Walked the pup this morning on her first (early) sniff-&-squirt adventure of the day; she’s a husky, so her ‘walkies’ are more like Iditarod practice mushing sessions. At 17+ years, however, she’s slowing down a bit, and this first excursion of her day is around two miles, the first half-mile or so of it requires walking on the narrow sidewalk verge of a major, four-lane East-to-West artery that links one main Suckatomato state highway (State 99) to the major Interstate (I-5).

At our end, which is two blocks from its western link-up, this street runs past a primary school (grades 1-6), which is abutted by a high school. Posted speed limits are 35 mph (and 25 mph ‘when children are present’). Good luck with that, of course, in a state where the feeble-minded think ‘slow’ is for geezers and snow-flakes.

I use a sturdy pair of earplugs (commercial Jetliner ground-crew grade) that aren’t really visible to passers-by, out of necessity, since the road-noise of high-speed local traffic experienced from a mere three feet away on an adjacent sidewalk is ferociously annoying to an extreme. Recently, huge semi-truck/trailer rigs have discovered that this handy neighborhood bypass from 99 to I-5 is NOT closed to commercial transport traffic, so the cacophony only gets louder and louder.

Pup is nearly deaf at 17+ years, lucky her; not so me, unfortunately. The noise I refer to is the equivalent of standing under the final approach glide path of commercial jet traffic on a main runway, at an international airport and to add to the fun, we also have a helicopter training school less than 3 miles away (at the smaller, nearby ‘Executive Airport’), which uses noisy old, retired Huey UH-1B choppers (more high-intensity noise intrusion) to train rotary-wing pilots. In short, Noise City! [No wonder the VC always knew when the Americans were about to make a surprise visit to their rice paddies!]

Although I’m an old ‘straight-wing’ aviation guy, I harbor an intense dislike for these noisy old whirligig things flown by student pilots and believe me, if I had a twin-50 at hand, I’d blow a few out of the skies as part of my endless campaign to promote urban noise abatement (starting with gasoline-powered leaf blowers, that are standard equipment for thousands of Hispanic lawn maintenance start-ups that flourish across the city). The only time I approve of noisy whirly-birds is when they are flying vital SAR (Search and Rescue) missions, retrieving downed aircrews, disaster missions flown by ‘Coasties’ (the US Coast Guard), or retrieving post-reentry spacecraft. But having an egg-beater flight training school overhead, day-in and day-out, is a sore pain in the nether extremity, even for us ‘junior birdmen!’

But these are the daily annoyances suffered by lots of us, who all too well knows that the average knee-jerk, dip-shit lower–class male thinks excessive noise-making is a manly declaration of his macho studliness (the feminists’ favorite term for this is ‘toxic masculinity’, of course, which ironically showcases feminists’ failure to acknowledge the excessive, Harpy-like clamor of their own shrill soprano voices raised to the heavens at their favorite left-wing progressive protests, etc.). Be that last point as it may, case in point follows.

So-called ‘Car Culture’, or the adulation and worship of automobile technology (read: speed), is a California original. Car Culture began in Californica (sic), back in the early pre-war (WW2) era, with teens hopping up old 30s and 40s vintage automobiles by upping horsepower and handling capabilities. This fad soon led to California’s 50s era drag-racing mania, and from there onwards to local and national stock-car racing (read: NASCAR, which organization actually originated in the red-neck South) of American auto marques. Given Californica’s near idyllic, year-round climate, ‘car-culture’ really took off and developed even further with the help of Hollywood’s co-option of popular teen excesses through cheap B-grade action movies, etc (like the Fast & Furious action films).

Almost concurrent with this initial cohort of youthful car fanciers, WW2 had introduced a great number of Yanks to the ‘just-so’, frustily conservative world of small British and Eye-talian ‘sportscars’, such as were made by MG, Austin, Jaguar, Morgan, Alfa-Romeo, BMW, Fiat, and dozens more Euro-marques. Better-off Americans soon began to import these pocket-rockets, with their slightly snooty air of ‘class’, as a moderately upper-level alternative to clunky, archaic Detroit steel, and it wasn’t long before sportscar associations came into being, usually focused on a specific marque. Amateur racing events soon began to become popular in which European sportscars were exclusively involved. Predictably, given their popularity in the 50s, 60s and 70s, the Sportscar Club of America (SCCA) was established, with its Euro-style road-racing elan, since these ‘upper-aspiring’ car enthusiasts recognised that pushing cars to their performance limits was better done on a dedicated track, rather than on city streets. NASCAR also favored getting ‘muscle-cars’ off the urban streets and onto sanctioned oval-tracks.

