts so far removed from our ability to pay that we foreclose, short sale, walk away, declare bankruptcy, or remain mired in debt in perpetuity.
The first shoots of this season's asparagus coincided with our "green shoots" of economic recovery, didn't they. The asparagus crop is harvested, it's been consumed, and the plant has returned to replenishing its carbohydrate stores to prepare for next year's shoots. In much the same way, the green shoots of our economy have been harvested, steamed and eaten, and now all that's left is a Chrysler bankruptcy, thousands of dealerships getting culled, GM on the verge of doing the same, Florida's BankUnited about to collapse, the state of California ready to steal billions in property taxes from counties and municipalities who are themselves hundreds of millions in the red, and a bankrupt General Growth Properties, leaving my little Elk Grovian half-finished mall gathering weeds on the brown edge of our suburban hinterlands...waiting...waiting...
These were our green shoots.
Friday, May 15, 2009
PHQOPEC
I wish I could capture and post on my monologues all the faces of all the Prius drivers that pass me on my bicycle.
I'm pretty sure there's this silent competition going on...Prius drivers are one-upping every other straight gasoline car out there, and they know it. That's why they put on vanity plates like LES GILT, PHQOPEC, or bumper stickers like "Stop Terrorism -- Drive a Hybrid." But I am one-upping every one of them, and they know it. I know it, because the looks I get from them are unmistakable.
If these drivers were really so fucking concerned about oil dependence, war, global warming, etc., etc., they'd be demanding living arrangements that aren't so god damned dependent on a vehicle. It doesn't matter what the power source is...you still have a 3,000 pound concoction of steel, rubber, toxic heavy metals and toxic fluids usually motoring a solo white occupant across six lanes of asphalt or steel reinforced concrete.
It isn't the car that's the problem. It's the American driving it, who thinks that because it's a Prius they have the right to live thirty two miles from work, the right to solo motoring alongside two hundred million other solo motorists. If every one of these were a hybrid, would we really be any better off? Would we? We'd still blow a few hundred billion man-hours stuck in traffic, we'd still retain all the social problems of suburbia, we'd still squader all our national energies on vehicle dependent sprawl that has no future, and we'd still be as fat and as depressed a nation as ever.
We would gain very little. But we'd think we were saving the planet, now wouldn't we?
I'm pretty sure there's this silent competition going on...Prius drivers are one-upping every other straight gasoline car out there, and they know it. That's why they put on vanity plates like LES GILT, PHQOPEC, or bumper stickers like "Stop Terrorism -- Drive a Hybrid." But I am one-upping every one of them, and they know it. I know it, because the looks I get from them are unmistakable.
If these drivers were really so fucking concerned about oil dependence, war, global warming, etc., etc., they'd be demanding living arrangements that aren't so god damned dependent on a vehicle. It doesn't matter what the power source is...you still have a 3,000 pound concoction of steel, rubber, toxic heavy metals and toxic fluids usually motoring a solo white occupant across six lanes of asphalt or steel reinforced concrete.
It isn't the car that's the problem. It's the American driving it, who thinks that because it's a Prius they have the right to live thirty two miles from work, the right to solo motoring alongside two hundred million other solo motorists. If every one of these were a hybrid, would we really be any better off? Would we? We'd still blow a few hundred billion man-hours stuck in traffic, we'd still retain all the social problems of suburbia, we'd still squader all our national energies on vehicle dependent sprawl that has no future, and we'd still be as fat and as depressed a nation as ever.
We would gain very little. But we'd think we were saving the planet, now wouldn't we?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Bike Rentals
I am admittedly struggling, struggling, to find a bike to rent in Dusseldorf.
My plan is to fly in, take some sort of public transportation/cab to the town center and find a bike to rent for the week. I need to find a good bike because the plan is to bike the 40 kM to Gelsenkirchen and stay there for most of the week, biking to the Rock Hard festival, and the Monday when I leave, I'll bike back to Dusseldorf in the morning, drop off the bike, find a way to the airport, board the plane at 1:00 PM and fly home.
Sounds like it would work?
Actually, it sounds like a pain in the ass. It would be a particularly sharp, stabbing pain in the ass if it rains. Imagine boarding a plane for a 19 hour flight home soaking wet, if they'd even let me on board.
