1. Last jaguar in the U.S. euthanized
2. San Bruno Mountain habitat restoration workshop March 14
3. Summer courses at the SFSU Sierra field campus
4. Some opportunities: tree swallow monitoring/hosting at Audubon Canyon
Ranch/Marin waterfalls tour March 7
5. Learning from bushfires
6. Sensible words from E.O. Wilson
7. Is the honeybee crisis real?
8. The rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War
9. Water: a surprising amount is needed to produce some everyday items
10. Still time to register for Weed Day at Capitol/research needs for invasive plants in California
11. Paddle to the sea May 16 - June 7
12. California Native Grasslands workshops
13. Nominate someone for a Chronicle profile/three profiles from Chronicle archives
14. Some items from California Academy of Sciences
15. Photos to identify the weedy grass ehrharta
16. Serotonin turns loner locusts into swarming, gregarious cereal killers
17. Feedback
18. The Presidio and Bayview-Hunter's Point: Is one Superfund site cleaner than the
other?
19. Financial/economic miscellany
20. 150th anniversary of Sholom Aleichem
21. International Year of Astronomy: Votes on Hubble telescope tasks
1. From the Center for Biological Diversity:
In deeply sad news, the first wild jaguar to be captured and fitted with a radio-collar in the United States -- and the only jaguar known to be living here -- was euthanized in Phoenix, AZ Monday night. The jaguar, "Macho B" was accidentally captured in an Arizona Game and Fish Department trap on February 18th and was recaptured and euthanized Monday after he was found to be suffering from kidney failure.
This is a terrible setback for the fragile population of northern jaguars that once ranged from the Bay Area of California to the Appalachian Mountains and now are so rare that only four have been photographed in the U.S. since 1996. Macho B was the oldest known jaguar in the wild, at an estimated 15 to 16 years.
*************************
2.
Habitat Preservation Project
San Bruno Mountain needs your help and care!
San Bruno Mountain is constantly invaded by non-native plants that overrun and destroy native habitat
San Bruno Mountain is:
* The largest urban open space in the country
* Home to 3 endangered butterflies; the Mission Blue, Callippe silverspot and San Bruno Elfin
* Home to a host of rare or endangered plants
* On a list of 18 biodiversity hot spots on the planet.
* An island surrounded by metropolitan San Francisco
San Bruno Mountain Watch and the San Mateo County Parks Department are looking for volunteers to adopt an area of endangered habitat and care for it. Volunteers will be trained to preserve and maintain native habitat for the plants and animals of San Bruno Mountain.
When: Saturday, March 14, 10 am to 1 pm
Where: San Bruno Mountain Watch, 44 Visitacion, Suite 206, Brisbane
What: Learn basic ecology, important native plant and exotic species identification, invasive species control, safe and effective use of a weed whip.
For more information and to RSVP please contact us at 415-467-6631, or sanbruno@mountainwatch.org
*************************
3. Summer courses at the SFSU Sierra campus
Here is a fun and productive way to spend your vacation. San Francisco State University's summer campus near Yuba Pass in the Sierra Nevada offers courses in biology (plants, insects, birds, butterflies, ecology), geology, astronomy, writing retreats, illustration (with Jack Laws), and many, many more. I have taken courses in botany and astronomy there, and highly recommend them. You stay in tents, and delicious meals are served, so all you need is your sleeping bag and personal items.
For more information: jsteele@sfsu.edu, 415-338-1571
(The astronomy course includes looking through large telescopes that reveal exciting and beautiful views of objects you never knew existed. My most vivid memory when I took this course--I still see it in my mind's eye--is the "star" Albireo, which is the head of Cygnus the Swan. Albireo under magnification is revealed as two stars, one of which is daffodil yellow, the other a sapphire blue. The contrast is so striking and so ineffably beautiful that I gasped. It is burned into my memory.)
****************************
4.
Marin waterfalls tour, Saturday 7 March: http://www.californianaturetours.com/AllTours/MarinWaterfallsOrchidsHike.html
______________________
Tree Swallow Nest Box monitoring in the SF Botanical Garden
Volunteers are needed to monitor the nest boxes and record any nesting activity through Mid-May. The Tree Swallow nest boxes were built by Dave Matson, woodshop instructor at Woodside International High School, and installed in the Botanic Garden. Volunteers can become certified as a nest box monitor through this program.
