Copenhagen Accord Notes

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

1) The United States is committed to implement qualified economy-wide emissions targets for 2020 to be submitted to the United Nations by January 31, 2010.

2) The U.S. Senate will be under the gun to pass their Cap & Trade, Energy & Jobs bill (S1733 or another similar bill) prior to January 31, 2010 to be in compliance with this Accord.

3) The current bill before the U.S. Senate will not reduce any pollution emissions until 2017 and then only a 17% reduction of 2005 identified greenhouse gas emissions (water vapor, a greenhouse gas, is excluded from this legislation). Thus, no action is planned by the Copenhagen Accord or the United States in reducing any greenhouse gases until 2017 or 2020.

4) The EPA, without any passage of legislation and under authority from a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, is now on track to immediately begin to reduce all pollution from every greenhouse gas source. Without interference from Congress or the White House compliance with the Accord will begin in 2010, and could put the United States in the lead in taking immediate action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution. The EPA model could set and example for the entire world and the United States would be immediately demonstrating its commitment to protecting the environment.

5) The Accord is weak in that no implementation of greenhouse gas reductions is to take place until 2020.

6) The Accord will use various approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions “…including opportunities to use markets, to enhance the cost-effectiveness of, and to promote mitigation actions…” This means that (S1733) a Cap & Trade System will be used in lieu of actual immediate reductions to allow polluters to “Buy & Sell the “Right to Pollute” between 2010 and 2017 or 2020. No pollution reduction will take place until either of these target dates.

Tiger Bunnies

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

On this rainy December day, we cannot resist tying together the feeding frenzy on the carcass of the icon known as Tiger Woods, the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen, the extensive media attention awarded a woman in Arkansas for giving birth to her nineteenth child, the so-called jobless recovery, the so-called healthcare debate, and our collective denial of what actually going on here on spaceship earth, circa 2010 (Christian calendar).

Ukiah Blog Live, a culling of thought-provoking counter-mass media internet essays provided by the estimable Dave Smith of Mulligan Books, has been rife of late with articles about the impending worse-than-ever economic collapse, vegetarianism versus the eating of mammalian flesh, and our inevitable return (as a species) to a genteel version of the Dark Ages (if we’re lucky) in the aftermath of peak oil and the bursting of various noxious economic bubbles. These reports are countered hourly in mainstream media mouthing government/corporate propaganda with happy news that things in general are getting better even if they seem to be getting worse in the majority of specific cases. The jobless recovery, reports The Santa Rosa Press Democrat, will soon create new jobs because, well, it just will.

The climate talks in Copenhagen have everybody buzzing about the billions of dollars to be earned through not releasing carbon into the atmosphere. That’s right. If you can prove you’re not being bad, Daddy will give you some money. How will you prove you’re not being bad? You will pay some scientists (with bona fide college degrees, mind you) to say you are being good. Won’t that be nice? How about that for some job creation?

Mendocino County: Why are you filling our lungs with pollution?

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Lake Mendocino Dec 6, 2009

From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

December 8, 2009

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors
501 Low Gap Road
Ukiah, California 95482

RE:  Air Pollution – Agriculture Burning, Backyard Burning, Forest Lands

Dear Chairman Pinches & Members of the Board of Supervisors:

The Mendocino County Air Pollution Control District has failed for years in giving timely warnings when the air quality in various parts of Mendocino County, CA, is dangerous to public health, especially in the Ukiah Valley. Since November 23, 2008, agriculture and backyard burning peaked again and the Mendocino County Air Pollution Control District did not notify the public in the Ukiah Valley that they should take precautions due to poor air quality.

Ukraine Flu Update

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From LINDA GRAY
Mendocino County

This flu sounds nasty, but the death rates are really low. I still don’t know what to make of it, but here are the latest updates for what they’re worth.     ~ lg

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?glide=EP-20091028-23630-UKR&cat=dis&lang=eng

Situation Update No. 52
On 30.11.2009 at 15:32 GMT+2

In spite of the reducing of the number of diseased the specialists ensure us in the second wave of the flu in December. Meantime the Ministry of health protection reports that since the biginning of the epidemic there have been 424 deaths due to it. The general number of diseased during the whole period of epidemic has been 1 810 935 people, of them 109 743 persons are hospitalized. Epidemical limit is exceeded in Kiev and also in Zakarpatskaya, Kirovogradskaya, Luganskaya, Lvovskaya, Sumskaya, Khmelnitskaya, Chernovitskaya and Chernighovskaya regions. The World Health Organization presents the last data which shows that since the beginning of pandemic there have been 622 000 diseased of A/H1N1 virus all over the world.

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Situation Update No. 51
On 26.11.2009 at 03:28 GMT+2

Hunker Down Locally as the End of the World Arrives in Mendocino County

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From TOM DAVENPORT
Family Frog Farm, Redwood Valley

Some interesting thoughts are going through the minds of our friends and neighbors – check out the ones who called Jeff Blankfort’s KZYX radio show on Nov 25…

http://www.vintagenet.us/EOTW_Call_Ins_112509.mp3
~

From KATHY McMAHON
Peak Oil Blues

Ordinary fears/extraordinary times: 55 (real) things to worry about (if you must…)

We have other things to worry about right now…

Peak Oil, Climate change and the Greater Depression will pose many challenges to our way of life but let’s get real, for a moment: Golden Hordes aren’t one of them. At least not now. Economic depression brings with it a host of serious problems, and I think you can say quite confidently, without being a chicken little, that most of the world is in a Greater Depression. But still, we’ve got a few years to go before we can say that the USA is no longer a viable culture, when no one wants to live in Paris or London, when potatoes no longer grow in Poland, and before donkey’s begin pulling our rusted-out cars. Bikers with shotguns; weaving socks from milk thistle; crashing waves drowning our cities; evacuating your house on a moments notice to house troops; the government coming to confiscate your precious metals; a mass exodus of cities as the violence and mayhem escalates to untolerable levels—all of these things should not be on the top of the list of what to prepared for. So what should be?

The Toilets of Mendocino

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

I was going to title this piece Pay To Poop or The Pooplic Option or something else related to the maddening absurdities of the current healthcare debate and the ongoing economic meltdown, but I didn’t want to offend anyone until they started reading. But seriously, folks, the powers-that-be have announced they are closing the only public restroom in the village of Mendocino! And these same enlightened ones just carted away the handicapped-access plastic latrine at Big River Beach. That’s right. The idyllic village and tourist destination of Mendocino may soon have No Public Potties. Why?

According to Sigmund Freud, the short answer is that Americans are insensitive barbarians. Freud made his one and only visit to America in 1909, and his most lasting impression of our great land came not from Niagara Falls, but from the lack of public restrooms. He said, and I paraphrase, “A society that does not provide public bathrooms for its citizens is essentially cruel and maladjusted and barbaric.”

When I first moved to Mendocino four years ago, I was struck by the brusque, dismissive, and sometimes cruel manner in which merchants would respond to my query, “May I use your bathroom?” I was inevitably directed to the state-funded public facility on Main Street, a stinky concrete bunker maintained by the state park people on whose land (our land) the bunker resides. I would sometimes find a homeless fellow bathing in the toilet stall. Sometimes the floors were so slick with piss, the journey across the cement floor wasn’t worth the risk of a fall. But most times the place was relatively clean and usable, and I was relieved and grateful that such a depository was available to the likes of me.

Why aren’t there two or three public restrooms in a village whose economy is tied to the tourist trade? Good question. In my fourteen hundred days as a resident in Mendocino, I have been asked at least three hundred times by visitors in the vicinity of the post office, some doing that telltale jig as they asked, “Is there a bathroom around here I can use?” And I have dutifully sent them to the distant bunker that our public servants tell us they must close because it costs them twenty-five thousand dollars a year to maintain, and the state is bankrupt, so… Really? Twenty-five grand to hose the bunker out every few days? Well, yes, because the hosing must be done by someone in the union, you see, so the numerous offers by the community to maintain the bunker must be declined because, well, hosing out bunkers is, what, highly technical?

More→

The Devolution of Basketball

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

John Wooden, the legendary coach of the UCLA basketball team just turned ninety-nine. Wooden coached the UCLA team from 1948 to 1975 and won ten National Championships in a span of 12 years, including 7 in a row from 1967 to 1973, a feat so unimaginable today it seems more myth than fact. As a college player, Wooden was a three-time consensus All-American, the first ever, and spent several years playing in the early professional leagues while simultaneously coaching high school teams. During one 46-game stretch as a pro he made 134 consecutive free throws. During World War II, he enlisted in the Navy and rose to the rank of lieutenant. He never made more than $35,000 a year as the UCLA coach, and never asked for a raise.

Wooden said: “The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team,” and “What you are as a person is far more important that what you are as a basketball player.”

In an interview with him on the day before his 99^th birthday, he was lucid and wry, and made a fervent wish that “they” wouldn’t do anything special for his birthday. “If I make it to a hundred, well, okay.”

Among Wooden’s many famous protégé’s was Lew Alcindor who became Kareem Abdul Jabbar. We often hear superlatives connected to the superstars of today, but none of them single-handedly changed the game of basketball as Alcindor did. Few remember that when Alcindor began his college career at UCLA, freshmen were not permitted to play on varsity teams. Alcindor’s freshman squad played the UCLA varsity squad, the number one-ranked team in America, and beat them 75-60. Alcindor scored 51 points, many of his baskets dunks.