Of course, all of this hinges on my ability to travel to Germany by backpack only...perhaps with a small side bag that I could bungee to the bike. I can't say I've even come close to trying this at home, let alone in a country whose language is completely unintelligible to me. I speak all of three words of German, can't read a word of German, and can't write a word of German.
There is potential. The good news is that most Germans speak very good broken English. I can eat anything, so if it came to ordering by finger, I'll eat whatever they give me. I can say "Ein Bier, Bitte," which will take me far, my friends, it will take me far. Biking is a viable form of personal mobility in Dusseldorf, unlike my hometown, homestate, or homenation. I can bring my own tyre pump and tyre kit. I could see a large swath of Westphalia that I would never be able to see by car on the A2. I could save money...rental cars are outrageous.
I am extremely hopeful that this outfit will be open and will rent. Otherwise...I don't have a whole lot of options, because I can't seem to find much. Dusseldorf has a NextBike bike sharing network, and this might also work...but I have severe reservations about biking 40 kM on a bike made for intowners while plastered with a billboard underneath it to a thrash metal concert.
My plan is to fly in, take some sort of public transportation/cab to the town center and find a bike to rent for the week. I need to find a good bike because the plan is to bike the 40 kM to Gelsenkirchen and stay there for most of the week, biking to the Rock Hard festival, and the Monday when I leave, I'll bike back to Dusseldorf in the morning, drop off the bike, find a way to the airport, board the plane at 1:00 PM and fly home.
Sounds like it would work?
Actually, it sounds like a pain in the ass. It would be a particularly sharp, stabbing pain in the ass if it rains. Imagine boarding a plane for a 19 hour flight home soaking wet, if they'd even let me on board.
Of course, all of this hinges on my ability to travel to Germany by backpack only...perhaps with a small side bag that I could bungee to the bike. I can't say I've even come close to trying this at home, let alone in a country whose language is completely unintelligible to me. I speak all of three words of German, can't read a word of German, and can't write a word of German.
There is potential. The good news is that most Germans speak very good broken English. I can eat anything, so if it came to ordering by finger, I'll eat whatever they give me. I can say "Ein Bier, Bitte," which will take me far, my friends, it will take me far. Biking is a viable form of personal mobility in Dusseldorf, unlike my hometown, homestate, or homenation. I can bring my own tyre pump and tyre kit. I could see a large swath of Westphalia that I would never be able to see by car on the A2. I could save money...rental cars are outrageous.
I am extremely hopeful that this outfit will be open and will rent. Otherwise...I don't have a whole lot of options, because I can't seem to find much. Dusseldorf has a NextBike bike sharing network, and this might also work...but I have severe reservations about biking 40 kM on a bike made for intowners while plastered with a billboard underneath it to a thrash metal concert.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Active Ignorance
I watched the national news this evening where Brian Williams in the second segment hurriedly rushed through reporting that the top Afghanistan general is out, David McKiernan.
My family, myself, and two relatives were all just downstairs watching the comedic ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. That guy is funny as hell, but as soon as that was over, everyone scattered while I turned on the news.
I was struck by how the reporting of the changing of the top war commander was handled with all the flair and interest of a coaching change for a ball team, how matter-of-fact this was presented, and how my family (and, frankly, I) couldn't give a rat's ass about it.
Afghanistan is a forgotten war to the vast majority of Americans. I put myself into that camp this evening when I realized, flopped out on the couch, how totally disconnected I am, someone who self-proclaims to keep up with current affairs. I am as unconcerned about a change in the top leadership in our major war as much as I am unconcerned about who's coaching the Clemson men's basketball team.
But it dawned on me...there are a hell of a lot more Americans who can tell you the Tiger's coaches name or the pit crew leader for Jeff Burton rather than what general's in charge of our war(s).
My family, myself, and two relatives were all just downstairs watching the comedic ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. That guy is funny as hell, but as soon as that was over, everyone scattered while I turned on the news.
I was struck by how the reporting of the changing of the top war commander was handled with all the flair and interest of a coaching change for a ball team, how matter-of-fact this was presented, and how my family (and, frankly, I) couldn't give a rat's ass about it.
Afghanistan is a forgotten war to the vast majority of Americans. I put myself into that camp this evening when I realized, flopped out on the couch, how totally disconnected I am, someone who self-proclaims to keep up with current affairs. I am as unconcerned about a change in the top leadership in our major war as much as I am unconcerned about who's coaching the Clemson men's basketball team.
