Assassins everywhere
That’s the thing about editors—whenever they start getting demanding, Bites shuts down, just so they learn who’s really in charge here. Editors are like dogs: If not properly trained they’ll run amuck and crap all over the house.
So anyway, Bites was crossing J Street when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this massive SUV with tinted windows bore down on me full throttle. Having survived many an assassination attempt, Bites deftly dove out of harm’s way.
“You won’t take me that easily, Newt Gingrich,” was my first thought, knowing how pissed the Newtheads were about last week’s column. No, perhaps it was one of Gov. Gray Davis’ minions. He’s ruthless and doesn’t care whom he drives over on the road to the White House.
Yet once my egomaniacal side got a much-needed rest, Bites thought that maybe it wasn’t personal after all. Maybe Bites was merely the latest near-victim in a town notorious for slaughtering pedestrians.
Why, just last week, the Surface Transportation Policy Project released its annual pedestrian safety survey, listing Sacramento County as the most dangerous place in California to cross the street (with California bested only by New York as the most hostile to walkers).
Officials have done their best to facilitate the smooth flow of automobiles and in the process turned many pedestrians into unwilling speed bumps. Add to that Sacramento’s dearth of bike lanes, and it’s clear that you’re safe on the streets only if you’re surrounded by metal and air bags.
Then again, perhaps it’s no coincidence that Davis just happens to reside in the town where pedestrians keep getting inexplicably run down. Hmm, Bites may be onto something here.
Pay to play: If Davis is really going to run down all his enemies, he’s going to need a whole fleet of SUVs, because this town is brimming with Gray-bashers. In fact, a couple hundred of them gathered outside the Capitol just this week.
This time it was environ-mentalists mad that Davis has blocked forestry reform efforts, accusing him of selling out to the timber industry, which has kicked down some major campaign cash to our ambitious governor.
Such accusations really hit a nerve in the Governor’s Office, as SN&R found out last week when Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio called to complain about an article linking support by Sierra Pacific Industries to Davis’ hit-and-run murder of a proposed clear-cutting moratorium.
In the interest of making Sacramento’s streets safer, Bites has an offer for our greedy governor: stop shaking cash out of those who seek your help, and we’ll stop taking governor-for-sale shots.
Bud—Why, sir?: Speaking of taking shots, didja hear that somebody fired a bullet through the front window of Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s Sacramento office over the weekend? And this was in broad daylight, while a campaign worker was inside.
It was an ugly incident, but that ugliness was only compounded by the quote said worker, David Shorey, included in a press release: “First they won’t let Ralph Nader in the public debates, and now they’re shooting at our office.”
There’s still no word on whether members of the Commission on Presidential Debates had good alibis, or why they singled out Sacramento. But the Greens this week took their frustrations out on Budweiser.
No, they didn’t drink it, they dumped out cans of Bud in downtown Sac on Tuesday to protest the “corporatization” of the debates, before joy-riding around to the city’s TV stations to moon the station managers or some such adolescent nonsense.
Why the Bud Dump? You see, Anheuser Busch is a big debate sponsor. Get it? Me neither. Bites likes the Greens yet smells the heady influence of their homegrown namesake all over this wacky stunt.