1. Some views on the power of nature
2. San Francisco and the New Deal - historian Gray Brechin, April 23
3. National Dark Sky Week April 20-26
4. Some field trip/restoration events this weekend
5. California Native Grasslands Assn/SERCAL conference registration information
6. Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations
7. Kids in Gardens - Saturday the 18th in Atherton
8. Bird photogallery
9. Save Strawberry Canyon has a five-mile run/walk Sunday 26. Other events on its website
10. Exciting butterfly report from Liam
11. And more butterflies: Green Hairstreakers needed this Saturday and Sunday
12. A curious and rare natural phenomenon: snow rollers
13. Planning and Conservation League offering new tools to help non-profits weather the crisis
14. Under the tarnish, still golden; California reinvents itself
15. Chemical companies attack the First Lady
16. Do we have a right to water?
17. TS Eliot has a view on water
18. Can poetry save the earth?
19. Informational session for urban and aspiring farmers
20. Feedback: Charge entrance fee for botanical garden?
21. Green, Inc. – An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad
22. Charlie Chaplin, 16 April 1889. A biography and his cosmic battle with comedy's heartbreak
23. Says You comes to San Francisco in May
24. Obituary: John Hope Franklin, historian of race in America. Militancy was not in his nature; he practiced patience
25. Notes & Queries
26. A couple of interesting newspaper clippings
1.
“To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war. We will have regional conflicts and use of force, but world conflicts I do not believe will happen any longer. But the environment, that is a creeping danger. I’m more worried about global warming than I am about any major military conflict.”
Hans Blix, head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, 12 March 2003
“What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as the instrument.” C.S. Lewis
“The invasion of noxious weeds has created a level of destruction to America’s environment and economy that is matched only by the damage caused by floods, earthquakes, wildfire, hurricanes, and mudslides.” Bruce Babbitt, while Secretary of Interior in Clinton administration.
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2. 2009 NATURAL HISTORY LECTURE SERIES at the Randall Museum Theater
San Francisco and the New Deal
Guest speaker Gray Brechin
7:30PM, THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009
Join historian Gray Brechin for an evening discussion about San Francisco during the Great Depression and how the programs of the New Deal helped the City reclaim some dignity. Brechin will share his insights and make some comparisons to what the City is experiencing today.
FREE; donations encouraged. Info: 415.554.9600 or www.randallmuseum.org
(As background for this presentation, you might visit the Living New Deal Project: http://livingnewdeal.berkeley.edu/. There are lots of New Deal projects in the Bay Area, they are of excellent quality, inspiring--and neglected. Check them out--and come to this talk. JS)
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3. National Dark Sky Week Apr 20-26
National Dark-Sky Week is an event in the United States during which people in the United States are encouraged to turn out their unnecessary outdoor lights in order to temporarily reduce light pollution. Poor lighting not only washes out the splendor of the heavens but also reduces visibility at night, wastes energy, and disturbs wildlife. The harmful effects of light pollution are far-reaching. http://www.darksky.org/mc/page.do
"Darkness is as essential to our biological welfare, to our internal clockwork, as light itself." -Verlyn Klinkenborg, "Our Vanishing Night," National Geographic magazine, November 200(?)
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4. Some events this weekend:
California Native Plant Society field trip
San Bruno Mountain Ridge Trail
Saturday 18 April, 10 am
Leader: Doug Allshouse
Wildflowers and stunning views are guaranteed on this trip, which starts at the summit parking lot and goes a few miles east toward the Bay. Not guaranteed is the weather, which can be a mild, sunny spring day, or sharp, fierce winds off the ocean. The terrain is gently undulating, and there is much to see and talk about along the way. Be prepared for a full day, so bring lunch and liquids. Meet at the summit parking lot.
Destination: Lands End
Wildflower Wandering
Sunday, April 19th, 1-3pm
It’s spring and the wildflowers are beckoning! Join Alex Hooker, Lands End Stewardship Coordinator, for a walk along the Coastal Trail to see native plants in bloom. Learn about the plants’ roles in the coastal dune ecosystem, as well as their historic use by indigenous peoples.
This will be a gentle stroll for all ages and abilities.
Wear layered clothing and be prepared for possibly windy conditions.
Reservations are requested by calling (415) 385-3065 or emailing cchristman@parksconservancy.org by Friday, April 17th
Help Golden Gate Audubon Restore Critical Wetland Habitat in San Francisco's Southern Waterfront!
As part of our ongoing efforts to restore wetlands in San Francisco Bay ,we will continue our efforts at Pier 94, throughout the year. Activities include invasive plant removal, trash pickup, monitoring, and planting in the fall. The site is home to rare native California sea-blite, as well as nesting shorebirds.
Next workday:
*Sunday, April 19, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Earth Day at Pier 94! Join us for our annual event at Pier 94. Help us weed out invasive plants and remove trash from the shoreline. Come out for some hard work and a bird walk to top off the day. Refreshments provided.
Finding Pier 94 is a tad tricky; get directions here: Phone: 510.843.9374, Cell: 510.919.5873 jrobinson@goldengateaudubon.org,
www.goldengateaudubon.org
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5. Joint Conference: California Native Grasslands/Society for Ecological Restoration California Chapter, 29 April - 2 May
"Restoration" is one of the keystones of the new economy. Ecosystem services, the very ones that support us, are being pushed beyond their limits. We may not know exactly what to call it, but it is everywhere; global climate change is but one manifestation. Water shortages, pollinator disappearance, fisheries collapse. The list goes on and on and gets bigger every day. And while it isn’t a pretty picture to paint, there is hope. We find that hope in the ecological model of collaboration, information and energy exchange, and the new insights and possibilities that come with that exchange.
Check it out at http://www.sercal.org/conference.htm
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6. Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations by Stephen R. Kellert
From publisher, MIT Press, 2002:
For much of human evolution, the natural world was one of the most important contexts of children’s maturation. Indeed, the experience of nature was, and still may be, a critical component of human physical, emotional, intellectual, and even moral development. Yet scientific knowledge of the significance of nature during the different stages of childhood is sparse. This book provides scientific investigations and thought-provoking essays on children and nature.
Children and Nature incorporates research from cognitive science, developmental psychology, ecology, education, environmental studies, evolutionary psychology, political science, primatology, psychiatry, and social psychology. The authors examine the evolutionary significance of nature during childhood; the formation of children’s conceptions, values, and sympathies toward the natural world; how contact with nature affects children’s physical and mental development; and the educational and political consequences of the weakened childhood experience of nature in modern society.
Review from goodreads.com account:
Possibly the single most important book about children's healthy development so far this millennium, Children and Nature details the positive effects on children (from infancy through adolescence) of exposure to, and interaction with nature. Whether animals or plants, insects or oceans, exposure to nature is critical for healthy emotional, social and intellectual development of our youth. Those children who are not given adequate exposure to the natural world are at a distinct disadvantage to those who are.
This is an engaging and well written book that should be on the list of every guardian, parent-to-be, and teacher. There are a lot of politicians and business peeps who would also benefit greatly from reading Children and Nature.
NOTE: Since writing this review, Last Child in the Woods has been published, and is an equally engaging and important book.
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7. The Watershed Project Events Kids in Gardens
DATE: Saturday April 18
TIME: 9:00am-4:00pm
LOCATION: Encinal School, Atherton
MORE: In this full-day workshop, you will learn the basic gardening concepts and techniques you need to create and sustain a school garden. Presentations, demonstrations, and hands-on activities cover: Examples of successful school gardens, Soil Science, Vermicomposting, Basic Composting, Plant Propagation, How to eliminate pests without harmful chemicals, Reduce waste, conserve water, and create wildlife habitat
You will receive fast-paced, hands-on activities, academic credit, curriculum binder that meets California Content Standards
Workshop cost is $35. To register contact Adam at 510-665-3539 or adam@thewatershedproject.org.
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8. Dominik Mosur has a photo gallery of birds of the Bay Area, primarily San Francisco: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33576979@N02/
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9. Earth Day Weekend event: A 5-mile Fun Run (Walk!) in the upper reaches of Strawberry Canyon on Sunday, April 26 at 9:00 a.m. See www.savestrawberrycanyon.org for more information about this and three other spring events in the canyon wilderness located in the Berkeley and Oakland hills within walking distance of downtown Berkeley
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10. A butterfly report from Liam O'Brien:
Jake -- I've recently commited myself to a CNPS walk in September for folks see the wonderful Gulf Fritillary Butterfly/Orb Weaver Spider convergence. Thought I'd go check out the place for the first time this season last Saturday. Breezy but beautiful 60 degree + weather. To my jaw-dropping amazement, I recorded half the butterfly fauna known from the county within two hours: 16 species (32 species seen in 2007). Many things come together to draw butterflies to certain places: topography, host plants, nectar and water sources -- Alemany Farm seems to have them all. I observed: 1) West Coast Lady - 7. 2) Painted Ladies -- 28 (high #'s of females remaining in area after huge movement north through the state, laying eggs on cheeseweed...). 3) Monarch -- 2.
4) Red Admiral -- 14. 5) Common Checkered Skipper -- 30. 6) Gray Hairstreak -- 2. 7) Anise Swallowtail -- 2. 8) Cabbage White -- 24. 9) Fiery Skipper --8. 10) Orange Sulphur -- 2. 11)Gulf Fritillary -- 6 (Brood just emerged from the Passionvine surround the spring). 12) California Tortoiseshell - 1. 13) Field Crescent - 3. 14) Buckeye - 2. 15) Mylitta Crescent - 1. And a lone Umber Skipper gave me 16 species
The Hooded Oriole, baby Garter Snake and breeding Red-Winged Blackbirds just added to the magic of this fantastic day.