As a result of this overwhelming display of his dominance, and before Alcindor could join the varsity squad as a sophomore, the NCAA banned the dunk in college basketball, a ban that was lifted three years later when Alcindor graduated and turned pro. That’s right. They imposed a national ban to contain one specific player. But even without the dunk, Alcindor was so dominant (and seven-foot two inches tall) that for the first time in the history of basketball, referees allowed defenders to constantly foul another player (Alcindor) to keep him from scoring.  more→
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Mendo Time Bank News

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From CODY CHRISTOPULOS
Ukiah

Thanks to everybody who responded to our requests for help!  Jenny Crawford and Courtney Senna will be doing orientations every two weeks at the MEC so please send your friends. Orientations for new members will be held the first and third Wednesdays of each month starting on Nov 4th. 6 – 6:30pm. Kip Webb and Daniel Frey will be posting flyers to help spread the word.

There is still more to do!  We need your help to organize social events, write a paragraph for the newsletter, update the website and organize group projects.

If you’re not quite ready to make a commitment, the best thing you can do to support the Time Bank is to use it. Be part of the change you want to see, help build our community. There’s no better way to save money, support your neighbors and friends and encourage positive movement toward a more sustainable future.  It won’t work without you.

Time Bank Radio Show

Jenny and Courtney are also starting up a radio program which will air for the first time on Wednesday November 4th at 6:30 pm. Tune in to KMEC. You will hear about what’s being offered and requested, answers to frequently asked questions,  and other useful and entertaining information. A reminder and more info from the hosts to follow.

Progress Report

Congratulations Time Bankers!  Together we have traded over 930 hours so far this year!  Our exchanges include yard work, house sitting, farm fresh eggs, healthy garden produce, tickets to the Ukiah Players Theatre, haircuts, massages and so much more.

Success Stories from our Time Bank

My Time Dollar Retirement by Rose Dakin

Every financial analyst will tell you that the key to successful investing is diversifying your assets. Your savings should be carefully invested in a mix of bonds, stocks, cash, gold and real estate. I have decided to use my account at the Mendo Time Bank to supplement my retirement plan, because time is an overlooked investment, and my retirement will require a lot of other people’s time. Not only that, but the value of time has increased with less volatility and more predictability than any other asset in the traditional asset mix. I feel well diversified, now, thanks to the Mendo Time Bank.

Maybe Farming Isn’t Supposed To Make Money

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From GENE LOGSDON
The Contrary Farmer

Talk about heresy. What if food production should not be part of either a capitalistic or a socialistic economy. The first commandment of agriculture states that you must put back into the soil the fertility you take out of it. That being so, the only real profit from food production is how good the food  tastes and how well it sustains health and well-being. Any actual money profit beyond that might simply be a sign that the farming is flawed. Failed civilization on top of failed civilization suggests that idea, but every new civilization that flourishes for awhile believes it can beat the system.

Farming has to be subsidized in modern economies because nature  can’t compete with money interest. An ear of corn, even the record-shattering 15-inch ear I found in my field yesterday,  has never heard of six percent interest. An ear of corn grows at its own sweet pace, come recession or inflation, which is the modern version of hell or high water. Every attempt to make it grow at a pace that matches the way we can manipulate paper money growth, results in some downside. (Eventually it happens with money too.) GMO scientists crow about their new seeds but there is little significant increase in yield from them, in fact in some cases, documented decreases. When an increase does occur it usually comes from lack of weed competition not an actual genetic increase in yield. Most above average increases in crop yields  come from  good weather. Monsanto and Dupont are trying to take the credit for the big corn crop this year when their very same seeds that produce a good crop on one farm result in only half a crop  two miles down the road where timely rains did not fall.

More at The Contrary Farmer→
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What are the Differences between Bio-Intensive Agricultural and Biodynamic Agricultural Practices?

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From CHARLES MARTIN
Willits

Background

The above question has been asked of Charles because he has gardened and farmed both Bio-Intensively and Biodynamicly for over 20 years. In the above case, the author’s farm was certified biodynamic by the Demeter Association of the United States, a division of the International Demeter Certification Organization and Organic by the California Certified Organic Farmers Association (CCOF). Prior to this, the author gardened organically for over 20 years, employing the original organic method developed by Sir Howard of England and adopted by John Rodale in the United States. These organic practices have since been corrupted and diluted by both State & Federal CDFA & USDA governmental regulatory agencies.

From 1985 until 2000, Bio-Intensive practices were employed in his market gardens of the Certified Organic biodynamic farm in Compche, California. During that period, the author also served on the board of Directors of Ecology Action until 2004.

Discussion

The criteria normally used to judge farming practices is to ask if the practice is sustainable & do the farming practices employ any method or material that would be detrimental to ones health by eating the food grown by these methods? Both the Bio-Intensive and Biodynamic and the older form of Organic practices (pre-USDA), complied with both of the above two criteria.

The oldest of the above practices is the Biodynamic method. It was synthesized by Rudolf Steiner in 1924 from ancient folk & peasant practices employed in the Orient and Persia over 6,000 years ago and more recently by Russian & European farms over the last 1,500 years. The Oriental farming practices have been proven to be sustainable for over 6,000 years. Bio-Intensive evolved from Alan Chadwick’s interpretations of R. Steiner’s biodynamic concepts.

Now to the differences between BI & BD practices

Three Presidents (and a First Lady)

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

For most of my sixty years on the planet I have been a social recluse. Yet through no conscious intention on my part, I have come face-to-face with three presidents of the United States (and a First Lady).

In 1962 I was in the seventh grade in Menlo Park, California. I was a baseball fanatic and not much interested in politics, though I was fascinated by Fidel Castro and the possibility of nuclear war.

“Class,” said Mr. Arbanas, our perpetually befuddled teacher. “President Kennedy is coming to the University of California to give a speech. Each core class will elect two students, one boy and one girl, to attend. If you want to go, raise your hand.”

We all raised our hands. By secret ballot and the intercession of angels, I was the boy chosen to represent my class. On the morning of March 23, 1962, I boarded a school bus with several other students and a gang of teachers, and we rumbled across the San Mateo Bridge and up through Oakland to Berkeley. We had been advised to bring a sack lunch and binoculars. I was one of those unfortunate children whose mother had no interest in making my lunch. Ever. From the age of five I made my own lunch, the same lunch, every day: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, and a carrot. This is the lunch I brought and ate on that historic day.

I did not have a pair of binoculars, but everyone else had a pair, so my plan was to borrow. We most definitely needed binoculars since our seats were the very highest in the stadium, the podium on the stage at midfield barely visible to our naked eyes.

There came a great parade of men and women in caps and gowns representing their illustrious alma maters, the day being the 94^th anniversary of the charter establishing the public universities of America, which is what Kennedy spoke about. To my twelve-year-old ears and mind, the speeches preceding Kennedy’s speech, and his speech, too, were numbingly boring. I certainly enjoyed my glimpses of Kennedy and his marvelous hair through borrowed binoculars, and I thrilled to his voice, but not nearly so much as I thrilled to the myriad alluring females filling the stands around us.

Keep reading on Todd’s Blog→
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“No One With Land Should Be Without A Job”

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From GENE LOGSDON
Upper Sandusky, Ohio

The sentence nearly leaped off the page and knocked me down: “No one with land should be without a job.” Jennifer McMullen, writing in Farming magazine in the current Fall, 2009 issue (“Good Food Depends On Local Roots”) was quoting Jessica Barkheimer, who, like Jennifer, is deeply involved in developing farmer’s markets in Ohio. I was at the time wrestling with a closely related concept but had not thought to put it in those words. I might have said it a bit differently— “no one with land is without a job” but the meaning would be the same. If you have some land, even an acre, you have the means for making at least part of your income and in the process gain a more secure life. Surely that is what it means to “have a job.” Our society hasn’t endorsed that notion yet, but I think that we are evolving toward that kind of economy.

We are only beginning to recognize how many income possibilities that a little piece of land can provide. We know about market gardening but most of us do not yet appreciate its reach. It’s not just sweet corn and tomatoes. It’s about all the fruits and vegetables on earth. Tasted any pancakes made with cattail pollen lately? Neither have I but it is treasured in some gourmet circles, I understand.

Market gardening goes beyond the plants themselves. A whole new world of marketing can open up from inspired ways to package the products. At a market in Bellefontaine, Ohio, a couple of weeks ago, shelled lima beans were going fast at five bucks for a half pint!

There are far more products you can grow than just fruit and vegetables. Meat is beginning to show up at farmers’ markets, as well as dairy products and grains. Flowers, fresh and dried, too. Uncommon seeds are a possibility, especially of heirloom varieties or uncommon wildflowers and trees. Medicinal herbs. Mushrooms. Nuts. Baked goods. Plants for holiday decorations. We are all familiar with the success of pumpkins, but have you ever seen corn husks that in the autumn develop streaks of red and green and purple in them, fashioned into wreathes and bouquets? Magnificent.

Of Trees & Money

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley
Under The Table

This is about firewood, water, the San Francisco Giants, and Single Payer Healthcare, among other things.

Marcia and I rent a house on Comptche Road, our backyard abutting a vast redwood preserve last logged some eighty years ago. In the wake of that clear-cut came madrone, manzanita, pine, fir, tan oak, spruce, and redwoods. Now, left alone for the span of three human generations, the redwoods have re-established their supremacy on the north-facing slope and the “transitional forest” is swiftly dying in the persistent shade of the towering monarchs.

Thus our backyard is both fabulous forest and graveyard to thousands of dead and dying trees—fallen, falling, or easy to fell. It has become my practice to harvest a tiny portion of this perfectly seasoned wood with a buck saw and ax to help keep us warm through the winter, give my body a good workout, and to absent myself now and then from the human realm.

I walk down into the forest this morning en route to a copse of several dozen dead fir trees, their trunks eight inches in diameter, each tree about sixty-feet tall, the whole bunch of them sun-starved by an uphill gang of surging redwoods springing from the trunks of giants cut down a moment ago in redwood time. I’m thinking about the San Francisco Giants, another exciting and frustrating baseball season about to end, our valiant squad ultimately no match for the big money teams, and I have a vivid memory of Jack Sanford, a heavyset right-hander who threw for the Giants from 1959 to 1965. My memory is of a picture of Sanford in the off-season staying in shape by sawing up logs and chopping wood. The picture, which must have appeared in the Chronicle, shows Jack working next to his small house. Big-time professional baseball player. Small house. Chopping wood.

