Will San Jose’s St. James Park revamp be a gamechanger?
St. James Park, located on nearly seven acres in downtown San Jose, is getting a complete makeover through a partnership between Levitt Foundation, Friends of Levitt Pavilion San Jose and the city.
One of San Jose’s oldest parks that laid the ground for presidential speeches, memorials and even lynchings wants to remake history again after more than 150 years.
St. James Park, located on nearly seven acres in the downtown core, is getting a complete makeover through a partnership between Levitt Foundation, Friends of Levitt Pavilion San Jose and the city. The park has struggled with blight, crime and homelessness for decades, and city officials and advocates see this revamp as the catalyst to revitalizing a neglected section of downtown.
“Once they clean up the park, once events start to happen, maybe builders will come back,” she told San José Spotlight, adding that more retail, food, drugstores and shops are needed. “The Breeze of Innovation landmark is going to stand out and has some unique features for Plaza de Cesar Chavez. If we can really get these two parks going, that will make downtown much more desirable.”
The reimagined park will include a music pavilion, picnic grove, garden and monument walks, a fountain, dog park and playground. The fountain will be a recreation of the original Victorian spitting fish design from the 1880s. The playground, which will be ADA accessible and designed for ages 2-12, includes a log-climbing structure, rope swing, forest hut, tree house and fallen tree tunnel.
Concertgoers can enjoy picnics on a lawn sized to accommodate 5,000 people. In addition to 50 free, family-friendly concerts provided by Levitt Foundation, the pavilion can be rented by performing arts and community groups. Read more with more pictures HERE
SPEAKING OF SAN JOSE, IT WOULD DO US OLD TIMERS LIVING TOO FAR AWAY TO ATTEND PBA FUNCTIONS TO SEE OUR OFFICERS AT WORK.
WELL, YOU ALL RESPONDED VERY WELL AND WE WILL BE ABLE TO CONTINUE THE FARSIDER. THANX AGAIN AND I WANTED TO THANK YOU PERSONALLY BUT THERE IS A PAGE SET UP BY ERIC THAT HANDLES THAT VERY WELL. SEE https://thefarsider.net/16018-2/thank-you-for-your-donation/ LOOK FOR THE “DONATIONS” LINK IN THE LINE JUST BELOW THE HEADER,
HOME DONATIONSCONTACT SUBSCRIBE (AND A TINY MAGNIFYING GLASS THAT ACTS AS A SEARCH TOOL. TRY IT WITH A NAME.)
ONE OF OUR FAVORITE WRITERS, RUSS RUSSELL, HAS ANOTHER BOOK OUT:
Sweepy Time Gal Paperback – June 8, 2023 by Russell Jones(Author)
Sweepy Time Gal is the story of a Consolidated B-24 Liberator and her crew assigned to the 14th Air Force (Chennault’s Flying Tigers), and the surviving family’s quest to identify the remains of one of the crewmen.
Hey Leroy, You suggested a while back that I write up some comments about being in an Assisted Living facility, to help the next guy who might be in that boat. So here goes, with a little background: I got out of stroke rehab in Aptos just in time to fly to our new home in Knoxville, TN. Two months later I stood up too fast after a nap, and it felt like something grabbed me and threw me across the room. That was my intro to Vertigo. After the broken hip healed, the vertigo remained, and has necessitated my going into an Assisted Living (AL) facility.
There are 50 rooms here, monthly pricing depends on room dimensions. Here they are all private rooms with attached bath (shower), unlike that of a San Jose friend who found herself in AL with a stranger for a roommate. My room, including 2 options, costs $4200/month, guaranteed rate for my occupancy.
Meals here are just OK. Eggs, etc to order for breakfast daily, and lunch and dinners on a menu schedule that repeats every four weeks. Chefs are great, and helpful, but they are limited by budget. There are two sister facilities in town with fancier food, but at higher monthlies.