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11. From the Green Hairstreakers:
If you don't have Earth Day plans this weekend, please join us for some small-scale habitat restoration work on behalf of the Green hairstreak butterfly.
We'll be weeding at the 14th Avenue and Pacheco mini street park/natural area on Saturday the 18th from 2pm to 4pm and on Sunday the 19th from 10am to noon. Come either day and work however long you can. Any help is welcomed.
If you come, please bring gloves, any tools you like to use, and water (for you; the neighbors have been watering the plants ;-). I'll bring shovels, a broom, and compost bags. (Alane Bowling)
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12. A curious and rare natural phenomenon--snow rollers
http://digg.com/d1oiEa
And I checked on their reality: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller
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13. Bond Freeze Buddies: Planning and Conservation League offering new tools to help non-profits weather the crisis
The state bond freeze has wreaked havoc on environmental projects from the Sierra to the coast, forcing many organizations to make tough decisions in order to survive. What's worse, this situation is likely to stay with us for the remainder of 2009 and into 2010.
PCL has responded by creating a new Bond Freeze Initiative to provide environmental communities and organizations across the state with necessary updates, information, and tools, including a series of bond freeze-related web resources and a weekly bond freeze newsletter.
In addition, PCL is working closely with our allies to develop and implement strategies that organizations can use to move forward with their environmental projects within this changed economic climate.
We encourage anyone interested in the bond freeze crisis to visit the Bond Freeze Website or inquire about receiving the weekly Bond Freeze Update. Also visit ReSeed California, a chronicle of the impacts of the bond freeze.
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14.
Under the tarnish, still golden
Its economy is dismal, its politicians worse. But nowhere can reinvent itself so capably as California
Pity California. Not only must it endure an epidemic of foreclosure, a 10.5% unemployment rate and the lowest bond rating of any state. It is also suffering a critical assault. In the past few weeks Forbes, Fortune, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal have all published scathing reviews of California. Even this newspaper has called it ungovernable. Although many other states have been knocked by the recession, none has been kicked so enthusiastically while down.
...One charge is wholly accurate. California's politics have been dysfunctional for a long time and are getting worse. A particularly precise gerrymander in 2000 left virtually every political district safe for either Democrats or Republicans. As a result, most races are decided by the ideological purists who turn up to vote in party primaries. This means a Democratic caucus in thrall to the teachers' unions and environmental activists and a Republican posse that believes there is hardly an economic or social problem that cannot be solved by slashing taxes. Mr Schwarzenegger came to Sacramento hoping that the two camps would bond over cigars in his smoking tent. They are farther apart than ever.
...California is not suffering economically because it has failed to provide jobs and build houses for people of modest education and average means. It is in trouble precisely because it has been so successful in doing so.
...The state will soon get a chance to resolve some of its other problems. Last November, by the narrowest of margins, voters agreed to allow a committee to redraw the political boundaries. When that happens, in 2012, politics should become slightly less partisan. An even bigger opportunity for reform will come next year, when voters will be asked to approve the creation of open primaries. That measure is on the ballot only as the result of a late-night deal in February. With no budget agreed and with the state facing fiscal oblivion, a lone state senator* was able in effect to request a rewriting of the state constitution.
All rather messy, but this is how California works. The state is restless, chaotic and experimental. Few places make as many mistakes as California; fewer still have the capacity to recover from them so quickly. As John Husing, an Inland Empire economist, puts it: "California is made up of people who don't know what it is they are not supposed to do."
Excerpt from The Economist 04.04.09
* (I heard the lone senator, Abel Maldonado in an NPR interview. He's a Republican, but a person of conviction. His single vote enabled the budget deadlock to be come unstuck, and put him in trouble with his Republican colleagues. He said he's willing to pay the price.)
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15.
Dear Friend,
The Mid America CropLife Association (MACA) has a bone to pick with Michelle Obama. MACA represents chemical companies that produce pesticides, and they are angry that - wait for it - Michelle Obama isn't using chemicals in her organic garden at the White House.
I am not making this up: http://www.lavidalocavore.org/showDiary.do?diaryId=1309
In an email they forwarded to their supporters, a MACA spokesman wrote, "While a garden is a great idea, the thought of it being organic made [us] shudder." MACA went on to publish a letter it had sent to the First Lady asking her to consider using chemicals -- or what they call "crop protection products" -- in her garden.
Michelle Obama and has done America a great service by publicizing the importance of nutritious food for kids (she's growing the garden in partnership with a local elementary school class) as well as locally-grown produce as an important, environmentally sustainable food source.
I just signed a petition telling MACA's board members to stop using Michelle Obama's garden to spread propaganda about produce needing to be sprayed with chemicals.
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/wh_garden/?r_by=3454-251410-XD9Lssx&rc=mailto
Clark Natwick
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16. Awash in waste
The Chinese word for politics (zhengzhi) includes a character that looks like three drops of water next to a platform or dyke. Politics and water control, the Chinese character implies, are intimately linked.
Such a way of thinking contrasts with the usual view around the world, which argues that since humans cannot live without water, it should be a basic human right, available to all, preferably for nothing. The Chinese character points to a more useful approach. In many places water is becoming scarcer. Treating it as a right makes the scarcity worse. Some of the world’s great rivers no longer reach the sea. In many cities water is rationed. Droughts and floods are becoming more extreme. These problems demand policies. Ideally, efficient water use would be encouraged by charging for it, but attempts to do so have mostly proved politically impossible.
…What used to be seen as separate, local difficulties—in California, the desiccated Aral Sea, the Sahel—now look more like manifestations of a global problem. Many water problems have global causes: population growth, climate change, urbanization and, especially, changing diets. It takes 2,000 litres (530 American gallons) of water to grow a kilo (2.2lb) of vegetables but 15,000 litres to produce a kilo of beef—and people are eating more meat. The problems also have global implications. Without a new green revolution, farmers will need 60% more water to feed the 2 billion extra people who will be born between now and 2025.
Excerpted from The Economist 11.04.09
The time has come in America for a fresh appraisal of the function of the engineer in our society. This man who is the designer and builder of our habitat—this man who above all others sets the stage for our daily lives—should anticipate the impact of each project he plans upon the total evolution of America. Without such awareness the disorderly pattern of the present man-made environment will be compounded as the pressures of population density increase.
Edward Higbee
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17.
"I don't know much about gods,
but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god - sullen,
untamed and intractable."
T.S. Eliot, The Dry Savages, Four Quartets
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18. Can poetry save the earth?
In Can Poetry Save the Earth? A Field Guide to Nature Poems, John Felstiner presents and re-animates nature-focused poetry by dozens of writers, from Blake to Yeats, revealing the tension produced when our most poetic human minds ponder the environment that nurtures our brains and bodies -- and that we're fast destroying.
Get more on Felstiner's latest book in businesswire.com and read his top picks for powerful poems that just might contribute to our planet's salvation.
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19. Land. Liberty. Sunshine. Stamina.
NETWORKING PARTY, April 17th, 5-7 pm - project sharing and informational session for urban and aspiring farmers and party with music, food and beverages hosted by The Greenhorns. The event will feature a screening of The Greenhorns Trailer and Bonnie Ora Sherk's Evolution of Life Frames and The Farm.
Location: PLAySPACE Gallery, CCA San Francisco Campus, 1111 Eighth Street; the gallery is on the second floor [opposite the CCA Wattis Institute and above A2 Café]
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20. Feedback
Dennis Antenore:
Jake, Have you taken a position on the proposal to charge a $5.00 entrance fee to enter the Botanical Gardens? About 200 people showed up at the Hall of Flowers to protest the charge last Monday. People felt that this, in effect, represents the theft of the commons. Although they claim this charge is necessary to make up the severe budget short fall, they admitted that they intend to "develop" a "world class" botanical garden. This includes such amenities as a cafe. The intent appears to be to create another venue to attract and charge tourists. Dennis
Well, Dennis, this is a difficult one for me. I am sorely vexed by the trend to charging for everything, and that is the way most people interpret this. Perhaps I should too, but somehow I am not without sympathy for the protagonists here. Not that I have any love for the Bot Garden Society: They screwed me, and if I were to put it on a personal level I would be opposed to this measure.
When I worked there (I left in 1988), for many the gardens were mostly a place where they could get away from the cars, the noise, the dogs, the bicyclists--and they often abused the place. Picknickers, squirrel feeders, bird feeders, and feral cat feeders were particularly problematic. A large percent of the users had no interest in the botanical collections, and we had trouble getting respect. We were talking about an entrance fee then, and even though I was divided then as I am now, I leaned slightly in favor of charging, just to cut down on some of the problems we had. The proposal ran into political opposition on the Board of Supervisors, and there were other problems, so it was dropped.
So you see I am conflicted, Dennis. I don't know what is the right thing to do. Our whole society is so screwed up, its values so inverted, that it's sometimes hard to know where to start to set things on a more sane course.
That's about all I can say. I am willing to listen to others' thoughts.