Hosts Needed for Audubon Canyon Ranch
Want a chance to enjoy a beautiful nature and birding site while helping others? Join the GGA team of Audubon Canyon Ranch (ACR) hosts this spring! Each year, from mid-March to mid-July, thousands of visitors come to see herons and egrets nesting in the redwood trees at the ACR Bolinas Lagoon Preserve, overlooking Bolinas Lagoon in western Marin County. Hosts greet and direct visitors and answer questions. All of the information hosts need is provided in advance.
For more information on any of these activities contact Jennifer Robinson at jrobinson@goldengateaudubon.org, or 510.919.5873.
**************************
5.
LTE: Guardian Weekly
Learning from bushfires
The devastating wildfires in Australia have created a raft of misinformation and a scramble to both lay blame and excuse decades of forestry mismanagement and rapacious logging. The eucalypt forests, when left unlogged, are damp: the tree canopy joins to exclude the harsh, drying sun. The gullies are moist and steamy, with ferns and deep, damp forest litter.
The forests have been irredeemably altered in their ecology by 40 years of ruthless logging for woodchip pulp. The mature trees are gone, the forest canopy is open and the ground exposed. Most of the animals that nature designed to keep these forests healthy have been driven to extinction by loss of habitat and poisoning programmes by forest management to prevent them from eating regrowth.
These forests, over vast areas, have been reduced to dried-out monocultures to suit the logging industry. The streams have been filled with eroded silt, which is now clogging virtually every estuary on the south-east coast of New South Wales and Victoria, stifling fish breeding and destroying oyster farms.
Most of the worst fires occurred in areas “managed” in this way. More “hazard reduction” burning will only exacerbate the problem.
The native forest is not a “hazard” to be reduced. But its mismanagement has reduced it to a tinderbox. Australia will see more of these fires.
S. Foulkes, Bermagui, NSW, Australia
***************************
6.
“We do not float above the biosphere in some higher spiritual or technoscientific plane. Life swarms around us, and even in us…For many reasons, not least our own well-being, we need to take better care of the rest of life. Biodiversity…Will pay off in every sphere of human life, from medical to economic, from our collective security to our spiritual fulfillment.”
Edward O. Wilson, in Foreword to Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity, a collection of scientific essays
***************************
7. In an article in current issue of The Economist, headlined:
The economic crisis has contributed to a glut of bees in California. That raises questions about whether a supposed global pollination crisis is real, here is final paragraph:
Though the idea that there is a broader and costly pollination crisis under way is entrenched (the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation is spending $28m on a report investigating it), the true picture is cloudier. In 2006 America’s National Academy of Sciences released a report on the status of pollinators in North America that concluded “for most North American pollinator species, long-term population data are lacking and knowledge of their basic ecology is incomplete.” Simply put, nobody knows. As for the managed bees of America, Dr Ratnieks says that “the imminent death of the honeybee has been reported so many times, but it has not happened and is not likely to do so”.
I asked Philip Gerrie, former president of the San Francisco Beekeepers Association, for his reaction.
Hi Jake, I would agree with their findings. I'm going to a bee symposium in Santa Rosa Saturday and will learn more. There is wisdom in being around for a while. Some events happen only every few decades and only those that have lived through it can pass on what happened. The media made a thing of this because it was an easy story to spin to the end-of-the-worlders. It has happened before but the media didn't pick it up and give it a name. They found there was nothing there to be called Colony Collapse Disorder.
****************************
8.
Reagan and Gorbachev
A friendship that frightened America's cold warriors
The rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War, by James Mann
He kicks off with a chapter on the relationship between Reagan and Richard Nixon, who may have kept a low public profile but bombarded the president with advice. And this advice appears with hindsight to have been fairly bad. Along with Henry Kissinger, who also periodically weighed in, Nixon seemed unable to grasp what Reagan instinctively understood, even if he was wary about articulating it: that Mr Gorbachev really was a different kind of Soviet leader from those that America had faced in the previous decades.
It is this, according to Mr Mann, that made Reagan a rebel, and his rebellion was rooted in a profound philosophical difference. One realist school of thought held that the cold war was something immutable, a fact of history that could at best be managed through the grinding diplomatic protocols known as detente. The other school, to which Reagan belonged, sensed that communism was weaker than it looked and that the cold war would die with it.
Unfortunately, it was not just Nixon and Mr Kissinger who belonged to the first realist school but also most of the State Department, the Pentagon and the rest of the national security apparatus, not to mention the whole chorus of the conservative commentariat. Here, for instance, is George Will, of the Washington Post, writing in 1987: “Reagan seems to accept the core of the catechism of the anti-nuclear left…the notion that the threat is the existence of nuclear weapons, not the nature of the Soviet regime.” In extending a hand of friendship to Mr Gorbachev, Reagan terrified the great bulk of his own political base.