But it dawned on me...there are a hell of a lot more Americans who can tell you the Tiger's coaches name or the pit crew leader for Jeff Burton rather than what general's in charge of our war(s).
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Cognitive Dissonance
I am going to leave a few tons of carbon in my wake when I travel to Germany later this month. This seemingly completely contradicts my personal covenant to tread lightly.
All my biking, all my bus riding, all my solar share and personal solar production, all of it, will be thrown out the window with one single airplane trip. I will contribute more carbon (.18 kG per mile) than I have saved over the past year and a half.
I suppose it's a good thing that I've never fully embraced global warming...otherwise, the cognitive dissonance would be paralyzing. For now, it's just a little nagging that's going on inside my head, but I can deal with that. I haven't embraced global warming because it's a ridiculous thing to worry about while we continue to build local living arrangements that mandate that we will squander all the remaining carbon stores presented to us. Regardless of whether anthropomorphic warming is true, we are mandated to convert that stored carbon into diffuse carbon dioxide. Yep, we're gonna burn every fucking drop of oil we can before we accept that it's the commuting thirty one miles one-way to an office-park and back and it's the filling of our homes with imported merchandise that's a source of global warming.
Or...recreational trips to see a thrash metal concert in a foreign country. I have long touted my use of recreational oil. How can this dissonant tune be muted?
All my biking, all my bus riding, all my solar share and personal solar production, all of it, will be thrown out the window with one single airplane trip. I will contribute more carbon (.18 kG per mile) than I have saved over the past year and a half.
I suppose it's a good thing that I've never fully embraced global warming...otherwise, the cognitive dissonance would be paralyzing. For now, it's just a little nagging that's going on inside my head, but I can deal with that. I haven't embraced global warming because it's a ridiculous thing to worry about while we continue to build local living arrangements that mandate that we will squander all the remaining carbon stores presented to us. Regardless of whether anthropomorphic warming is true, we are mandated to convert that stored carbon into diffuse carbon dioxide. Yep, we're gonna burn every fucking drop of oil we can before we accept that it's the commuting thirty one miles one-way to an office-park and back and it's the filling of our homes with imported merchandise that's a source of global warming.
Or...recreational trips to see a thrash metal concert in a foreign country. I have long touted my use of recreational oil. How can this dissonant tune be muted?
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Halal
Finally, after four years, I convinced my wife to try the Afghan restaurant on Franklin and Laguna. And it was sublime.
The strip mall "complex" at this corner is probably the worst design any suburban architect or urban planner has ever come up with. At major intersections in every damn city in America all we get are these clusters of shopping centers, strip retail and supermarkets. But Elk Grove has taken the cake with the design here at the northwest corner by creating a dozen strip retail outlets that face...the parking lot. Not visible from the street. While there are six hundred and ninety two thousand vehicles driving by these strip stores monthly, the vacancy rate has exceeded 60% since it's been built and will remain an utter fucking wasteland for decades to come because it's a noplace, unknown to all pedestrians and vehicles.
In this wasteland have come and gone about three dozen local retailers, but one that has surprisingly stood the test of Elk Grovian ineptitude is the Afghan Kabob Palace. This makes sense, as places like this always tend to survive due to word of mouth and a culture that values the company of each other rather than the company of material goods. We walked into a stripmall storefront as barren and desolate as you can possibly find (wondering if it was even open) into a restaurant full of locals, bustling with activity, full of patrons...essentially thriving. The Kabob Palace actually rents two stores, with the wall to the adjacent store removed providing for a banquet or large seating area for parties and such.
I was so glad to finally try this place...aside from a penchant for exotic food, I am so in favor of buying local products from local merchants. While the raw materials might not be of a local origin, I can never really be sure in a restaurant to begin with, but a locally owned store at least has a much higher probability of sourcing local raw materials than any chain restaurant. The lamb might come from a Halal butcher in the East Bay. Cilantro from the Capay valley. Jasmine rice from central California.
Anyway, there is no closer a restaurant to my house than this place, and for four years I've not once tried it, but I've must have thought about it twenty score times. And my wife liked it. Someplace close for us to continue to get good food while keeping more dollars in the community.