As my buck saw cuts into the standing firewood, I realize that when I was a kid idolizing my Giants, it never once occurred to me how much money any of the players made, and most of them didn’t make much to speak of. Doctors and lawyers and plumbers

Why Sustainable Family Farms are Crucial to the Future of the World

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From John Ikerd
Professor Emeritus,
University of Missouri,
Columbia, MO

Family farms have always been an important part of our “better history.” Historically, farmers were held in high esteem in the United States and around the world. Thomas Jefferson believed strongly that the yeoman farmer best exemplified the kind of independence and virtue that should be supported by the new democratic republic. He believed financiers, bankers, and industrialists could not be trusted and should not be encouraged by government. In light of our current economic situation, “Jeffersonian Democracy” still makes a lot of sense.

Adam Smith, in writing the Wealth of Nations, noted that no endeavor requires a greater variety of knowledge and experience than does farming, other than possibly the fine arts or liberal professions. He observed that farmers ranked among the highest social classes in China and India, and suggested it would be the same everywhere if the “corporate spirit” did not prevent it. Smith also suggested a role for government in ensuring that “they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of people, should have a share of the produce of their own labor as to themselves be tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.”

Mash The Monster Mall – Letter To The Editor

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From TOM DAVENPORT
Redwood Valley

Proponents of any initiative always want some sort of special treatment and if it takes 300 pages written by mercenaries in the legal profession to express that, how could it possibly be trustworthy?

My frequent sparring partner John McCowen, is quoted in the UDJ as sharing the simple, safe view of initiative referendums we both learned from our parents:  If in doubt, vote “NO”.

DDR is literally betting the farm on this one.

It’s their last chance at shooting the moon in high-roller real estate speculation, unless kept on artificial life support by sucking transfusions of stimulus money out of the District of Criminals in Washington.

Expect to see them out of business entirely in less than two years if they are unable to seduce our county’s voters.  Their nationwide string of shopping malls are untenanted to a fatal extent.

DDR’s indebtedness is a lot bigger than their income, and due dates are approaching.

This situation is not unnoticed by Wall Street investors, whose lack of confidence in DDR is reflected in abysmal DDR stock prices.

Why should voters believe DDR would actually be able to carry out any of the things they claim they might do?  Have we forgotten how ephemeral election campaign promises always are?
~~

Harvest Art

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From GENE LOGSDON
Upper Sandusky, Ohio

My wife, Carol, doesn’t normally call herself an artist, but the images accompanying this post could be called some kind of still life art, even though rendered with her own hands using real objects, not with brush and paint. The multicolored shapes in the basket are an assortment of peppers she just harvested before the first frost, and the red shapes on white background are tomato slices in the electric drier. Our son-in-law loves peppers, the hotter the better, and so he and our daughter have supplied us with pepper plants of varieties I never knew existed and most of which I can’t eat. But who would want to eat such a beautiful table decoration anyway?

It is no surprise that gardening and farming inspire art. The partnership between nature and humans in the act of producing food can’t help but produce beauty too. Keep reading at OrganicToBe→

How Do You Spell Bailout?

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From TOM ANDERSON
Ukiah

So, Developers Diversified Realty’s latest election glossy says Mendocino County has a bad case of the financial flu.

Look who’s talking.

Who but DDR, do you suppose, was very first in line for a TALF handout ($600 million) from the New York Federal Reserve Bank?

This weasel is pulling our collective leg, folks, if I may demean you with the term. Its ongoing, inevitable collapse is almost daily news if you’d care to Google it.

With 60 percent of its loans due by 2011, and 15 percent more in 2012, with an operating loss instead of profit, and no income except from assets it can sell at half price and whatever it can beg, Developers Diversified is about 23 months away from oblivion.

Although with $600 million from the feds in October, it can pay creditors now and throw the best election money can buy before it kicks off.

And the Masonite site will be a choice item at the corporate farewell sale, especially rezoned commercial/residential instead of drab old industrial. You get the point.

Can you believe these guys?

. . . Do you?
~~

Professional Analysis: Nine Reasons Why The Monster Mall Will Not Happen

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From TOM ANDERSON
Ukiah

[Please VOTE NO ON MEASURE A because a yes vote puts the property up for grabs, under the initiative's unlimited use, to any buyer. That, in my opinion, is what DDR is hoping for and what its initiative is all about. The property is worth a lot more money as a slice of the old Wild West than as constrained by the general plan's industrial use restrictions. -TA]

Analysis: Nine Reasons Why Mendocino Crossings Could Not Happen Even If Local Residents Approved It.

1.  FUNDING IS MORE COSTLY NOW THAN IN THE RECENT PAST

Relative to return on an investment, funding for commercial development is far more costly now than two years ago. Funding exceeds residential income, and is just starting to exceed commercial income.

Example: In mid-April 2009, Frank Lembi, the largest owner of apartment buildings in San Francisco, with 300 apartments comprising 8,000 residential units, deeded back 50 apartments, totaling 1,500 units, to his institutional lender, UBS. The bank now owns the units and will take a major loss because interest payments are about twice current rental income.

While, residential rents have already declined, rents for commercial properties don’t start declining in a recession for a year or two after the downturn. That years-long commercial decline has just begun.

2. MALL OWNER’S BANKRUPTCY WEIGHS ON DECLINING VALUES

With commercial property values just starting their slide, debacles like the recent bankruptcy of General Growth Properties, the nation’s second largest shop­ping mall owner, will only reinforce the substantial decline of commercial real estate values. The bankruptcy especially relates to malls as an investment.

3. COMMERCIAL/INDUSTRIAL LAND VALUES HAVE FALLEN 60%

Commercial and industrial land values in California are now at about 60 percent of their value two years ago. Funding a major commercial devel­op­ment must be based on today’s depreciated values.

The Death of Literature

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From TODD WALTON
Under The Table Books
Anderson Valley

It has come to my attention on several occasions of late that the history of the decline and fall of American literature to its current moribund state is as little known as Mendelssohn’s revised version of his Italian Symphony. Thus I feel it incumbent upon me to explain why the once great literary tradition of our collapsing democracy done collapsed.

In the beginning, circa 1800-1950, American publishing was a largely unprofitable endeavor and therefore the purview of wealthy men who made their profits elsewhere and plowed some of those profits into the cultural life of the country. Most of these fellows—Knopf, Doubleday, Scribner, etc.—held court in New York City, with Little and Brown making their stand in Boston. The literary arms of their publishing houses were staffed with bright, well-educated men and women intent on finding and supporting promising writers who might one day fulfill their promise on the larger literary stage. The unspoken rule that stood in every great publishing house until the 1960’s was that an author’s first two novels might not show a profit, but her third should pay for itself, and her fourth would begin to pay back the investment of the publisher. Books were kept in print for years in those days, which allowed time for new authors to gain an audience.

Thus the development of literary talent was a primary mission of these great publishers, and that mission inspired some of the most eccentric and original thinking people to give their lives in service to the art of editing, a highly advance skill requiring years of practice to attain. The greatness of American literature was inseparable from the greatness of her editors, which point cannot be overstated.

Because publishing did not show much if any profit, the publishing houses were of no interest to larger corporations looking for profitable entities to consume. This is another essential point, for it was only when publishing became profitable that the terrible decline in our literary culture began.

Take Action! United States Navy to Conduct Massive Atmospheric Experimental Tests Starting As Early As September 15, 2009

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

An article in Space.com (1) titled, “NASA Rocket to Create Clouds Tuesday” by Clara Moskowits, Staff Writer – September 14, 2009, was unexpectedly forwarded to me today.

According to the article: “…A rocket experiment set to launch Tuesday aims to create artificial clouds at the outermost layers of Earth’s atmosphere. The project, called the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment (CARE)…”This is really essentially at the boundary of space,” said Wayne Scales, a scientist at Virginia Tech who will…study the physics of the artificial dust cloud as it’s released…CARE is slated to launch Tuesday between 7:30 and 7:57 p.m. EDT (2330 and 2357 GMT) from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia….”

“…CARE will release its (aluminum oxide) (4), dust particles a bit higher than that, then let them settle back down to a lower altitude.”What the CARE experiment hopes to do is to create an artificial dust layer,” Professor Scales told SPACE.com. “Hopefully it’s a creation in a controlled sense, which will allow scientists to study different aspects of it, the turbulence generated on the inside, the distribution of dust particles and such.” CARE is a project of the Naval Research Laboratory and the Department of Defense Space Test Program. The spacecraft will launch aboard a NASA four-stage Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket…Researchers will track the CARE dust cloud for days or even months to study its behavior and development over time…If CARE cannot launch Tuesday, the team can try again between Sept. 16 and Sept. 20, 2009…”

The U.S. Navy, NASA, and the U.S. Defense Department have made a decision to conduct one or more atmospheric tests, in order to create an aluminum oxide dust cloud without the permission, and for the most part, the knowledge of the citizens of the United States. These aluminum oxide particles may eventually return to earth polluting our air, water and soils. The tests may damage the various atmospheric boundaries that protect life on earth – no one has any idea what damage this dust cloud and the testing on this dust cloud may do to our climate, agriculture, human health or the amount of infrared and UV radiation reaching the Earth.

It is time to contact elected officials today and protest this action which may begin as early as today, September 15, 2009. The Navy is already conducting warfare testing in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico and has more ranges in the planning and permit stages. Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Barbara Boxer noted in a June 19, 2009. Letter to Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce:

Organic Money

From GENE LOGSDON
Upper Sandusky, Ohio

Recently I was invited to a most unusual gathering. The event was not officially called a “Conference On Advanced Economic Trends” but if it had been held at a university, it would surely have been given a high-sounding name like that. Instead it was held on a working farm and was called “Our Garlic Festival.”