…Ultimately, or so Mr Mann concludes, the Soviet Union collapsed because of Mr Gorbachev and the communist system’s internal contradictions. Neither the arms race nor any concerted effort to strangle the Soviet economy pushed the empire over the edge. Nor, for that matter, did Reagan’s sensible policy of conditional engagement. Which does rather raise the question: how much in the end did that rebellion of Ronald Reagan really matter?
Excerpt from review in The Economist 28/2/09
***************************
9.
Water
Excess liquidity
A surprising amount of water is needed to produce some everyday items
How precious a commodity is water? For those who find it in short supply, such as farmers and others hurt by recent droughts in parts of China, Australia, America and Kenya, its value is easily grasped. Consumers already show increasing interest in the resources used (such as energy) or pollution caused (for example in emissions of carbon) in the production of everyday items. They might be surprised to learn how much water is needed to create some daily goods.
A cup of coffee, for example, needs a great deal more water than that poured into the pot. According to a new book on the subject, 1,120 litres of water are required for the production of beans for a single litre of the beverage (or 140 litres per cup). A relatively modest 120 litres go into making the same amount of tea. As many as four litres of water are used to make a litre of the bottled stuff. Household items are just as thirsty. Oceans are needed to make shoes, hamburgers and microchips. And several bathfuls go to making a plain cheese sandwich, which can sometimes seem a little dry.
See economist.com/dailychart
**************************
10. California Invasive Plant Council:
There's still time to register for Day at the Capitol on March 11, the day after the statewide WMA meeting!
Register on our Day at the Capitol webpage.
______________________
The California Invasive Plant Council announces the release of its report on Research Needs for Invasive Plants in California. Read it here: http://www.cal-ipc.org/ip/research/researchneeds.php
****************************
11. Paddle to the Sea
This event, sponsored by the Tuolumne River Trust, is a 3-week festival celebrating the Tuolumne River as it courses from the Sierra Nevada to the San Francisco Bay. Kayakers and rafters will begin this journey on the upper stretches of the Clavey and Tuolumne Rivers, travel through the Central Valley where canoers will take the lead, pass the confluence of the Tuolumne and San Joaquin Rivers, and continue on to the San Francisco Bay. Join us for kayaking, rafting, canoeing, or for our weekend celebration festivities. You can come for a day, a week, or for the entire trip! The event takes place from May 16 - June 7. For more information, visit http://www.tuolumne.org/content/article.php/paddle2009
*****************************
12. California Native Grasslands workshops:
Sustainable Grazing. At the Hastings Reserve in Upper Carmel Valley, March 18-20.
CNGA Field Day at Hedgerow Farms, Apr 17, Winters, CA.
Signup and further information at http://www.cnga.org/workshop_signup.html
****************************
13. On Mar 1, 2009, at 12:35 PM, Edward Guthmann wrote:
I recently started a weekly feature that runs Monday in the Datebook section, called What I Do. It’s a Studs Terkel kind of thing: someone describing their work in their own words. Examples can be found on the below website.
If you know anyone who’d be a good candidate for one of these profiles, please let me know. It could be any kind of job. What I’m looking for are people who are good talkers and have good insights and an original take on things.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/qws/ff/qr?Submit=S&term=Edward+Guthmann&Go.x=41&Go.y=8&Go=Search&st=s
Do you or someone you know want to share a work story? E-mail us at datebookletters@sfchronicle.com.
Other examples of Guthmann's writing (on a different kind of subject than the above) can be found at :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/01/CM5E109UDJ.DTL&hw=Liam+O%27Brien&sn=001&sc=1000 (Liam O'Brien)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/04/DDGU5M55VT1.DTL (Greg Gaar)
(by Ron Sullivan, not Guthmann): http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/07/06/HO239175.DTL (Jake Sigg)
I added the last one to complete the Terrible Trio.
***************************************
14. From California Academy of Sciences:
Evolve 2009 - the citywide celebration of evolution in honor of Charles Darwin's bicentennial - continues in March with lectures and book discussions. On March 10, the Academy's adult book group debuts with a focus on The Voyage of the Beagle. On March 21, teens can discuss the book Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature. And on March 24, Kevin Padian of UC Berkeley will share his personal experience during Kitzmiller v. Dover, the 2005 trial about intelligent design.
See the complete schedule of Evolve 2009 events.