The strip mall "complex" at this corner is probably the worst design any suburban architect or urban planner has ever come up with. At major intersections in every damn city in America all we get are these clusters of shopping centers, strip retail and supermarkets. But Elk Grove has taken the cake with the design here at the northwest corner by creating a dozen strip retail outlets that face...the parking lot. Not visible from the street. While there are six hundred and ninety two thousand vehicles driving by these strip stores monthly, the vacancy rate has exceeded 60% since it's been built and will remain an utter fucking wasteland for decades to come because it's a noplace, unknown to all pedestrians and vehicles.
In this wasteland have come and gone about three dozen local retailers, but one that has surprisingly stood the test of Elk Grovian ineptitude is the Afghan Kabob Palace. This makes sense, as places like this always tend to survive due to word of mouth and a culture that values the company of each other rather than the company of material goods. We walked into a stripmall storefront as barren and desolate as you can possibly find (wondering if it was even open) into a restaurant full of locals, bustling with activity, full of patrons...essentially thriving. The Kabob Palace actually rents two stores, with the wall to the adjacent store removed providing for a banquet or large seating area for parties and such.
I was so glad to finally try this place...aside from a penchant for exotic food, I am so in favor of buying local products from local merchants. While the raw materials might not be of a local origin, I can never really be sure in a restaurant to begin with, but a locally owned store at least has a much higher probability of sourcing local raw materials than any chain restaurant. The lamb might come from a Halal butcher in the East Bay. Cilantro from the Capay valley. Jasmine rice from central California.
Anyway, there is no closer a restaurant to my house than this place, and for four years I've not once tried it, but I've must have thought about it twenty score times. And my wife liked it. Someplace close for us to continue to get good food while keeping more dollars in the community.
Shop Local
Elk Grove, in their monthly newsletter, is promoting the "shop local" line.
This is as mendacious as it gets. There is virtually nothing about Elk Grove that's local. Nothing. If there happens to be a local store owned by local residents, their products they sell are almost certainly non-local. In these cases, any value-added contributions to non-local resources are indeed local, but name me an establishment that does this?
The obvious connection is sales taxes. This contributes to Elk Grovian coffers, yes. But when I go to the TGI Friday's on Laguna Blvd and order from their menu that was designed by some focus group on the fifth floor of their corporate headquarters in Dallas, TX, I am most certainly ordering from a menu from a corporation that doesn't give a flying fuck about what sorts of local foods Elk Grove produces, what local area farmers produce, or even what this state produces. If some eleven dollar an hour twenty six year old "sampler taster" on the fourth floor says the chicken products from Arkansas are what she prefers, and the accountants on the seventh floor agree that nationwide distribution from these particular Arkansas chicken wholesalers meet the company's basic tests for quality and product repeatable reliability, then Arkansas it is. 600,000 pounds per month are "procured," distributed by TGI's 7,000 tractor-trailer "warehouses on wheels," and delivered as signature Jack Daniel's flavored chicken products.
This is local? Because I bought the end result in Elk Grove?
This is as mendacious as it gets. There is virtually nothing about Elk Grove that's local. Nothing. If there happens to be a local store owned by local residents, their products they sell are almost certainly non-local. In these cases, any value-added contributions to non-local resources are indeed local, but name me an establishment that does this?
The obvious connection is sales taxes. This contributes to Elk Grovian coffers, yes. But when I go to the TGI Friday's on Laguna Blvd and order from their menu that was designed by some focus group on the fifth floor of their corporate headquarters in Dallas, TX, I am most certainly ordering from a menu from a corporation that doesn't give a flying fuck about what sorts of local foods Elk Grove produces, what local area farmers produce, or even what this state produces. If some eleven dollar an hour twenty six year old "sampler taster" on the fourth floor says the chicken products from Arkansas are what she prefers, and the accountants on the seventh floor agree that nationwide distribution from these particular Arkansas chicken wholesalers meet the company's basic tests for quality and product repeatable reliability, then Arkansas it is. 600,000 pounds per month are "procured," distributed by TGI's 7,000 tractor-trailer "warehouses on wheels," and delivered as signature Jack Daniel's flavored chicken products.
This is local? Because I bought the end result in Elk Grove?
