This morning, Wednesday, the Ventura County Sheriff's Department arrested suspects on Fourth Street near A Street for possession of illegal fireworks. The quantity of gift-wrapped boxes was substantial, filling the bed of a mid-sized pickup. More details will be available later today, but too late to make press time. Full details will be available on our website, fillmoregazette.com.

A word to the wise - selling, possessing, or using unauthorized fireworks brings criminal penalties. If it explodes or shoots up in the air it's illegal. Only those fireworks bought at Fillmore's booths are legal.

Please remember that we are at high risk for brush fires at this time.

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President Trump is in the news now for criticizing the Washington Post's fake news. The Post's owner, Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, is set to become the richest man in the world. At a net worth of some $80 Billion, Bezos can well afford to ignore the President of the United States.

He has created a business plan that seems to defy the law of perpetual motion. Nothing seems able to slow his cash flow. Who else could receive a notice telling him that his holdings have just increased by $5 billion - in one day? Maybe a half-dozen others. Only a few things could bring these wannabe trillionaires down; utter collapse of the dollar, collapse of the internet/electrical grid, a thermonuclear world war, or the ever present unknown (natural catastrophe - asteroid). Until such things should happen Bezos and his buddies will luxuriate as happily as Scrooge McDuck in his money bin.

The world's financial infrastructure has been turned on its head since the digital revolution. This situation with mega-wealth, together with artificial intelligence, is consuming us all. Big business, like big government, wants to control everything. Amazon is a good example. It recently consumed Whole Foods, in order to implement robotic management, which will exclude human workers to make it more competitive.

The nineteenth century Luddites worried about the same thing, devaluing human labor by introducing the machine (robots today). They ended up destroying the machines. When I think about the growing population today and its need to find work to sustain themselves in the future, while industry strives to eliminate as much human labor as possible, I have to ask, what's going to happen? Will government just take over in 1984 Orwellian fashion? I don't hear the Titans of industry saying anything about creating more jobs for the average person lacking technical skills. Nor do I foresee the Titans spending some of their billions on schools to produce practical technicians for the future.

Most important, however, is to create new, high quality, trade schools to educate millions of young Americans to fill the millions of high paying jobs desperately needed in industry. Skilled workers in steel, mechanics, plumbing, welding, carpentry, masonry, electronics, etc. are needed now. These schools require highly qualified, experienced teachers and instructors. President Trump agrees with this idea as well. Ask what underwater welding pays, or aircraft mechanics, and much more. They all pay well and the jobs are begging to be filled.

Well, I'm a little off the subject. I guess my basic thought here is to encourage these mega-billionaires to spend some time building-up the practical skills of our youth, especially those who have little interest in typical college education. They might find far more value, and satisfaction, in spending a couple of years at a new, high end, trade school, where they would come out with the ability to immediately support themselves and their families, instead of paying off a heavy debt.

I have wondered afar today. But, I've always thought about the creation a first class, high end vocations center for the young men and women who find greater satisfaction working with their hands. Everyone admires a skilled tradesman, or woman. There has always been powerful gratification in creating, building, fixing, or restoring things. And, these occupations usually pay very well, a living wage.