The farm is Jandy’s, after its owners, Andy Reinhart and Jan Dawson. They make their living growing and selling vegetables from less than two acres of their little farm, mostly at the farmer’s market in nearby Bellefountaine, Ohio. Locally Jan and Andy are revered organic garden farmers. One look at their crops will tell anyone who knows anything about organic gardening just how remarkably skilled they are at their craft. Sometimes a head of their bibb lettuce barely fits into a bushel basket. They don’t need to have organic certification. Their customers know that if Jan and Andy say its organic, rest assured that it is organic. They don’t sell commodities; they sell the fruit of their dedicated way of life, drops of their sweat and blood.

Keep reading at OrganicToBe→
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One Mendocino County Resident’s View of DDR’s Home

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From SUSAN BRADLEY
Mendocino County

September 2, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

I just returned from DDR Country and want to tell you about it. DDR?  That’s Diversified Developers Realty, the multi-multi-bucks corporation that purchased the Masonite Site (just outside the city limits of Ukiah). DDR is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to circumvent our county government’s planning process to change the zoning at the Masonite Site so that they can build a Big Box Store shopping center and thus eliminate the possibility of retaining the industrial nature of the Masonite site. Industry, not retail sales, means better-paying jobs. (Locally-owned industry means that $45 out of every $100 earned goes back to the county!)

The interesting  part of my report is that there are no Big Box stores in the DDR neighborhood. No Target, Walmart, Bed Bath and Beyond, Home Depot, Cosco etc near DDR’s enormous glistening-white buildings, or near the fancy, many-million-dollar homes close by. There are some pretty elegant, well-landscaped, themed, expensive shopping centers that run alongside  a couple of busy corridors in the DDR neighborhood. I also noticed that the elegant shopping centers are full of parked cars. And the homes in the neighborhood do not have many “For Sale” signs and certainly no “Foreclosure” signs on them. These suburban Cleveland folks in the Beachwood/Pepper Pike area do not seem to be experiencing an economic downturn like much of the rest of the country.  Nor do they want the kind of shopping center that DDR is proposing for us, not in THEIR neighborhood. Big Box stores would ruin the rural feeling of the landscape, drastically change the skyline, and  bring down their real estate values.

The other observation I made is that the DDR folks DO know what an inviting, walkable, small town looks like. Scott Wolstein, the CEO of Diversified Developers, may not have seen the inviting tree-lined streets in beautiful downtown Ukiah, but his own 36,000 square foot (!!!) palatial mega-mansion home is located near the quaint little town of Chagrin Falls. Known for its picturesque falls, the area surrounding Chagrin Falls is also famous for its horse stables, polo fields, fox hunts, and large estates. It’s a kind of faux-rural area

Take Action! Yo-Ka-Yo Cooperative Gardens Now Organizing

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From JANET ROSEN
Mendocino County
Email: mendojanet@yahoo.com

August 27, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

This is to let you know that John Johns, one of the farmers at Ukiah’s Saturday Farmer’s Market, has been collecting names and contact info for local folks interested in a cooperative of backyard gardeners/farmers.

I’ve volunteered to spend some time on the tech stuff, setting up a way for those who signed his list plus other interested people to start conversing about what they’d like this project to be and do. We’ve set up a yahoo group (functions, just like the mendocommunity bulletin board and the mendobirds list, as an email group) at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yokayocoopgardens as a way to share questions and input.

What we have as a starting point is:

Where are the Yo-Ka-Yo Cooperative Gardens? They could be in your backyard, or maybe your neighbors…

If you look around the Ukiah area, there are a lot of trees producing fruit that is falling on the ground, perfectly good food going to waste. Many family gardeners are finding they either have more vegetables than they need or don’t have the time to maintain everything as they’d like. Meanwhile, there is a growing demand for quality local food.

Yo-Ka-Yo Cooperative Gardens is being established as a cooperative membership organization for “backyard” gardeners and farmers in the Ukiah Valley. Our goals are:

1. Establish a networking and mutual support network for members that will include gardening advice, seed trading, bartering of goods and services.

2. Establish a distribution conduit for excess produce, which may include donations to local non-profits and/or sales to the public.
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Take Action! on Navy War Games: Marine Mammals and Other Sea Life to be Decimated by the Millions from Sea to Shining Sea

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

August 18, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

Update on June 5th Report: 5-Year U.S. Navy Warfare Testing Programs Located in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico

The United States Navy will be decimating millions of marine mammals and other aquatic life, each year, for the next five years, under their Warfare Testing Range Complex Expansions in the Atlantic, Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS under NOAA), has already approved the “taking” of marine mammals in more than a dozen Navy Range Warfare Testing Complexes (6), and is preparing to issue another permit for 11.7 millions marine mammals (32 Separate Species), to be decimated along the Northern, California, Oregon and Washington areas of the Pacific Ocean (7).

U.S. Department of Commerce – NOAA (NMFS) Definition: “TAKE” Defined under the MMPA as “harass, hunt, capture, kill or collect, or attempt to harass, hunt, capture, kill or collect.” Defined under the ESA as “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct.” Definition: Incidental Taking: An unintentional, but not unexpected taking (12).

The total number of marine mammals that will be decimated in the Atlantic, Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico for the next five years is unknown. The NMFS approvals will have a devastating impact upon the marine mammal populations worldwide and this last Navy permit, which is expected to be issued in February 2010, for the “taking” of more than 11.7 million marine mammals in the Pacific will be the final nail in the coffin for any healthy populations of sea life to survive.

My Clunker Pickup Is Too Old To Junk

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From GENE LOGSDON
Garden Farm Skills

August 13, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

Of all my old, junk machinery, I like my pickup truck the best. I could not function without it. I use it to haul hay, straw, manure, mulch, lambs, rams, calves, pigs, chickens, corn, wheat, grandkids, apples, firewood, logs, cans of gas, rototillers, dirt, lawnmowers, water tanks, fencing, gates, posts, lumber, chainsaws, shovels, forks, concrete blocks, trash for the recycler, gravel, rocks, railroad ties. To name a few. In the process, I also use it to back into trees, sideswipe gate posts, run into stumps, drop a front end loader on (insurance paid for one new side of the truck bed), and take incoming stones on the windshield (only one chip out of the glass so far).

I thought I was the wise guy, see. I should have traded the poor old thing in long ago, but I was sure a financial collapse was coming. No society could live as crazily as ours and not suffer retribution. So I decided I would wait until the second Great Depression hit and then I would drive a real hard bargain on a trade-in and get a new truck at a five or even ten thousand dollar savings.

So the collapse finally came. I waited patiently for the car companies to cut prices drastically. Nothing much happened except they moaned and groaned until the government gave them billions of dollars. The price of the pickup that I wanted did not go down one farthing. Oh yeah, a rebate here and there. The old maneuver. Jack up the price several thousand dollars and then give the poor dumb buyer a fifteen hundred dollar rebate and he’s supposed to dance around the showroom in utter bliss.

Keep reading at our sister blog Organic To Be→
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Ukiah City Council Members respond to charges of an “ill conceived and unrealistic land development scheme”

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From MARI RODIN and MARY ANNE LANDIS
Ukiah City Council Members

August 6, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

We are writing this letter in response to Robin Collier’s column of August 2 in the Ukiah Daily Journal [A cleverly disguised bailout - see below], which criticized the Ukiah City Council for its purchase of property at the Airport Business Park (ABP). We do not want to take the space here to respond to each point raised in Ms. Collier’s letter because her points focus solely on the technical aspects of the deal. In this letter, we, as individual council members, want to make a much larger, significant point about the deal and why the city council supported it.

Suffice it to say here, in response to the specifics of Ms. Collier’s letter, that the council worked for approximately six months to put this deal together. We consulted with experts in assembling projects using redevelopment funds. We consulted with financial advisors. We used sound market data as a basis for determining the purchase price and we believe that we will be able to turn around and sell the land at a price that is attractive to developers. Since the City Council voted to approve the purchase, the City has received an average of one inquiry per week from commercial real estate agents and developers. Our belief in the soundness of our deal appears to be supported.

Our cost/square foot estimates of sales tax revenue derived from the project are available for review by the public. We believe these figures are prudent and realistic. In regard to Ms. Collier’s criticism of the City’s purchase option, we structured that aspect of the deal to stimulate development of the land as soon as possible—discouraging owners from sitting on their property.

The bigger point that we wish to make here is that the city council got behind this idea because we want to be proactive in determining how this community grows, in retaining successful businesses, and in securing a stable future for the City.

Writing the Sequel to “Under the Table Books”

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From TODD WALTON
Anderson Valley

August 3, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

I’ve been madly writing the sequel to my just-published novel Under the Table Books. Given that only a handful of people have read Under the Table Books, and confronted by barely discernible sales of the mighty tome, my rational mind warns me that my current literary labor is folly, that years spent on a sequel to an unknown novel will amount to yet another wasted effort, and we’ve already got piles of those gathering dust.

What my rational mind fails to comprehend (no matter how many times I explain this to her and because logic only takes us so far) is that I do not think these things up, these stories and plays and novels, and then decide to write them down. I do not plan what I create. Nor do I consider anything I’ve ever done wasted effort. What happens for me, and has been happening since I was a little boy, is that I hear a story being told to me and I see a movie unfurling as I hear the words, and my mission, if I choose to accept it, is to transcribe what I’m experiencing as vividly and musically as I can. I say musically because my taste runs to prose that swings to consistent and compelling rhythms.