************************
15. (Regarding the weedy ehrharta grass)
On the first matter, I know you can't include photos/attachment. Was thinking that it might be possible to include links to photos in stories like this, just as you link to articles or announcements in other items.
Yes, I can do that, and do many times. However, in the case of both oxalis and ehrharta--which have both caused me anxiety and grief for the past several years--there is so much information that it, at least temporarily, defeated me. I was so time-short that I dropped the idea of cruising the net for ID pictures. However, I now have an address:
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_query?stat=BROWSE&query_src=photos_flora_sci&where-genre=Plant&where-taxon=Ehrharta+erecta&title_tag=Ehrharta+erecta
As many pictures as there are of ehrharta at this site, they still do not clearly portray its distinctiveness. Once you learn how to distinguish it from other grasses it's easy to spot it, even among other grasses. The clincher is that flowering culm with its tiny florets clasping the tip of the culm. The branches bearing the florets do open out. The key is those tiny florets, which are distinctive. Also distinctive is the yellow-green color and the shape of the leaf blades.
In general, CalPhotos is a good site for plant photos: http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/flora/
And here is a better picture of the distinctive ehrharta inflorescence:
If you go to www.cal-ipc.org, click on Plant Profiles in red, choose what plant you are interested in from the pick list, you get the profile page for that plant, which has links to all sorts of stuff, including the CalPhotos page for that plant.
************************
16.
Serotonin turns loner locusts into swarming, gregarious cereal killers
Smells, sights, tickles boost levels of the neurotransmitter
Neighbors say he seemed like such a nice, quiet locust. But a surge of serotonin, researchers now say, sent this solitary type to join a crop-destroying plague.
Desert locusts often live as shy loners that try to avoid others of their kind. If they do get crowded for several hours, though, the locusts start to switch behavior dramatically, almost becoming another animal.
"Party animal" is the way (a researcher) describes the new form. Loners get livelier. They move toward, rather than away from, other locusts. And if swarming persists, locusts can sweep across the landscape and devour pretty much all vegetation. That switch in behavior turns out to be rely on a compound known to be important in human moods, the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Excerpt from Science News 28/2/09
*************************
17. Feedback
Steve Neff:
Jake: In regards to the great horned owl question, I don't have an answer, but I would like to share a very memorable experience I had from 15 or so years ago. I was doing one of my pre-dawn hikes in the eucalyptus near the Saddle area on San Bruno Mtn when I, too, heard a hooting above me, as well as hooting in reply from a distance. I found the one above me and stayed to watch it. After awhile the distant one flew to a nearby tree and they continued their conversation. By this time the sun was coming up and soon they stopped and I left. A night or two later I returned and they were both in their same respective trees, hooting to each other. As I watched, the one flew to the branch of the other, directly above me, maybe 7 feet separating them. As they continued hooting, the one edged down the branch closer to the other, and eventually they were sitting side by side. They seemed quite indifferent to my presence. I assumed this was a courting ritual. In my excitement, I promptly took someone I was courting on a hike there a week later. Unfortunately, I had less success than the owls. (PS the eucalyptus have since been cut down for habitat preservation)
I always appreciate the feedback, Steve, and I will post your response. Is it OK if I leave off your parenthetical thoughts in final sentence? I don't fear open discussion of issues, but there are so many people who don't understand habitat issues, and who associate the trees with those owls, and may think that we have now dispossessed the owls--I hope you get the picture. The sentence by itself gives a very misleading picture. The habitat restoration is creating diversity of plants and animals, and more foraging grounds for owls and everything else. I'm sure you know this, and I know you didn't intend that meaning.
I have been through this sort of thing so many times, and I know exactly who makes use of these spurious arguments. I'm gun-shy.
oh sure, that's fine. I think you know that I wasn't saying I think the eucs should not have been cut down. I know that great horned owls were there before those trees and are still there. And I know that those euc stands are a breeding ground for horrible ivy and wholesale loss of diversity. It's just that I can appreciate that everything is not 100% black and white, that there is still beauty in all living things, and that that experience, under that tree was a very very beautiful moment for me. I find it personally ironic(?) that I nevertheless support the tactic of cutting down such trees.
By the way, I saw an awful lot of miner's lettuce growing in some of the burned areas of San Bruno.
Yes, I led a field trip there Saturday. Miner's lettuce has always been, and always will be, abundant as long as invasive plants are kept away. They will be in Owl & Buckeye Canyons for many years yet; however, I did see one substantial colony of ehrharta, and a small one of oxalis. If these aggressive plants aren't nipped in the bud, there is nothing to stop them, and they will in several years' time displace the miner's lettuce, as well as most of the plant and animal diversity present now.
