There California Goes Again

I love California. I was born here. I have lived all but 12 of my 42+ years in the state. I have traveled all over the country and have seen all but a handful of states and can't imagine anywhere I'd rather live but California. We have the highest and lowest point in the continental US. We have incredible beaches, majestic mountains, incredible national parks... heck, we even have Disneyland!

And it's all within driving distance for me!

That said, there are some things about my state that drive me NUTS.

First, we have crazy gun-control laws/taxes. The same Mossberg pump-action shotgun that I could by at Wal-Mart in Oregon for a little over $100 costs almost 3 times that in California.

Not to mention how much it costs to license a car (or worse, a truck) every year. When I lived in Oregon people were outraged when vehicle licensing costs went up from $25 every two years to $35 every two years. It costs me over $400 to license my truck... every year!

And smogging your car? It's not enough that your vehicle has low emissions (as my 1979 F250 did when I brought it here from Washington state). You also have to have the proper equipment. My truck didn't originally have headers, so I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it smogged.

And now our kids may be celebrating Harvey Milk Day in school every year on my birthday (see the LA Times article HERE).

In 1977, Harvey Milk "became the first openly gay elected official of any large city in the United States and later made the cover of Time Magazine." Some people might take issue with that fact. However, that is not my issue. My issue with the bill is that "the bill... also says the day shall have special significance in public school and other educational institutions and 'encourages those entities to conduct suitable commemorative exercises on that date.'"

I agree with Sen. Dave Cox (R-Fair Oaks) who said that "his vote against the measure had nothing to do with who was involved. 'In school, we ought to concentrate on writing, reading and arithmetic,' he said, adding that the schools don’t need other requirements placed on them by the Legislature."

Let's get schools back to educating our kids on the fundamentals of LEARNING (vs. performing well on tests) and let's stop legislating a bunch of other stuff that doesn't necessarily add that experience (see The Weave's article on Mandatory Stuff).

Having said all that... I still LOVE my state!