I have written other sequels to other books I’ve published, though I have yet to publish a sequel, so I certainly understand the concern of the pragmatic sector of my brain as it worries about the aging corpus laboring over a saga that may never be published and may never bring us money or something we can trade for food and shelter. And if that’s the case, why bother? In all honesty, I bother because despite the latest data from my personal commerce department, I find the thickening plot and the seductive characters irresistible and I can’t wait to read what I write down next. I’m hooked.

Contrails and Man-Made Clouds Change Climate, Harming Agriculture

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

July 27, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino, North California

It is sometimes difficult to separate out fact from fiction and beliefs. It is even more difficult when United States citizens live under a government which classifies as “secret” more and more information with each passing day. In addition, many government agencies, scientists, and researchers decide that certain information should not be given to the public because they know that the public would say “NO,” to many of their experiments or actions.

Thus, unraveling exactly why jet contrails began to abnormally persist and turn into white haze and man-made clouds, since the late 1980s, has been difficult…requiring hours of research into government documents, university studies, and following every lead to find answers to these questions. What we do know and can prove has broad implications for human health, agriculture crop production, the health of the earth’s pollinators, lack of photosynthesis (direct sunlight needed for all trees and plants to grow and produce crops), and climate change. The following is a brief history of persistent jet contrails and man-made clouds:

1 – Jet engine produced contrails now may persist and turn into white haze and man-made clouds. This change began to be noticed across the United States, in the late 1980s, when reports began to be published regarding the unusual persistence of contrails, captured in pictures and videos that began to reflect their presence. Increasingly, as time passed, more and more reports and questions regarding the number and type of jets leaving persistent jet contrails surfaced. (5)

2 – Thousands of pictures and videos were placed on the Internet and in local newspapers, with questions about the different types

The Aim is Joy

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From GENE LOGSDON
Upper Sandusky, Ohio

July 22, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino County, North California

I’ve taken lovely vacations over the years, but the latest one, at an exclusive hideaway we were lucky enough to know about, had to be the best ever.

My idea of a good vacation is one that combines natural wonders with good food (the greatest natural wonder of all), hopefully convenient to exhibitions or programs of art or history not yet widely publicized, and so removed from the possibility of crowds and traffic jams. Places that offer such a rare combination are few and far between, and simply discovering this magical retreat was a keen pleasure.

I don’t know where to begin in telling you the delights of this vacation. We awoke on Saturday morning to a pervasive silence, broken only by the song of a wood thrush outside our window. We dined on an upper deck, where a flaming orange and black Baltimore oriole scolded us from a huge oak tree whose limbs reached out almost to our table.

At one point, the blue flash of an indigo bunting streaked across the orange flame of oriole, and I jumped in delight. That so startled the lovely lady vacationing with me that she lost the strawberry she was spooning from her saucer, and the fruit bounced into the cream pitcher. Giggle, giggle. The strawberries came directly from the establishment’s own garden. Yeasty homemade bread also originated in the kitchen, and the eggs were fresh from a nearby barn—we could actually hear the hens cackling. The thick strips of drug- and hormone-free, hickory-smoked bacon came from hogs raised in that barn, too.

We decided to go bird-watching that morning, encouraged by the variety of birds we saw just from the breakfast table. We did not see the bobolinks rumored to have returned to the fields behind the hideaway, but I did spot a stocky lestes (Lestes dryas), a species of damselfly, resting in the meadow grass. Though lestes is not exactly an uncommon species in these parts, I had never seen this striking insect before.

Take Action! Training Tonight July 21 to stop the Monster Mall

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From HANNAH BIRD
Mendocino Environmental Center

July 20, 2009 Ukiah Valley, Mendocino County, North California

We all want to help the environment, but it can be hard to make the time and work out the best things to do. The Mendocino Environmental Center (MEC) is a hub for local environmental advocacy, working on issues that affect Ukiah Valley residents and beyond.

Ukiah is a place blessed with stunning surroundings and varied habitats, and the MEC strives to protect this environment and work with the community to minimise our global footprint. I encourage all members of the community to join us and let us know what issues are important to you. Together we can take effect.

One of the most prominent issues currently being tackled by the MEC and other community groups is the possible re-zoning of the Masonite site which will be voted on in November. The MEC’s main concern regarding the rezoning and plan for the site is the lack of an ‘Environmental Impact Report’. It is imperative that an independent report be carried out before planning decisions are made. The methods which have taken this issue onto the ballot avoid the requirement to carry out such an EIR but we believe that the community has the right to know what environmental impacts any development may have before it is agreed. We therefore encourage voters to vote against the re-zoning in November.

MEC is encouraging all those who are against the re-zoning of the site, or who would like to learn more, to join us at a training event led by Richard Shoemaker from SOLE (Save Our Local Economy). The event will be held at the MEC, 105 West Standley Street, downtown Ukiah on Tuesday, July 21 from 6-7pm. Light refreshments will be provided.

Those wishing to attend should e-mail hannah.bird78@gmail.com to reserve a place. The event is free but donations to the MEC are gratefully appreciated.
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Join Mendo Time Bank in Ukiah!

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You can earn help for yourself or your family by helping others in your community!

From JULIA FRECH
and SUSANN CARLO
Ukiah

June 28, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

What is a Time Bank?

A Time Bank is a community currency system and a network of local people and organizations that support each other. When you provide a service for another Time Bank member, you earn one Time Dollar for each hour spent providing that service. Spend each Time Dollar you earn on having somebody else do something for you. There is no money involved — the only currency is your time.

How can Mendo Time Bank work for me?

In times of economic and environmental hardship, when jobs, social services, and money are scarce, the best resource we have is our community. Mendo Time Bank helps community members get to know their neighbors and share their skills. We offer orientation sessions and monthly potlucks. Be a Mendo Time Bank member and be part of the change you want to see in our community!

What can you buy with Time Dollars?

natural building lessons • garden bed digging • water-wise landscape design • child care • tutoring • party planning • wood work • photography • housekeeping • massage • animal care • overnight getaways • organic vegetables • and more

Learn how to get involved.

Visit MendoTimeBank.com→
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See also Mendocino’s Local Economy: Weed, Wine, Wood and Water→

…and Mendo Moola – Local Money Coming Soon For Ukiah→

…and Reinventing the Informal Economy→
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The passing of Holistic Veterinary Medicine Pioneer — Juliette de Bairacli Levy

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From CHARLES MARTIN
Mendocino County Farmer

June 25, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

I want to let you know of the passing of a saint and pioneer in the natural health and healing field, Juliette de Bairacli Levy, the longtime friend of animal lovers, both domestic and organic/biodynamic farmers, and of course animals themselves.

The announcement came to me via Acres USA, a US agricultural publication. Its founder Charlie Walters, also recently passed on to the next world.

Most of my personal dogs, and both my loyal farm dogs, Juliette and Rachel (the latter named in honor of Rachel Carson the pioneer environmentalist) were raised using Juliette’s methods.

Take Action! Petition Supporting Single Payer Health Care

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From Independent Senator BERNIE SANDERS

June 16, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Our current private health insurance system is the most costly, wasteful, complicated and bureaucratic in the world. Today, 46 million people have no health insurance. Even more are underinsured with high deductibles and co-payments. Close to 20,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have regular access to a doctor.

The time is now for our nation to address the most profound moral and economic issue we face.

The time is now for our country to join the rest of the industrialized world and provide cost-effective, comprehensive quality health care to every man, woman and child in our country.

The time is now to take on the powerful special interests in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and pass a single-payer national health care program.

* Sign the petition
* Tell Bernie your experience with health care and insurance.

~

Read also Top 10 Reasons To Support Universal Single Payer Health Care→
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Rep. Mike Thompson? Listen up!

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From DARCA NICHOLSON
Ukiah

June 15, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Dear Ones,

I have been admonished by my daughter to error on the side of politeness via the Internet, however because of the following true story, I am crossing the line.

An analysis I saw months ago suggested the only way the US would confront health care reform (as in having a CHOICE about where to get coverage instead of the insurance cartel) was by taking it to the streets. My step towards the street:

Mike Thompson, our dear elected official & a moderate Demo, said outside a business meeting in Fort Bragg to the 20+ constituents requesting his signing onto HR 676 that “there is not enough public support for Single Payer Health Care. If there were 2,000 of you here, that would be public support.”

NOTE: congressional people have the very best health FOR LIFE insurance in the world.

I called his DC office 202 225-3311 with an identification then:

“I want you to report to Mike Thompson that a very strong message came from a constituent concerning his not signing onto Single Payer Health Care. The exact words I would like you to convey to him are “get your f***ing signature on that bill.”

“Did I say that politely?”

“Yes, anything else?”

“Yes, thank you. I will work to pull his & every other member of congress’s health insurance until the citizens of the US have single payer.”

Another little pebble in the David & Goliath story—

Thank you & Best Regards to you & yours,

Darca
~
Rep. Thompson’s email here→

See also Health Care is a Right, not a Privilege→

…and Every idea considered except for Single Payer Health Care→
~~

Good News from Rosalind Peterson

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley
Caifornia Sky Watch

June 13, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Please let everyone know that the delegation from Connecticut and California (Rosalind & Meredith Smith), spent this past week lobbying the U.S. Congress to defeat the U.S. Navy plan to harm marine mammals, other aquatic life and animals, along with negative impacts on human health, air and water.

We all arrived in Washington, D.C. armed with petitions from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California and also from other states in the United States.  We hand delivered petitions to California Senators Boxer and Feinstein, and Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon.  In addition, Meredith Smith is staying in Washington, D.C., this coming week  to lobby against the Navy.

Meredith arranged to meet at 4:00 P.M. with California Congressman Mike Thompson on Thursday, June 11th, to discuss what plans could be worked out to have Congressman Thompson work with us on congressional hearings into the Navy program.  Meredith presented Congressman Thompson with a second binder containing all the petitions that we have gathered since we gave Thompson’s aide, Heidi Dickerson, the first binder containing all of the original signatures gathered prior to the time that KTVU filmed the event in Fort Bragg, CA last month.