Activities include occasional volunteers presenting keyboard or guitar music, senior choruses wanting a place to perform, Bingo. etc. My outlets are music CDs, Youtube on the desktop, and reading. And of course The Farsider.
The other 50 residents are a real mixed bag. Maybe 20% male and three married couples. My dinner table (not assigned, but settled into by combination of accident and choice) is usually five other men. One is a retired USN nuclear submarine captain who, after Navy, worked for a while down the road at Oakridge, which is no longer secret, but still a national nuclear energy laboratory. He is the most interesting, although he’s usually engaged in whatever is on his phone. Another is a retired civil engineer who tried to interest me in collecting pennies,but is less and less animated about anything. There’s a retired prison guard whose every sentence is something I can’t understand, followed by a silent laugh. There’s a taciturn retiree from FAA, DOT, who offers no further detail; and finally there’s a retired dairy farmer who sleeps even when eating. Sounds like a bleak existence, no? But I wonder how the folks here would describe me….
Wife Linda did not like living alone in a big house, so we just closed the sale on it, and she’s in a senior apartment which offers 3 meals a day. I would dearly like to join her there, but the damned vertigo can get so bad that a wheelchair is a daily necessity.
A word about Knoxville, Tennessee – the retiring Chief of Police did some housecleaning, and there were some IA cases still unsettled when the new COP came on board from New Orleans. One of the five DCs opted to retire rather than face the charges, which all involved failure to take action on internal race discrimination charges. The new COP has meted out discipline (one demotion, one suspension), and all those cases are closed. The new guy is very open, gets a lot of press, and seems to be saying the right things. I like the direction he’s taking the KPD.
Cost of living here was a nice change from CA. We sold the Aptos Hills house for a million and bought here for exactly half that. Things are catching up here, though. After three years, we sold the Knoxville house for $716,000(!). And that’s it for the Bells’ real estate adventures. From now on it’s paying Rent.
The Univ . of Tenn. is in Knoxville. Football is BIG here, esp.after a good year,and likewise for the baseball team and the Lady Vols softball team. Knoxville is no hick town by any measure; never a mention of moonshine (that’s in Kentucky, next door North.) There’s a symphony and the opera, albeit overbalanced to be sure by a whole lotta country music.
So there’s my story of a California Yankee in the new South. Leroy, you asked for photos of my cute nurses, but I don’t know how to get them out of the phone and into an email.
My best to all, Bob Bell
Story about Manoah Robbie Robison From Dennis McKenzie Manoah “Robbie” Robinson vs Proxiville Green
Robbie was working nights with his faithful companion Shadow in the back of his wagon in the Almaden/Auzerasis area. He stopped a vehicle for a tail light out and approached the driver. He explained to the driver why he had been stopped then asked for his driver’s license. The driver and lone occupant Proxiville Green, fumbled around “looking for his wallet” and proclaimed that he “must have left it in his house.” Robbie advised Green that he was going to give him a citation for both the tail light violation and for no driver’s license in possession.
Green pleaded his case and asked Robbie to please come to his house, which was “just around the corner” and he could show him his driver’s license. Green seemed sincere and apologetic so Robbie figured is was a simple matter to stop by the house and see the license so really, “what could go wrong!” Robbie left Shadow in the police car, advised radio what he was doing and followed Green into his house. Since these were the days of no portable radios, Robbie was on his own.
Green led Robbie into the kitchen where Robbie’s attention was momentarily diverted. That was all it took. Green grabbed a heavy metal skillet off the range and wacked Robbie in the back of the head. Robbie saw stars, his knees buckled and he almost went down but he was able to stay up and grab Green’s arm with the frying pan. They danced around the kitchen and into the bathroom where a tall and muscular Green toppled Robbie over into a porcelain bathtub back first. Rob conked his head hard and saw more stars. Green straddled him and kept trying to get his frying pan free so he could finish Robbie with a death blow, he was intent on killing him.