Both these groups of Californica car aficionados catered predominantly to the white lower and middle classes, respectively, since back then ‘WOKE’ Critical Theories and racial-identity, mass social politics were still yet unborn and so-called minority groups simply lacked the income and wherewithal to acquire expensive cars (even used). Moreover, almost all of those in either class were ‘mature’ adults, not immature kids, who understood the seriousness of safety concerns.

This status-quo continued for quite a while and it followed logically, if one was a true car-nut, one was either a NASCAR type or an SCCA type (think of this as a nuance of white lower-class activities in the first case and a white middle-class, up-scale alternative, in the second). The typic stereotype of NASCAR types was a snooze-chawin’ good old, Southern boy driving a ’57 Chevy sedan with a Chrysler hemi-mill, and that of the Euro-sportscar type, a dapper chap driving a Porsche 356 rag-top complete with a white scarf and flatcap. Otherwise, that was pretty much it, en toto.

Somewhere along the line, as Californica absorbed more and more Chicanos who were offspring of early ‘Braceros’ and immigrante seasonal farm workers from Mexico, things began to change. This happened mostly from the late 60s onwards and it’s safe to say that Chicano agricultural-union initiator Cesar Chavez and his subsequent heirs helped open the floodgates to what followed as part of today’s third major car culture variant. Today, Californica teeters on the verge of being taken back from the white American colonialists by a rising tide of Mexican-Americans (Chicano) as the latter pass the 50% demographic mark in this state. Almost predictably, spurred-on by increased income and more available credit options, these 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation Chicanos introduced a major subcomponent of a whole new third major area of car enthusiasts. To call it ‘Low-Rider Culture’ is a bit incorrect, since although the popular SoCal Low-Rider culture certainly constitutes a significant share of this tertiary car enthusiast group, the Chicano car enthusiast ranks were considerably expanded…one could almost say exponentially…by a radically changing American social demographic and in particular by the effects of so-called ‘pop-culture’ technology to drive outrageously modified muscle cars.

By effects I refer to the present highly misguided and socially deleterious emphasis on elevating the leftist progressive ideological concept of WOKE, Marcusian/Marxist DEI and Critical Theory dogma to an ascendant apex in the forefront of our collective national socio-political awareness.

Remember George Floyd? Of course you do! The massive groundswell of violent protests (“mostly peaceful”, so we were told by CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS at the time) in 2020 by angry ‘people of color’ that rose, following his death, played right into the hands of the constipated closet leftist radical intellectuals (largely students of Herbert Marcuse) who had been exposed to Marcus’s neo-Communist dogmas back in the 60s and 70s during the post-civil rights upheavals by intellectual, radical hard-line leftist professors (such as Angela Davis, for example, just to cite one prominent early proponent of neo-Marxism and black identity politics…who actually studied under Marcuse).

Leftist racist radical groups like AntiFa and ‘Black Lives Matter’ arose and quickly swept into the breach of heretofore ‘normal social constructs’ and exploited the developing battles against white conservatives by radical leftists which we today witness everywhere, with all the socially divisive fallout that has arisen from that youthful cohort of anarchistic activism.

At any rate, now that California has turned into one of the ‘bluest-of-the-blue’ radically progressive states in America, forcefully imposing a partisan promotion of the interests of ‘people of color’ against and above those of America’s ‘evil white, European-descended oppressors’, Chicanos who were formerly more-or-less disregarded by white folks as being unworthy of equal entitlement, were suddenly among the new DEI darlings and saints of the Secular Church of Racial Diversity (along with blacks). Of course, given THE Federal freebie handouts, subsidies and what some call ‘silver salvor benies’ (gratis giveaways) championed under Obama, Biden and Harris, and their California Democratic progressive cohort, along with steadily rising relative wealth among Chicano people in general (co-amplified by available credit, et al), this third car culture group soon rose to prominence.

