Happy St. Patrick's Day [James Fulford] - 03/17/05Or Green Day, as some school boards are calling it, in the usual attempt to hide the Christian origins of the festival. You can read my March 17, 2001 column, The Camp Of St. Patrick, about Irish immigration in the nineteenth century, (not an unmixed blessing) or you can read An Irish-American Reader Complains About Fulford’s “Ganging Up On America.”, depending on your sympathies. But Happy St. Patrick's Day, while it's still allowed. Lovable, Druggable Lodi [Joe Guzzardi] - 03/17/05Those “family values that don’t stop at the Rio Grande River” have made their way to my small town of Lodi, CA and our neighbor city of Stockton. The problem is that the “family value” practiced in this particular case is “historic” amounts of drug distribution from Mexico to the San Joaquin Valley. Police arrested Sergio Curiel, a known drug kingpin, his wife Celina and their three sons Sergio, Jr., Jose Luis and Eduardo along with three other Hispanic suspects. Seized at the time of arrest were At least 18 pounds of crystal meth, 22 pounds of cocaine, nine guns and nearly $300,000 in cash. Not that long ago the valley was famous for its vineyards. But the open border between Mexico and the U.S. is changing that fast. |
