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klk
Trad climber
cali
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yeah, this is a ruthlessly stupid article. but consider the source: it's a realtor and developers professional association complaining about how bad the housing bubble was in california and florida and how hard it's made to sell property now.
not that i have good things to say about stockton, but i'm not crying crocodile tears for the real estate cos. that worked to create the mess they're now whining about.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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THEN... in their magnificence, the UC system thought it would be a good idea to open a new campus in Merced. That effort has been a sad failure and illustrates nicely the leadership and management qualities the UC Board of Regents brings to bear.
Not the Regents, let alone UCOP.
Merced was a horrific decision made for political reasons, but it was probably also necessary because it helped two different electoral constituencies buy into the UC:
latino democrats and right-wing republicans. merced resulted from a push from those two very different but valley-based groups for a chunk of the UC. the UC system can't do the "rational" thing and collapse its most marginal campuses because those campuses are the only ones located in heavily Republican districts. close the marginal ones (or don't open merced-- the alternative was palm desert --), and the system risks losing all electoral and political support outside of the bluest counties on the coast.
another devil's bargain.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, wbw... ohmy... thanks for the share... i remember all these places, vaguely, since from when i was a kid and we traveled to yosemite...
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Stockton #1
Modesto #4
Sacramento #5
Fresno's all the way down at #17
Think land rush and mortgage bust along with a good dose of Republican lawmakers in those towns.
Not claiming they're related....or am I?
If you think it's off topic for climbing consider that Modesto is where you'll be sent if you get injured or seriously ill in Yosemite.
Investing in universities and colleges in largely poor and under educated counties is a Bad Idea?
Give me a break.
Oh wait, those pesky illegal immigrants might get the idea to freeload some more off the system.
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Stanford education department proposed me for a teaching position at UC Merced last December. Everything went according to plan, and the director of the program there gave me a very big Hi Five. But then the budget went flat and I haven't heard a word since. Obviously, UC Merced hasn't got the dough they anticipated having two years ago. I was told that the kind of student they anticipated going to UC Merced was someone from the first-generation in their family getting a degree. One co-ed I know who goes there is a Palin Jesus-freak Republican, so the idea that UC Merced is a campus for the Central Valley right-wing crowd doesn't seem too far off base. Don't know any Latino Democrats who go there, but that sounds probable too.
Sure would be nice to live in Mariposa, teach in Merced, and spend the weekends in the Valley and/or Tuolumne Meadows. Wait and see! But where's the money going to come from? Ask Governor Brown.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Stanford education department proposed me for a teaching position at UC Merced last December. Everything went according to plan, and the director of the program there gave me a very big Hi Five. But then the budget went flat and I haven't heard a word since
One of my students signed a contract for a sabbatical replacement position. he then turned down several other offers.
he arrived at merced and was told, first day, that they had to cancel his contract because of budget cuts. they didn't have the dough. he'd burnt his bridges, so spent the year commuting between merced and the bay for part-time at various different colleges, earning somewhere in the range of minimum wage.
at high traverse-- i'm all for opening prestige, elite public research universities in low-income peripheral areas, so long as there is a structural mechanism for actually funding those institutions. but there wasn't one for merced (or even palm desert), except from taking money out of the other ucs at a time when they're already getting cut.
given california's well-known structural budget problems, the economically rational thing to do would've been to put half that money into the merced jc district and put the rest back into the competitive campuses that are on the edge of losing their elite status.
but uc merced, too, was part of that valley housing bubble, and a handful of folks (including, not coincidentally, ultra-wealthy and connected members of the donor community), made some dough.
we face the same problems with trying to rationalize the cal state system. we can't simply make the cal states go back to their core mission of undergrad ed, give up their advanced degree programs and research programs, because the cal states that do the most research-oriented work are also those in the most republican donor and electoral districts: fresno, san diego, northridge.
i do like the idea of having a cal state that also does research in fresno. but we no longer have the electoral support to fund that sort of project. the prospect of high-tech or at least ag-biotech transformations of the valley economy thus look a lot farther off than they did just 20 years ago, despite the fact there we now have a uc merced.
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Gene
climber
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UC Merced: Cost $500,000,000+ to date. Enrollment 4,500
From UCM website:
Consistent with our sister campus such as UCLA and UC Berkeley,...
The accepted plural of campus is campuses. Sibling is a better word than sister. Poor use of consistent. Our education $$$ at work.
Bad deal anyway you look at it.