Public land agencies have been slow to recognize the problems of invasive organisms. They were just beginning to take their responsibilities seriously in this regard when the financial meltdown happened and the California budget crashed. So now, if problems like this are to be addressed, it must be done by volunteers, who are not plentiful.
Ian Wilson:
Dear Jake, If any of your readers are beekeepers, they might find this web site about "Natural Beekeeping" to be of interest: http://www.bwrangler.com/ncel.htm
I came across this intriguing idea in a recently published book about Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- Fruitless Fall, by Rowan Jacobsen -- http://www.amazon.com/Fruitless-Fall-Collapse-Coming-Agricultural/dp/1596915374/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235947672&sr=1-2
In brief, the Varroa mite, a bee parasite that appeared in the US in the 1980's, is ignored by bees when the honeycomb cell diameter is the industry standard 5.4mm. However bees kick out and destroy Varroa mites when the cell diameter is reduced to 4.9mm. The drawback with small cells is that they result in smaller bees and reduced honey production. However a beekeeper from Wyoming called Dennis Morrell discovered that feral bees construct honey combs that have small cells near the queen, and progressively larger cells, up to almost 6mm diameter, towards the edge of the hive. Morrell came up with a tapered design for a hive without any foundation (boards with pre-formed 5.4mm hexagonal cells). The bees make their own natural honeycombs like those of feral bees, and presto, you have happy bees virtually free of the Varroa mite (and other pests and diseases), who still produce plenty of honey. Morrell's "top-bar" design is harder to manage than the standard Langstroth hive, so it probably won't take off with commercial beekeepers, but it looks like a viable solution to colony collapse disorder for hobbyists, organic gardeners etc.
Ian: Thanks much for this very interesting item. Is this information going to become more widespread? If commercial beekeepers build hives that are too big, wouldn't they soon see that it might be in their best interest to keep the bees healthy, even if they don't get as much honey? Besides, don't they earn most of their income from pollination services?
We restorationists have been very aware that feral colonies are not afflicted with the woes of commercial honey bees. There is at least one bee tree on Mt Sutro and three in Glen Canyon. They have all been there for many years and are thriving.
Dear Jake, I expect that if it you distribute this information via Nature News it will become more widely known... I don't know what your readership is, but I expect that a lot of what you publish gets passed on to thousands of people all over the world.
Re the beehives being too big, it's not the hives themselves, but the size of the individual cells of the honeycombs that matters. The Varroa mites seem to be able to sneak up next to bee larvae in brood cells if the diameter of the cells is 5.4mm, but if the cells are slightly smaller, the nurse bees are able to detect them and kill them.
Re We restorationists have been very aware that feral colonies are not afflicted with the woes of commercial honey bees -- Fascinating, this is a fact that definitely needs to be more widely known. Do you know of any scientific studies that have been done on feral colonies? I wonder if these feral colonies are "africanized" bees that are apparently now present in CA, or have africanized genes? As you know, the africanized bees have great resistance to the parasites and diseases that plague european bees.
Ian: I think I understood your point, although possibly not entirely. I assumed from your report that the bees know this, and that they construct the cells in a way that protects them. Did I misread you?
As to your questions about feral colonies: No, I don't know of any studies, and I shouldn't make statements such as "We restorationists have been very aware that feral colonies are not afflicted with the woes of commercial honey bees", because it is based on my limited observations. There has been speculation that commercial honeybees are afflicted with various maladies because they are stressed from working and travelling all the time. I don't believe this has been documented, but I have a prejudice that there is a connection, and that's why the feral colonies I've seen are free of it. So I should retract that statement until it has been documented. After all, why should there be varroa mites in San Francisco? My superficial understanding of Africanized bees is that they may never get into this part of California.
At least one recipient of my newsletter will doubtless challenge my statement; he was a former president of the SF Beekeepers Assn, and a natural skeptic.
Dominik Mosur:
RE: the owl hooting on Mt. Sutro. It was very likely disturbed by your presence. Good thing you didn't try to approach any closer, Great Horned Owls on nests have been known to attack curious humans.
Siobhan Ruck:
Jake, sorry for the miscommunication on the Economist piece. My response was intended as a response to their words. I didn't see where you'd indicated that you included the first paragraph for context and acknowledged the distortions - I'll have to re-read the newsletter. All I saw was the article presented without comment, which to me implied agreement. And that had me... surprised.