Thanks for your thoughts. I was conflicted myself until I learned some of the realities behind this. I enter the Botanical Gardens at least once a week. I have come to enjoy the great variety of people who use the garden. From old couples to young children, from singles to families. People of all backgrounds, ages and economic status. Although I am a member and would not have to pay, I can see that many people would, in effect, be locked out of garden. Virtually all of the people I observe are respectful of the garden. I rarely observe any significant damage or vandalism and go throughout the garden on regular basis. These same arguments were made about the Tea Garden when a fee was instituted some years ago. The neighborhood was told not to worry since there would free admission from 4:00 in the afternoon each day. I was a regular until they even took the free time away. I was told that this was because tour buses were dropping tourists off just at 4:00 to avoid the fee, and that this was causing "over use" of the garden. (By the way for most the year there were very few people in the garden after 4:00) Now, I see the same happening to the Botanical Garden. The main argument being used is that the budget shortfall is making this charge a necessity, while the realty is that they are spending millions of dollars for so-called improvements to the garden. These include such "necessary" additions as a cafe. What is really at play here is the commercialization of the garden. The wear and tear will increase dramatically. I remember, as a member of the Planning Commission as well as a long standing supporter of the The Bay Area Ridge Trail the arguments about vandalism were used to try to block the trail through the area near Crystal Springs Reservoir. Experience has shown that these fears are greatly exaggerated and that they are often used as a cover for hidden agendas. I wish you had been at the meeting last Monday to hear the pleas of the neighborhood on this. The pleas included several people who regularly volunteer at the garden. Thanks for all you do. Dennis
Thanks for the thoughts, most of which I find persuasive. You've moved me a bit in your direction. The commercialization, the cafe in particular, is absolutely unacceptable--and unnecessary, except for bringing in money. I thought that the prohibitions against new buildings in the park had teeth in them, and that it would be nigh impossible to do. Surely they can't be contemplating that. It would be a political battle they'd be bound to lose.
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21. Green, Inc. – An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad, by Christine MacDonald
Inflated executive salaries. Top brass hobnobbing at expensive getaways. Questionable side deals negotiated with no concern for the everyday folks affected by them.
These problems aren't just native to Wall Street. They also occur in a rather unexpected habitat: environmental nonprofits. In Green Inc.: An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad, Christine MacDonald takes these groups to task for numerous misdeeds and illicit activities.
MacDonald worked for Conservation International's Global Communications Division in 2006, before her job was axed in a corporate restructuring. But this book isn't just a bitter diatribe from an ex-employee; it raises legitimate questions. The three biggies of the enviro nonprofit world -- Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund -- bear the brunt of MacDonald's criticism. Others are implicated, too, including the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense Fund. MacDonald isn't angry with the groups' rank-and-file workers, but she has plenty to say about the transgressions of their leaders.
he big three get millions of dollars in donations from corporations that influence their decisions and policies. In the Amazon, Conservation International works with Bunge, an agribusiness that is decimating the rainforest for soybean production. The World Wildlife Fund defends IKEA, the home furnishings company, and is ushered in for damage control after the mega-chain is discovered selling illegally logged wood. The Nature Conservancy lavishes conservation leadership awards on Shell Oil and Exxon Mobil, despite their records of environmental irresponsibility. "Reputational insurance" is what MacDonald labels this, meaning the big polluters "know the next time they end up in a fight with uncompromising environmentalists they can count on having a conservation heavyweight in their corner."
MacDonald lists some needed reforms: Groups should limit corporate donations and influence on their boards of directors, publicly disclose funding sources, and cap executive pay.
Still, despite their problems, the big nonprofits do good and necessary work, and in this era of climate change and disappearing species, MacDonald understands that "we need our environmental organizations more than ever."
High Country News online edition
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22.
Charlie Chaplin, born 16 April 1889
Chaplin's mask was his truer self
A biography of Charlie and his cosmic battle with comedy's heartbreak
Chaplin: The Tramp's Odyssey, by Simon Louvish
Tragedy is about the distress and self-destruction of egomaniacs who place themselves at the centre of the universe. Comedy, wiser and more democratically compassionate, deals with humbler figures, whose humdrum miseries remind us of our shared human vulnerability.
But as Simon Louvish writes, the muddling routines of a comic character such as Chaplin's tramp also rehearse a "cosmic battle". The subjective self grapples with a world of obtuse objects when Charlie slips on a malevolent rug in the movie One AM, and man collides with machine when he is fed into a hungry industrial gullet in Modern Times. Survival and extinction butt heads in The Gold Rush, where the snowbound, starving prospector dines on a boiled boot, picking out the nails as daintily as if they were the bones of a Dover sole.
The mishaps of Chaplin's tramp character are metaphysical. The cabin in which he shelters in The Gold Rush is dislodged by an avalanche and hovers on the edge of an abyss, as Charlie, with desperate elegance, struggles to stay upright. In The Circus, he walks a tightrope like an existential hero, simultaneously fighting off a horde of escaped monkeys. Far below is our prostrate, beleaguered earth, which Chaplin once wonderfully described as "the underworld of the gods".
Because he performed these antics wordlessly in silent films, Chaplin has always needed eloquent interpreters who, like Louvish, are anxious to explain the political or philosophical import of his pratfalls, dust-ups and manic rampages. As Louvish notes, writers early on volunteered "to fill the gaps between the public imagination and the enigma on the screen".
...He makes light of Marlon Brando's claim that Chaplin was "fearsomely cruel" and "the most sadistic man I'd ever met" (which probably meant that Chaplin, directing A Countess from Hong Kong, insisted that Brando should memorise his lines rather than mumbling impromptu approximations)...Picasso once invited Chaplin to dinner. On the appointed day, he arrived in his chauffeur-driven car to deliver a card announcing that he couldn't come. A practical joke or a symptom of the celebrity's pampered insulation from reality?
Louvish suspects that the mask concealed another mark, closer to the truth of his private character. Although the persona of the tramp prevailed, the young Chaplin had an alternative character in his repertory: a spiv or swell who was up for aggro rather than sweetly accepting his lot, less lovable than the tramp in the baggy pants and dented bowler.
Peter Conrad in Observer
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23.
For aficianados of the word game Says You (Sundays 4pm KQED FM)--they will be in San Francisco May 15, 16, 17. Tickets may be bought at saysyou.net
(I was casual about listening to this program for a long time, but it has now wormed its way into my life, and I am very reluctant to miss it--even though their witty participants make me feel a little dense and slow. The panelists are quick-witted, possessive of a subtle sense of humor, can pun three times in one sentence, and, well, it becomes habit-forming.)
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24. Obituary: John Hope Franklin, historian of race in America, died on March 25th, aged 94
HIS chief pleasures were contemplative and patient. With watering can and clippers, he would potter in his greenhouse among hundreds of varieties of orchids. Or, standing in a river, he would wait for hours until a fish tickled his line. These were, one could say, typical historian’s amusements; very close, in rhythm and character, to the painstaking, careful accumulation of tiny pieces of fact.
And yet what John Hope Franklin collected, over a lifetime of scholarship, were scraps of horror. Five dollars for the cost of a branding iron. A deed of sale, in Virginia in 1829, for a male slave “of a yellow colour” who “is not in the habit of running away”. Or the testimony from 1860 of Edward Johnson, a black child apprentice:
I was tacon and plased with a rope a round my rists my back intiarly naked and swong up then and there Each of [the men] tuck a cow hide one on Either side and beet me in such a manner when they let me down I fanted and lay on the ground 2 hours
To these Mr Franklin could add from his own experience. The train journey to Checotah, Oklahoma, when he was six, that ended when his mother refused to move from the whites-only carriage. His father’s small law office in Tulsa, reduced to rubble after a race riot in 1921. The day he was told by a white woman whom he was helping, at 12, across the road, that he should take his “filthy hands” off her. And the warm evening when he went to buy ice cream in Macon, Mississippi—a tall 19-year-old student from Fisk University, scholarly in his glasses—only to find as he left the store that a semi-circle of white farmers had formed to block his exit, silently implying that he should not try to break through their line.
Academia offered no shelter. He excelled from high school onwards, eventually earning a doctorate at Harvard and becoming, in 1956, the first black head of an all-white history department at a mostly white university, Brooklyn College. Later, the University of Chicago recruited him. But in Montgomery, Louisiana, the archivist called him a “Harvard nigger” to his face. In the state archives in Raleigh, North Carolina, he was confined to a tiny separate room and allowed free run of the stacks because the white assistants would not serve him. At Duke in 1943, a university to which he returned 40 years later as a teaching professor, he could not use the library cafeteria or the washrooms.
Whites, he noted, had no qualms about “undervaluing an entire race”. Blacks were excluded both from their histories, and from their understanding of how America had been made. Mr Franklin’s intention was to weave the black experience back into the national story. Unlike many after him, he did not see “black history” as an independent discipline, and never taught a formal course in it. What he was doing was revising American history as a whole. His books, especially “From Slavery to Freedom” (1947), offered Americans their first complete view of themselves.
Thomas Jefferson’s wine
Militancy was not in his nature. He was too scrupulous a historian for that, and too courteous a man. Asked whether he hated the South, he would say, on the contrary, that he loved it. His deepest professional debt was to a white man, Ted Currier, who had inspired him to study history and had given him $500 to see him through Harvard. Yet, alongside the dignity and the ready smiles, a sense of outrage burned. He longed to tell white tourists thronging Washington that the Capitol had been built by slaves, and that Pennsylvania Avenue had held a slave market, “right by where the Smithsonian is”. Profits made possible by enslaving blacks had not only allowed Thomas Jefferson to enjoy fine French wines: they had also underpinned America’s banks, its economic dynamism and its dominance in the world. The exploitation of blacks was something he admitted he had “never got over”.
Nor had America got over it, despite the march from Selma, in which Mr Franklin led a posse of historians, and Brown v Board of Education, where he lent his scholarship to help prove that the Framers had not meant to impose segregation on the public schools. The “colour line”, as he called it, remained “the most tragic and persistent social problem” the country faced. His own many black firsts—president of the American Historical Association and the Southern Historical Association, membership of Washington’s Cosmos Club—had not necessarily opened the door to others. The night before he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995, a woman at the Cosmos Club asked him to fetch her coat. He was overjoyed by Barack Obama’s election, but could not forget the poor, immobile blacks revealed by Hurricane Katrina.