Gene
Proud CSU, Stanislaus graduate
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wildone
climber
Troy, MT
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I saw this article and thought about posting it here but passed on it. Anyway, Merced can't be that bad. It produced Ron Jeremy!
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Josh Nash
Social climber
riverbank ca
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What's up with that?? I woulda thought that being close to the Valley should count for something.
At $20.00 no one in merced can afford to get in.....
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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I did a lot of riding Greyhound buses as a kid. The view you get of a town from that perspective is pretty skewed in an unflattering direction.
I am very interested to hear more about UC Merced and it's future. Are we just hearing alarmist cries from folks who don't have patience for a large university to take root and mature?
If I was a student on the low end of the qualifying scores for a University of California school and Merced was the only option, that would still be academically better than any Cal State University (at least in terms of my ability to get into grad school, or how it would look on my resume... I'll sidestep the issue of teaching quality).
From the community planning perspective, it seems like a good long-term plan to skew the demographics with out-of-area students and professors and support staff. Maybe a plan for a CSU or a vocational school to lift the existing residents is another idea, but going for a UC school is like making a leapfrog to revitalize the community such as the transformation of Pasadena's seedy down-town with bums and abandoned factories into a hip young eating and entertainment place.
So I ask, what's really wrong with Merced for a UC school? Can you point to specific issues that are real risks for its future more than any other UC school?
I ask because my future may intersect with this place, and I want to know the real scoop.
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caughtinside
Social climber
Davis, CA
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I certainly don't have an inside scoop on higher ed in CA, but I thought UC Merced was a good idea. The UC has (d) a mandate to accept and educate the top 10% (I think?) of CA HS grads. It needed a new campus to accomodate those students, even as the other campuses grew.
UC Davis was the only UC in the Central Valley, and a lot of people live in the Central Valley. I think there was a huge land donation as well.
Anyway, the economy hit the shitter and it's suffering like everything else, really doesn't seem like the disaster some make it out to be in my opinion.
Regarding educating rednecks and jesus freaks... I thought at least some of you guys would be in favor of that.
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Gene
climber
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I ask because my future may intersect with this place, and I want to know the real scoop.
Depends. For a student, I think it would suck. Remote - you almost have to own a car to get to the nearest six-pack selling place. Boring town for someone just out of high school. For an employee/support person/prof, probably not too bad, assuming you get paid. Cheap housing. Bad air quality. Close to Yosemite. You can get to the coast in a couple of hours. Not urban. Quiet and low key. Depends on what you do at UCM.
g
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Lennox
climber
just southwest of the center of the universe
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Merced is in the central valley. You have fog in the winter and blistering heat in the summer--throughout the central valley. You have meth and right wing wack jobs--throughout the central valley.
But there's also more to it than you see driving the 140 or 99. Merced has more trees than other central valley towns; it's been a Tree City USA for 29 years. It has an extensive bike path system along its creeks. It has an excellent brand new hospital.
There is poverty and misery in Merced, but some people are going to be miserable, or happy, regardless of where they live.
UC Merced just had its first graduating class in '09 when Michelle Obama spoke at the commencement. It's a beautiful campus that is expected to grow to 25,000 students eventually. In order to get approval to build the campus, huge swaths of surrounding pasture were required to remain undeveloped to preserve the vernal pool systems. Central valley kids who were otherwise academically qualified, have historically been hugely underrepresented in the UC system. Now they have one closer to home, which is important to many high school seniors.
Property values are down to more realistic levels. Many speculators came from the bay area, where they were used to bidding up the asking prices of homes there, and they bought houses that they rented and intended to sell for a profit in a couple years, driving prices up in Merced. Merced has a lot of long-term potential, but people were willing to pay prices for a home in a Merced that won't exist for another 15-20 years.
I've lived in Merced for 34 of my 46 years. I have dirt roads and canal embankments where I run. The paved bike path across the street from my house connects with over 30 miles and hundreds of acres of grassy, tree covered creekside maintained by Merced Parks and Recreation. The RN program I just graduated from is recognized as one of the toughest and best community college ADN programs anywhere.
One thing I liked during the spring or fall, was that when I'd had a hard day as a high school teacher, I could just drive up to Yosemite for a couple hours of soloing and bouldering after work. This past Sunday I had a late breakfast, read part of the paper, drove to Yosemite, climbed Nutcracker (we had it to ourselves), and drove home before dark for an early dinner.
I'm happy enough here.
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Scott Thelen
Trad climber
Truckee, Ca
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Good Meth and whores :-/
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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i think stockton is the nicest city in the state. they got boats that come up there from the ocean--cool! don't believe this stuff. we sent schwarzo back to austria where he belongs. he won't be back.