The good news is that if you're getting all this grief from your readers, it means we're actually reading rather than "delete on sight" like so many other newsletters that end up in our mailboxes.
Well, I guess I can't expect people to always understand when I'm posting something for context, provocation, or whatever, rather than reflecting my own opinion, so I should take the pains to be clearer. I like the magazine so much that I was embarrassed by that paragraph. I debated posting it, but needed it for context. The second of the journal's paragraphs, however, does reflect my thinking. My fear is that the Democrats will get carried away with being in power, and fail to take the temperature. Although the GOP is in disarray--even suicidal--never underestimate the ability of Democrats to blow it. We're good at that.
Mark Shields (several years ago): It took the Congressional Democrats decades to fall victim to hubris. It has taken the Republicans two years to become terminally arrogant.
Alex Lantsberg:
RE: 8. A dangerous state: The Californication of the Democratic Party
the economist is not exactly the best rag to rely on to either advise the democratic party or for that matter to comment on california. the proof is in the pudding of their analysis which leaves out the gorilla of the conservative veto on government and our 30-year marination in anti-tax zealotry - regardless of who controlls the legislature.
Well, Alex, I partially agree with you. I winced when I read The Economist's first paragraph, which had a number of inaccuracies and distortions. I have long been aware of its biases, which are based on ideology, not greed. It describes itself as liberal, and, according to the classical definition--free markets, open borders, &c)--it is. It has been consistent in that POV since its founding in 1843. It has traditionally felt more comfortable with the Republican Party. However, it has been mostly fair in its criticism of those it disagrees with, and it has not been happy with the rightward lunge of the party. It endorsed Obama. I find it stimulating and provocative, even when I don't agree with it, which is often.
The meat, however, was in its second paragraph, reproduced below. We would do well to pay heed to this. The congressional election of 2006 was interpreted by many liberals as a mandate to go leftward and to pull out of Iraq immediately. It was no such thing, as even a casual inspection of the results would reveal. The 2008 election and the present situation are much more complex to interpret than the 2006 one, and it doesn't lend itself to easy analysis. But California is indeed very different from most of the nation, and we would ignore the magazine's words at our peril.
The biggest risk is overreach. Many Californian liberals are as far to the left on cultural issues as the southern Republicans were to the right. Many of them also draw their support from two groups that have limited appeal to the rest of the country, particularly to the “bitter” voters that Mr Obama had such trouble wooing in November; the fabulously rich and public-sector activists. All this suggests that one of Mr Obama’s most delicate tasks, if he wants to prevent his party from being captured by the “left coast” in the same way that the Republicans were captured by the South, will be to contain the Californian barons.
i'll disagree you on the caricature of the left coast - particularly the "public sector advocates" (which i'm interepreting as people who believe in government, the public sector, and our common assets). i think the polling has been quite positive in terms of people believing that government ought to play a bigger, more supportive role in society, particularly in terms of economic support, education, and health care.
i'm not going to dispute the notion that our general openness to gay marriage and alternative families can be easily swallowed in the middle of the country, but there is a big difference - and i think people generally agree with this - between the progressive notion of expanding personal liberty with the southern relioous conservative belief that we all need to live our lives the way they think we should.
the last point about "bitter" voters is fundamentally a ruse that was overblown and distorted by the right-wing media complex. it became very clear when i was calling central and western PA during the campaign and people who disagreed on my choice of president generally agreed that they look to the constants in their lives - religion and culture - when shit hits the fan as it has in their communities. obama may not have said it elegantly but there's no denying that central truth about how humans react to traumatic exogenous change
As I expected, Alex, the subject is getting way too complicated for an email debate, so this will be the end of it for me. As for the last paragraph (above), your focus on the right-wing media allows you to dismiss thoughtful statements. I'm sorry that we're not communicating. However, I didn't have high hopes of that in the beginning, because I am finding out late in life that communication is very difficult--and communication via email is virtually impossible, except for information and data transfer. So I'll pull the plug on this one. Someday, over a beer, we could continue this, where body language and vocal inflection and intonation gets points across that are outside emails' ability.
Peter Brastow:
Re the californication:
More narrow in scope right-wing media dribble from a magazine, that, while often informative, still principally serves as the most respected apologetic mouthpiece for unfettered capitalism.
Between the lines of the excerpt one can read that they would have us choose between "the environment" and "the economy."
