not one but two

The Bou' noticed that when Forbes released its crappiest cities in the United States of America list that not one but two California cities (surprisingly close to each other) made the list.

Well, congratulations are certainly in order for both Stockton (#1 baby!) and Modesto (will have to settle for #5, but did beat Flint Michigan fer chrissake), but the Bou' wonders if we shouldn't just consider the entire central valley one giant crapasaurus rex of a city, I mean it's only a matter of time before all the orchards are converted to track houses right?

zen retreat centers

you may have heard of these things before. the rest of the world calls them CULTS.

California is filled with them. They're always near the ocean, they've got farms, some of them can actually be seen FROM SPACE.

yes, California has a problem with zen retreat centers.

zen is codeword for communist.

retreat center is code word for either rich people being lazy or terrorist training camp.

I will highlight just a few:

Odiyan

"work as practice"?

this place is run by slaves. it's HUGE. there are either a lot of slaves or a medium amount of very productive ones.

you can see it from space.

Green Gulch Zen Farm

for lazy hippies who don't want to have to drive to far from their san francisco bay area homes to join a cult.

Green Gulch sounds like a social disease. It may actually be one.

Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.

"America's oldest monastery dedicated to buddhism"

if you think that's bad just check out the recent quotes from the LATimes talking about the big sur fires:

"At Tassajara, a crew of monastic protectors showed the same fortitude as suburban homeowners hosing down their homes in the orange glow of approaching flames.

"We don't intend to let the oldest Buddhist monastery in the Western Hemisphere burn," declared Greg Fain, who rushed down from the Bay Area, where he serves as treasurer of the San Francisco Zen Center.

"This place is my heart," said Fain, eyes narrowing behind black horn-rim glasses, his shaved head covered by a yellow baseball cap. "Every time I come over the ridge, my heart starts to soar.""

1) suburbs and zen center are equated.

2) soaring hearts?

3) I take it as a given that san francisco has a zen center, but that it has a treasurer? sheesh.

the ranch home

there was a period in American history when houses had two floors.

it was a good period.

then some jackass with some spare change decided to buy some bankrupt farmer's digs.

I have an idea - instead of say, being a farmer, lets rip all that ag out and build the cheapest houses we can because the land was so cheap!

nothing says "I (heart) sprawl" like a 2500 square foot home that is less than 14 feet high.

also, it's almost impossible to kill yourself by throwing yourself from the roof in disgust.