Robbie managed to get his right hand free, pull his .357 magnum out of his holster and began “pistol whipping” Green again, and again and again. Finally a stunned Green released the pan and Robbie pushed himself free, away from Green and out of the tub. He then ordered Green out of the tub and proned him out on the floor and cuffed him. He knew he could have shot Green to stop the threat instead of “pistol whipping him but wanted to try that first.
Robbie talked about this incident a lot as a precautionary tale on what could happen in the seemingly simplest of situations and his moral of this story was: never follow a suspect into a house without backup and when in a physical struggle; “Never give up, never give in!” Robbie knew he almost died that night but learned a valuable lesson that he never repeated. A lesson he passed on to many other officers over the years particularly when he was a supervisor in the F.T.O. unit.
Dennis McKenzie
EDITOR’S NOTE: ONE OF MY FAVORITE SERIES:
Quietly laugh so as not to disturb people around you.
Test run for July 4th -” Fire in the Hole” My favorite saying !
A REMINDER. YOU MAY PLAN A SAFE 4TH OF JULY, BUT YOUR NEIGHBOR MAY BE STUPID!
Ford to drop AM radios from most new vehicles in 2024. Reason believed to be that most conservative and Christian radio stations are on AM Radio. Ford Motor Co. is preparing to remove AM radio in most of its “new and updated 2024 models,” a report says, despite concerns from U.S. officials over Americans losing access to safety alerts broadcast over the airwaves. Full Story HERE Ford Motor Co. is preparing to remove AM radio in most of its “new and updated 2024 models,” a report says, despite concerns from U.S. officials over Americans losing access to safety alerts broadcast over the airwaves.
THERE IS REASON TO BELIEVE MOST OR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING WILL BECOME REALITY IN THE NEXT 10-20 YEARS . . . . MOST OF US WON’T SEE THE CHANGES, BUT OUR KIDS AND GRAND-KIDS WILL !!
1 – Auto repair shops will disappear . . . .
2 – A petrol/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts . . . . An electrical motor has 20 . . . . Electric cars will be sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers. It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor . . . .
3 – Faulty electric motors are NOT repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with ROBOTS . . . .
4 – Your electric motor malfunction light goes on . . . so you drive up to what looks like a car wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee . . . Then your car comes out on the other side with a new electric motor or component . . . .
5 – Petrol pumps will go away . . .
6 – Street corners will have meters that dispense electricity. Companies will install electrical recharging stations . . . . in fact, they’ve already started in the developed world . . .
7 – Smart major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that build ONLY electric cars . . .
8 – The “Coal Industries” will go away . . . . Gasoline/oil companies will go away . . . Drilling for oil will stop . . . So say goodbye to OPEC . . . . The middle-east is in trouble . .
9 – Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day then they use . . . . It will be sold back to “The Grid” . . . . The Grid will store and dispenses it, to the industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof ??
10 – A baby of today, will only see “personal cars” in museums . . The FUTURE is approaching faster than most of us can even handle . . .
11 – In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide . . . . Within just a few years, their business model disappeared . . and they went bankrupt . . . Who would have thought of that ever happening ??
12 – What happened to Kodak and Polaroid will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5-10 years . . . . and most people don’t even see it coming .
13 – Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again . . . . With today’s smartphones, who even has a camera these days??
14 – Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975 . . . . The first ones only had 10,000 pixels but followed Moore’s law . . . . As with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment in the beginning . . . . before it became way superior and mainstream in only a few short years . . .
15 – It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence (AI), health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs . . . .
16 – Forget the book, “Future Shock”, welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution . . .
17 – Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries . . . . (in the next 5 to 10 years . . .
18 – UBER is just a software tool, (they don’t own any cars), and are now the biggest taxi company in the world . . . . (Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming) . . . .
19 – AIR-BnB is now the biggest hotel company in the world . . . . (they don’t own any properties) . . . . Ask Hilton Hotels or the Marriott, if they saw that coming . . . .