He yearned to improve things, but wondered how. Financial reparations he was doubtful about; apologies seemed trifling. Only time, in historical quantities, seemed likely to make a difference. For some months he was chairman of Bill Clinton’s Initiative on Race, a disorganised effort that ended by recommending “community co-operation”. Hostile letters poured in, mostly from people who did not think the subject worth talking about. Mr Franklin took them in his stride. He would go and work on his next book, or retire to the greenhouse, implements in hand; and practise patience.
The Economist, 2 April 2009
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25. Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly
Who is the general public?
In a democracy, the general public is that social class that rules, and government ministers are mere privates. In theory.
Susan Douglas, Vancouver, BC, Canada
I seem to recall that I helped to form this army, together with my father, about 50 years ago. Among our favourites were the sadistic Corporal Punishment, the spy Private Eye, the rather naughty Private Parts, the lowly (and lonely) Runner Bean, and last, but certainly not least, the army physician, Major Operation.
Guy Johnston, Kirchhundem, Germany
Any answers?
Why do Notes & Queries respondents display such a dismal sense of humour? What about some serious answers to interesting questions?
Neil Filby, Wadenswil, Switzerland
What is the shortest joke?
Ned Edmonds, New York City, US
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26.
APRIL 10
1. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar holds hearings in San Francisco on off-shore drilling off our coast - April 16. Please attend
2. Vote on closing money-losing Sharp Park Golf Course and converting to nature center and various recreational uses
3. A free, self-guided tour of water-wise, low maintenance, bird and butterfly friendly in Sta Clara and Peninsula Sunday April 19
4. Gulf of Farallones Marine Sanctuary wants you as a volunteer "ambassador" and naturalist
5. Sunday Streets San Francisco: Open up miles of streets for everybody to jog, walk, bike, other recreational activities
6. Students looking for a recommended summer seminar
7. Farallones Marine Sanctuary Public Meeting in Pacifica April 16
8. Flora of Iraq kickoff meeting
9. Local native plants at Nature in the City's HANC Nursery
10. The peregrine falcons of San Francisco and San Jose, Apr 16/Restore migratory bird and wildlife habitat in San Francisco Apr 11
11. The President Obama speaks to the bankers
12. The complex Thomas Jefferson born 13 April 1743
13. Jefferson helped create this crazy democracy; Project Vote Smart wants to keep it democratic
14. Mule steak and dressed rat: Vicksburg 1863
15. New issue of Bay Nature crammed with timely material you'll want
16. Obituary: Bullfighter Conchita Cintron invaded a man's world
17. Potrero Hill wildflower walk April 19
18. Prairie in the city: St Louis
19. The tiny majority: Uses and dangers of a favorite political euphemism
20. Is growth good or bad? LTEs
21. Feedback
22. Flights of fancy: a treasure trove of bird-related legends for folklore aficionados
23. Park steward's Ultra World X-tet concert this Sat April 11, includes performances of traditional Chinese music
24. Classic lines from Rose Marie
1. Public Hearing to Protect Endangered Species
Thursday, April 16 in San Francisco, CA
Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF
Robertson Auditorium
1675 Owens Street
San Francisco, CA
Interior Secretary Salazar will be holding hearings on off-shore oil drilling in several locations in April
We also hope folks can raise the issue of the two rule changes to the Endangered Species Act that went into effect days before the Obama Administration took office. These are the Sec 7 rule which deals with consultation and the sec 4(d) rule commonly referred to as the Polar Bear rule on global warming.
It is critical that we have a big turnout in SF. The Mendocino Coast is on the docket for offshore oil drilling and wave energy development, as well as U.S. Navy expanded weapons testing. We are fighting to keep our coast (1 of 4 in the world with unique upwelling) free of pollution, etc.
At each location, doors will open at 8:00 a.m. and meetings will begin at 9:00 a.m. Meetings will conclude by 8:00 p.m., with breaks tentatively scheduled from 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Please refer to http://www.doi.gov/ocs/ for final schedule information for each meeting.
If you are unable to attend in person, or are unable to speak at the meetings, you are welcome to submit written statements, comments and documents, either at the meetings or during the public comment period, which ends September 21, 2009. For more information on how to submit a comment please visit:
http://www.mms.gov/5-year/2010-2015DPPComments.htm
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2.
The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story about the future of Sharp Park. The article contains a poll with two options: either restore Sharp Park or keep the golf course as is. Please click the link below and vote to restore Sharp Park!
You can see the article here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/07/BA9716SDVJ.DTL
You can also add a comment on-line or send in an LTE encouraging restoration to the Chronicle at letters@sfchronicle.com.
(I had trouble registering at SFGate. It repeatedly told me that my password was wrong. After finally spelling my user name as one word (I don't recall it telling me to do that), it went through. I quickly scanned some of the comments--all pro-golf--and they were all accustory, ill-tempered, and abusive. That means that they don't have any arguments to bolster their case. Please speak respectifully and clearly.)
(On request, I will send a copy of LTE written to the Chronicle protesting its coverage of the issue. The LTE is overly-long and will doubtless not be printed in full, if at all.)
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3. Going Native Garden Tour
7th ANNUAL GOING NATIVE GARDEN TOUR. A free, self-guided tour of home gardens that are water-wise, low maintenance, low on chemical use, bird and butterfly friendly, and attractive. A variety of home gardens landscaped with California native plants will be open to the public Sunday, April 19, 2009, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Locations throughout Santa Clara Valley and Peninsula. Free admission; registration required at http://www.gngt.org before April 18, 12 noon, or until the tour reaches capacity, whichever comes first. Space is limited; register early to ensure a place. Volunteers receive invitations to visit native gardens throughout the year. For more information, email info@gngt.org
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4. GULF OF THE FARALLONES NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY SEEKING VOLUNTEER "AMBASSADORS" & NATURALISTS
Become a sanctuary volunteer and inspire others to discover the San Francisco-based Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary—one of the richest marine ecosystems in the world. During our 4-day training, you will learn how to interpret sanctuary exhibits, feed animals in our cold saltwater aquaria, and collect and view plankton from the historic tide station pier in the Presidio. Join us and discover the sharks, whales, seabirds and all the diversity of life just outside the Golden Gate!
Training schedule; applicants should save the following dates & times:
April 23rd, 7 pm - 9 pm (Th)
April 25th, 9 am - 1 pm (Sa)
April 30th, 7 pm - 9 pm (Th)
May 2nd, 9 am - 1 pm (Sa)
Applications must by received by 5pm, April 10th
Applications can be downloaded at: http://farallones.org/documents/NC2009.pdf or requested by contacting Justin Holl at (415) 561-6622 x308 or justin.holl@noaa.gov
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5. Sunday Streets San Francisco
Sunday Streets will bring physical activity space to San Francisco neighborhoods on six Sunday mornings in 2009, opening up miles of San Francisco streets for thousands of local families, kids and adults to walk, jog, and bike, as well as participate in group exercise. Sunday Streets hosts a variety of safe, free and fun activities that will attract people from throughout our City and the entire Bay Area. The first two Sunday Streets are April 26 and May 10.
Volunteer shifts are about three hours, so we will have plenty of time to play at Sunday Streets AND volunteer! A free lunch and t-shirts are provided to all volunteers. There is also a special treat for all volunteers who help on five dates or more, so let's get our organization to commit to all six! To sign up to volunteer and for more information about dates and routes, go to: sundaystreetssf.com/volunteer.html.
sundaystreetsvol@gmail.com
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6. Student request
Students looking for a recommended summer seminar on either wilderness survival/plant and mushroom identification/forestry/mycology. We are aiming for a week or less of an intensive program somewhere in California. We have done research but were just wondering if anyone has a specific program to recommend based on the quality of its teaching.
Any suggestions? Please email Mark at mm4109@nyu.edu
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7. Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Public Meeting
Pedro Point Firehouse
1227 Danmann Ave., Pacifica, CA
9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The public is invited to attend a meeting of the Advisory Council for San Francisco-based Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. The sanctuary manages marine resources from from northern Marin County, southward to waters along the San Mateo County coast. Residents of the coastal areas and inland communities will be interested in many issues and actions affecting the general region.
For more information on the Sanctuary Advisory Councils, visit the website: http://farallones.noaa.gov/manage/sac.html
For more information on the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary visit the website: http://farallones.noaa.gov/
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8. Flora of Iraq Kickoff Meeting
The Twin Rivers Institute for scientific research (TRI), a division of the American University of Iraq- Sulaimani(AUI-S) hosted this week an important meeting in Sulaimani, Iraqi Kurdistan, to discuss the options Iraq has to finalize and update the long needed Flora of Iraq.
Read more about the meeting at http://natureiraq.org/Eng/NI_News.html
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9.
Go to 780 Frederick Street @ Arguello in SF, and visit Nature in the City's HANC Nursery at the HANC Recycle Center. Greg Gaar, local ecological activist, has over 40 species of native plants, sown from local seed. Donations are asked on a per plant basis. Discount donations can be negotiated for large orders.
Mon-Sat 9am-4pm, Sun 12-4pm. (inside the recycling center). 415-753-2971. www.natureinthecity.org/plantsale.php.
Some choice plants available:
bee plant and California phacelia--excellent bee plants
buckwheats--bees and butterflies
checkerbloom, cow parsnip, blue-eyed grass, pink currant, seaside daisy, and much, much more
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10.
2009 Golden Gate Audubon Speaker Series: April
The Falcons of San Francisco and San Jose City Hall By Glenn Stewart
April 16, 7:30pm
San Francisco Botanical Garden/SF County Fair Bldg
For directions, please visit: http://www.sfbotanicalgarden.org/visiting/page2.html.
Join conservation biologist, Glenn Stewart, for a discussion of peregrine falcon natural history, their population recovery, and the iconic falcons that now live in our urban environment. While the peregrine population has recovered, its numbers remain an important indicator of environmental health.
