Wading In

Make parents accountable for kids By Kelvin Wade | | January 29, 2009 00:32 Last Saturday night, Suisun police arrested Joseph Leigh Johnson, 18, who they say had an SKS assault rifle with bayonet attached under his coat. He was accompanied by a juvenile who was carrying a pellet gun. According to reports, the two fit the description of suspects in an armed robbery in Suisun City. Police had responded to a report of 20 male juveniles loitering near Montebello Drive around 11 p.m. If you put 20 teenage males together in public at 11 p.m. on a city street on the weekend, it's quite unlikely anything positive will come of it. Who are these parents who unleash these little predators on the community? Do they have any clue as to where their son is late on a Saturday night? Some are just awful parents who don't have a clue. But I'm reminded of a time when I spoke to a class of Sem Yeto students. I walked in there expecting a meeting of the FCA (Future Crim...

Black and white and gray areas By Kelvin Wade | | January 22, 2009 16:33 At the inauguration of President Barack Obama there were people in the crowd holding signs that read, 'Yes We Did!' and 'We Have Overcome!' According to a CNN/Opinion Research Poll released this week, 69 percent of blacks say Martin Luther King's dream of racial equality has been fulfilled, double the number who believed that a year ago. But racial attitudes and fears die hard. Recently, I was going to visit a friend. There was no one else out in the apartment complex. Straight ahead about 50 yards away approaching me were three black teenagers. I was concerned. Now big guys like me don't usually worry about our safety when in public. Usually I'm the one who causes little old ladies to hit the door locks on their car as I walk by. I don't begrudge people for being afraid of me if they don't know me. Still, in this scenario, I was the one concerned. I was carry...

Inauguration is historic event By Kelvin Wade | | January 15, 2009 22:20 As an African-American, of course Barack Obama's inauguration has special significance to me. When I read about someone like 92-year-old Bay Area resident and Buffalo Soldier Cmdr. Ulysses Moore making the trek to the inauguration or Solano County resident James Warren, a Tuskegee Airmen, personally invited to Washington, D.C., by the President-elect, I can't help but be moved. While the struggle to keep America on the path to justice will by no means be over when Barack Obama takes the oath of office, I'm confident his inauguration will keep us moving in the right direction. But Barack Obama's inauguration should swell the chest of every American of all backgrounds. Personally, what Barack Obama's election and inauguration mean to me can be summed up by something seemingly mundane that happened to me at the end of December. I was having a sweet new cable television syst...

Waiting for Walmart? Join the club By Kelvin Wade | | January 08, 2009 21:35 So I was strolling through our brand spanking new Walmart supercenter last weekend with a shopping cart full of groceries when I suddenly remembered we don't have a Walmart supercenter, just a fenced off vacant lot doing its best to keep property values low and provide taggers with a clean slate to work their masterpieces. When the city approved the Walmart supercenter in December 2006, no one expected the store to be built any time soon. But it's 2009 and Mission Village still looks frozen in time. I expected the normal delays from the anti-Walmart folks. I expected them to find some rare endangered asphalt-eating squirrel in the Mission Village area that needed to be protected and thus get an injunction to stop the project. Or maybe, like the Suisun anti-Walmart peoples' fear of a falling plane, the Fairfield anti-Walmart people would point out the probability of the location being...

Texting law targets morons By Kelvin Wade | | January 1, 2009 16:30 The new texting while driving law that goes into effect today is for morons. It seems the do-gooders in the legislature just can't seem to understand that the problem of distracted drivers is the distraction, no matter what it is. By the way, this law won't stop texting. If you're zipping down North Texas Street while looking at your phone and texting away, you've got to be crazy. You deserve to be ticketed. If you cause an accident while doing it, you deserve a reckless driving charge. However, I think that most people who text while driving, do it at stop lights. Just as some people look at maps, change their CD, or quickly read their snail mail or some other documents while sitting at a red light. I admit it. I text while driving. It's usually when I've forgotten my Bluetooth headset and don't want to risk getting a ticket under that other nanny law, that you can't h...

Hello. Happy 2009. I wish you all the best. We need an economic turnaround. We need stabilization in the housing market. Ditto the stock market. We need jobs. Our government needs restore faith with the rest of the world and with American citizens. We've got to work together to turn things around. And while we're doing that, we have to hope (and/or pray) that the Israeli/Arab situation and the India/Pakistan situation doesn't metastasize into armageddon. On that cheery note, happy new year! Make your dreams happen.