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WBraun
climber
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I live in an even more miserable place.
I'm surrounded by fuking walls all around.
It's a prison and you have to climb to get the fuk out of .... :-)
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Gene
climber
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Shut up Werner or will take your bread and water away from you. Back into your cage!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
sorry, just posting out loud.
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time to buy a new home in terlit, CA
interesting take on the UC klk, thx
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nutjob
Trad climber
Berkeley, CA
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Thanks all for perspectives... my interest is this:
1) For the next 10 years, I need to live as close to silicon valley as I can to be close to my kids
2) My lady is toward the end of a postdoc, good publications, looking for a PI/professor job. There are only a handful of places in the SF bay area that fit the bill.
Within these constraints, UC Merced is a distinct possibility. Of course, I'd console myself with proximity to Yosemite!
This won't shake out for the next 1-2 years, but it's definitely on the radar. Is there a google gadget for checking the meth index in Merced?
Thanks the most to Lennox for sharing the bright sides :)
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Gene
climber
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What Dingus said. Bay Area salary in the Central Valley goes very far.
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Cpt0bvi0u5
Trad climber
Merced CA
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THEN... in their magnificence, the UC system thought it would be a good idea to open a new campus in Merced. That effort has been a sad failure and illustrates nicely the leadership and management qualities the UC Board of Regents brings to bear.
As a UC Merced student DMT i would have to disagree with you. I wouldn't say that the effort has been a failure in the least bit. Yes the regents have put a lot of money into the campus but enrollment is rising, and the staff is top notch. It's not cheap to build a University but I have seen the campus and the town rapidly expand. In 10-15 years time Merced is going to be the place to be in the Central Valley and it will definitely be one of the better UC campuses.
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Gene
climber
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Cpt0bvi0u5,
Hope your prediction comes true. But isn't UCM rather remote and isolated if you don't have a car? Does the campus offer enough to keep resident students occupied and not bored?
When are we going cimbing, Cpt? We had a great weekend. Missed you. Keep in touch. K?
Gene
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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I always liked the name Merced. It sounds much nicer than say Stockton, Fresno or Sacramento, or even Bakersfield. A nice ring to it.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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I've done a bit of sight seeing in Merced and Modesto, as DMT suggests. They remind me of towns on the prairies, originally centered around the railway. But still quite nice. I don't think I'd like the flatness and the heat, but undoubtedly they have their attractions.
I make no claims to jumping trains, or otherwise, on these excursions, but have been to the modern train stations in both towns. jstan likes to frequent such places.
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j-tree
Big Wall climber
bay area, ca
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@krahmes
Vallejo is part of the San Joaquin Valley?
that being said, as someone who grew up in Vallejo, it is a piss poor miserable place. The elementary school i went to has shut down. The Junior High school i went to has shut down and the High school i went to has shut down. Eeek.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Krahmes writes:
"Forbes 20 most miserable cities:
1. Stockton
3. Merced
4. Modesto
5. Sacramento
9. Vallejo
17. Fresno
18. Salinas
20. Bakersfield
Forbes hates the San Joaquin Valley."
Those are all Prison Towns, which could account for their high misery standing.
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aguacaliente
climber
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klk sez:
i do like the idea of having a cal state that also does research in fresno. but we no longer have the electoral support to fund that sort of project. the prospect of high-tech or at least ag-biotech transformations of the valley economy thus look a lot farther off than they did just 20 years ago, despite the fact there we now have a uc merced.
The critical part of this is, I think, "we no longer have the electoral support to fund that sort of project." There is no lack of talented people who can teach and do research at a Cal State or a UC Merced, and there is no lack of students who want to go to a Cal State or a UC. I also don't think that getting rid of research helps, because it attracts good faculty and increasingly, the good undergrad colleges want their faculty to involve undergrads in research. I don't think Cal State students should be ruled out of having that experience just because they went to Cal State instead of say Reed.
The problem is that tuition isn't enough to pay the full cost of even a no-frills undergrad education, and states, all of them, not just California, have been cut cut cutting their contributions to education. Because if you cut education, the consequences don't show up until many years later, unlike cutting roads or prisons. I think this is a terrible trend, but I am biased.
Anyway I have a hard time believing this rank reflects anything other than realtor propaganda. Merced is still in California. There are a lot of towns in other states where the property values are nice, stable, and low because no one wants to live there any more.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Dingy..I was baptized at St. Stannies.......Modesto use to be a nice place to live...Pete Rose played minor league ball there....There are some nice old homes on Yosemite avenue...The stadium is named after my uncle...Now there is more barbed wire and crime...The county seat of inyo county is co-dependence...peace out....