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Help the Parks Conservancy and Golden Gate Audubon Restore Migratory Bird and Wildlife Habitat in the City of San Francisco!
Saturday, April 11, 1:00pm to 4:00pm: Land’s End, San Francisco. Improve habitat for birds and other wildlife on the coastal dunes and bluffs at Lands End. Meet near East Wash at 1pm, at the golf course access road west of the Palace of the Legion of Honor.
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11. The president speaks to the bankers: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090403/pl_politico/20871
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12. Thomas Jefferson, born 13 April 1743
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt.... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake." Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the Alien & Sedition Act
Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God...that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared their Legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.
"If the nation expects to be ignorant and free they expect what never was and never will be."
"The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe."
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
THE HEMINGSES OF MONTICELLO; An American Family, By Annette Gordon-Reed
Sometime around 1800, an anonymous American artist produced an arresting painting entitled “Virginian Luxuries.” It depicts a slave owner exercising two kinds of power over his human property. On the right, a white man raises his arm to whip a black man’s bare back. On the left, he lasciviously caresses a black woman. The artist’s identification of these “luxuries” with the state that produced four of our first five presidents underscores the contradiction between ideals and reality in the early Republic.
No one embodied this contradiction more strikingly than Thomas Jefferson. In 1776, when he wrote of mankind’s inalienable right to liberty, Jefferson owned more than 100 slaves. He hated slavery but thought blacks inferior in “body and mind” to whites. If freed, he believed, they should be sent to Africa; otherwise, abolition would result in racial warfare or, even worse, racial “mixture.” Yet in his own lifetime, reports circulated that Jefferson practiced such mixture with his slave Sally Hemings. Excerpted from review in the New York Times
“He’s an individualist and yet he’s a communitarian; he’s a democrat and yet he’s an aristocrat; he’s a revolutionary, but he’s also an institution builder; he’s an egalitarian and he’s a slaver. He’s Thomas Jefferson.” Dr Joseph F. Kobylka for The Teaching Company
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13. Project Vote Smart
A tight synopsis of Project Vote Smart's election year and review of its database directory: http://votesmart.org/pdf/PVS_Fact_Sheet.pdf
Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. Laurence J. Peter
William Penn: "Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason."
P.J. O'Rourke: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
Socrates: "Let him that would move the world first move himself."
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14.
The American civil war
Mule steak and dressed rat
Vicksburg 1863 by Winston Groom
“NOT a dog barked at us, not a cat shied round a corner. Poor things, they had all been eaten in the straitness of the siege.” The eyewitness was a Yankee chaplain with the Federal Army when on Independence Day, July 4th 1863, it entered Vicksburg, the previously impregnable town that commanded the Mississippi River. The fall of the so-called “Gibraltar of the West” hastened the end of the American civil war by cleaving the Confederacy in two and cutting its supplies of grain, livestock, munitions and men.
Civil-war buffs will be most interested in Winston Groom’s contribution to the contentious debate on whether General Joseph Johnston, the Confederate commander in the West, could and should have done more to relieve the defender of Vicksburg, General John Pemberton. Others will be struck more by the archaic nature of the Vicksburg campaign. The tactics of the besiegers and the sufferings of the besieged bring to mind medieval, or even Roman, times rather than mid-19th-century America.
Vicksburg was first “invested”, that is blockaded and surrounded, so that its defenders could neither escape nor be reinforced or supplied. Moves to force the town’s surrender followed. In earlier times catapults “reduced” the fortifications. At Vicksburg artillery was used instead. When even big guns failed to breach its defences yet another ancient tactic was employed. An escalade, or attack over the battlements, was ordered. That failed, too, and the attackers had to try to undermine the trenches and other fortifications through tunnelling, a popular medieval tactic.
Constant shelling compelled the inhabitants of Vicksburg to retreat into shelters, initially scooped-out holes in the ground. Shortages of food and drink forced prices up to levels only the rich could afford. A barrel of brandy or whisky, for instance, soared to 12 times its pre-war price. Poorer people struggled to subsist. Dressed rats hung alongside mule meat in the market.
Federal troops lived off the land, so other Mississippians suffered almost as much as those entrapped in Vicksburg. Their houses were looted, ransacked and burnt. Even blacks were plundered of their blankets, chickens, corn meal and garments. When the foragers found nothing left worth taking at plantations, they engaged in wanton destruction, singling out the crystal chandeliers “for particular abuse”. There were even bad incidents of anti-Semitism from the Federal top military brass. General William Tecumseh Sherman complained about profiteering by Jewish peddlers and General Ulysses S. Grant issued a decree expelling all Jews from a large swathe of the South. President Abraham Lincoln revoked the order, noting that it “proscribed an entire religious class” and that Jews were fighting in the ranks of the Federal Army. Along with Jefferson Davis, his Southern counterpart, he is among the few to emerge with honour from this whole sorry story.
The Economist 4 April 09
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15.
The April issue of Bay Nature magazine is out now and features an article about the Green Hairstreak Corridor Project, written by Nature in the City steering committee member Josiah Clark, and a brief article about Yerba Buena Island and the Habitat Management Plan being prepared.
The issue also includes:
- an inset called "Transit to Trails" mapping Bay Area outdoor recreation areas that are accessible via public transportation.
- an article about creating habitat and community at Mori Point, home to the threatened red-legged frog and endangered San Francisco garter snake.
- the cover article which introduces the local, native bees of the Bay Area. See our website for a podcast of the recent NTC TALK, "Bees in the City."
There's lots more information in this issue of Nature in the City. Go to: http://natureinthecity.org/NTCnews4-7.html
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16. Obituary: Conchita Cintron
Conchita Cintron Verill, bullfighter, died on February 17th, aged 86
Four in the afternoon is the vital time in bullfighting. Most corridas start then, when the declining sun shines full in the bull's eyes, dazzling him. And that was the only time Conchita Cintron felt afraid. Behind the closed gates of the patio de cuadrillas, mounted and ready, she would feel a sudden lightning bolt to the pit of the stomach, the realisation that she didn't know how the bull would be, or what was about to happen. At that moment, everyone was quiet. All she could hear was the tinkling harness of the mules that would drag the bull out of the ring, the chink of spur on stirrup, "and the voice of some well-intentioned supporter wishing you luck, and you can hardly bear to give him your hand." Then the gates swung open, the trumpets blared out, "and it's just God, the bull and the bullfighter."
...Da Camara (her teacher) noticed then what fans treasured later: her delicacy, her solemnity and her fearlessness...Her fine hands allowed her to flick and twirl the muleta, luring the bull and teasing him, with extraordinary artistry. Beside the huge black beast, one commentator wrote, she looked lie a Sevres figurine, but one brimming over with duende--courage, grace and defiance. She was known especially for her veronicas, slow backward swings of the cape with both feet rock-steady as the bull raced towards her, almost upon her.
But Ms Cintron had not intended to work with capes or muletas. She had started as a horse-rider, until the day when da Camara encouraged his pupils to stick banderillas in an old chair from horseback. She took to the new game so eagerly that, at 13, he tried her talents on a frisky bull that was being driven to the local slaughterhouse. Her horse, as she gave it rein and raced forwards, leapt "like a swallow" with fear, but she saw her banderilla planted firmly for the first time in the black, mountainous neck. That was it. At 16, though her parents wished she would do something ladylike, such as learning French, she was touring professionally round the bullrings of Latin America.
Learning to kill was harder. She practised at the slaughterhouse, serenely confident, as she would tell preachy Americans later, that these bulls would otherwise die by the hammer, an "unsporting" end. At first she closed her eyes, missing the vital spinal gap where her dagger had to fall. She forced herself not only to look, but to stay still as the bull charged her. Only then could she see the spot. The keen, true thrust, and the instantaneous death, made her sing with joy. In her fairly short career--she retired in 1950, at 27, wanting to marry a man who would not roll over so readily--she killed more than 750 bulls, happily collecting their ears, tails and feet.
A passing caress
Her skills were not always welcome. this was, and is, a man's world. She had been trained as a rejoneadora, in the Portuguese version of bullfighting, and was supposed to stay on her horse. Men went on foot to do their duelling with the bull, and to kill it; this was not women's work. But Ms Cintron found her horse got in the way...In her rejoneadora gear--no flashy suit of lights, but a silk jacket, leather chapped trousers and a wide-brimmed hat--she would slide from her steed and right into the close, bloody dance. One late fight, in Jaen in 1950, was especially famous. Women were forbidden to fight on foot in Franco's Spain, in case they were gored in unseemly ways. (Ms Cintron was often injured and twice gored, once in each thigh, but managed to finish off the bull after fainting briefly.) On this occasion, having slipped illegally from her hose, she snatched a muleta and sword from the waiting novillero, raised the sword as the bull charged, and then dropped it, instead caressing the huge black neck as it hurtled past. For this "burst of glorious criminality", as Orson Welles described it, she was instantly arrested and as instantly pardoned, as the crowd rained down hats and carnations. That final caress, with her delicate fingers, was a gesture only a woman might have thought of making.
She married well, to an aristocratic nephew of her riding teacher, and spent the rest of her life writing articles, breeding Portuguese water dogs and doing the diplomatic round. In old sage, she would complain that she had lived too long; a bullfighter, after all, "sees no importance in living beyond the fight". Ordinary life dragged. But at times, laughing, she would make her hands into horns and imitate the rush of the bull out of the gate, at four in the afternoon.
Excerpt from The Economist 07.03.09
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17.
Wildflower Walk:
Date: Sunday, April 19, 2009 - 10 am
Place: Meet at the corner of 25th Street & Texas Street. Easy parking along 25th Street.
