Green with gubernatorial envy

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

Perhaps a non-native, unfamiliar with the American vernacular, wrote the Sierra Club's endorsement of gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. If not, it was rather inaccurate of the organization to predict he would be ''California's greenest governor.'' After all, he has plenty of political experience. He is the state treasurer, you know.

Incumbent Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to suck up to the left. Although the state ballot's universal-preschool measure went down in flames, the governator says the basic idea is a good one. He wants to spend millions to install preschools in ''low-achieving'' school districts. Great idea, governor: Get those kids into the low-achieving education system as soon as possible.

In our local daily we find a letter from the Modesto Chapter of the League of Women Voters. It says the league ''believes the direct, popular-vote method for electing the president and vice president is essential to representative government. The League of Women Voters believes, therefore, that the Electoral College should be abolished.'' We can only theorize that the dumbing-down of American education is having an impact on the league. Get thee to The Federalist Papers, ladies.

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Actress Daryl Hannah went up a tree last week in what she called ''the morally right thing to do, to take a principled stand in solidarity with the farmers.'' Hannah, in her protest perch in a nut tree (how appropriate), was trespassing on Los Angeles land owned by developer Ralph Horowitz, where now-evicted ''urban farmers'' had been squatting, growing vegetables. No word yet on whether she has invited the evicted farmers to work the land, gratis, on her property. Of course, you have to understand, from the protesters' viewpoint, the farmers and farm [i]can't[/i] be relocated, because they have created ''a unique ecosystem.'' As one writer said, ''South Central Farm is an amazing mosaic of plant life and is literally filled with five thousand-year-old native food crops kept by Mesoamerican indigenous people through their family heirloom seed-saving traditions.'' Forcing the farmers out, therefore, is ''ecological racism.'' If you derive from this that the farmers are Mesoamericans of dubious immigration status, go to the head of the class.

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, D-Aztlan, called the eviction ''unfortunate'' and ''disheartening.'' His honor has long been an advocate for immigrants of dubious legality – not to mention immigrants of clear-cut illegality.

Media watch: Our local daily headlined the protest story, ''Urban farmers, celebrity backers evicted from garden jewel amid L.A. grit.'' ''Garden jewel?'' No bias there, eh? Stick it on your bulletin board with the wire story that unblushingly referred to ''the faltering economy.'' Could that be the faltering economy with 4.7 percent unemployment, steady growth and low inflation? Or was the writer referring to Iran?

In Appeal We Trust: God bless Federal District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. The jurist last week ruled that the words ''In God We Trust'' on United States currency and coin did not amount to an establishment of religion. He wrote, ''There is no proper allegation that the government compelled plaintiff to affirm a repugnant belief in monotheism.'' Predictably, the plaintiff, atheist gadfly Michael Nedow, proclaimed this a victory. He may lack faith in God, but apparently has plenty of faith in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the most reversed court of the land.

Blame the feds: OK, so there was fraud in the distribution of post-Katrina hurricane aid. Why do we blame the federal government and not the crooks? And what would have happened if the government had taken the time to vet the claims submitted? Right. There would have been bleating about the delay in helping the needy.

Speaking of the feds. Is anybody giving odds on whether Congress will produce an immigration-reform bill this year? How about before November?

Gracious! To think our poor congressional representatives have been getting by on a mere $162,000 a year. Their $3,300-a-year pay raise should help keep the wolf from their doors. Go ahead, call it class envy. We'll cop to that.