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FRUMY
Trad climber
SHERMAN OAKS,CA
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Man they have never been to Trona. Merced is like heaven next to Trona.
UC Trona that's the ticket.
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Robb
Social climber
The other "Magic City on the Plains"
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RJ,
Your uncle was Del Rose?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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So I ask, what's really wrong with Merced for a UC school? Can you point to specific issues that are real risks for its future more than any other UC school?
There isn't any money. That's my one and only objection. Although, if you were using demographic reasons as your primary rationale, Palm Desert would be a better choice because of population density.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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In 10-15 years time Merced is going to be the place to be in the Central Valley and it will definitely be one of the better UC campuses.
Look, I actually like Merced, I think you could live in an awesome part of the foothills and be an easy commute to campus, and I am all in favor of having campuses that could better accommodate the sort of folks who don't usually get to go to college let alone a research university.
And the folks working at Merced have done an incredible job of taking on way too much teaching even while they've been smart about trying to get the campus to specialize in the sorts of research niches in which it could hope to compete. One of my former students is on the faculty. I have other friends and acquaintances there.
But there is no money in the state budget for the UC system. The UC system has a budget of over $20 billion a year. It costs $5 billion a year to pay the utilities, base salaries of permanent faculty, have the trash hauled away, and generally keep the lights on. Only$2.9 billion of that comes from the state, and there's going to be less coming each and every year. Most of the budget is actually money the UC pulls in from competitive grants and donors. But none of that money can be used to keep the lights on or pay permanent salaries. That means that the system is screwed, absolutely screwed. Each new campus means less money for the system. We are not going to have-- we do not currently have --10 elite research universities.
Honestly, it was a pipe dream to think that any state, anywhere, could hope to support 10 elite, public research universities. It might be possible to run 3. More likely, we are going to slash all of them and the most competitive three-- Berkeley, UCLA, and San Diego --will drop out of the top-tier of world research universities. They will be the last public universities to drop out of that tier, and what will be left behind will be a top tier of Harvards, Princetons, and MITs.
SO as much as it hurts me to say this (and as much as it will anger some of my colleagues in Merced), I believe that it was a bad mistake to dilute scarce resources by opening another campus.
Nutjob, so far as post-docs go, well, most of them are from 1-3 years, so it wouldn't be likely to be permanent. None of us has a clue what the future hiring is going to look like or even if there will be a UC "system" in ten years.
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roadman
climber
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I can not believe that list! Those towns are no where near the worst. I can name many east of the Mississippi!!!! that are much worse. However, I have had a few run ins with crazy meth heads in the central valley.
One night I was sleeping in my van in Modesto and some crazy meth heads started pounding on the windows and running around it. I woke up grabed my ice axe and went out to knock the sh#t out of them ( i was young and dumb, goes without saying) I jump out wave it around chase them off and jump back in and drive off.
I've had a few experiences like this in most of the towns on that list. I never really gave a sh#t where i was when it came time to sleep I went to bed.
I loved being in those towns, just something wonderful about that part of the earth I love the way the sunrise and set look from the CV. The heat even felt right there? The oaks and grasses and vernal pools so much interesting stuff. Hell salmon swim up at knights ferry! That's cool sh#t that don't happen in many places any more. I may be strange though, I've always felt more at home with crazies? I have to say that most of you are truly jaded! It's a great part of the world to live. Better to be 2 hours from heaven even if you're sitting in hell!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Robb....J. Thurman...
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martygarrison
Trad climber
Washington DC
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Dingus you forgot to mention the central valley has some really bad air pollution these days. Grew up there so it still feels like home, but I would never want to live there after moving away 20 years ago.
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Gene
climber
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An odd thing - if you look at a map of Modesto the town is skewed/
SNIP
The older downtown is parallel and perpendicular to the rail line, which does not run true north but rather follows the valley. Then at some point city officials decided to alter their plan. And hence forth all streets were compass aligned.
I had a hard time getting used to it, lol. Modesto has a twisted core.
Dingus,
Skewed cores are the rule rather than the exception in the Central Valley. I can't think of a town from Fresno to Modesto that was not originally laid out on the catawampus.
g
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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This link was emailed to me (I don't get my news here, BTW) but I thought it an interesting read- related to this topic:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/255320/two-californias-victor-davis-hanson?page=1
Here is the text I copied below. The 1st half deals mostly with Central Valley, then he rambles on about illegal immigration for the 2nd half.