Leader & Contact: Ralph Hunter 415-410-4247
This is native plant habitat in an area scheduled for redevelopment - Potrero Terrace and Potrero Annex Public Housing . The area is along Texas Street, the eastern boundary of the housing projects. It contains 25 species of native plants and has served as a valuable seed source for reintroductions into Starr King Openspace. This area should be permanently preserved, and now is the time to make it happen. This is the same area we visited on March 15, but there will be some new species blooming.
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18.
Prairie in the city
An unexpected survival in St Louis
THE prairie once covered a million square miles of North America. Relentless settlement, bringing agriculture and grazing, reduced it to scattered remnants. One of the least known scraps survives, in all places, within the city limits of St Louis, Missouri.
Its hiding place is Calvary Cemetery, a 477-acre graveyard to the north of the city. Among the famous buried there are Tennessee Williams and William Tecumseh Sherman, of “Marching though Georgia” fame. Almost by accident, environmentalists discovered that an untouched 25-acre plot in the cemetery was one of the last bits of the prairie that, till the early 19th century, covered most of the site of present-day St Louis.
A detailed study found more than 130 species of native prairie plants, from the tallgrass that towered over the first settlers to the smallest, most delicate wild flowers. The city crowds all round it. Indeed, it is the only known piece of prairie within the Interstate 270 loop that circles the St Louis metro region.
Although the plot had been spared, it had been invaded by black locust trees and ornamentals imported from Asia. Joint efforts are now being made by the Missouri Botanical Garden, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Nature Conservancy and the Green Centre of St Louis to encourage the native plants and weed out the intruders. The best way to do that is to burn the land, as happens naturally with wildfires. A number of controlled burns of small sections have eliminated some intrusive species while revitalising the native plants. The burned areas have already sprung back to life, healthier than before.
The archdiocese of St Louis, which owns the cemetery, has made a 100-year commitment to leave the land as a preserve and keep it open to the public. In the midst of the dead is a gift from the past to future generations.
The Economist 8 April 2009
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19.
The tiny minority
The uses and dangers of a favourite political euphemism
There are some sound arguments against the chief medical officer's idea of introducing minimum prices for alcoholic drinks, indexed to their strength, to help reduce the havoc incited by booze. But the main rebuff offered by politicians isn't one of them: that the scheme, as many of them intone, would punish all tipplers for the sins of an irresponsible "small minority".
Most political euphemisms--extraordinary rendition, collateral damage, "misspeaking" and so on--are designed, as George Orwell put it, to make "murder respectable", or at least to camouflage dishonesty or scandal. The small or (more often) "tiny minority" is generally a figment of cowardice rather than concealment: deployed to minimise failure and justify inaction, rather than to finesse evil. It is an increasingly common, and insidious. trope of political rhetoric. Just as "pacification" once meant its opposite, so the "tiny minority" is coming to connote a big worry.
(examples omitted)
Of deception and delusion
...These are very different contexts, but the aim of the euphemism is the same: to minimise, trivialise, make the nastiness go away. The motives are consistent too. Only some are respectable.
...There is a final political factor at work, one founded in a basic psychological need. To be elected, politicians need to offer hope and congratulation as well as criticism--to sell a vision of a good society--because most people like to think well of themselves and their future. Few enjoy the thought that their country gestates drunks and hooligans or is imperilled by fanatics. Insisting that worrisome minorities are "tiny" is in part a form of wishful thinking, as if saying something often enough could make it true, and rhetorical tininess could shrink reality.
This sort of euphemism is sometimes a kind of self-delusion as well as a deception. But it is perilous all the same. All those tiny minorities add up to a society in denial.
Lexington in The Economist 21.03.09
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20. LTEs, Guardian Weekly
Is growth good or bad?
Once again it becomes clear how the paradigm of infinite growth can undermine even well-intentioned projects. Julian Glover's article, 'Making Pollution Cheap' outlines how Europe's carbon trading market has had the opposite of the desired effect because policymakers did not plan for the economic downturn. How fitting that economists and politicians would create the systems to save us around the system that will destroy us.
Taxes and regulations can have undesired effects in different market situations. It's time that we stop working around the system and fix the system itself. When economic progress is measured by its contribution to a sustainable world, reducing your carbon emissions will always be your goal. The economy should work for the welfare of the world no matter what capacity it's at.
But when policymakers aren't willing to intervene in this carbon trading market, what hope do we have for their intervention in changing the whole economy?
Chris Diplock, Vancouver, Canada
If Gordon Brown thinks that the world can be saved from "irreversible climate change" while predicting that "the global economy would double over the next 20 years", then he clearly hasn't got it.
Dr M N Foggo, Rotorua, New Zealand
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21. Feedback
Robin Chiang:
Hi Jake: My friend, the poet James Denison, and his wife Cassia Leal translated this article by the ostracized Brazilian journalist and environmentalist Lucio Flavio Pinto. It is the first time his writing has been translated into English. James and Cassia are now in Belem interviewing him.
http://designbythebay.com/2009/03/after-it-came-and-went/
The article is about yet another international conference of bright people, mostly from the first world, making arrangements involving the third world--without, of course, listening to them first.
Chris Darling:
Dear Jake, Thank you for writing about Senator Jim Webb and his call for prison reform. But that is just on a federal level. I believe that California has the most stringent three strikes law in the country. As a result of this and other so-called "tough on crime" laws, our state prisons are horribly overcrowded.
None of the articles about our state's budget deficit ever talk about the problems with the prisons and the fact that the prison system is now in receivership. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson has appointed J. Clark Kelso as receiver. Kelso has proposed an $8 billion plan to build health clinics and hospitals for all of our prisoners. He has the power to unilaterally impose that plan on the state if there is not sufficient cooperation by state officials. In an unusual display of bipartisan cooperation, both Attorney General Brown and Governor Schwarzennegger are fighting the receivership of the state prison system. They are apparently trying to defend the status quo. Kelso has been quoted as saying that one person dies unnecessarily every week because prison health care is so bad.
The same federal district court tentatively ruled that 57,000 prisoners be released as another way to lessen the cost and burden of providing decent health care for the state's prisoners. Given that huge numbers of people in prison are there for minor parole violations and for nonviolent offenses, we would be better served by having all those people released.
Peter Vaernet:
"America has less than 5% of the world's people but almost 25% of its prisoners. It imprisons 756 people per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the world average."
As an immigrant, these statistics do not surprise me.....it is clear to me that many Americans have completely misunderstood the almost deliriously treasured American notion of "freedom". Many Americans seem to believe that "freedom" means that one can do whatever one wants....this of course could not be further from the truth. Freedom merely means that society gives each individual human more personal, individual responsibility for their personal conduct..... That fact appears to be often missed during child rearing and schooling.....
Philip Batchelder:
Hi, Jake. I think you're interested in vitamins & supplements or at least NUTRIENTS, so here is a link to some fascinating, in-depth discussions on the subject. I don't think they'll be available for free for very long, so listen soon. Each program is an hour long. The first is 2/17/09; the second is 2/24/09. Good stuff.
I post this for your information. I listened to about 15 minutes of the second of the two dates. The subject is sufficiently complex that I don't have a way of evaluating it. You're on your own.
AnMarie Rogers:
Hi Jake, Thanks for the great write-up on Strange Fruit. Some of your readers may not know that Robert Meeropol (born Robert Rosenberg in 1947) is the
younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Meeropol was born in New York City. His father Julius, an electrical engineer, was a member of the Communist Party. His mother Ethel (née Greenglass), a union organizer, was also active in the Communist Party. When Robert was six years old, his parents were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage. Given the song and the nature of our post-911 world, this too seems worth remembering.
Thanks very much for this interesting information. I well remember my somewhat leftist friends of the time being exceedingly upset by the Rosenberg affair, and held to the end that they were innocent of the charge.
Vern Waight:
Jake: In your messages dated 4/6/2009 you failed to credit those four lines at the beginning of Item 9 to one our great American composers and outstanding lyricist, Cole Porter. They are from "Anything Goes."
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today
OK, good to be set straight, Vern. I thought it had just been thought up recently to describe the craziness of our times. But the more I learn about the past the more I realize there is nothing new under the sun. Name it and the world has seen it before.
(For those interested, Vern, who is editor of the SHARP neighborhood newsletter, becomes a nonagenarian on May 5, Cinco de Mayo. Perhaps he'll be doing a cha-cha-cha on his 90th birthday.)
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22. Flights of Fancy, by Peter Tate
A beautifully bound and amply illustrated little book; this is a treasure trove of bird-related legends for folklore aficionados as well as birding enthusiasts, or people who just like a good story. A large and varied body of folklore is connected in some way to traditional beliefs about birds and bird behavior. Amazingly, there are similar threads linking bird folklore to highly diverse cultures. Romans, ancient Egyptians, and Pima Indians all had beliefs linking owls to death. European and Sioux Indian folklore both have babies arriving by storks. Robins and crossbills are universally loved in legends; doves are always peaceful. While speculation on origins is sometimes logical, the author provides food for thought and a rich bibliography. This book would be a fun gift and deserves a place next to the bed or in the bathroom where it could be enjoyed in small doses.
Review from In Brief, newsletter of Earthjustice
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23. From park steward Gary Schwantes:
Ultra World X-tet will be performing as part of the S.F. Guzheng Music Society 27th Annual Concert this Sat. April 11th. Also featured will be performances of traditional Chinese Music, including pieces arranged for various combinations of Guzheng, Erhu and Voice.