You are largely correct in this last sentence. When it comes to environmental issues, I sometimes grip the edge of my chair when I beginning reading, as they are largely uneducated in regard to biological/ecological issues. I value them for other things, for their foundation in history, their thoughtfulness and fairness. I do wish that they had ecological sense, but I doubt that will happen.
But I wish you would be less eager to label it as "right-wing dribble" coming from the magazine. It cannot be called right-wing and its thoughtful (occasionally inaccurate) statements deserve listening to. Its philosophy is free markets, open borders, and the less interference by government the better. But that it "principally serves as the most respected apologetic mouthpiece for unfettered capitalism" it is not. And it endorsed Obama.
Robert Hall:
On the Economist debate: Please keep sprinkling their articles throughout your newsletter. I have so much to read throughout the week I don't have time for every periodical. Your newsletter fills in the gaps or me. Thanks for sending out this email publication. I really look forward to it each week. In the digital media business you're referred to as an aggregator. This is a big trend and where media is going these days. If this newsletter were online you may be able to enjoy mega-ad revenue dollars. Which means you could be awash in expensive organic produce. Take care and keep up the great work.
Thanks a lot, Bob. I truly appreciate feedback, as it is the only way of knowing whether it's worth doing. Ironically, I opened a website about a year ago, and have made periodic stabs at working on it, but I haven't the time to make it operable. I still have hopes, but they seem slim. And I'll skip all the ad revenues. I give most of my money away.
Marnie Dunsmore:
Thanks also for the ode to Alison des Forges. As a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada and admirer of Romeo Dallaire, as well as someone who lived for several years in Ghana, I was shocked by the Rwandan genocide, but more shocked by the lack of response or outrage. With pathos did I hear that Alison Des Forges had been killed in the Buffalo crash.
My motivation for posting this story (secondarily, the fact that it is a dramatic and interesting story per se) is because it shows clearly for those strong enough to face it, how the world works. The hard realities in the paragraph pasted below should make any of us uncomfortable, as we are all complicit to some degree. This is not an isolated incident; this type of problem is repeated over and over in the world--sometimes in our name. Some of it is because of innate problems of communication, which are more difficult than people realize. Some of it is because hard facts are often inconvenient and clash with other concerns.
Alison Des Forges knew what was happening, she had credibility, but even the African experts in the State Dept could not get the attention of those able to do something--there were too many other problems and conflicting concerns. It did not fit the agendas of overworked and/or ambitious functionaries. This sort of thing goes on every day. It is a harsh and bitter truth, but we need to be aware of it, because it goes on in our name.
Roger Mascio:
I enjoy your newsletter. But it appears on my monitor to wide on some articles and is very diffucult to scroll right then left. Whats up? Help.
Has this been going on long? I occasionally experience that in my computer, and it is very vexing, to say the least. I copy the offending text and paste onto another program, such as Word or Text Edit, and usually I manage to set it right. When I send it out from here, it seems to be free of the problem, so I don't know what to say. Every great once in awhile I get that complaint--but so far only two. I don't know whether the problem has persisted with them, but I haven't heard further from them.
I hope this doesn't continue with you. If I had a clue what the problem is and what to do I'd tell you. I am a complete electronic innocent.
Arnie Thompson:
Hi Jake, Our chief Arastradero preserve steward and permaculturalist William Mutch is of the opinion that miner's lettuce competes favorably with oxalis and will eventually displace it. Your comment seems to imply the opposite. Do you know of any research that has been done in this area? My garden is overrun with oxalis, much to my dismay. I would love to attack it with out risking the health of other plants. I also find that even with an application of roundup, it will eventually regrow from sources in the neighbors' yards.
I do not keep up with research, nor do I wait around until someone decides (years, even decades, later) to research what to me is an urgent topic. I go by my observations, and I've watched oxalils--and/or ehrharta--year by year slowly squeeze it out. Miner's lettuce does have a fairly effective strategy of germinating abundantly with the first autumn rains, putting out lots of leaf biomass, and smothering smaller competitors. However, the oxalis has that stored energy in the bulb that allows it to put its foliage above the miner's lettuce, and those bulbs offset so much that eventually the miner's lettuce is unable to compete. I would love to be proved wrong.
**********************************
18. Save the date
Title: The Presidio and Bayview-Hunter's Point: Is one Superfund site cleaner than the other?
Date: March 25, 2009
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Place: CounterPULSE
Description: Superfund sites in San Francisco? Come find out whether people and nature are being treated appropriately and fairly in these two well known but very different communities and environments.