A second sub-group within this third sector of California car culture fans involved disaffected, innately rebellious and insecure youths (formerly classified as ‘delinquents’, back in the 50s). This sub-cohort of car nuts consisted largely of bored white kids, many from better-off, wealthier families, incidentally, who simply needed to blow off the steam of their puerile post-pubescent transitions and raise hell…in the time honored manner of ALL not-yet-fully-matured young human animals. With better access to Daddy’s money and in most cases severely spoiled by overly permissive ‘modern era’ parents, they soon came to comprise a huge component of the ‘new’ tertiary auto-enthusiast crowd.

One of the most damaging dynamics of the post-George Floyd progressive sea-change in America has been the near-irreversible damage done to formerly stringent standards of law enforcement and the total relaxation of all previous social behavioral norms. As any intelligent person can figure things, laws are entirely meaningless if there are no consequences for overtly illegal acts. Laws that, after all simply exist to help a nation of diverse groups to coexist amicably together, become absolutely laughable when society is no longer willing to enforce them.

I refer here specifically to the dangerously destructive effects of the progressive/anarchistic ‘defund-the police’ movement that is today fully embraced by California’s leftist Democratic establishment and the state’s major and minor legal minions…whose legal efforts backed up so completely by the partisan ‘lawfare’, have resulted in the social breakdowns we have all witnessed over the past 5 years.

The direct result of the above confluence of misguided dynamics has been an undeclared but still very much real abolishment of even minor levels of law-enforcement activity throughout the state, at every level of local and state-wide civil government. An urban environment in which the blue uniforms of police and LEOs are now as scarce as honesty and ethics in the Federal government.

Along with absolving outright acts of theft, personal battery, public destructiveness, pure vandalism and myriad wanton anti-social acts, California’s vehicular law enforcement agencies are now profoundly (and justifiably) anxious about being shot at, violently attacked and/or targeted, even during formerly routine car stops for vehicle code violations by drivers hiding behind the anonymity of their illegal ‘black-out’ car windows. The effect most seen in statistics (that graphically demonstrates the fact that the law-enforcement profession is severely on the ropes, not just in Californica, but throughout the nation), is a near-total lack of significant legal retribution for criminal acts, whether the miscreants be major offenders or just simple vehicle-code violators.

Criminals know this, naturally, and often feel completely unencumbered by fears of police interdiction. So, too, do youths, teens and immature young adult individuals, who now don’t hesitate to modify their street cars in a manner that would formerly immediately result in severe consequences.

The direct result of this failure to impose penalties and severe sanctions by our now short-staffed, over-burdened LEOs, at least for the public, is that a huge number of automobiles that routinely operate on urban streets and highways are now not just gross-polluters but also highly obnoxious generators of excessive noise and irritation. Many are just a gross rolling CVC violation, practically speaking.

QED the excessive noise levels suffered by people unfortunate enough to live along or near major city thoroughfares (and highways). Just walking down the street (with a dog) constitutes unwilling exposure to an unacceptable auditory intrusion of the most objectionable sort or even possible hearing damage.

As I mentioned earlier, all this is co-dependently, exponentially enhanced to a major extent by commercial companies that supply auto accessories, parts and services to these ‘rebels without a cause.’ Although all the after-market performance parts they sell (that comprise a multi-billion dollar industry in both California and the other states), are accompanied by a small printed notice that they are For off-road use only, this amounts to merely a pro-forma wink-grin-eyeroll declaration that in their business minds they are legally excused from legal liability for the misuse of any of their automotive items by consumers.

As a result, just about every other car on the road in our state is now so functionally ‘illegal’ in terms of the Californica vehicle code violations that formerly stringent CVC laws are now impossible to enforce from a practical, daily aspect. And the majority of us with a remaining vestige of community civic responsibility all suffer for this, since few of the dip-shit, knee-jerks who are knowing, willing law-breakers have the slightest sense of social obligation (or even basic awareness), let alone conscious guilt, that others suffer greatly for their egregious lack of civic responsibility. Meanwhile, all of us ‘responsible’ Americans continue to dutifully suffer the agonies of the bi-annual smog certification of our legally compliant and duly registered automobiles by a state DMV that could care less about the wrong-doers who totally ignore the rules and regulations.