Meredith was also going to let Congressman Thompson know about the binder presented to Heidi Dickerson last month since he did not seem to know that the public had presented his office with this binder full of petitions from all over California.

Today and during her stay in Washington, DC next week Meredith will be meeting with additional members of Congress and will be hand delivering our petitions to the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. Her efforts on behalf of the citizens of Mendocino County are to be highly commended.  When she returns she will be reporting on the success of her efforts in Washington, D.C.

While the delegation was in Washington, D.C. this week we brought color brochures, packets, and information about the Navy Warfare expansion to every member of the U.S. Senate.  In addition, we visited the offices of over 300 U.S. Congressmen with regard to this issue.  There were many that did not know about this Navy plan and

A message to the nearly converted

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From JASON BRADFORD
Willits
For The Oil Drum

June 12, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

[The film 'In Transition' is available for viewing on-line for the next 72 hours. See end of article below. -DS]

I was recently asked to give a talk at “The Generation Green Tent” during the Summer Arts and Music Festival at the Benbow Lake State Recreation Area. Here’s the text and supporting images for that talk.

Thanks for coming to my presentation. I am going to say some challenging things today. I don’t know if you are going to be validated or view me as a heretic. In any case, if you are taking notes I am going to have eight main points to cover. Here it goes!

My wife is a physician and has a Masters in Public Health, and so I am going to start with an analogy inspired by her profession that I believe all of us can follow. A very telling study was done on the health of Native Americans on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Mexican population was quite fit, while the U.S. population had high rates of obesity and associated diseases, such as diabetes. I am going to make some judgments about the society that produced this discrepancy, and perhaps we can primarily assign the blame for the illnesses of these people on their sick environment. However, I don’t want to absolve individuals of all responsibility for their predicament because that is a disempowering thing to do.

Overcoming the obesity crisis of humanity requires paying off our ecological debt. This means accepting certain job losses and developing job gains in other areas. See full article for discussion.

What I am going to argue is that you are all capable, powerful individuals and that you are responsible for making great changes…

Point 1. This is the first point of my talk. I want everybody to view the grim environmental statistics as multiple “organ failures” approaching for human civilization…

Why Time Banking?

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From JULIA FRECH
Ukiah
Mendo TIme Bank

June 11, 2009 Ukian, Mendocino County, North California

When times get tough, our most important asset is a resilient and supportive community. More secure than money in the bank, and more long-lasting than storing food and water; creating a more self sufficient community is the smartest investment we can make now. Mendo Time Bank started with those goals in mind.

Time Banking was started in the 1980’s by Edgar Cahn in Washington DC as a way to compensate for the cutback of social services.  It has become an international phenomenon, and there are hundreds of Time Banks all over the US and the world. In general they are started to help the local community meet unmet needs with untapped resources.

Whether based in inner city schools, jails, cities or rural communities, the effect is the same: they strengthen the community by creating an incentive and market for people to help each other. Each hour helping somebody in the network earns the giver one Time Dollar that they can then spend on any other service offered by members.

A Time Bank is both a system of quantifying community credit, and a network of people that are ready to support each other. Time Banking is a mutual credit system, as members can earn credit anywhere in their community and spend the credit on anything else.  At any given time, half of the members will have a positive Time Dollar account balance, and half will have a negative account balance with a total net balance of zero. Instead of a third party charging interest on the credit, we extend credit to each other without interest.

As the national economy contracts, the supply of money coming in to the local economy decreases, and people spend less money at local businesses. This causes further contraction and job losses. However, because we live in a place with abundant natural resources and local talent, it doesn’t make sense to be dependent on a relatively scarce currency beyond our control.

Having a community credit system based on time avoids the problem of scarcity, because value is created by members as it is needed. It is 100% independent of our national monetary system, making it the most useful for people who are currently undercompensated financially. Furthermore, it is not subject to the shocks and fluctuations of a national currency. One hour always equals one Time Dollar,

Take Action! Navy To Sacrifice 2.3 Million Marine Mammals Per Year For 5 Years Of War Games Off Our Mendocino Coast

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

June 5, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

SAVE OUR FISHING & WHALE WATCHING INDUSTRIES, our marine habitat, and protect the public from highly toxic chemicals.

A wide variety of marine mammals (whales, dolphins, porpoises, manatees, seals, walrus, and otters) have already died due to Navy Warfare Testing of Weapons currently underway in the Hawaiian Islands, the Mariana Islands, the Pacific Ocean off the coastline of Oregon, Washington, Southern California, the Gulf of Mexico, and other areas where testing is now conducted in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The Navy now proposes to expand its NWT Range Complex warfare testing range to encompass more land areas of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California and the Pacific Ocean.

Many chemicals, like depleted uranium, used in this program are toxic to humans, marine mammals, all wildlife, and birds.

The Navy has violated NEPA laws by not informing the majority of the citizens of the United States about this program.

The Navy admits that there are severe declines in some marine mammal populations, and they will “take”, harm, maim or kill approximately 2.3 million marine mammals per year over five years.

The Navy will disrupt the fishing and whaling tourist industry near some of their weapons test areas in the Pacific Ocean even though there are sensitive marine areas in the Pacific Ocean which need to be preserved and protected.

Airborne sky obscurants like toxic fog oils, red phosphorus, white phosphorus, Aluminum Coated Fiberglass & Flares,

Gardeners and Farmers Less Fearful of Death?

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From GENE LOGSDON
Garden Farm Skills

June 4, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

When our bed of irises (in the photo above) bloom for one brief but glorious week in late May,  I think, strangely enough, of a letter a friend of mine received from a doctor in Minnesota.  The doctor observed that in his medical practice, rural people face the prospect of dying with more equanimity than urbanites.

He  theorizes that people who live close to the natural world and to farm life have their thinking shaped by the way life and death follow each other up and down the food chain every day.  They understand that death is the unavoidable way of nature and it applies to everything and everyone. Urban people more often live in a sort of surrealistic plastic bubble where they never see a nice neighborhood doggy tear the guts out of a lamb or a cute raccoon slaughter a henhouse full of chickens.  They have never seen a hog die after having its throat slit to bleed properly so that the meat tastes the way they want it to taste. They do not associate their eating with anything dying. They become paranoid at the realization that they must die too and try to find ways to avoid every possible or even imagined threat of death that comes their way. That doctor didn’t say it, but mine would add that this paranoia is adding 500 billion unnecessary dollars to the cost of Medicare and Medicaid programs according to recent statistics.

I suppose that there are quite a few urban people living in areas of high crime rates who are even more conscious of the inevitability of death than rural people who care for animals or must deal with the wild animal kingdom, but generally speaking, I think the good doctor has it right. I would add gardeners in the group of those who accept death philosophically. There is an underbelly of sadness to the delights of gardening. The flowers in the photo above, mostly irises, are the result of my wife’s nearly year-round care, but peak bloom lasts

The Outer World

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From TODD WALTON
Mendocino County

June 1, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

[This article first appeared in the current Anderson Valley Advertiser 5/27/09. Used with permission.]

Marcia and I just returned from three weeks in the outer world. We gave nine house concerts, two bookstore performances, and visited a couple dozen bookstores from Mendocino all the way to Lummi Island, Washington and back, with layovers in Arcata, Coos Bay, Astoria, Seattle, Bellingham, Port Townsend, Portland, Medford, Ashland, and Sacramento. Our concerts were a mix of guitar/cello duets, cello solos, songs, and short stories. We had audiences as large as fifty, as small as five. Since I rarely go anywhere outside of the Big River watershed, this was a monumental and highly stressful journey for me. For Marcia it was pure fun.

Here are some of the things I discovered en route.

Remembering Susan Jordan

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From HAL BENNETT

May 30, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Over the past year and a half, Susan had become a friend. I am an author and writing coach and Dave Smith had introduced us, hoping I could help her write her memoir.

When Dave contacted me yesterday (May 29, 09) to tell me Susan died in a small plane accident in Utah, I was stunned. My first words at the news were expletives, probably much like the last words that pilots record in those black boxes when they crash—outrage at the suddenness and randomness of violent death. And later I would speculate that Susan, being Susan, probably uttered similar words in the final seconds of life in her friend’s plane.

The last we met on her book project was sometime near the end of April. After months of struggling with the project, she announced that she’d had a breakthrough. She emailed me a new book proposal that started with the following—which I believe she would have loved to share with her friends and loved ones, though probably with some hesitancy and, certainly, modesty. These are her words. I’ve edited them only for minor typos (she was an impatient typist):

Food security begins at home

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From LINDA GRAY
Mendocino County

There’s a good article in the June 2009 issue of National Geographic about global food issues. If you can’t get your hands on the magazine, you can read it online at the link below. It’s 13 web pages long and focuses mostly on Africa & India, but the first four paragraphs (copied below) apply to us here in Mendoland.

It seems to me that now is the time for us to dream a new vision toward food security here while we still have plenty of food available to us. There’s still a lot of farmable land in this county, but the unfortunate problems that I see here are 1) that very little land is dedicated to growing food, 2) farm land is expensive and out of reach to would-be young farmers, 3) there’s no incentive to young people to encourage them to learn farming skills. Surely there are creative ways to get around these obstacles, but it will probably take a lot more people recognizing that food is becoming less secure before there’s a critical mass of folks determined to make change. Anyway, read on . . .

It is the simplest, most natural of acts, akin to breathing and walking upright. We sit down at the dinner table, pick up a fork, and take a juicy bite, obliv­ious to the double helping of global ramifications on our plate. Our beef comes from Iowa, fed by Nebraska corn.

Switch to mercury light bulbs to stop climate change? Uh, have you read the label fine print?