20 – Artificial Intelligence (AI): Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world . . . . This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world . . . . (10 years earlier than expected) . . . .
21 – In the USA, young lawyers already don’t get jobs, (because of IBM’s, WATSON) . . . . you can get legal advice within a few seconds so far the basic stuff . . . . with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans . . . . So, if you’re studying law, STOP IMMEDIATELY . . . . There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, what a thought and only omniscient specialists will remain . . . .
22 – WATSON already helps nurses diagnosing cancer . . . . it’s 4 times more accurate and many times faster than human nurses . . . .
23 – Facebook now has a ‘face recognition’ software that can recognize faces better than humans . . . In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans . . .
24 – Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars were already here . . . . In the next few years, the entire auto industry will start to be disrupted . . . . You won’t want to own a car any more as you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination . . .
25 – You will not need to park it, you will pay only for the ‘driven distance’ and you can be productive while driving . The very young children of today will never get a driver’s license and they will never own a car . .
26 – This will change our cities because we will need 90% to 95% fewer cars . . . . We can transform former parking spaces into green city parks . . . .
27 – About 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents (worldwide). That includes distracted or drunk drivers . . . We currently have one accident every 60,000 miles driven . . . . However with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in about 6 million miles . . . . That will save a million plus lives, worldwide each year . . .
28 – Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt . . . . They will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car . . . . while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels . . . .
29 – Look at what Volvo is doing right now . . . . no more internal combustion engines in their vehicles starting with the 2020 models . . . . They are using all-electric or hybrid only, (with the intent of phasing out hybrid models in the not too distant future) . . .
30 – Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla . . . Look at all the companies offering all-electric vehicles . . . That was unheard of, only a few years ago . . . .
31 – Insurance companies will have massive trouble to . . . . because, without accidents, the costs of insurance will become cheaper . . . . Their car insurance business model will disappear . . . .
32 – Real estate will change . . . Because if you can work while you commute, or you can work from your home . . . . people will abandon their towers to move far away to more beautiful and affordable properties . .
33 – Electric cars will become mainstream by about 2030 . . . . Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run ONLY on electricity . .
34 – Cities will have much cleaner air . . . .
35 – Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean . . . .
36 – Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years . . . . but you can now see the burgeoning impact . . . and it’s just starting to get ramped up .
37 – Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid . . . . to prevent competition from home solar installations . . . but that simply cannot continue . . . . Technology will take care of that strategy in the not too distant future . . . .
38 – Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year . . . . There are companies who will build a medical device called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, a sample of your blood, then you breath into it . . . It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any disease . . . . There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health . . . .
WELCOME TO TOMORROW – some of it actually arrived a few years ago . . . And, wouldn’t you know it, I’m still trying to figure out how to use my cell phone !!
Well, I thought I had more old clips of general interest, but this is the best of what I could find.
Steve
Editor’s Note: I PUT THIS ONE FIRST CAUSE IT HAS ME IN IT! 2nd from left…. SJPD Canine Unit circa late 1960’s ?SJPD Destruction Derby in Hangtown, CA circa 1975?San Jose PD Destruction Derby July 1975
SJPD Clippings. This is the last of them Leroy. You don’t have to use any of them, as for me I’m shredding them all.
Well, we all know it is sometimes necessary to clear out the closets. Don’t tell my bride, but I have this room that looks like it was struck by one of those tornadoes out in Texas, and she rags on me all the time to clean it up….. Not gonna happen, and I will nor let it happen to The Farsider! We will store Steve’s clipping forever in the archives of The Farsider! SEE https://thefarsider.net/2023/06/26/
Vintage photo of San Jose Police Recruit Class of 1960 being sworn in.
Rear row l-r: Gene Moss, Ray Obeirne, Tom Seck, Wayman Chris Moore, Courtney Petersen, and Rex Stelzer. Front row l-r: Hal Spangeberg, Dale Brau and Stan Tice.