S.F.Guzheng Music Society 27th Annual Concert
April 11, 2:00pm
Chinese Culture Center
750 Kearny Street, Third Floor
Here's a link to S.F.Guzheng Music Society website with ticket prices and info: http://www.guzheng.org/
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24. Classic lines
Q. As you grow older, do you tend to gesture more or less with your hands while talking?
A. Rose Marie: You ask me one more growing old question Peter, and I'll give you a gesture you' ll never forget.
Q. During a tornado, are you safer in the bedroom or in the closet?
A. Rose Marie: Unfortunately Peter, I'm always safe in the bedroom.
APRIL 6
1. The innovative Green Hairstreak Project field trips in April and May
2. Job opportunities
3. Raise chickens and ducks in the city/revitalize traditional foodways
4. Community Open Space Workshops Wrap Up; Open Space Survey Still Open
5. Heron Watch at Stow Lake - watch them court, mate, and raise their young
6. Brisbane's annual San Bruno Mountain restoration day
7. Billie Holiday, born 7 April 1915. Haunting strains of a bloody past
8. A nation of jailbirds. Far too many Americans are behind bars
9. Miscellany of thoughts
10. Population miscellany
11. Feedback
12. Poems about baseball and life, April 18
13. Wildflower field trip Saturday 11 April
14. LTEs: Photographing the Milky Way from far out/Only constant is change? Not everyone thinks so. Heraclitus and his cheeky student
15. Notes & Queries
1. From the Green Hairstreak Project:
Come stroll an exciting new conservation project that is beginning to gain some national recognition: the Green Hairstreak Corridor -- a neighborhood restoration of plants that serve as a linchpin for a little green butterfly's existence. Liam O'Brien, the originator of this Nature in the City project, guarantees everyone will see the butterfly.
Sunday, April 12th. Sunday, April 26th and Saturday, May 9th. 11am - 1:pm
Folks meet at the corner of 14th & Rivera and we are requesting an RSVP through www.natureinthecity.org and a $10 donation (waived for hardships) to go towards the project.
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2. Job opportunities
Community Organizer for Environmental Restoration Campaign—Part Time
Restore Hetch Hetchy (www.hetchhetchy.org), a national advocacy campaign dedicated to restoring the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park to its original natural splendor, is recruiting a San Francisco-based grassroots organizer. Specific areas of focus will be community outreach at street fairs and festivals, winning organizational endorsements and creating bi-monthly opinion leader briefings. Qualified candidates will have at least 2 years of community organizing experience, demonstrated volunteer recruitment and management skills, proven political skills and a clear passion for environmental causes. Articulate (both oral and written), tech savvy, entrepreneurial, humorous and mature applicants only please.
This a part-time (20 hours per week) position with the possibility of becoming full-time. $15-20/hour. Open until filled. To apply please submit a resume and cover letter to mike@hetchhetchy.org.
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Positions at UC Davis:
These positions (Communication & Outreach Representatives/Program Rep II) will develop and implement targeted communications and stakeholder engagement in California’s food system. Potential activities will include, but are not limited to: (i) developing press releases on topics of media interest, (ii) designing and implementing a stakeholder engagement strategy, (iii) creating a seminar series for policy makers and convening “California Nitrogen” conferences, and (iv) translating scientific information about sustainable agriculture into multimedia formats that are useable by diverse audiences. These positions will collaborate on web site design, content for multiple media, assessment reports, and articles for relevant publications. These positions will also contribute to creation of a “center of excellence” for sustainable agriculture and food systems and linking agricultural science to public policy.
Information: http://asi.ucdavis.edu/recruitment/
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3.
CITY CHICKENS! AND DUCKS TOO!
AN INTRODUCTION TO RAISING AND CARING FOR HEALTHY CHICKENS AND DUCKS IN SAN FRANCISCO
Date: Saturday, April 11th, 2009
Time: 10AM - 12:00 Noon
Location: Garden for the Environment, 7th Ave at Lawton Street, San Francisco
Cost: $15
You can keep chickens and ducks in San Francisco! Join Paul Glowaski and Cooper Funk of Urban Eggs for an exciting workshop on organic “eggriculture”. You will learn how to legally keep chickens and ducks in San Francisco, from coop design to health concerns, and what to feed them and examples of appropriate organic systems for both chickens and ducks.
To pre-register, please call (415) 731-5627, or email info@gardenfortheenvironment.org.
EVENT: Gary Paul Nabham and GCETP Graduate Ashley Rood
Date: Wed, April 29th, 2009- 6pm
Location: Ferry Building, Port Commission Hearing Room, 2nd Floor, San Francisco (Market & Embarcadero)
Cost: $10
Gary Paul Nabhan, writer, food and farming advocate, and conservationist, will be joined by GCETP Graduate and sustainable agriculture activist Ashley Rood. The evenings discussion will offer tales and photographs from the book they co-authored, "Rewewing America's Food Traditions," including success stories of renewal and revitalization of traditional foodways, and remind us how our food choices can support biodiversity and a region’s distinct culinary identity.
Obamas to Plant Vegetable Garden at White House. NY Times, March 19, 2009
"Michelle Obama will begin digging up a patch of the South Lawn on Friday to plant a vegetable garden, the first at the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in World War II." - Marian Burros, NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/dining/20garden.html?_r=1&hp
Is a Food Revolution Now in Season? NY Times, March 21, 2009
“This has never been just about business,” said Gary Hirshberg, chief executive of Stonyfield Farm, the maker of organic yogurt. “We are here to change the world. We dreamt for decades of having this moment.” - Andrew Martin, NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/business/22food.html?_r=2&hp
Michael Pollan Fixes Dinner. Mother Jones Magazine, March 2009
"One surprise is how deeply the food system is implicated in climate change. I don't think that has really been on people's radar until very recently." - Clara Jeffery, Mother Jones http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2009/02/michael-pollan-fixes-dinner
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4. Community Open Space Workshops Wrap Up; Open Space Survey Still Open
The final of twenty open space planning workshops was held on Thursday, April 2nd for the Bayview/Hunter's Point neighborhood. If you were unable to attend your neighborhood workshop, you still have a chance to contribute your opinion through the Open Space Survey at http://www.openspacesf.org (see the block on the left: TAKE OUR BRIEF SURVEY.) It takes just a few minutes! You can also check http://openspacesf.org/OSmeetingnotes to read minutes from each workshop.
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5.
Heron Watch at Stow Lake
Each year since 1993, the great blue herons have returned to Stow Lake to court, mate and raise their young. 119 chicks have fledged to date!
Opening Day is April 11th!
Drop in anytime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. San Francisco Nature Education middle- and high-school interns have spotting scopes to show these magnificent birds to the public. Naturalists lead two separate nature walks— one for adults and one for families — around Stow Lake and Strawberry Island from 10:30 a.m. until noon.
Seniors and children are free. There is a $10 donation for adults on tours.
For more information, visit www.sfnature.org or call (415) 387-9160.
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Marsh wren nest at Lake Merced: http://www.flickr.com/photos/40235068@N00/3041552258
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6.
Brisbane's Firth Canyon Habitat Restoration Day
Saturday 18 April, 8 am - 12 noon
The City of Brisbane, in partnership with San Bruno Mountain Watch, invite you to join us for a community stewardship workday on Saturday, April 18, 8:00 am – 12 noon. Bring family, friends and neighbors to remove invasive plants and restore the canyon’s native habitat. Please wear work clothes and sturdy shoes; bring gloves if you have them. We’ll provide tools and training, free snacks and T-shirts for volunteers (while supplies last). All ages and abilities welcome!
Meet at Glen Parkway and Sierra Point
RSVP: 415-508-2112, LPontecorvo@ci.Brisbane.ca.us
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7. Born 7 April 1915 - Billie Holiday
Haunting strains of a bloody past
So horrific are the images it conjures up, Billie Holiday always closed her eyes to sing 'Strange Fruit'.
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
... Those who heard "Strange Fruit" in the late 30s were shocked, for the true barbarity of southern violence was generally only discussed in black newspapers. To be introduced to such realities by a song was unprecedented and was considered by many to be in poor taste.
In the late 30s, the 24-year-old Billie Holiday was headlining at a recently opened Greenwich Village nightclub called Cafe Society. It was the only integrated nightclub in New York City, and a place that advertised itself as "the wrong place for the Right people". The manager of the club, Barney Josephson, introduced Billie Holiday to Meeropol and his new song, which had an immediate impact on her. She decided to sing it at Cafe Society, where it was received with perfect, haunting silence. Soon she was closing her shows with the song. It was understood that only when the waiters had stopped serving, and the lights dimmed to a single spotlight, would she begin singing, with her eyes closed. Once she had finished, she would walk off stage and never return to take a bow.
The song was revolutionary - not only because of the explicit nature of the lyrics, but because it reversed the black singer's relationship with a white audience. Traditionally, singers such as Billie Holiday were expected to entertain and to "serve" their audiences. With this song, however, Holiday found a means by which she could demand that the audience stop and listen, and she was able to force them to take on board something with which they were not comfortable. She often used the song as a hammer with which to beat what she perceived to be ignorant audiences, and her insistence on singing the song with such gravitas meant that she was not always safe. Some people did not fully appreciate the dark song when they had stepped out for the evening to hear "Fine and Mellow" and other cocktail-lounge ditties.
Holiday was keen to record "Strange Fruit" on her label, Columbia, but her producer, John Hammond, was concerned that it was too political and he refused to allow her to go into the studio with it. But the singer would not back down. In April 1939, she recorded it for Commodore Records. It became a bestseller and was thereafter associated with her.
When Josephson introduced her to Meeropol and his song, Holiday knew that she could sing it like nobody else could, or would. She glimpsed truth in it and that was enough. She, perhaps more than most artists, understood that if you live the truth, you will pay a price, but without the truth there is no art. Whenever she performed the song, she could see the two teenagers, Shipp and Smith, hanging from the tree - which is why she closed her eyes whenever she sang it....
Excerpts from Guardian Weekly article
Hear her sing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.
I never had a chance to play with dolls like other kids. I started working when I was six years old.
