Wading In

New texting laws aren't working By Kelvin Wade September 30, 2010 Laws against texting while driving ran up against a tough opponent this week: the facts. The Highway Data Loss Institute, which is affiliated with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, conducted a study of texting bans in four states, including California. It found that not only did the bans not lower the number of accidents, crashes actually increased in three of the four states. Researchers believe people have altered the way they text since the laws have been enacted. Instead of holding the phone up at eye level, people are holding their phones low to avoid tickets. Trying to beat the law is creating more of a distraction than if there were no ban. While it's sure to dishearten Oprah and her No Phone Zone campaign, I admit that I'm a part-time texting-while-driving scofflaw. I sometimes read texts while driving. I will pull over to write a text but that's only because it's hard for me to one...

Be responsible: Secure your dogs By Kelvin Wade September 23, 2010 It's been nearly two weeks since two joggers were attacked by three dangerous roaming dogs on Pavilion Drive. Heroic neighbors Gary Paquet and John Bettencourt raced outside and shot the dogs, preventing a tragic situation from turning deadly. The animals have been destroyed. One of the women has been seriously injured. And now we wait to see if the Solano County District Attorney's Office will bring criminal charges against the owners of the dogs. How many of those reading this have had the experience of encountering aggressive dogs? I suspect many. I once had a huge, angry, black Lab race up to me at Hillview Park near the then-Amy Blanc school. Its apologetic owner came running up to take control of it. My brother Tony had an encounter with an aggressive dog he had to fend off with a stick while out walking. This isn't 10,000 B.C. when we have to be wary of saber-toothed tigers. We should be able to walk...

The crazy train rolls on By Kelvin Wade September 16, 2010 While the start of the NFL season, a mosque near Ground Zero, Quran burnings and Lady GaGa's meat dress distracted the nation, an insidious plot was launched across this nation this week that hardly anyone noticed. Yes, the president of the United States addressed returning school children across the country. Before you scoff, remember last year this address caused a War of the Worlds-style panic with terrified parents pulling their children from schools lest their little minds be liquefied by the slickly packaged socialism, communism and other isms being peddled by the undocumented Kenyan in the White House. This year, for reasons unknown, the alarm wasn't sounded. Maybe Glenn Beck is on vacation or Dr. Laura really has lost her First Amendment rights after her N-word rant. For some reason, the terror level wasn't raised and our children sat defenseless before television screens across the nation while Barack the ...

Retargeting Tobacco Tactics By Kelvin Wade September 09, 2010 In a new report, the Centers for Disease Control is reporting that 20 percent of Americans smoke. The people at the CDC are alarmed that with all of the anti-smoking awareness and programs available, 47 million adults still light up. However, California has lowered its smoking rate to 13 percent and our lung cancer rate has fallen much more rapidly than the rest of the country. It's hard to believe there was a time when smoking was socially acceptable. Almost every television personality in the '50s and early '60s promoted cigarettes. You can log on to YouTube and watch Fred Flintstone sing, 'Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!' It wasn't that long ago that smoking was permitted in restaurants and stores in California. We willingly engaged in the fiction that there could be smoking and nonsmoking parts of a restaurant. It was nothing to see sand-filled ashtrays in stores or purchase clothing...

You can't kill an idea By Kelvin Wade September 02, 2010 I originally wrote about the sentencing this week of Matt Garcia's killer, Henry Don Williams, to 50 years to life in prison. It's fitting that Williams has been sentenced almost two years to the day he shot Matt. Williams will now reap what he has sown. But as I read over the column, I realized I didn't want to dedicate an entire commentary to the evil that men do. Let this be the end of him. I want to write about Matt. The first conversation I had with Matt Garcia at Joe's Buffet in the summer of 2007 is so poignant now. He told me how much he loved Fairfield. He said he planned on raising his children here, living his entire life here and, he told me he was going to die here. I remember thinking some politicians are dedicated to politics and their careers but this was someone who was genuinely motivated by his love for the community. We talked about gangs. He told me about his father being in prison. He we...