Buddy Hackett – penile implant / elephant’s trunk
Surprising Facts, Small Details, And Trivia Most People Don’t Know About ‘Jaws’.
On June 20, 1975, Steven Spielberg’s high-art horror masterpiece Jaws made it big screen debut in theaters, introducing audiences to a whole new type of terror. As millions had second thoughts about going to the beach, Jaws gobbled up the box office take, and became the first bonafide summer blockbuster.
Decades later and Jaws still has a few folks wary of the open water. People have been sharing their favorite Easter eggs, small details, memorable moments, and interesting trivia in appreciation of the mechanical monster. Here are a few of the more interesting tidbits about Spielberg’s beloved Great White Shark, culled from Reddit film buffs and beyond. Vote up your favorite bits of trivia.
Twenty-five minutes into Jaws (1975), Brody reads a book that shows a photo of a shark with a scuba tank in its mouth, foreshadowing the ending of the film.
Brody’s Book Foreshadows The Ending
Spielberg Had A Personal Hand In The Opening Scene
According to Susan Backlinie, who played the first shark victim, the first jerk under the water was done by Steven Spielberg. He had a cable that was attached to her stomach that let to an anchor, and he would pull the cable to simulate the shark attack.
The Shooting Star Is Real
According to the 1995 documentary, The Making of Steven Spielberg’s ‘Jaws, the shooting star in the background of a shot of Chief Brody was a naturally-occurring happy accident.
The First Time Spielberg Heard John Williams’ Theme For Jaws, He Thought It Was A Joke
Duh-duh… duh-duh… who doesn’t hear those famously menacing few notes in their mind whenever someone brings up Jaws? The film just wouldn’t be the same without John Williams’ score amping up the tension in all the right scenes. But when Spielberg first heard it, he didn’t feel the fear at all. In fact, the theme seemed so simple, he thought it was a joke.
When Stephen Colbert asked him about it on The Late Show (“Why just those two notes in Jaws? Was the budget that tight?”), he responded, “I thought it was a joke when Johnny played that for me on the piano at his house… he takes a couple of fingers – not all ten, just a couple because he didn’t need all ten – and he goes ‘Duh-duh… duh-duh… I started laughing!”
John Williams remembered the moment as well, adding “[Spielberg] did say, ‘You can’t be serious’ … and I said I think we’ll try it with cellos and basses in the orchestra!” Needless to say, it’s a good thing the composer held his ground! READ MORE INTERESTING HERE
‘Jaws’ Was Inspired By The Matawan Man-Eater, And The True Story Is Even Scarier Than The Movie
There’s no denying that the movie Jaws definitely made some beach-goers scared to go into the water. However, the story that inspired Jaws was what really had people scared to have a day at the beach. The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were so unexpected, sudden, and violent that they stuck in the public’s mind even up to the point that the movie hit theaters. The “Matawan man-eater,” as the shark was called, took down at least three people, likely four before the killings finally stopped, and it forever changed the public’s view of sharks.
One Woman’s X-Rated Cautionary Tale About Deepfake Technology
EDITOR’S NOTE: ESPECIALLY FOR COPS,
This is one of the many reasons a lot of folks are worried about AI.
There doesn’t seem to be a day that passes anymore without some new concern about artificial intelligence. Despite all of the capabilities contained within this revolutionary technology, many skeptics are deeply worried that the cons will outweigh the pros.
The Kate Isaacs story
You might have heard about “deepfakes” in which a person’s likeness is used to create a scenario that never happened in real life. One British woman was reportedly the victim of a particularly heinous use of this technology — and she recently spoke publicly about her ordeal.
Kate Isaacs said she just happened to discover a video that depicted her face on the body of a woman in a pornographic video.
“This panic just washed over me,” she recalled. “Someone had taken my face, put it on to a porn video, and made it look like it was me.”
Revenge porn has been a troubling issue for years, but that has generally involved publishing private footage that was never intended for public viewing. Now, technology has reached the point that people like Isaacs can be artificially placed in compromising situations.
