I’m taking the day off! Watch out for sinkholes in Valenica hahaha!

News

• Man arrested for attempted murder in Canyon Country: John Naglich, 49, is alleged to have hit and choked his 52 year old girlfriend. During the altercation, the victim blacked out, and when she awoke, Naglich was allegedly attempting to break her neck. She was able to get out of her house and a neighbor called 911. Katie Geyer has the story.
• Black man assaulted, Deputies allege hate crime: One man was arrested and authorities are looking for three more men after the suspects allegedly attacked a black man on Saturday night. The victim, 26 years old, was sitting in a car with a girl when one of the suspects approached him, had words with him, and then punched him in the face. The victim managed to get out of the car (as did his passenger), but then the three suspects “got a hammer and a bat and smashed all the windows and quarter panels” of the victim’s car. One white man, 21 year old Cameron Campbell, has been arrested and the fuzz is investigating this as a “hate crime.” Link
• Negative Equity in California real estate market: The LA Times Land blog has a summary of a Zillow.com report that details the amount of “underwater” homes cross referenced with the year they were purchased. Underwater homes are properties that are worth less than what is owed to the bank. The long and short of it is that if you bought a home in 2003, it’s not likely to be underwater, but 71% of homes purchased in 2006 are likely underwater (at least in the greater LA area). Link
• Property tax increase possible: The Torrance Daily Breeze reports that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors may hike property taxes “to help stem a massive deficit in the health services department.” Specifically, the supes might vote to increase the Assessment of Measure B, a 2002 measure. The average homeowner might pay some $55 more per year.
• And more on the MTA tax: It’s still possible that the half cent MTA transit tax might go to voters on this November’s consolidated ballot; the Daily News says the LA County Board of Supes “is expected to reverse its decision and vote to put the measure on a consolidated Nov 4 ballot.” Now the tax faces hurdles in Sacramento though. So has Antonovich changed his mind about the tax? No; matter of fact he introduced a motion opposing the tax, remarking in a press release that “The Antelope and Santa Clarita Valleys will more than double in population over the life of this sales tax measure, yet receive only 5% of the total project funding.” The tax may raise up to $40 billion over the next 30 years.
• COC Prof reflects on situation in Georgia: Kevin Anthony spent some time in the Black Sea nation this spring, and left behind many friends and students he’s worried about as the Russian army continues its military action in Georgia, a former Soviet state. “We knew in May that the Russians were coming, and that it possibly might even happen while I was there,” he told Sharon Cotal at the Signal.
  
• Neat web tool simulates quake damage, casualties: The Internet Loss Estimation Tool (InLET for short) uses soil data, USGS info, census data, and other geological information to estimate the effects of an earthquake on California. With the tool, earthquake planners can run simulations on quakes, even selecting different epicenters and the system will spit out data on how many buildings are damaged, how many casualties occurred, and where the shaking is felt. A guy who works for Microsoft even used the tool to simulate an earthquake in Santa Clarita.
• 51 Most Influential: I was wondering if the Signal would put together a fourth annual “Santa Clarita’s 51 Most Influential” special this year, and it appears they will. In a quarter page sized ad in today’s Signal, the paper says the special supplement will appear on Sunday, August 24 and says it will be seen by some 39,000 readers, which I suppose is their Sunday circulation figure. So who’s going to be Number 1 most Influential this year? The City Council is usually in the top 10 somewhere, along with Ken Pulskamp, and of course the Captains and Lieutenants of SCV Business Inc always make a showing, as well as the champion volunteers. Media figures are not allowed, so I don’t think we can lobby for I Heart. So take your pick.
• George Runner on same-sex marriage proposition wording: The conservative State Senator takes issue with Jerry Brown’s efforts to re-word the proposition that would outlaw same sex marriages in California. Link
• Jon Dell evangelizes bicycling gospel: The KHTS reporter posted an editorial yesterday on how great it is to ride a bicycle in Santa Clarita. “Santa Clarita has been somewhat forward thinking when it comes to public mobility. For years they have been building bicycle paths, lanes and trails to offer an alternative for those who want to travel around town under their own power.” He says that in comparison to mass transit, bicycles allow people to “go where we want, when we want,” and says that the trail and path systems are so good, you can ride from Newhall to McBean & Decoro without leaving a path. He’s right on all counts of course, although I wish we could get some more bike lanes in Newhall along major roads. Speaking of riding, I went for a 25 mile ride yesterday. Started off in Newhall, rode up Soledad, then down Sand Canyon (what a swank beautiful part of town), then rocketed down Placerita Canyon which was incredibly fun and dangerous. Thank you to the motorists who gave me a wide berth.

Did you feel it? I felt two distinctive rolling motions this morning at about 11:40 am. The first was weak, the second was stronger. Both were smooth, rolling motions, not strong jolts.

I’m kind of freaking out right now- I’m sure you read my post from yesterday!

Nothing so far from the SoCal Earthquake Center, whose website appears to be heavily impacted right now.

I’ll update this thread as I find more. For now, comments are open!

EDIT :

KHTS says it was a 5.6 earthquake centered in Chino Hills.

An earthquake rocked Santa Clarita at 11:42 AM just after 11:42 a.m. The quake was reported at a 5.6 magnitude, with an origin southwest of Chino Hills.  It rolled for approximately 20 seconds. 

Link

EDIT:

Still can’t pull up the USGS or Cal Earthquake site, but I did get an image sent to me.

Actually check that: I got in. The site says it was actually a 5.8 earthquake. That’s a significant one alright.

EDIT:

LA Times has a great report. Also the Signal has a report now too. City officials say no damage yet.

1:03 PM

The Signal gets mad points for being thorough in their late-breaking news article. They even checked if a tsunami was expected (it’s not).

1:12PM

Quake has been downgraded to a 5.4, but there’s some bad news for any SCV commuters who use Metrolink.

Looks like Metrolink is suspending service until all tracks are inspected. The notice doesn’t specifically mention the Antelope Valley line (which serves three stations in the SCV), but it does mention Union Pacific lines and tracks within a 50 mile radius, which would probably include our rail line here in Santa Clarita.

So to any Metrolink commuters out there in LA who read this site, I’d check Metrolinktrains.com for updates.

 An earthquake measuring 5.8 with epicenter near Chino Hills occurred at 11:42 a.m. today.  Due to the magnitude of this event, Metrolink service is suspended at this time pending an inspection of our tracks within a 50 mile radius of the earthquake epicenter.  At this time, trains on our system are operating at 20 mph.   Trains that operate on the Inland Empire - Orange County, Orange County, Ventura County, Riverside and 91 Lines operate on routes owned by the Burlington Northern - Santa Fe Railway and/or Union Pacific Railroad and will not operate until those rail operators complete the same inspections.

Lots of things for Claritans to worry about this week. There’s drugs in our schools, white supremacist wackos in Canyon Country, stolen trees and copper thieves, water woes, Soledad Canyon road to be shut down, and if all that wasn’t enough, some SCV residents actually had door-knocking politicians interrupt their Saturday morning!

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AMGEN ‘09 details, followup on toddler’s death, some depressing real estate stats, and politicians plan to walk the SCV, all ahead in today’s Daily Brief.

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As a database administrator by day, I find shopping at Wal Mart to be a fascinating exercise. For decades, the Bentonville Arkansas based mega-corp has squashed competitors and expanded massively by doing one thing exceedingly well: mining customer and demographic data.

Now don’t get me wrong. As a liberal tree-hugger who supports local businesses (even with all their eccentricities), I’m not one to normally shop at Wal Mart, notwithstanding their excellent DVD sales. But in a pinch, sometimes the Wal Mart on the Old Road in Stevenson Ranch is the only place in town open late that carries what I need.

And last night, my wife and I just so happened to need a birthday card, so off to Wal Mart we went.

So while my wife was checking out the cutesy selection of birthday cards, I wandered over to the pathetic magazine and book section, which occupies a space about the width and depth of two check-out stands. I say pathetic because it’s really not a selection of books at all; rather the books on the shelves are what Wal Mart thinks we in Santa Clarita would be interested in reading.

What I found was pretty interesting though, so I decided to do more research.

On the south bookcase near the entrance were row upon rows of religious books, both fiction and non-fiction. The books fell into two starkly different categories and immediately made me curious about how Wal Mart selected the books it would sell.

On the middle shelf were scores of Spanish-language religious books. “Santa Biblia,” “Jesus Christo,” and many more Catholic books in Spanish aimed squarely at Santa Clarita’s impressive Latino demographic, which according to 2006 Census Data  accounts for some 44,000 residents of Santa Clarita.

This is not that surprising of course; all of Southern California has a large (even a majority) Latino population, and given their general socio-economic status, many of them are likely bargain-hunting Wal Mart shoppers. It makes sense for Wal Mart to target them. What’s more, it makes sense for Wal Mart to target Latino shoppers at this particular store on the Old Road, since it’s the oldest, most run-down, and closest to the freeway store of all the Wal Marts in Santa Clarita.

But above the rows of Spanish books were at least a dozen different religious books targeting another SCV population group. English speaking Mormons!

Yes, just feet away from the entrance where the friendly elderly man greets everyone was veritable treasure trove of Latter Day Saint literature, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since I mistakenly wandered into the Book Castle years ago.

There was, of course, multiple handsome family versions of the Book of Mormon with beautiful illustrations.  There was also a book of famous LDS quotations, a book called “Presidents and Prophets” that discussed the history and interaction of US Presidents and LDS Presidents, a general Mormon history book relating to the United States and two other books on Mormons in the military, including one focused solely on Mormon fighter, helicopter and space shuttle pilots. That book, titled “Supersonic Saints” held my attention for quite a few minutes.

Needless to say, I was surprised. The LDS church only has around 6 million members in the United States, maybe twice that worldwide, so  obviously Wal Mart isn’t stocking these special, limited-interest religious books at all of its thousands of stores. What made Santa Clarita different?

Well, of course, we all know there’s a significant LDS population in the SCV. Our own Congressman is LDS, and according to the Church’s own website, there’s at least three or four stake centers (I guess the equivalent to a church) in Santa Clarita. So it’s a significant population, but how significant, and how does that population work into Wal Mart’s formula when it comes to selecting which books to display on its limited shelf space?

I wanted to find out just how many LDS people were in town, so I did some digging.

Unfortunately, the bums in Congress years ago forbid the US Census Department from inquiring about religion, so Census.gov was absolutely no help to me there. All I can assume is that a great percentage of this Valley’s LDS adherents are likely white and English speaking, which gives me a large sample of some 110,000 people, according to Census.gov’s stats.

So I had to find data elsewhere. Wal Mart, afterall, certainly had data on our town such that somewhere in Arkansas, they determined that shoppers at the Old Road Wal Mart might be interested in LDS books. So it has to be out there.

Fortunately, I stumbled across a great website called The Association of Religious Data Archive, a program set up and maintained by Pennsylvania State University.

This modern, easy to use website has in-depth material on the makeup of religion in the United States, and better yet, allows you to drill down to the community level with an extensive mapping feature.

So what does it tell us?

Well, Santa Clarita is overwhelmingly religious according to the ARDA with some 50-70% of its residents described as “religious adherents.”

So Wal Mart’s got an easy score right there- obviously, they need to stock the Old Road’s bookshelves with religious books. But which kind?

Drilling down further, we find that 25 to 50% of SCV residents are Catholic adherents, which is pretty consistent with the Latino population plus others who regularly attend (or perhaps never attend) one of Santa Clarita’s three Catholic churches.

That’s an easy data point right there- put Catholic books at Wal Mart, preferrably in Espanol.

Evangelical Protestants are a much smaller segment of the population despite the scores upon scores of such churches you can find in the Yellow Pages. They account for perhaps 2-5% of the population according to ARDA.

Surprisingly, Jewish adherents represent some 2-5% of Santa Clarita valley religious adherents according to this site.

So what about Mormons? Well, the same site says there are some 97,347 Mormon Adherents in Los Angeles County practicing at some 239 stake centers or temples or what-have-you.  That’s a pretty impressive statistic, for while the largest religious group in LA County is the Catholics (at 3.8 million), Mormons are by reckoning in about 4th place, behind Jews (564,700) and Evangelical protestants (587,000)  and slightly ahead of Muslims (92,000).

And in Santa Clarita itself, the data suggests that some 2-5% of Santa Clarita’s inhabitants are LDS adherents. That’s anywhere between 5,000 and 12,500 people, if you count the entire Santa Clarita population of 250,000 people or 2,300 and 6,000 people if you count the 110,000 white people in the Census data.

After I found all this information, I was even more confused, however. It seems there aren’t that many LDS adherents in town. Not enough to devote an entire row of books in their otherwise pathetic book section to, anyway.

Of course Wal Mart has infinitely better data than I do. They have receipts of what people buy and they can mine that data to see what sells and what doesn’t. It’s possible that LDS adherents in town buy more religious literature than other religious adherents, so much so in fact that the gigantic corporation thinks it can make a buck or two competing directly with Book Castle.

After my search was complete, I felt a bit creepy about Wal Mart’s scope and grasp of data about us. Here’s this supremely powerful, multi-national corporation that knows a small percentage of my neighbors so well, it can stock books that directly appeal to them.

Stay tuned next time while I explore Wal Mart’s magazine rack. Wait till you see what Wal Mart’s magazine selection has to say about us!

Sorry folks, I have a situation at home to deal with. Not an emergency, just some construction that requires my constant supervision. Best regards, Jeff.

Give a guy a break, would ya?

Bad jeff, bad! So lazy. Sorry. Happy 4th of July. I’ll write again this weekend; Daily Brief will return Monday morning.

I woke up this morning on time as usual, but I felt as if I had a four-alarm hangover, even though I didn’t drink at all last night. With one hand on a lukewarm cup of day-old coffee, I grabbed hold of the Signal, read Jim Holt’s lede for the annexation story (Santa Clarita Valley is pregnant with a new community), and decided to go back to bed. So no Daily Brief today for you. Thanks Jim Holt.