Two Californias
Abandoned farms, Third World living conditions, pervasive public assistance -- welcome to the once-thriving Central Valley.
The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California. I wanted to witness, even if superficially, what is happening to a state that has the highest sales and income taxes, the most lavish entitlements, the near-worst public schools (based on federal test scores), and the largest number of illegal aliens in the nation, along with an overregulated private sector, a stagnant and shrinking manufacturing base, and an elite environmental ethos that restricts commerce and productivity without curbing consumption.
During this unscientific experiment, three times a week I rode a bike on a 20-mile trip over various rural roads in southwestern Fresno County. I also drove my car over to the coast to work, on various routes through towns like San Joaquin, Mendota, and Firebaugh. And near my home I have been driving, shopping, and touring by intent the rather segregated and impoverished areas of Caruthers, Fowler, Laton, Orange Cove, Parlier, and Selma. My own farmhouse is now in an area of abject poverty and almost no ethnic diversity; the closest elementary school (my alma mater, two miles away) is 94 percent Hispanic and 1 percent white, and well below federal testing norms in math and English.
Here are some general observations about what I saw (other than that the rural roads of California are fast turning into rubble, poorly maintained and reverting to what I remember seeing long ago in the rural South). First, remember that these areas are the ground zero, so to speak, of 20 years of illegal immigration. There has been a general depression in farming — to such an extent that the 20- to-100-acre tree and vine farmer, the erstwhile backbone of the old rural California, for all practical purposes has ceased to exist.
On the western side of the Central Valley, the effects of arbitrary cutoffs in federal irrigation water have idled tens of thousands of acres of prime agricultural land, leaving thousands unemployed. Manufacturing plants in the towns in these areas — which used to make harvesters, hydraulic lifts, trailers, food-processing equipment — have largely shut down; their production has been shipped off overseas or south of the border. Agriculture itself — from almonds to raisins — has increasingly become corporatized and mechanized, cutting by half the number of farm workers needed. So unemployment runs somewhere between 15 and 20 percent.
Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business — rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections — but apparently none of that applies out here.
It is almost as if the more California regulates, the more it does not regulate. Its public employees prefer to go after misdemeanors in the upscale areas to justify our expensive oversight industry, while ignoring the felonies in the downtrodden areas, which are becoming feral and beyond the ability of any inspector to do anything but feel irrelevant. But in the regulators’ defense, where would one get the money to redo an ad hoc trailer park with a spider web of illegal bare wires?
Many of the rented-out rural shacks and stationary Winnebagos are on former small farms — the vineyards overgrown with weeds, or torn out with the ground lying fallow. I pass on the cultural consequences to communities from the loss of thousands of small farming families. I don’t think I can remember another time when so many acres in the eastern part of the valley have gone out of production, even though farm prices have recently rebounded. Apparently it is simply not worth the gamble of investing $7,000 to $10,000 an acre in a new orchard or vineyard. What an anomaly — with suddenly soaring farm prices, still we have thousands of acres in the world’s richest agricultural belt, with available water on the east side of the valley and plentiful labor, gone idle or in disuse. Is credit frozen? Are there simply no more farmers? Are the schools so bad as to scare away potential agricultural entrepreneurs? Or are we all terrified by the national debt and uncertain future?
California coastal elites may worry about the oxygen content of water available to a three-inch smelt in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, but they seem to have no interest in the epidemic dumping of trash, furniture, and often toxic substances throughout California’s rural hinterland. Yesterday, for example, I rode my bike by a stopped van just as the occupants tossed seven plastic bags of raw refuse onto the side of the road. I rode up near their bumper and said in my broken Spanish not to throw garbage onto the public road. But there were three of them, and one of me. So I was lucky to be sworn at only. I note in passing that I would not drive into Mexico and, as a guest, dare to pull over and throw seven bags of trash into the environment of my host.
In fact, trash piles are commonplace out here — composed of everything from half-empty paint cans and children’s plastic toys to diapers and moldy food. I have never seen a rural sheriff cite a litterer, or witnessed state EPA workers cleaning up these unauthorized wastelands. So I would suggest to Bay Area scientists that the environment is taking a much harder beating down here in central California than it is in the Delta. Perhaps before we cut off more irrigation water to the west side of the valley, we might invest some green dollars into cleaning up the unsightly and sometimes dangerous garbage that now litters the outskirts of our rural communities.
