After a recent Sunday sermon, a vehicle parked in front of my church rolled up hill and slammed into my bumper.
Yup. The pickup truck put itself in gear and gave my Camry a big boo-boo.
At this point, I ask that you suspend your disbelief.
Let’s move to the spiritual point you expect from a pastor.
After hearing the all-too-familiar crunching sound while backing up, I went to examine my car’s damaged trunk.
You’ll probably never meet anyone more passionate about music than Benjamin J. McClara.
The founder and artistic director of Sacramento Preparatory Music Academy, a community-based education program, gets choked up when he talks about music.
He shares that passion with hundreds of students and community musicians in academy lessons and performances.
“Our mission is to provide lifelong access to music education and a place where students can come and study music with professionals,” McClara says. “You don’t really get that in school.”
The academy offers private and group lessons at Midtown’s E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts in piano, guitar, ukulele, woodwinds and voice under McClara, Michael Dale and Anthony Tavianini.
I’ve reported on the Kings since 1984 when they played in Kansas City. I wrote a book about them a decade ago. It’s taken awhile, but I’ve finally figured out what they need.
The Kings need a casino next to Golden 1 Center. Macy’s might be perfect.
Everybody needs a casino these days. Wheatland has one. Ione has one. Lincoln has one. Even Elk Grove has one. Seven tribal gambling halls exist within an hour’s drive of the Capitol. They provide punters with 14,575 slot machines, 481 table games, and 54 bars and restaurants.
Who says that’s enough?
The Big Blow or, in meteorological parlance, the atmospheric river storm, howled through town in early February. Accompanied by 60 mph winds, it toppled trees, power lines, fences and all things not secured or firmly rooted. The county declared a state of emergency.
Surveying my wounded garden afterward, damage appeared minimal. I found fences and trees still upright. But what a mess. Winds ripped oranges, limes and lemons from my trees. The yard was littered with citrus. I gathered it up and carried it inside.
A statewide signature-gathering effort is underway for a ballot measure to roll back provisions of California’s Proposition 47, which turned drug possession, drug trafficking and theft into misdemeanors.
If adopted by California voters next November, “The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” or “Fix Prop. 47,” would give prosecutors discretion to charge drug addicts with a “treatment-mandated felony” after two drug convictions.
These are modest, necessary reforms to address drug trafficking, addiction and theft plaguing California.
Public artwork at the Light Rail Station on Franklin Boulevard is no longer a death trap for birds.
Sculptor David Best made permanent modifications to his rusted steel archway in late February that will prevent birds, including pigeons and birds of prey, from entering the structure with no way out.
“This was an accident that birds were trapped in the sculpture and died,” Best says. “This was not intentional.”