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From ROSALIND PETERSON
Redwood Valley

May 15, 2009 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Flourescent light bulb warning

There is a movement by many states and localities to ban incandescent light bulbs and convert to total use of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFL) to save energy.

And yet there are few who have read the small print on the tiny inside package label of fluorescent bulbs or heard about the EPA’s problems with regard to mercury contamination.

What should you know about fluorescent light bulbs?

1. Heat resistant glass is used in these bulbs. The quartz arc tube, when operating creates light by generating a considerable amount of Ultraviolet (UV) radiation. How much exposure to this UV radiation goes through the heat resistant glass and what are the human health problems associated with this exposure? How does the public know that the exposure is safe for children and adults?

Time to start growing your own bread

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From Gene Logsdon
Garden Farm Skills

[Gene's long-awaited, and much-anticipated 2nd Edition of Small-Scale Grain Raising: An Organic Guide to Growing, Processing, and Using Nutritious Whole Grains, for Home Gardeners and Local Farmers is now available. -DS]

No sooner had the news come out that rice stocks worldwide were at an all time modern low, and that the price of wheat had hit historic highs, when I started getting calls and letters from all over. Modern homesteaders wanted to know where they could get a copy of my old book, Small Scale Grain Raising.

It is gratifying to know there are still Americans who, instead of wringing their hands at a possible problem headed their way, start figuring what to do about it. I only wish I had some copies of that book left. It was published in 1977 and was as high as $300 a crack on the Internet. But I am happy to report that a new edition is now available.

I don’t really know if the high grain prices have anything to do with renewed interest in that book. What seems to me more likely is that self-reliant people are taking a look at what is happening in our financial world and wondering if it is time to plow up the backyard or that old horse lot and plant some food.

In my little world of writing books about rural life and culture, this is all the talk right now, as it was in 1973, 1982, and 1995 when the economy did “readjustments” like it is doing now, only not quite so profoundly. (In an economy ruled by interest on “pretend” money, as I call it, about every ten years there has to be a shakeup to bring the dreamers of riches, floating around in their bubbles, back down to earth again.) The idea of growing and threshing out several bushels of wheat (a bushel makes about 50-60 loaves of bread) in the backyard makes sense to self-reliant people. It isn’t really that difficult to do.

My wife and I first tried it in the late 1960s when living in the suburbs of Philadelphia, just for fun. We scythed the wheat we grew in our backyard, made bundles of it, shocked up the bundles and when the grain was dry we beat the bundles on a bed sheet with plastic ball bats, threshing out the grain. The kids thought it was great fun. We winnowed out the chaff by pouring the grain slowly from one bucket to another in front of a window fan.

Mulch Can Cover a Multitude of Sins As Well As Weeds

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From Gene Logsdon
Garden Farm Skills

Sometimes I think that Ruth Stout, the Queen of Mulch in the early days of organic gardening, did more to hurt the practice than to help it. She made it sound so easy and carefree. That’s okay because I daresay she persuaded more people to start gardening than any other single writer at that time. We all rushed out to gather up leaves and grass clippings from the four winds to pile on our gardens and then, tra la la, fell back in our hammocks and waited for harvest. Ruth put gardening on Easy Street.

As the old song puts in, “it ain’t necessarily so,”  as we all found out. Mulching is one of the very best gardening practices, but like everything else, you have to master the details if you are hoping for quality time in the hammock.

The rule of timing: The sin that mulching so often covers, in addition to weeds, is cold wet soil from applying the stuff too early. Do not start mulching until the soil has warmed up completely. I suppose on pure sand or in the deep South, this rule is not as critical, but whatever, especially on clay and loam soils, you will experience much grief if you layer on the mulch early in spring or worse, put it on late in fall or through the winter under the mistaken notion that you are protecting the soil from winter’s cold. The soil benefits from winter’s cold.

Mulching too early means you can’t work up a nice seedbed until late in the spring.  Transplants set into cold, mulched soil will sit there, blue and shivering, until July. I am talking now about organic mulches— hay, leaves, straw, grass clippings etc. Black plastic “mulch” can be put on early, and it will help warm the soil up. But that’s a subject for another time.

Here in northern Ohio, (you can make your own determinations accordingly), we do not put on organic mulches until June and then aren’t in a hurry. Right after a good rain is the best time, so as to prevent that moisture from evaporating into the air. Mulching in a normal year can take the place of watering. In a dry year, it can cut watering by half.

First we mulch early vegetables, perhaps even a little before June, especially leafy vegetables so that rain doesn’t bounce mud on them. Then comes the twin pole bean rows where the vines are climbing wooden poles anchored to a center wire overhead. That means a sort of tunnel underneath, impossible to get to with the tiller and hard even to hoe. Then we do potatoes before the plants fall and flounce all over.  After that we do the viney melons, squashes, sweet potatoes, etc. before the plants crawl out all over the place and make mulching difficult. Last comes tomatoes, eggplants and peppers which especially need to be growing vigorously in warm soil before mulching. Do not mulch onions up close. The bulbs need air and sunlight to grow properly. I usually do not mulch the sweet corn either since it is easy to cultivate weeds between the rows with the tiller.

Down with raised beds

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From Gene Logsdon
Garden Farm Skills

The only raised bed I’ve ever found useful in sixty years of gardening is the one in my bedroom. And after I quit double-digging, I didn’t have to spend as much time there either. Or if I did, it was for reasons other than resting.

I must be wrong, but I don’t understand the modern enchantment with raised beds. Yes, if you are a market gardener, you will no doubt feel obliged to plant on raised beds to get the earliest possible crops but you can get early vegetables in unraised beds too. I have a very disgusting sister who plants peas in March here in northern Ohio, and often gets away with it, without raised beds.

If you want to plant a garden on an old parking lot (I have a hunch there will be many abandoned ones in the future) then by all means you will need a raised bed.  (It should give us all pause, however,  to realize that plants can come right up through cracks in pavement and grow vigorously— so what’s that say about all our dearly held beliefs about gardening?) And definitely, if you want to plant a garden on something akin to swampland, you will surely want a raised bed. But the poorly-drained  soil under it will still “lay wet” and give you problems when your plants put down deep roots.

Other than those situations, raised beds guarantee only one result as far as I can see. You will have to irrigate more when dry weather comes and it comes quicker on raised beds. All of us gardeners pride ourselves in being eco-friendly. What is so ecological  about using water (and the power to pump it) when you can avoid doing so? Also, if you are bound and determined to make raised beds, a veteran market gardener just told me that you should be sure to mulch the paths heavily around the raised beds. Otherwise moisture will be drawn out of the bed even faster. So why not just go with unraised beds and mulch them?

Ukiah Earth Day/Bike Day – This Wednesday April 22nd

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From SANDY TURNER

4/20/09 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Here is some information about the upcoming EARTH DAY festivities the Mendocino Environmental Center is part of that are happening around Ukiah.

As a longtime bike person, I am jazzed that the Mendocino Environmental Center (sometimes called the MEC) is offering some cool bike related  raffle prizes at the spring raffle they are sponsoring. They will be kicking off the raffle at the  Earth Day event  at Mendocino College on Wed. April 22 and it will continue until Saturday, June 13th. The raffle prizes are a new Gary Fisher bike and helmet from Dave’s Bike Shop, or a $100 gift certificate, or a $50 gift certificate, also from Dave’s Bike Shop. The bike will also be on display at the upcoming fundraiser the MEC is having on Friday night, April 24th at the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse. The longtime, legendary, local band Rootstock will be playing, and DJ Sister Yasmin will be in the house playing some tunes as well.

From what I hear, bikes are probably THE  most efficient transportation technology humans have developed, and they help us to have an extremely small environmental footprint when we travel. Although I frequently ride my bike from my house in Redwood Valley to Ukiah, I am glad that the Mendocino Transit Authority busses have bike racks so I can sometimes ride both my bike and the bus, rather than having to bike the whole 20 mile round trip. So I am really glad that the Mendocino Environmental Center is doing its part to promote biking. And I am glad they are having an EARTH DAY party on Friday night, April 24th. Folks who know me, know that biking and dancing are my favorite drugs of choice.  I hope lots of people will attend the Earth Day festivities and buy a raffle ticket or two.

So I do hope I will see many folks who read or write the info on this blogsite at the MEC party.  And I hope to see some of you around on a bike or on the bus.
~

[More -DS]
We can consciously plot a path into a lower-energy life — a life of walkable villages, local food and artisans and greater intimacy with the natural world — which, on balance, could actually be richer and more enjoyable than what we have now. Transition, Hopkins has written, meets our era’s threats with a spirit of “elation, rather than the guilt, anger and horror” behind most environmental activism. “Change is inevitable,” he told me, “but this is a change that could be fantastic.”

Go to The End Is Near! (Yay!) in NYT Magazine Green Issue→

…and George Monbiot’s Top 10 Climate Change Deniers→

…and Transition US new website→

…and Why we forgot how to grow food→
~~

Choosing a future for the Masonite Site

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by MARI RODIN
Ukiah City Council
Opinion, Press Democrat

Developers Diversified, or DDR, is one of the country’s largest developers of shopping malls. The proposed zoning change would allow it to override Mendocino County’s ongoing general plan update, giving it the green light to develop a 500,000- to 700,000-square-foot mall just outside the city limits of Ukiah — perhaps without any environmental review.

Since DDR purchased the property, its representative, Jeff Adams, has been attempting to change the zoning to allow for retail use.

Adams began more than a year ago, at a time when a majority of the Board of Supervisors was favorable to the zoning change. In November, however, two new supervisors were elected (Carre Brown and John McCowen), and there is now at least a 4-1 board majority opposed to the project.

DDR’s project was a major campaign issue, and there has been significant community mobilization in opposition to it. The reasons for opposing the project include:

• Sprawl development right outside historic downtown Ukiah is bad for the environment and bad for small, locally owned businesses.