Is the Presidio Trust fulfilling its commitment to protect and restore the natural resources of this great urban National Park? Are the Navy and the City of San Francisco taking the best care of the residents and their environment at Hunter's Point Shipyard? San Francisco is blessed with significant remaining natural areas and biodiversity, and these two places - the Presidio and Bayview-Hunters Point - each harbor an important share. Comparing and contrasting the two areas helps us consider with more focus what our goals should be for taking care of people and our environment. Come learn about ArcEcology's recent report that illustrates brand new and exciting alternatives for the Bayview-Hunter's Point Redevelopment. Are these better than Lennar's? How is Candlestick Point State Recreation Area affected? Also, find out about the Presidio's environmental remediation program, and then make your own decision about whether they're making the right decisions! And given that these two communities are very different socio-economically, is one being "cleaned-up" better than the other?
Speakers: Saul Bloom (ArcEcology), Doug Kern (Urban Watershed Project and Presidio Restoration Advisory Board).
Contact: steward@natureinthecity.org, 415-564-4107
*****************************
19. Financial/economic miscellany
Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality, by Loretta Napoleoni
Italian economist, journalist and author Loretta Napoleoni argues that recent events on Wall Street indicate a much larger upheaval and could “signal the end of the ‘Roaring Nineties,’ nearly two decades of easy money, cheap credit, and soaring global debt.” It’s an argument Napoleoni develops in her latest book called Rogue Economics: Capitalism’s New Reality.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/31/loretta_napoleoni_on_rogue_economics_capitalisms
______________________
Miscellaneous quotes on the economic situation:
Obama is walking a gossamer-thin tightrope. And there's no safety net. (Headline)
"Global markets are increasingly fearful that governments are not getting hold of the core of the problem."
"There is no common understanding of why this crisis is so intractable and no shared recognition of its profundity."
"There's an old saying, 'Today's lows will be tomorrow's highs." Bart Barnett, head of equity trading at Morgan Keagan, on being asked if the new low for the Dow could be the market bottom.
LTE: Each piece of gloom referred to by (your column) sounds like good news for the world - less heavy industry, fewer cars, fewer electrical goods, less travel - sounds as if the feckless financiers may yet save us all. Grahame Wise, Vaucluse, NSW, Australia
______________________
(I have sometimes wondered how the big-time, mega mega CEOs can apparently keep their cool in a crisis situation--I don't mean a garden-variety crisis, but one like the present one where it is obvious that no one--either in government or in the financial/corporate world--has any understanding of what happened and where this is going. Here's one (CEO of Bear Stearns) who was unable to hide the fact that he didn't know whether to shit or go blind:)
In his final weeks at the helm, before being shunted aside in a high-level mutiny, Mr Cayne cut a hapless figure, mingling awkwardly with his traders, trying half-heartedly to get a grip on the bank’s assets; he always had more time for bridge than bonds. On a crucial call with analysts, Mr Cayne reportedly clammed up “like a deer in the headlights”, forcing colleagues to pretend he had left the room.
Mr Cohan (the author) handles his material deftly, portraying Bear as symptomatic of an industry that had come to believe its own hype and had lost sight of how inherently unstable it really was. Bear’s crash marked the moment when a delirious Wall Street was knocked to its senses. As one executive put it at the time, in terms that Mr Cayne might appreciate: “You can’t fly like the eagles and poop like a canary.”
************************
20.
150th anniversary of Sholom Aleichem: Born 2 March 1859 (old calendar, 18 February 1859)
One of the great Yiddish writers, he is best known for his humorous tales of life among the poverty-ridden and oppressed Russian Jews of the late 19th and early 20th century. A folk artist who faithfully recreated the "shtetl", village life of Russian Jews before modernity, anti-Semitism, and war destroyed that world forever. His funeral procession was witnessed by 100,000 mourners.
Some quotes:
"No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you."
"Gossip is nature's telephone."
"Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor."
"A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction."
"The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger."
When Mark Twain met Sholom Aleichem he told him that people called him the American Sholom Aleichem. Aleichem replied that in Europe they called him the Jewish Mark Twain.
***********************
21.
This is the International Year of Astronomy, the 400th anniversary of Galileo's turning his telescope on the night sky for the first time. People were asked to vote on which object the Hubble telescope would view. Here is the website--unfortunately, voting concluded on March 1--where the winner and the first six objects are pictured and described: http://youdecide.hubblesite.org/
________________
If A Tree Falls In The Forest, And No One Is Around To Hear It, Does Climate Change?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment