Mr. Toy's Mental Notes

A couple nights ago a taxi driver was shot in the stomach during a robbery attempt in front of Borders book store in Sand City. The robbers got away, and the cabbie is recovering at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP). I wish the driver well, and hope the criminals are caught very soon. But that's not why I'm writing.   In reporting this story, KION/KCBA News stated that a Calstar medical helicopter had been called to fly the victim to a San Francisco Bay Area trauma center. However, adverse weather conditions scrubbed the flight, and the patient was transported to CHOMP by ambulance.   This raises a very important question. If CHOMP was perfectly capable of handling this case, why was it the second choice and not the first? Calstar flights take three to four times as long as an ambulance ride up Carmel Hill. In this case the ride to the hospital was no longer than the ride to the airport would have been. The helicopter would also have taken the vic...

On Good Friday the controversial Monterey beach cross found its final resting place in the San Carlos Cemetery on Pearl Street. A small ceremony marked an unsatisfactory end to a petty constitutional crisis.   For those who just joined us, here's the story in brief. In 1769 a team of explorers marched up the coast from San Diego to Monterey Bay. They erected two crosses on each side of the Monterey Peninsula to signal their supply ship. Exactly 200 years later to the day, a similar cross was erected on the beach at Del Monte Dunes (near the Monterey/Seaside border) to commemorate the expedition. Last September a vandal sawed it down.   Enter the American Civil Liberties Union, threatening the city with a costly court battle, citing separation of church and state as their battle cry. Crosses do not belong on public land, they said. Ever. However, because the cross had a legitimate secular purpose in replicating a documented historic event, the Monterey city council more ...