The Citistates Group

CURT JOHNSON: As the region most threatened by pollution in the entire nation, California’s Central Valley, stretching from Modesto southward to Bakersfield, is center stage in the struggle to sustain breathable air.

There recently to speak at a conference produced by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, I might have found it memorable for a surprise encounter with a minor earthquake. But the truly unsettling experience was the encounter with the Valley’s air quality dilemma. I was there on a “clear” day, but it wasn’t something Robert Goulet would break into song over. You surely couldn’t see “forever,” not even to the Sierra mountains. But locals said this is as good as it gets.
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ROBERT LANG: The second season of the popular FOX television show The OC (as in Orange Country, California) starts this week. The OC focuses on the lives of several families that live in ocean-front McMansions in wealthy Newport Beach. Almost everyone in the show The OC is white. But in the real OC, according to recently released census data, not even a majority of the county is white. Orange County falls under the census category of “majority-minority” places. My comment on this got picked up by USA Today last week: “If Disneyland were built today, it would be Miguel Mouse’s home.” I was trying to capture the dramatic change in Anaheim’s ethnic make-up, which now contains a higher percentage of Asians and Latinos than even LA. And to reflect the fact that Anaheim, and not Newport Beach, comes closer to defining the real OC.
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