We hear about the tough small-business regulations that have driven residents out of the state, at the rate of 2,000 to 3,000 a week. But from my unscientific observations these past weeks, it seems rather easy to open a small business in California without any oversight at all, or at least what I might call a “counter business.” I counted eleven mobile hot-kitchen trucks that simply park by the side of the road, spread about some plastic chairs, pull down a tarp canopy, and, presto, become mini-restaurants. There are no “facilities” such as toilets or washrooms. But I do frequently see lard trails on the isolated roads I bike on, where trucks apparently have simply opened their draining tanks and sped on, leaving a slick of cooking fats and oils. Crows and ground squirrels love them; they can be seen from a distance mysteriously occupied in the middle of the road.
At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.
In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.
By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don’t editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?
Do diversity concerns, as in lack of diversity, work both ways? Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic — there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites. We may speak of the richness of “diversity,” but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid societies, where Spanish is the first language, the schools are not at all diverse, and the federal and state governments are either the main employers or at least the chief sources of income — whether through emergency rooms, rural health clinics, public schools, or social-service offices. An observer from Mars might conclude that our elites and masses have given up on the ideal of integration and assimilation, perhaps in the wake of the arrival of 11 to 15 million illegal aliens.
Again, I do not editorialize, but I note these vast transformations over the last 20 years that are the paradoxical wages of unchecked illegal immigration from Mexico, a vast expansion of California’s entitlements and taxes, the flight of the upper middle class out of state, the deliberate effort not to tap natural resources, the downsizing in manufacturing and agriculture, and the departure of whites, blacks, and Asians from many of these small towns to more racially diverse and upscale areas of California.
Fresno’s California State University campus is embroiled in controversy over the student body president’s announcing that he is an illegal alien, with all the requisite protests in favor of the DREAM Act. I won’t comment on the legislation per se, but again only note the anomaly. I taught at CSUF for 21 years. I think it fair to say that the predominant theme of the Chicano and Latin American Studies program’s sizable curriculum was a fuzzy American culpability. By that I mean that students in those classes heard of the sins of America more often than its attractions. In my home town, Mexican flag decals on car windows are far more common than their American counterparts.
I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.
So there is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, “Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate.” I think the DREAM Act protestors might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?
I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed “indifferent.” California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant — no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California’s burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd — to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta — that California is at once both the nation’s most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.
Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California — and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder.
— NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the editor of Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, and the author of The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern.
end of article
Ironically, today I ate lunch at a crossroads roach coach. While eating my yummy burrito, I bought a used construction harness for $10 from a guy with a flea-market-like spread of tools, gas powered weed wackers, and other junk. I work in rural San Benito County which though not technically in the Central Valley, is similar in certain ways. And yes, out of the 30 or so people at the crossroads I was the only "non-hispanic" in the bunch. Although, depending on how you define hispanic, everyone there was hispanic (I count as 1/4 or 1/2 hispanic depending on your methodology)!
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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this is like a lot of hanson's journalism-- occasional pithy and even insightful asides, punctuated by great barren sweeps of demagogic rambling.
there's lots of great non-fiction writing on the central valley. if you need to read someone with conservative politics, the young joan didion's work is still really powerful. slouching toward bethlehem and white album have bits. her modesto/merced piece is a bit shallow, but it's still fun. ("water, wealth, contentment, health.)
i really like gerry haslam's essays on bakersfield and the delta, especially his little bits on weightlifting in the fifties and other weird bits of valley americana in voices of a place.
hanson was a fun story, a local redneck who got just enough training in greek to claw his way into some of the less competitive circles of his trade, and i still like to read some of his stuff on agrarianism in antiquity.
but at some point he decided he wanted to be a rock star so he started doing this sort of stuff.
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aguacaliente
climber
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Quote from Hanson:
We may speak of the richness of “diversity,” but those who cherish that ideal simply have no idea that there are now countless inland communities that have become near-apartheid societies,
That's just ridiculous. Apartheid was vile. It was a nation depriving the majority of its citizens of the most basic civil rights by law and by force. Comparing that to Central Valley towns/neighborhoods that are majority Hispanic is hysteria.
I know I'm picking on just one sentence, but you know, language is important. If you use a sharp tool indiscriminately it becomes blunt and useless.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Apr 23, 2012 - 09:17am PT
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"I don't care what graphs exist nor what anyone says..
-WBraun
I am sleepless in Merced. You people have ripped us just because some journalists got together and compared notes? Where is the love? But then I'm not supposed to care...