And she’s not alone. According to cybersecurity firm Deeptrace, a staggering 96% of all deepfake videos produced are some form of non-consensual pornography.
What you can do
It seems clear that this problem is not going away anytime soon — in some countries, it’s not even a criminal offense unless there’s proof that whoever made it did so in order to cause distress to the victim.
But if you believed you’ve been the subject of such a deepfake, experts say there are a few steps you should take:
Gather evidence (screenshots, downloads, URLs, etc.) and keep it somewhere safe.
Report any accounts that have posted or shared the content.
Notify the authorities and create a record of your complaint.
People Are Like Garbage Trucks
The Wise Professor And The Butterfly
Hello All!
My grandson, Isaiah, works at Pete’s Ace Hardware here in Castro Valley, CA. 98-Year-old Business.
See the below attachment that Ice brought home to me. CLICK HERE
Someone using their head
…AND THE WINNER IS…
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Joe Biden seems to say “I sold a lot state secrets and a lot of very important things”
CLICK HERE
ARE YOU TIRED OF THE SAME OLD BORING ROUTINE?
The Difference Between Young People And Old People.
In 2019 when we moved to Texas I took on a new job with Operation Underground Railroad aka O.U.R.
When you watch the video below you might ask yourself, “So why are we not doing operations like this in the good ol’ USA?” The simple answer is that for many reasons we do not have the flexibility offered in 3rd world countries.
It is not because there is no need. The need to stop the trafficking of children here in the US is greater than most countries in the world. It is believed that the United States is the largest consumer of kiddie porn and children being forced into the sex trafficking industry in the world. The three biggest states for trafficking of children are Texas, California and Florida, but it happens in every state in the nation.
So what can you do to help? I need more law enforcement leads including whom to talk to. For the past year I have been mostly cold calling agencies and asking them to partner with us in the fight against human trafficking. But I am no super hero and cannot do this by myself. To succeed it must be a team effort.
O.U.R. offers financial and equipment support at no cost with no strings attached. We have a one page contract that states we give an agency equipment, money to run operations, or tools such as K9s that sniff out electronic devices. (Many and most of our kiddie porn operations find a trained K9 to be invaluable resource) In return these agencies agree to share their success stories with us. Nothing more!
So if you have a referral please pass it along with contact information and name of who I am to contact. I will keep you updated as we make progress…
The article by Bob Bell was very well written and we enjoyed the information.
Thank you for sharing and we will keep them in our hearts and prayers.
Best
St. James Park, located on nearly seven acres in downtown San Jose, is getting a complete makeover through a partnership between Levitt Foundation, Friends of Levitt Pavilion San Jose and the city.
The reimagined park will include a music pavilion, picnic grove, garden and monument walks, a fountain, dog park and playground. The fountain will be a recreation of the original Victorian spitting fish design from the 1880s. The playground, which will be ADA accessible and designed for ages 2-12, includes a log-climbing structure, rope swing, forest hut, tree house and fallen tree tunnel. 
EDITOR’S NOTE: ONE OF MY FAVORITE SERIES:
Ford to drop AM radios from most new vehicles in 2024. Reason believed to be that most conservative and Christian radio stations are on AM Radio. Ford Motor Co. is preparing to remove AM radio in most of its “new and updated 2024 models,” a report says, despite concerns from U.S. officials over Americans losing access to safety alerts broadcast over the airwaves. Full Story HERE
SJPD Canine Unit circa late 1960’s ?
SJPD Destruction Derby in Hangtown, CA circa 1975?
San Jose PD Destruction Derby July 1975
EDITOR’S NOTE: ESPECIALLY FOR COPS,
L.Pyle%1621
The article by Bob Bell was very well written and we enjoyed the information.
Thank you for sharing and we will keep them in our hearts and prayers.
Best
I concur with the Murphy’s. Bob Bell wrote a very well-crafted piece. Interesting details and updates. Got them both in our thoughts and prayers.