Mom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen and I was three.
No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.
People don't understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.
Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough.
Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose.
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8.
A nation of jailbirds
Far too many Americans are behind bars
The world's tallest building is now in Dubai rather than New York. Its largest shopping mall is in Beijing, and its biggest Ferris wheel in Singapore. Once-mighty General Motors is suspended in a limbo between bail-out and bankruptcy; and the "war on terror" has demonstrated the limits of American military might.
But in one area America is going from strength to strength--the incarceration of its population. America has less than 5% of the world's people but almost 25% of its prisoners. It imprisons 756 people per 100,000 residents, a rate nearly five times the world average. About one in every 31 adults is either in prison or on parole. Black men have a one-in-three chance of being imprisoned at some point in their lives. "A Leviathan unmatched in human history", is how Glenn Loury, professor of social studies at Brown University, characterises America's prison system.
Conditions in the Leviathan's belly can be brutal...As well as being brutal, prisons are ineffective...Few mainstream politicians have had the courage to denounce any of this. People who embrace prison reform usually end up in the political graveyard. There is no organised lobby for prison reform. The press ignores the subject. And those who have first-hand experience of the system's failures--prisoners and ex-prisoners--may have no right to vote.
Which makes Jim Webb all the more remarkable. Mr Webb is far from being a lion of the Senate, roaring from the comfort of a safe seat. He is a first-term senator for Virginia who barely squeaked into Congress. The state he represents also has a long history of being tough on crime: Virginia abolished parole in 1994 and is second only to Texas in the number of people it executes. But Mr Webb is now America's leading advocate of prison reform. He has co-sponsored a bill to create a blue-ribbon commission to report on America's prisons.
...Does Mr Webb have any chance of diminishing America's addiction to incarceration? History is hardly on his side...Mr Webb also has some powerful forces ranged against him. The prison-industrial complex (which includes private prisons as well as public ones) employs thousands of people and armies of lobbyists.
Up for a fight
But Mr Webb is no ordinary politician. He packed several distinguished careers into his life before becoming a senator--as a marine in Vietnam, a lawyer, a much-published author and secretary of the navy in the Reagan administration. And he is not a man to back down from a fight: one of his best books, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, celebrates the martial virtues of the clan to which he is proud to belong.
Some signs suggest that the tide is turning in Mr Webb's direction. Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003. Barack Obama's Justice Department has hinted that it wants to do something about the disparity in sentencing between blacks and whites for drug crimes. Support for both the death penalty and the war on drugs is softening: a dozen states have legalised the use of marijuana for medical purposes. If Mr Webb can transform these glimmers of discontent with America's prison-industrial complex into a fully fledged reform movement, then he will go down in history as a great senator.
Lexington in The Economist 04.04.09
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9.
The world has gone mad today
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today
"The obstinacy of human beings is what enables them to fight for their countries, repel invaders and maintain their solidarity. But it is also what makes it so hard to fix what needs to be fixed." Martin Woollacott, Guardian Weekly, 6-12 May 2004
In times of change, learners inherit the earth. Anonymous
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10. LTE, High Country News 23/6/08
“…I pondered labor activist Cesar Chavez’s forgotten legacy.
Nations with high growth rates hinder efforts by all for climate and energy solutions. That includes our own, where economic “elites” swoon at the mere thought of population stabilization…economist Kenneth Boulding said, “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
By 2050, just eight nations will have contributed half of all growth on the planet. They are India, Pakistan, Nigeria, the United States, China, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo—in that order. Three—India, China, and the United States—are both carbon-emission giants and the only nations with populations over 300 million. There should be a legal remedy against nations that encourage population tsunamis, including our own, which is driven by immigration roughly 30 times pre-1965 levels despite warnings from Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson that population—global and United States—must be stabilized.
Although Douglas Bruce’s comments were boorish, I am less worried about Colorado agricultural interests—who fought having to provide workers with even basic sanitation facilities—than for our forgotten resident poor. Those on the open-borders bandwagon might consider why Chavez, knowing he could never leverage advancements in a flooded labor market, volunteered his United Farm Workers to patrol the border.
Kathleen Parker
Rio Rancho, New Mexico
Rampant fraud has been found in U.S. refugee program--fewer than 20% tell the truth about family ties. U.S. State Department
At a population of more than 45.5 million, Hispanics constitute the largest and fastest growing ethnic or race minority in the United States. U.S. Census
A recent study shows that California's air pollution kills more people than automobile crashes. California State University-Fullerton
Criminal gangs in the USA have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80% of crimes in communities across the nation. USA Today
Emergency room doctors have sued the state of California, alleging the system is on the edge of a breakdown. Los Angeles Times
"Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." Economist Kenneth Boulding
OVERPOPULATION TOP 10
Born-again population expert David Letterman recently informed “Late Show” viewers about the Top 10 signs that there are too many people on the planet. Among them: a two-year wait to date Madonna; Rhode Island phone books weighing more than a full-grown elephant; and the constant deafening whoosh of more than 5 billion people breathing.
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11. Feedback
Donald Robertson:
Yes, I hate it when men insist on a freshly flushed urinal, but I have an even bigger problem with both men and women who insist on using great wads of paper towels after washing their hands. I dry my hands with a quick shake, avoiding any towel use. If that is not acceptable, what is wrong with _one_ towel?
In a newsletter of several years ago I posted an item about a plume of bacterial content that rises in the air every time you flush a toilet containing feces. In that case, precautions are reasonable. But that can't apply to urine, which is sterile. (Urine is an ages-old and well-known homeopathic wound rinse.) When people flush the toilet before urinating into it they are demonstrating how cut off we are from basic experience with the world, not to mention common sense.
Every animal knows more than you do. - Native American Proverb (Nez Perce)
Elkhorn:
As a native San Franciscan, and one who survived the droughts of the '70s, and is still conserving water:
"If it's yellow, it's mellow;
If it's brown, flush it down."
Remember that one? Or Mark Twain's observation:
"Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over."
Brian Kemble:
In the blurb about “Is God a mathematician?” there is this statement:
“the sum of any successive odd numbers always equals a square number”
This statement is not true! It is true if the successive odd numbers begin with 1, as in the examples given, but not in other cases.
Bruce Grosjean:
Jake - Your interest in the ramifications of what's been called the Axial Age made me think you might be interested in an essay in this months Atlantic.
Although I do subscribe, I believe it is available for anyone @
Ian Wilson:
By the way, I was strolling around your old stomping grounds in the Arboretum the other day, and was amazed by the number of bees on a "dark star" Ceanothus -- both honey bees and natives. It seemed to attract a lot more bees than the other Ceanothus bushes nearby (these had bigger leaves, and less intensely purple flowers.) Is the dark star variety well known for its ability to attract bees?
Beats me. More copious nectar? Stronger in UV rays?
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12. From poet Dan Liberthson:
Just to let y'all know, I will be reading from my book "The Pitch is on the Way: Poems About Baseball and Life" on Saturday, April 18 starting at 7 pm until about 8:30. Phil Cousineau, who writes haiku about baseball, will share the microphone. All this will happen at Bird and Beckett Books and Records: for directions, see bird-beckett.com/
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13.
I'm leading a wildflower field trip/work party this Saturday, the 11th, at 9 am. Site is the little wildflower gem at the intersection of Duncan and Castro Streets. We especially encourage people from this general neighborhood to come. We'll talk about the plants for an hour, then pull weeds for awhile. We encourage you, but you needn't commit to pulling weeds.
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14. LTEs, Science News
Impossible view
In "Milky Way puts on weight" you claim to show an image of the Milky Way. This image cannot be real. Worse, it creates misconceptions: As a college educator, I find that most students actually believe NASA has launched probes outside of the Milky Way to take pictures of our galaxy. I hope that printing a correction will help dispel that belief.
Don McCarthy, Tucson, Ariz.
(JS: I am so accustomed to miracles of technology as, eg, stunning closeups of Saturn's satellites and their phenomena--such as ice geysers on Enceladus, methane lakes and changing landscapes on Titan, fine details of portions of the planet's rings, &c--that when I saw this "image" of the Milky Way, for a microsecond I thought it was, until its impossibility instantly replaced it. It was an illustration, and Science News did not purport to be showing an image of it, which is far beyond the ability of even our miracle-a-minute technology. So college students thinking it was an image--well, they have no appreciation of astronomical distances, or they wouldn't be able to entertain that thought for more than a microsecond. This is another argument for correcting city lighting so people can be more aware of a universe that's out there. They may be stimulated to learn more about it.)
Inspired by change
The editor's statement ("For both universe and life, only constant is change"), that change is the only constant is a factual idea one encounters infrequently. I was teaching my students this in 1956, spurred by Marcus Aurelius' Thoughts. He made the point in several places in his writings, though he may not have been the earliest to do so.* Early on, I raised the ire of biblical fundies in East Texas and beyond, but I continue to believe and express that change is the only real constant. Thanks for your editorial. The emperor would have loved it!
Franklin H. Mason, Tyler, Texas
* (How about Heraclitus, several hundred years earlier? JS)
“You can’t step into the same river twice.” Heraclitus
“You can’t step into the same river once.” Cratylus, Heraclitus’s follower
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15. Notes & Queries, Guardian Weekly
Not Othello in drag again!
I am bored with change, I want something different. Any suggestions?
* If you are bored with change, then how can you want something different?
Guye Henderson, Nelson, New Zealand
* You could always stage a traditionalist production of a Shakespeare play.
Brian Willcock, Brisbane, Australia
* Well then, may you live in very uninteresting times, which would indeed be different, and no doubt a relief to you and to many of the rest of us.
Richard Orlando, Montreal, Canada
* Step into the same river twice.
Andrew Stewart, Berkeley, California, US
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