Merced, where my family's been since 1961, followed Sacto and Redding as our home. We all graduated from good schools. We were raised in a good place to raise kids. Tijuana natives envy us in that we have no hos, or is it "hoes" roaming the streets like in lower Berkeley. The air in the summer used to smell like tomatoes, Gene, until they closed down a plant (l24 regular jobs, 228 seasonal jobs lost in December of 2005) that had been making paste for Ragu and Bertoli. I did seasonal work next door making the steel drums to keep the paste. It took years to be given full-time work there, and I stayed ten. Until I started my run of late attendance. I did meth like many other fools. I lost the habit. I'm not proud. I straightened myself out. I made Liz proud when I got a piece of paper that said I ought to know more history than others. I do and I was a good seller of books after that. Merced will be heaven when pigs fly. Speaking of pigs, Ron Jeremy? That one was below the belt, man.
Yosemite is not next door. It's a good two hour drive for most. My personal best was one hour 36 minutes in DORF. Up hill. To Merced, chop ten off that. I am much more attuned to the sad state of the air in the valley than I was even twenty years ago. I have ridden bicycles since I was in the East Bay . My carbon footprint has been fading ever since. It is a place, like all the valley towns, congenial to biking. Saroyan did it in Fresno, famously. I am slowing down considerably at nearly 63. I can take buses anyplace. I prefer the air in the foothills, but live here, not there. Morris the Bruce, I hope you remember this, dreaming of regular drives between Mariposa and Merced, and I remember it being painted on embankments leading into Berkeley from the Caldecott:
COMMUTERS SUCK
I could rave on, but the dawn is here, air is full of atmosphere and it looks like a nice time to take a cup o joe to the fifth floor fire escape to watch the old boy rise over the Clark Range. That's right. The Obelisk. My talisman. Where I beg my mourners to scatter my ashes. But not on the peak. I like the beach of alpine sand lying at the base. If you have been there you know how beautiful it is.
Where we all would like to live is someplace where we are relatively happy.
Werner, it's not a life sentence, man. I'll be up to see you next month, say the 5th. Orders from the DA. I'm so looking forward to seeing Positively Fourth Street again and the Nutty Buddy.
Graphs? Ratings? Age? Just numbers.
Really, Ron Jeremy? You are sure?
Then I will see that and f*#king raise you: Janet Leigh and Glen Denny.
Okay, he lived in Delhi. But Mark Tuttle is our boy, too. Hi Tailor-Boy...
visit his shop and support OUR local climbers!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 10:20am PT
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What's new in Merced?
After diligent research on Willie-pedia, the claim that Ron Jeremy is from Merced is patently false, Wiki-wise.
However, today's Merced Sun-Stroke, reporting on UC Merced students and their projects, mentions that they "were judged by a six-member panel that included former rapper MC Hammer, who sits on the university's Board of Trustees....Hammer said the ideas from the students would either have an entrepreneurial or consumer benefit. 'It's a fundamental part of moving from creating a product to a company'," Hammer said, adding that all the teams were "winning" teams.
Charlie Sheen had no comment, could not be located, in fact. When asked if he perhaps had an idea where Mr. Sheen might be, Hammer just said, "I am not touching that." No more comments were recorded.
The BIG Annual DEALIE, and the first I have heard of it, Mercy Med. Center is holding a 5k Stroke Awareness Run and Family Festival.
The date is May 12. Saturday.
The location is Mercy Avenue and G Street, Merced (across from Mercy).
Event schedule:
Family Festival 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
5k Race starts at 8;30 a.m.
Health Fair 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Register online at www.supportmercymerced.org
Telephone 209-564-4200
The Merced County Courthouse Museum will be open Sat. and Sun. from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. It is free and docent tours are provided.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 10, 2012 - 10:53am PT
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Whooee..the Golden State is 8 for 20, any baseball player would be happy with that average.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 11:41am PT
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We have learned to take what we get and turn it to our advantage. Like when they sent the Americans. Then the Okies. Then the Mexicans. We even learned how to use the left-handed bats they sent us from Colorado because they mis-understood the rules about switch-hitting. Had nothing to do with gay marriage. And 8 for twenty, better known as .400, has a certain shine, I admit.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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May 10, 2012 - 12:04pm PT
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"Forbes 20 most miserable cities:
1. Stockton
3. Merced
4. Modesto
5. Sacramento
9. Vallejo
17. Fresno
18. Salinas
20. Bakersfield
Those places may suck compared to other nice places in the state but I can't help but thing how much more suckage there is in many of the heartland (maybe better gutland) states where there's no ocean or mountains nearby and it gets below zero in the winter
peace
Karl
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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May 10, 2012 - 02:53pm PT
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"So Merced and Atw#ter in particular have had a lower income strata even when compared to other similar central valley ag towns."
