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I have a bumper sticker on my Mustang that reads:

I bought this bumper sticker many semesters ago at the Santa Monica Promenade from two college professors who were out spreading knowledge. At the time, I did not know that I would join the “It’s Our Healthcare…Road to Reform” Coalition. I have attended two meetings here in Bakersfield. One was at a “house party”, the other was at a local union office this past Thursday. The next meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 2^nd from 6-7:30pm at 200 W. Jeffries St. and Union Ave.

At the House Party, people from various companies and organizations, and citizens came together to discuss the current crisis with our nations healthcare. Representatives from Mas Magazine, a local radio station, and union organizers attended the house party. A video from citizens across the “land of the free” shared their personal stories was shown and then local citizens got a chance to share their personal stories with the group. One woman explained how she had to sell her home in order to pay for her daughter’s medical treatment; she has cancer and the family cannot afford healthcare insurance. Another woman shared how she had to choose from buying groceries for her kids or buying insulin to treat her diabetes; she bought the groceries. After the personal stories, we were given “get well” cards that we sent out to our local senators. I sent mine to Senator Dean Flores.

I wrote:

“I truly hope that I do not come down with some devastating illness that forces me to commit some terrible crime so I can go to prison in order to receive the necessary treatment”. (Felons receive “free” healthcare)

Local campaign activities include: hosting house parties, writing letters to local congress members, sending Get Well Cards to legislators, phone calls, post cards, and attending the meetings and rallies to show your support.

It’s OUR Healthcare is organizing a statewide tour to bring attention to this serious matter. The Six Cities in Four Days tour will be making a stop here in Bakersfield on Wednesday, June 27^th at 9:30am at the Liberty Bell Plaza (Chester & Truxten Ave). I encourage everyone to attend. Help make affordable healthcare a reality.

“It’s OUR Healthcare! is a coalition of consumer advocates, seniors, health advocates, communities of faith, and labor united to ensure that the people of California’s voice is heard in the debate over healthcare reform.”

Visit the official It’s Out Healthcare site at: www.itsourhealthcare.org

Check out a trailer of Michael Moore’s documentary “SICKO”. This film sheds light on the corrupt business of healthcare companies and the complicated affairs that individuals and communities face without affordable healthcare: http://www.sicko-themovie.c...

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My name is Salvador Plascencia. I want to share my experience of being an “extra-help” Recovery Specialist with Kern County Mental Health.

When I applied for this position I assumed: “Extra-Help”, I will probably be assisting mild cases and a minimal caseload for some permanent employee that is probably out on maternity leave, out due to some illness, a family emergency, or assisting with an unexpected influx of clients. THIS WAS NOT THE CASE!

I was assigned the same huge, unmanageable caseload with equally severe clients as permanent level II and III Recovery Specialists. Same work, yet NO SICK TIME, NO VACATION PAY, NO HEALTH BENEFITS, NO JOB SECURITY, NO VOICE, and NO RESPECT!

If we are expected to do the same job, then we should get some type of compensation for the same critical services we provide to Kern County’s “at-risk” youth. These students and their families depend on us to assist them with overcoming the unbearable cards that have been dealt against them. The county does these families a terrible disservice by assigning them a new Recovery Specialist every nine months.

It takes at least six months to learn the in’s & out’s of the mental health system and to build a rapport with these students and their families….and in the next three months, we are gone. Some forever, others (like myself) for two months. These two months cause a severe impediment in providing the quality care for an already vulnerable population.

I know that my unit supervisor understands the importance of not losing the continuity of services. Before my two month “leave of absence”, he had asked me if I was willing to “volunteer” to come in and maintain contact with some of the more severe cases. I went back to the Bakersfield City School District to work as a substitute school teacher during my two month absence. I was debating whether to go back to the county or to continue sub teaching. It pays the same, however the school district offers incentives in order to recruit and retain quality teachers. The county does not offer its’ employees any form of incentive to “lure” us back to the system. As a single person with no children, it is easy for me take the mandatory two-months off and go sub-teach, but others do not have this option. They have families to look after and I understand that it takes about one month for unemployment benefits to be disbursed. This causes a serious financial burden to many families.

When all is said & done, it is the students with severe emotional, social, and behavioral disabilities that are getting short-changed by this unfair and unjust arrangement that only benefit’s the cost conscious administrators.

A few months into my assignment I had a heartbreaking experience. A third-grader that I had been working with in the social skills group service we provide, asked me, “Are you going to be leaving us too? Cause the other guy left just when we got to know him.” This is truly sad.

THEY DESERVE THE SERVICES OF QUALITY, COMMITED CASE MANAGERS THAT HAVE INVESTED THE TIME AND EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND THEIR SPECIFICS CONDITIONS.