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Salmonella Sam
Almost every morning on my bike ride up Franklin Blvd. there's a taco truck parked off the road just past 47th Avenue, across from the Campbell's Soup plant. If you ever eat from roach coaches then you'd know what a 5-speed is. They are awesome.
But...the problem I have with this one is that while it is parked off the sidewalk and curb, parked in about a 20 foot space between a fence and the street, its patrons park in the bike lane right on the fucking street, and it turns out that I am almost always faced with having to ride in the traffic lane with traffic coming off the traffic signal. And the signs posted all around couldn't be any clearer:
This is about one of 7 "choke points" on my bike ride where I never feel comfortable. Every morning I scan the intersection looking for police to point out the obvious infractions but I never seem to come across a cruiser at that intersection. This mobile truck can be seen on Google Maps; it happened to be there at the time of the scan along with three cars, one of which is parked illegally on the road, forcing me into the lane.
Again, it isn't the gut truck...it's the patrons. They refuse to walk the 60 extra feet to legally park on 45th. Each of these overweight Americans roll up to the Trick Truck (the Trichinosis truck) driven by Salmonella Sam, and open their doors and roll themselves out, forcing me right into the traffic lane.
Now here's an interesting sidebar. The City of Sacramento issued an ordinance that will effectively ban mobile catering trucks from occupying any given spot for more than 30 minutes. Apparently, this ordinance is the death knell for many mobile trucks in the city, because quite a few of them are parked semi-permanently. Nine trucks were grandfathered but only until 2012.
Trick trucks, in my opinion, are rather seedy looking affairs, but in the context of food as a culture they represent something that's completely lacking in our supermarkets, in our chained restaurants...these treat food as a commodity, without any flair in preparation, with no culture. When I go to Raley Field and watch a River Cat's baseball game, I can only eat the same hot dogs, the same licorice ropes, the same salted pretzels with mustard that I'd find at a King's basketball game, or an Oakland Raider game, or even a high school wrestling match. A trick truck at the Folsom auction might sell a carne asada torta that I'd never, never! find anywhere else in such a public venue, and the loss of variety is just one more thing we choose to lose when we ordinate trick trucks out of existence for the sake of ensuring repeatable property and sales taxes from brick and mortar restaurants.
Soon, the only 5-speed you can get will be an imported Fiat.
But...the problem I have with this one is that while it is parked off the sidewalk and curb, parked in about a 20 foot space between a fence and the street, its patrons park in the bike lane right on the fucking street, and it turns out that I am almost always faced with having to ride in the traffic lane with traffic coming off the traffic signal. And the signs posted all around couldn't be any clearer:
This is about one of 7 "choke points" on my bike ride where I never feel comfortable. Every morning I scan the intersection looking for police to point out the obvious infractions but I never seem to come across a cruiser at that intersection. This mobile truck can be seen on Google Maps; it happened to be there at the time of the scan along with three cars, one of which is parked illegally on the road, forcing me into the lane.
Again, it isn't the gut truck...it's the patrons. They refuse to walk the 60 extra feet to legally park on 45th. Each of these overweight Americans roll up to the Trick Truck (the Trichinosis truck) driven by Salmonella Sam, and open their doors and roll themselves out, forcing me right into the traffic lane.
Now here's an interesting sidebar. The City of Sacramento issued an ordinance that will effectively ban mobile catering trucks from occupying any given spot for more than 30 minutes. Apparently, this ordinance is the death knell for many mobile trucks in the city, because quite a few of them are parked semi-permanently. Nine trucks were grandfathered but only until 2012.
Trick trucks, in my opinion, are rather seedy looking affairs, but in the context of food as a culture they represent something that's completely lacking in our supermarkets, in our chained restaurants...these treat food as a commodity, without any flair in preparation, with no culture. When I go to Raley Field and watch a River Cat's baseball game, I can only eat the same hot dogs, the same licorice ropes, the same salted pretzels with mustard that I'd find at a King's basketball game, or an Oakland Raider game, or even a high school wrestling match. A trick truck at the Folsom auction might sell a carne asada torta that I'd never, never! find anywhere else in such a public venue, and the loss of variety is just one more thing we choose to lose when we ordinate trick trucks out of existence for the sake of ensuring repeatable property and sales taxes from brick and mortar restaurants.
Soon, the only 5-speed you can get will be an imported Fiat.
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