Yes, those second gen military families have kids, which makes Merced and Atw#ter ideal recruiting grounds for pimps, who need to find blue-eyed blond 18 year olds to bring to LA and the Bay Area to sell to white businessmen. Since there is no economic future for them in the Central Valley, it's easy to lure them with promises of big money and an easy, lazy, party life-style.
Viva Merced! "Hi Honey! Leroy's the name. Pimpin's my game! You'll never need anything as long as you stick with me: Nice clothes, fancy cars, jewelry, good drugs!"
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bergbryce
Mountain climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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May 10, 2012 - 02:59pm PT
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I'd take any of those California cities over anything between the Gulf of Mexico, Hudson Bay, the Front Range of the Rockies and west of Vermont.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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May 10, 2012 - 03:08pm PT
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Stockton #1
Modesto #4
Sacramento #5
Fresno's all the way down at #17
Think land rush and mortgage bust along with a good dose of Republican lawmakers in those towns.
Actually, High Traverse, most of them have a lot of Blue Dog Democrats and way too few Republicans. Those areas represented by Republicans do quite well, although I suspect the correlation is in the reverse direction.
The criticisms some far given to Davis Hanson (the family has always used both last names) don't jive for me. As someone whose spent 47 of his sixty years living in the Valley, that de facto apartheid is all too real.
Finally, the criticisms of UC Merced really belong with the legislature. The San Joaquin Valley has been particularly ill-served by the UC system (except for their excellent agricultural field offices), and a UC campus in an area with millions of residents was long overdue. Unfortunately, our legislature and governor are busy pursuing pipe dreams like high speed rail, without any concept of opportunity cost.
John
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 03:20pm PT
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So Bruce, or is it leRoy,
I can't hellp it if you gotta be mean, but try pulling my other leg with your troll or rant. My goat is not that gullible. He was raised by an old Basque whose momma was a whore. His name is Billy disbeliever. He will make your day the third most miserable on record if you don't fall back in the Cleveland gutter (RIGHT ON KARL)and think up some more lies about Merced, prosties and Irish Setters (I can hear your wheels turning, bigot.)
edit--
for the sake of LilaBiene, it sometimes occurs that the brotherhood erupts in violence. Ignore it. It is not totally harmless, but far less blood is spilt here than ever there was at Stoneman Meadow or Chicago. The Romans could tell you.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 10, 2012 - 03:22pm PT
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Buck up Merced! I did a road trip a couple of months ago and I have to say the towns around the Salton Sea have you beat to hell in the miserable category.
Please don't take this wrong, I'm not saying you don't deserve a high position in the poll.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 03:29pm PT
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You don't know how much better I feel now you remind me there is not a whiff of rotting fish, is there? But I think they are gonna close down the garlic shed. (It's actually a robust, healthy smell, which you allll are gonna lose out on by living in Cleveland and Coloradososo.
Buncha looser curmudgeons....
[Aside] What would Dolt do, Mouse, or Dobrynin, or Mick Dolenz. Doh, stupid Doninini, he's as gullible as Flanders, yet right about Merced. But it's obvious he has a lot to learn. It's not cool to tear his entire state apart, therein is the challenge. Maybe, since I've never been there, I oughta just forget the little schtick and say I wanna visit the Rockies but nobody's ever invited me since Millis harangued me about that. Best way to get to know something or someone, I dunno, but visiting is a start. Maybe Merced won't seem so worth defending just cuz I happened to fall here from the tree. It coulda been TJ. Eh, manana...
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Enty
Trad climber
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May 10, 2012 - 03:32pm PT
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How can a town with Maria's Mexican Kitchen be ranked as 3rd most "miserable" city in US?????
Confused.
E
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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May 10, 2012 - 03:32pm PT
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Just trying to brighten your day. Hop out to the Creek, my wife and I are headed there tonight.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 10, 2012 - 03:49pm PT
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Thanks. I was planning on going to the Mission for a free meal and if my luck held I thought I could get that beagle to lick my sores some more.
Eloi, eloi, labacthana.
edit: Enty, I ate at Cruz n Willies place at the end of the road in or near Mariposa. Maria couldn't find a match to light that candle of comparison. And that's 40 years of Mexican food talking, since. Lotta beans, like Donini.
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