How many Virginia Tech incidents must occur before “they” realize the severity of our duties?

My name is Salvador Plascencia and I am an “extra-help” Recovery Specialist with Kern County Mental Health, Children’s Outpatient.

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Lobbying in Sacramento was a very enlightening experience. As a Socialist, lobbying for the basic worker rights of the working-class is a true calling for me. This was the first time that I have engaged in this type of political maneuvering in an attempt to push for a just bill (AB1496) through the legislature.

After we left from the hotel, we met at business building in downtown Sacramento to meet the other county workers from various other counties from San Diego to Los Angeles. We also discussed strategies and received information on the process of lobbying. We were broken into groups of 5 or 6 and accompanied by two union organizers. We were then given folders with the Assembly Members’ profile and their political philosophies. Each group (about 6) was instructed to meet all of their assigned Assembly Members and share with them our story about being an overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, and expendable “extra-help” county worker.

After mapping out the offices we were to visit, we got straight to it. Lobbying is nothing more than simply showing up to the offices of these elected officials (literately knocking on their door) and asking for ten minutes of their time to share our stories and present them with the unfairness of being a “temporary” worker. All of the officials that we met with appeared to be genuinely moved by our stories. I must say, we had a strong impact on them. Hopefully by the time this bill hits the debate table, they will remember our faces and our stories.

We have another rally at the Board of Supervisors meeting on Monday, May 14 and we are planning to make another trip to Sacramento in the month of June.

ARM THE WORKERS!

La Voz Tambien Es Un Arma!

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Keuvo Gente!

I have some photos of this weekend's Festival of Beers at Stramler Park.

It was a pretty drunken weekend. My favorite part was the awsome company I was with (Laura, Erika, and Kelly).

The quote of the day came from Laura. Some dude's homie threw up on him and Laura so colorfully suggested: "You should kick his azz, but not when he's drunk. Otherwise he won't feel it." I thought it was hella funny.

After the Festival, we went down to Narducci's and set it down with cold beers and 80's music blaring from the jukebox...and then it was off to CLUB SCORPION with DJ FERN spinning the best KROQ, HOUSE, and TRANCE with some FRANK SINATRA thrown in the mix for good measure. This was the premier of this "underground" party scene venue. Club Scorpion is a 50's style dive bar complete with an old, I mean old, piano on one wall and a Harley Bike against another wall. Portraits of James Dean, Marylin Monroe, and Morrissey adorn the old brick walls. If you want to catch a glimpse of Bakotopia Land's underground party scence, you have got to check this place out. DJ FERN mentioned that next time an 80's cover band will be setting the pace. I can't wait.

Hasta la otra...Sal p.

"Those are some nappy-headed hos."-Don Imus

It's a good thing this idiot will be off the air.

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Should County workers continue to be exploited?

It is an age old dilemma in a dissected political understanding within the working class that any given government who is “allegedly” negotiating toward the demand in basic rights, only hinders the best diplomatic action without compromising its own agenda. Kern County has to be one of those next to compromise something so that the working class seizes to compromise everything.

Although the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been determined in its attempts to acquire benefits for the county‘s “Extra-Help” employees reopening for negotiations since July of 2006, it is expected for there to be some rendition of bargaining to assist the demand of the county workers until the summer of 2007. Could it be that the longer the County impedes any support towards the SEIU, they will only find a way to manipulate the matter to become a transition from Rights into Incentives? As the negotiation may seem to proceed, there is a question of inconsideration and disregard to what the county demands in exchange for the time and services provided by the “Extra-Help“ entities. In August of 2006 there was a NO SHOW on behalf of the County to a proposal meeting. Other proposal meetings have been attended by the County, yet, they only manage to patronize our due rights because they offer no counter offer. It is just a matter of time before the County is overwhelmed with the basic necessities their employees deserve.

Any governmental institution will have the need to strategize by default. As we take into understanding the simplicity of a business that always ensures convenience within their intended agenda. It is no wonder why the County resists in disbursing monies to the workers who fortify, complement, and implement their economy. Is that to say that nothing else matters as long as their goals are met so that they may please their superiors in a higher political branch? Of course… This is a business! The less they spend, the better off they are in the annual reports of progressive analysis. Progressive analysis for whom??? As a democratic point of view, these governmental institutions have been backed by the citizen and non-citizen and have been molded into what they are to stand for… Justice, Fairness and Alliance to U.S. It is obvious that they will hide behind a source that is indirect to us to justify their incapability to submit to our demands. Persistence and demand for petitioned consideration regarding SEIU and what is after shall impart collective bargaining sooner or later.

