A Petaluma360 Blog

Drawn and Quartered

Steve Rustad illuminates issues and dissects politics

Brown Fox Raids Hen House

Friday, at 10:20 by

Judging from Jerry Brown’s public utterances about building California’s infrastructure, he must be spending extra time praying at his dad’s shrine. As many of you will no doubt remember, Governor Pat Brown’s tenure is viewed through the rosy lens of nostalgia as the Golden State’s Golden Age, back when California lead the country in infrastructure, education, tourism, blah, blah, blah. Indeed, when I entered UCLA in 1963, the tuition cost less than the parking fee. Of course California’s finances are… Read More »

Catastrophes Abound

Friday, at 10:43 by

This is a different version of this week’s cartoon than what appeared in the paper. John felt that I was belittling the hysteria about Global Warming, and he was right. Since he’s the boss about what appears in print, I gladly revised the design. This being my blog, however… The water pipeline scare can be placed at the feet of the on-going obstructions raised since the pipe was first laid 50 years ago by the anti-growth faction both inside and… Read More »

Obama – the anti-war President

Thursday, at 4:14 by

So this is how the President’s Middle East Peace initiative goes. Obama treks over there, hat in hand, to apologize for America’s chronic evilness. He backs away from supporting Israel. On the heels of the Iraq retreat (oops, “victory”), he declares that war is so 2011 (and it’s all Bush’s fault anyway) so it’s time to trim the military. How does Iran repay our olive branch? Let’s see, they’re threatening to execute an American. They wave their scimitars at the Straits of Hormuz.  And they’re working… Read More »

Dredging Up the Truth

Friday, at 11:09 by

So… Last time the turning basin was dredged was after the 2006 rains. However, the project NOT only dragged on for two years, it was NEVER completed, because some meddling bureaucrats complained that dumping the dredge spoils in the place SPECIFICALLY set aside FOR the dumping the Petaluma River dredge spoils, a.k.a, Shollenberger “Park”, might harm the pickle-weed which is the favorite food of the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse. Once again, concern for rodents trumps support for much-needed commerce.… Read More »

Political Round-About

Saturday, at 10:23 by

We’ve reached another year marked by the sense that we’re stuck in a rut. We can blame politicians, people with different political or religious beliefs, or Wall Street, but in truth we must heed the words of that timeless sage, Pogo, who famously said, “I have met the enemy and he is us.” Unfortunately, working for change is harder than posturing in a park and beating a drum. Change begins in one’s heart. In the New Year I propose to… Read More »

MIss Petaluma’s Christmas List

Friday, at 11:13 by

Yes, I know that in many parts of oh-so-Progressive Petaluma, the Christian practice of celebrating the birth of Jesus is politically incorrect, if not openly frowned upon. To which I say, Merry Christmas. As to whether a cultural construct such Santa will bring Petaluma solutions to it’s perennial problems, I would suggest that a humble prayer to God might be more effective. God might not – willy-nilly – bring the Rainier overpass or fix the roads, but His influence could… Read More »

School Funding Crisis

Saturday, at 2:08 by


I just resigned from the Cinnabar School board after more than 12 years as a trustee. No, not from frustration – though there was plenty of that courtesy of the narrow-minded, self-serving, boneheads in Sacramento. The reason was that Colleen and I moved to Cotati and, as a result, I no longer reside in the district – a requirement for trusteeship. I grew up in Los Angeles during the salad days of California, when the Golden State lead the country in education, productivity and imagination. Today, thanks to decades of ever-increasing state-employee entitlements, a ferocious anti-business mindset, and pie-in-the-faith in liberal fantasies, California still leads the country…in population exodus, business relocations, and crushing debt. People get so exercised about the encroachment of Hispanic influence on our culture, when the real threat to California is that it’s turning into Greece.… Read More »

Street Light Carnage

Friday, at 4:12 by


John and Chris tell me downtown merchants report that delivery trucks are shaving their turns with dire consequences to the street corner lights. Yikes. I guess downtown is getting more and more crowded. I don’t recall hearing about the possibility of these sorts of consequences in any discussion of the wonderfulness of “urban infill.” As a young man I visited Les Halles, the storied produce / meat market once located in the heart of Paris. Not long after I was there, due the noise and impact on the local infrastructure the French – exemplars of all right thinking in the minds of many – moved the market to the outskirts of town. Perhaps they recognized the value of urban “out-fill.”… Read More »