RED-LIGHT CAMERAS ALL OVER THE CITY--MAY BE A BAD IDEA
The City Council is going to vote tonight on whether to install red-light cameras at Harbor/Gisler; Harbor/South Coast Drive; Victoria/Placentia and Harbor/Baker.
We can't speak to most of the locations in detail, but the Harbor/Baker location may be a bad location for a red-light camera.
We won't belabor this, but at the Harbor/Baker location it might be better to lengthen the time of the yellow light where there are left turn arrows and stop allowing U-turns.
Harbor/Baker is a minor Chinese fire drill with fast yellow lights on the green arrows and a jumble of movement of cars and pedestrians in a driver's field of vision, so we can see why the city wants to do something. However, the something that is done should be carefully thought out.
What happens at Harbor/Baker is:
1. Drivers heading west who attempt to turn south on Harbor often get stuck behind large slow moving trucks turning on green arrows, and often can't see the green arrow change to yellow because the light is blocked by the trucks. These drivers then get stuck in the middle of the intersection as opposing traffic starts moving toward them.
You'll usually see three or four cars caught in the middle of the Harbor/Baker intersection this way. And, for the most part, these aren't drivers speeding up to rush through the yellow light. They are drivers caught behind trucks who can't tell the light has changed.
2. Also, because U-turns are allowed at this intersection, a driver wanting to legally turn right on red almost develops tennis neck trying to figure out which cars are going to be coming his or her way.
If the red-light goes in at this Harbor/Baker intersection, there may be a lot of red-light citations issued that won't be just.
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SLUM NEWS--GRAFFITI
There's more gang graffiti this morning in the Fillmore-Coolidge slum.
We won't say exactly where it is because we want Stepford People to see it and wake up to the problem we have in this city.
"Look at that Harry; graffiti in our neighborhood. Who'd a thunk it? Now that we've seen this graffiti, we're starting to wake up to reality. Maybe we should start asking the City Council some hard questions about gangs and crime and failing schools and why they're letting Costa Mesa become a sanctuary city for illegal aliens."
Okay, we'll give you a couple of clues about the location of this graffiti. It's about 50 feet south of the two abandoned shopping carts sitting on the parkway, and 15 feet east of the piles of food wrappers in the gutter. Want another clue? It's about 200 feet from where a man was killed in a gang shooting about two years ago.
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MORE STALKER NEWS
The difference between sanity and mental illness is often a matter of degree.
For example, disciplining a child for, say, playing with matches, is the correct thing for parents to do for the child's own safety. That's what sane people do.
However, seriously injuring the child for playing with matches is not the correct thing to do. That's what a mentally ill person might do.
Turn now to stalkers.
Stalkers are often categorized as being neurotic (mild mental illness) or psychotic (serious mental illness).
The classic and easy way to remember the difference between a neurotic and a psychotic is found in the saying that a neurotic dreams of gingerbread houses but a psychotic lives in them.
It's fairly normal to have a mild interest in movie stars, for example, but when the interest crosses the line into obsession and fixation, it's a mental illness.
Here's a good quick-read about celebrity stalkers and their famous victims. You might find this interesting. LINK
Of course, not all stalkers are celebrity stalkers. There are many of these mentally ill stalkers who stalk ordinary people.
Stalkers, no matter how mentally ill they are, will often function in society such that, except for their obsession and fixation with another individual, they are difficult for most people to spot.
Could you know a stalker?
If you know someone who seems to be obsessed and fixated on some other individual such that the obsessed person can barely say or write a few sentences without mentioning this other person, you may have discovered a stalker or one or more of his dupes.
And, if you have spotted such a stalker, you can be pretty sure that when the stalker is in private, he may be making harassing phone calls, sending threatening letters, and doing all the things that these whack jobs do.
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WRITE IN CANDIDATE
Oh, when you vote today, and if you don't know who to vote for, you can always write in the name Martin H. Millard for the Republican Central Committee or for Member of the State Assembly--68th District.
Actually, I should be careful in suggesting that. I once won an election for a film/actors union on a similar basis. After I won, I didn't know what to do.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