I spent the better part of Sunday at a Union meeting at the local office on 17th Street. After the meeting, we were handed out our routes and it was time to hit the pavement. I joined a senior union organizer and we visited with other "extra-help" county workers in Southwest Bakersfield. We were out encouraging workers to join the Service Employees International Local 521.

(Check out the pictures of the make-shift strikers at my cubicle at a county office)

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I just realized this morning that their needs to be a "coffee etiquette" when you are buying your morning dose of coffee bean soup at the local convenience store.

What bothers me are those humans that stand in front of the supplies (sugar, lids, creamer, and stirrers) stirring their coffee for days on end. I say give it a maximum of eight stirs and be done with it me man! I don’t have time to wait for you to stir, taste, add more sugar, taste again, add more creamer, stir some more and twenty minutes later you are satisfied with your beverage and finally move the hell out the way and allow others to get to the sugar.

And then I have to feel all uncomfortable when I get fed up and have to say “Excuse me, I’m just gonna get a lid,” and they give you a look like you just cut in line or passed gas on purpose. Maybe that’s what I will do the next time I’m waiting for a wana be “barista”, pass gas! That way they can move out the way and let others get their fixin of caffeine.

What I do, is first get all the necessary supplies, pour the coffee, and move to a neutral area of the counter to fix my dose.  That’s what the “coffee etiquette” should be.

So remember this rule my fellow coffee drinkers, they next time you are buying coffee, just get your stuff and move out the way!

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Booze, wine, carne asada, friends, drums, guitars, and the open sky made this weekend get-away the perfect remedy from our mundane, routine, and stress-filled lives. At least 15 of us showed up for the Drumming Circle at Lake Ming this weekend. There was enough food & drinks to feed Rosie O'Donnel for five minutes (That's a lot of food!).

The most memorable scene was of the five Mexicans who took about 40 minutes to put up a tent that no one used in the end.  That was high caliber comedy at it's best. I suggested that they give it up and use the tarps as blankets and just sleep in the grass. Ericka, next time bring a regular tent. The homegirl Chanklas took some great pictures of that chaos. Check out her site at:  www.LSGphotography.com

My favorite part of the evening was the improv song that we put together. Damas was hooking up some Ranchera style melodies on the guitar, and then I started singing. We went around the circle taking jabs at each other. This was Damas' roast: "El pinche Damas, El es huevon....El no trabaja, y es barrigon."

We also gathered round to create music with was available. Chanklas joined in on her guitar as Chuy and Jorge set the pace with their guitars and Maricela's son hooked up the percussions with a rattle.  Canni then jumped on the smaller drum while Maricela followed her lead with the bass drum.

Hopefully yall can join us on the next adventure. Check out the photos.

Nos vemos, Sal p.

C.I.A. Behind 9/11 Attacks!

“Loose Change merely scratches the surface of information that points to a massive government cover-up regarding 9/11. We highly encourage you to take it upon yourself to research the events of 9/11 for yourself and come to your own conclusions (LooseChange911.com).”

Independent film company, Loose Change, presents a disturbing documentary which reveals evidence that the U.S. government secretly orchestrated the attacks on American citizens on September 11, 2001. The documentary presented by this underground independent film company entitled Loose Change: 9/11 is more than just a conspiracy theory; rather, it explains what many Americans suspected for some time: What if the U.S. government staged these attacks as a premise for war???

Did the U.S. kill three thousand of its citizens in order to acquire foreign lands? Is sparing three thousand lives for control of the Middle East worth the sacrifice? To multi-billionaires, this appears to have been an easy decision. Imperialist “land-grabbing” has resurfaced in the 21^st century.

The documentary explores many unexplainable coincidences and circumstances that do not make sense scientifically or logically. These are the ruses for war: high speed turns by a commercial airliner is not possible, unexplained explosions prior to the collapse of the towers, jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel and titanium alloy, missing plane parts at the Pentagon crash site, tons of gold missing from the Trade Center, a third building in New York mysteriously collapses, CIA meetings with Osama Bin Laden in Egypt, numerous training exercises by the CIA and NORAD which simulate attacks on the World Trade Center years before 9/11, and many other issues that have never before been explored by the media, are discussed and explained in this controversial film that has failed to circulate to the masses at large.

“…we do know that Flight 77 had two Rolls Royce RB211 engines, made of steel and titanium alloy, which are nine feet in diameter, 12 feet long and weigh six tons each. Titanium has a melting point of 1,688 degrees Celsius. Jet fuel is a hydrocarbon, which can maintain a constant temperature of 1,120 degrees Celsius after 40 minutes, but only if the fuel source is maintained. The fuel would have burned off immediately upon impact. Therefore, it is scientifically impossible that 12 tons of steel and titanium was vaporized by jet fuel (www.democracynow.org).”

See the video at at: seeloosechange.com