Like many of the big cities, Moval has gone into the business of selling electricity. Is this the proper role for government?

In the January 17 04 Press it was reported that Redlands police terminated with extreme prejudice, one each kitty cat, with no apology to the owner. The response of the department was to issue binoculars to the officers. Let's hope that they provided more training in the use of the binoculars than they did in the use of firearms and wildlife identification, because if the binoculars are turned backwards everything appears smaller and an unsuspecting citizen may be terminated having been mistaken for a space invader.

MLK Day 2000, Dark Valley, California
In yesterday's Riverside Press Enterprise.... In the Travel Section (G)..... On the front page..... At the bottom..... Be sure to read the article by Bob Dart, Getting there was half the fun. It features a part of a display of paintings of road side attractions now on display in the Washington D.C. National Building Museum. The article features a color rendering of the dinosaurs at Cabazon, just a few miles to the East of Dark Valley.
This article brought back memories the many interesting architectural wonders that I saw growing up in the Los Angeles area. In Huntington Park there was the Owl Cafe, shaped like an owl, diners made from railroad dining cars, restaurants shaped like blimps, and the many doughnut shops adorned with massive plaster doughnuts.
One of the most interesting structures could be seen near the Pacific Electric railroad tracks in Watts, was later to be named The Watts Towers. At the time, I knew not what they were, and being a curious child, I'm sure that I asked and received no answers. I later learned that they were built by the Italian immigrant Simon Rodia. He called the towers "Our Town" and it was his homage to the city of Los Angeles and The United States of America. Here the words of Simon Rodia.

"I have
nobody to help me out. I was a poor man. Had
little to do at a time. Nobody helped me. I
think if I hire a man he don't know what to do.
A million times I don't know what to do myself.
I never had a single helper. Some of the people
say What was he doing...some of the people think
I was crazy and some people said I was going to
do something. I wanted to do something in the
United States because I was raised here you
understand. I wanted to do something for the
United States because there are nice people in
this country."

Simon Rodia moved away in 1955 and shortly after his monument to America became the target of city bureaucrats, the Los Angeles department of building and safety, who ordered the towers demolished. Fortunately a group of determined people joined together and successfully stopped the onslaught of the bureaucrats and the structure stands today and is being preserved by the Getty Institute.

The Watts Towers is one of the very few surviving monuments of California's colorful past. So many of the rest have fallen victim to tunnel visioned government androids, and all upcoming visionaries, those who would do something different, like Mr. Rodia are banned by the government from fulfilling their dreams.

As I look around Moreno Valley I see houses that are almost identical. Rectangular things with red tile roofs. The Denny's Restaurant here is the same as the ones I've patronized in Phoenix and Tulsa. The McDonalds is the same as the ones in Pennsylvania and Taiwan.

Moreno Valley is little different from other parts of the country in the year 2000. Imagination and individuality are discouraged from the cradle to the grave and mediocrity has become the anointed goal.

We've lost something since the days of Simon Rodia, and even Martin Luther King. It's OK to have a dream so long as that dream is within the boundaries carved in stone by the building and safety Nazis. It's just enough to make a person use the "F" word, and I will here.
F-R-E-E-D-O-M!!!!!!!