Thursday, January 28, 2010

Return of Mijares


Proposal would rename Mount Diablo to Mount Ronald Reagan

Still upset over the devilish connotations of Mount Diablo, an Oakley man has yet again petitioned a federal agency to rename Contra Costa's signature peak. This time he wants to rename the 3,849-foot-high mountain after the 40th president of the United States — Ronald Wilson Reagan.

He'll lose again, I'm not worried, but I find this guy really irritating. Last time he tried this was about 5 years ago and I blogged about it. Below is a quote from the previous news story:

"Words have power, and when you start mentioning words that come from the dark side, evil thrives," Mijares told the Contra Costa Times. "When I take boys camping on the mountain, I don't even like to say its name. I have to explain what the name means. Why should we have a main feature of our community that celebrates the devil?"

Art Mijares, who shudders just saying the word "diablo" and thinks the devil is a living person.

I don't know how long they keep these stories archived, but here's Channel 7's story in which they interview Art in his driveway LINK

7 comments:

Pommi said...

I'm not worried, because for most people, it would still be Mount Diablo.

After it's still Candlestick Park, not 3COM or Monster or what is it this year, right ?

Scott S said...

I could think of better alternatives - though I'm not opposed to Reagan.
Diablo? Well, I personally use it as incentive to defeat it. I'm a Christian and every time I get to the top, I chalk one up for Christ.

And... yeah the mountain has given me my share of pain and falls. Metaphor?
But I just beat it again today...

I've prayed a lot over the Bay Area (God knows we need it) from up there.
Let it be. Not to mention, "Mount Ronald Reagan Scott's Bike Blog" will never do :)

Curtis Corlew said...

This is confusing. I always though Regan WAS a kind of Satan. So, renaming it mount Regan wouldn't solve the problem. I wonder if this guy would be thrilled to have it named Mt. Obama or Clinton. Or MLK.
I'm fine with it like it is.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Art--we need to rename Mt. (Shudder) Diablo. How about Mt. Zappa.-pumpkincycle

Anonymous said...

The devil IS real, please don't mistake that. However, Mijares would never "shudder" and the word "diablo", he simply knows the power of words.

Pommi said...

There's even a Facebook group:

"People AGAINST Re-naming Mt. Diablo to Mt. Reagan!!"

Currently it has 48393 members.

Nate said...

Good thing you're not in Ohio. They (Cincinnati) were naming stuff for Ronny before he was even dead.