[Editor’s note: I first came across this article while living in Santa Cruz. It was in one of those trashy “arts and events” weeklys that you find littering every city in America. I have tried to locate the author of the piece but he appears to have written it under a pseudonym, and the weekly is now defunct. So, I figured I’d reprint the whole damn thing here. You can find an archived copy here]

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We are the modern equivalent of the ancient city-states of Athens and Sparta. California has the ideas of Athens and the power of Sparta. —Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn’t really need. You can quote me on that. —Saul Bellow

Perhaps Schwarzenegger and Bellow divined what’s now painfully clear to everyone: Arnie’s California is Humpty-Dumpty, the Hindenburg and some kind of sociopolitical Holocaust all rolled up into one overstuffed exploding burrito. It’s an ungovernable, near criminally impotent and outdated mess. Remedying California’s woes requires draconian cutbacks to essential services and infrastructure. Anyway, that’s what we are told, grand allusions to Athens and Sparta notwithstanding. Others insist the fix lies with the Feds, that the U.S. Treasury need to bail California out at the begrudging consent of Congress. But another still largely muted scenario is slowly gaining traction. Continue reading →