Kids, teens and what I call arrested juvenile mentality adults come out of the woodwork after dark in greater Suckatomato on hot summer nights, when it is often necessary to leave windows open to dissipate the extreme effects of the day’s heat. You can therefore plan on being awakened a dozen times or more each such night, when one of these pudding-heads engages in ‘side-show’ behavior, or races other morons down city streets at outrageously illegal speeds…quite often under the influence, of course. The sound of over-powered muscle cars with noise-amplifying mufflers screaming at high RPMs in the dead of night is a nightly given and there’s no resolution of this highly aggravating status quo on the immediate horizon.

Returning to the California car culture, for a moment, this new third group of noise and law offenders I cite here, feel that jeopardising the health and safety of the vast majority of us out here is of absolutely no concern to them. These are also, by the way, the same dimbulbs who toss their garbage out the windows of their cars (including such wonderful stuff as soiled baby-diapers (yuk!), cerveza bottles…great for flat tires…burger/taco wrappers and uneaten fast food, plastic drinking cups, etc. and occasionally bras, panties, soiled undershorts, used condoms and worse). Imagine my delight in finding literal shit like that littering the street and sidewalk as the pup and I try to navigate among it? Pup, naturally, wants to quickly gobble down all the tasty tidbits (and outright noxious crap) she finds en route, and she’s an expert at doing so even before I recognize what she’s up to.

Now, I can understand this sort of negligent behavior being common and perhaps even acceptable in Mexico, Chicago, Detroit and LA, but not here in the time-honored, traditional (i.e. socially cohesive, family-oriented) USA. The America I was born in seven-and-a half-decades ago taught everyone in public school from day-1 that you disposed of your garbage and trash responsibly, not by tossing it out of your car. (They were also taught that immigrating to America meant conforming to traditional social precepts and 'becoming an American.'). As for social responsibility and civics in general, today? Hah. Forgeddaboutit!

Thus, in addition to suffering from being regularly awakened each night by these cretins in their noisy, illegally modified cars, the next day one also has to wend their way through the nauseating flotsam and jetsam of these nightly interlopers. Meanwhile, we’re being asked to make one of the prime legally permissive perpetrators of such street mayhem (the K-person) President of the whole bloody fooking nation?! Again, yagottabekiddinme!

Not being a good little Christian liberal, it’s impossible for me to simply ‘turn the other cheek’ as the saintly Pastor would advise his parishioners. My natural tendency is to feel so outraged by the intrusion of these three-brain-cell morons with their two-brain-cell behaviors that I get a near-uncontrollable urge to plant IEDS out on the roadway. [Note for all the covert FBI and DoJ internet surveillance people out there…I would not actually yield to this urge, of course, because I’m a well-socialised white guy, but it would sure feel cathartic! I’m sure one of my old UC Berkeley profs, Dr. Theodore Kaczynski, would agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment!]

In summary, we now have these three distinct auto culture enthusiast groups here in this Californicated State: 1) Euro sportscar types (who prefer Euro-style road-racing courses to work out their kicks), 2) NASCAR types (who prefer oval tracks, American style), and 3) Chicano ‘Low Rider’ types and upper-middle class white punks in noisy, steroidally fueled, and race-equipped American muscle cars (who will do a side-show or street race just about anywhere, late at night, to prove their macho street-creds). Only the first two demonstrate possession of the slightest awareness of proper civic behavior around automobiles.

It ain’t the same classical ‘gentleman’s diverse world’, any more, Mabelle, and we are…as always…forced to suffer the morons whose chief delight in life seems to be disrupting the peace and harmony of residential-neighborhoods, in the absence of LEO enforcement, with their unacceptably loud declarations of macho manliness.

Californica…ya gotta love it, (sniff-sniff…)…and in order to tolerate living here, you also have to be willing to support all the social parasites and their dreck we are infested with, that have turned formerly beautiful and harmonious Californica into the pure hellscape on Earth that it has become today.

To paraphrase the EAGLES, at Hotel Californica you can check in...but don't unpack your bags, LoL...