• The project would support mostly low-wage jobs. We should reserve the site for industrial land uses that provide jobs at a living wage.

• Depletion of sales tax revenue for the city of Ukiah would lead to a severe cutback in public services to the county seat.

DDR’s petition for a ballot initiative changing the zoning of the former Masonite site to retail/mixed use ignores the fact that Ukiah Valley voters have already expressed opposition to the project by electing supervisors Brown and McCowen. Moreover, DDR is sure to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a campaign to convince voters that a mega-mall is in our best interest.

New Citizen Coalition Will Oppose DDR’s Attempt to Buy Approval of Zoning Change to Allow for Mega-Mall

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Press Release

Apr 14 2009, Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

Save Our Local Economy

P.O. Box 1530, Ukiah CA 95482

SOLE@pacific.net – www.NoMegaMall.com

NEWS RELEASE – April 14, 2009

For additional information:

Spokespersons: Cliff Paulin 707-463-0413

Mari Rodin 707-272-1937

Guinness McFadden 707-743-1122

A new coalition has formed to lead Mendocino County’s opposition to a ballot initiative funded by Ohio-based Developers Diversified Realty, Inc. (DDR) that would change the zoning of the former Masonite site to allow development of a mega-mall.

Save Our Local Economy (SOLE) will counter the corporate funding of DDR’s campaign with grassroots organizing, education, and fundraising. SOLE’s website is www.NoMegaMall.com and e-mail is SOLE@pacific.net.

SOLE includes local business owners, farmers, attorneys, and elected officials from throughout the Mendocino County who are concerned that a giant mall on the outskirts of Ukiah will economically drain locally-owned shops around the county, and cause a host of adverse environmental and traffic impacts.

When last November’s elections resulted in a majority of the Board of Supervisors opposed to DDR’s plan for a mega-mall, DDR decided to circumvent local review by sponsoring its own ballot initiative. “We’re confident that most voters will take offense at DDR’s attempt to use outside money and influence to undermine the general plan process for land use planning,” said Mari Rodin, Ukiah City Council member and a spokesperson for SOLE. “When the voters of the Ukiah area elected Carre Brown and John McCowen last November—and the future of the Masonite site was a major campaign issue—they were expressing support for the maintenance of the site for new industrial jobs.”

The Mall To Nowhere – Mendocino Crossings (Masonite Monster Mall)

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From Cliff Paulin

3/16/09 Ukiah, North California

”Mendocino Crossings”:
A Metaphor for Our Time in the Ukiah Valley & Mendocino County

Much has been made of the proposed regional retail shopping center, Mendocino Crossings, being proposed by Developers Diversified Reality (DDR) at the former Masonite site just north of Ukiah.  While the name Mendocino Crossings was likely chosen by DDR to represent the Ukiah Valley as the county’s center of trade, the name also reflects the fact that our community faces a major decision concerning the direction we want to see our valley move in.

In the direction proposed by DDR, we have a model that promotes suburban sprawl: a development outside the city limits and urban core of Ukiah that requires conversion of valuable industrial land into an island of retail in a sea of parking lots.  This is a model that undermines local business, brings low wage service sector jobs, puts strain on city and county resources, brings increased traffic, and causes further homogenization of the unique character of our county.

In the other direction is community self determination that builds on local assets by constructing an infrastructure that will provide sustainable economic growth for the future via the reactivation of light industry, value creation for local products, the creation of living wage jobs, and the relocalization of our economy which is so vital in these uncertain times.

The Wal-Mart Dilemma

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From Dave Pollard (2003)

Please read this thorough and extraordinary article from Fast Company entitled The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know. If its length discourages you, read the following excerpt (emphasis mine), and you’ll want to go back and read the rest:

If Levi [Strauss] clothing is a runaway hit at Wal-Mart, that may indeed rescue Levi as a business. But what will have been rescued? The Signature line–it includes clothing for girls, boys, men, and women–is an odd departure for a company whose brand has long been an American icon. Some of the jeans have the look, the fingertip feel, of pricier Levis. But much of the clothing has the look and feel it must have, given its price (around $23 for adult pants): cheap. Cheap and disappointing to find labeled with Levi Strauss’s name. And just five days before the cheery profit news, Levi had another announcement: It is closing its last two U.S. factories, both in San Antonio, and laying off more than 2,500 workers, or 21% of its workforce. A company that 22 years ago had 60 clothing plants in the United States–and that was known as one of the most socially reponsible corporations on the planet–will, by 2004, not make any clothes at all. It will just import them.

The article brilliantly describes what I call the ‘Wal-Mart Dilemma’, which is represented by the cycle diagrammed at above in red.

The intervention in blue that can stop this ‘race to the bottom’ is anathema to ‘free’ traders. It says simply that if a product can reasonably be produced domestically, then duties and other regulations should be imposed to protect domestic producers. In other words, the alternative to ‘free’ trade is not no trade, but rather regulated trade, regulated to protect the economy and social fabric of the regulating country. That switches the cycle shown in red to the cycle shown in green.

Of course, it’s not all black and white, or we would have resisted the globalization extremists and wouldn’t be facing this dilemma today at all. In the red vicious cycle, the seduction is:

• lower prices ‘every day’
• low inflation

and the downside is:

• low wages
• low product quality
• high unemployment
• high poverty levels

The green cycle also is not perfect. Its seduction is:

• high wages
• high product quality
• lower unemployment
• lower poverty levels

and its downside is:

• higher prices
• higher inflation

You pays your money and you takes your choice. In my biased opinion, the vast majority of people are ahead with the green cycle, and the very rich few are ahead with the red cycle. Guess who’s lobbying and bribing governments for untrammeled globalization and ‘free’ trade? Contrary to what most of us are taught in school, modest inflation is the single most effective way to painlessly redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, because it allows debts to be repaid in ‘cheaper’ future dollars. There are environmental and social advantages to the green cycle as well. The use of slave labour is discouraged. Lax environmental laws in third world countries are not exploited as much. And if the red cycle gets out of control (some would argue it already has), a possible consequence is deflation, a terrible threat to the whole economy that we need to avoid like the plague.

Keep reading The Wal-Mart Dilemma at How To Save The World→

See also The Mall To Nowhere→

and Wal-Mart chased out of Santa Rosa→
Hat tip Steve Scalmanini
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The Cowboy and the Trapper

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From Bruce Patterson
Anderson Valley

3/11/09 Ukiah, North California

Old enough to be my grandpa, Ole Claude was one of those rarest of breeds: a cowboy with ambition and an education. Ole Claude also had a serious sense of humor and he loved telling riddles. Like, he’d ask, it’s Friday night, the saloon has shut down and three cowboys are making their way back home to the ranch. They are sitting three across in the cab of a pickup truck that’s rolling dust down a long dirt road. Now, which one of them fellahs is the real cowboy?

And after you’d scratched your head and gazed at him in slack-jawed befuddlement, he’d answer that it’s obviously the fellah riding in the middle. That one ain’t gotta drive the pickup truck and he ain’t gotta get out and open the gate.

Claude having himself a college education meant he knew there was more to life than just cows, horses and dogs. There were sheep, for example. Contrary to what folks thought, Claude didn’t mind explaining, sheep weren’t all that much stupider than cattle. Like with any other sort of social critters , the degree of an individual sheep’s intelligence relied upon the size of the herd he was running with. The larger the herd, the rule was, the stupider the individual critter.

For instance, Claude would point out, if you get up one horse and one dog and you take after one wooly maverick buck that has gotten himself used to running free in these hills, you’d best be ready to expend some effort. For if the buck’s half-wily you can count on him heading for ground too steep for a horse and too brushy for a dog.

“You take after a lone old wooly up here in these hills,” Ole Claude would volunteer, “you’d best remember to pack a lunch.”

Whereas if it was one hundred head of sheep you were after, why sometimes just the sight of your ambling horse was enough to get the whole bunch of them all turned and heading the right way.

I suppose if I’d have asked Ole Claude if the same rule applied to us humans, we being social critters and all, he’d have frowned as if he’d never thought of it that way. He might pretend to ponder the question long and hard before answering in a gentlemanly tone something like, come to think of it, he reckoned he’d have to allow how that just could be some kind of possibility if you looked at it in the right way. Then he’d grin at you with a crooked little glint in his eye.

I used to love listening to Ole Claude telling stories. During the nineteen seventies and early eighties up in Yorkville, just after quitting time most days, Ole Claude would shuffle into the Oaks Cafe. Back then Yorkville was still mostly working ranches and when the day was done lots of us ranchers and hired hands, both newcomers like myself and old-timers like Claude, would polish our elbows on the bar. Some, like Marvin, would keep his black Stetson cocked low over his eyes and silently nurse cups of coffee. Others would sip beers and still others, mostly us young bucks, would knock them back.

The aim is joy

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From Gene Logsdon

I’ve taken lovely vacations over the years, but the latest one, at an exclusive hideaway we were lucky enough to know about, had to be the best ever. My idea of a good vacation is one that combines natural wonders with good food (the greatest natural wonder of all), hopefully convenient to exhibitions or programs of art or history not yet widely publicized, and so removed from the possibility of crowds and traffic jams. Places that offer such a rare combination are few and far between, and simply discovering this magical retreat was a keen pleasure.

I don’t know where to begin in telling you the delights of this vacation. We awoke on Saturday morning to a pervasive silence, broken only by the song of a wood thrush outside our window. We dined on an upper deck, where a flaming orange and black Baltimore oriole scolded us from a huge oak tree whose limbs reached out almost to our table. At one point, the blue flash of an indigo bunting streaked across the orange flame of oriole, and I jumped in delight. That so startled the lovely lady vacationing with me that she lost the strawberry she was spooning from her saucer, and the fruit bounced into the cream pitcher. Giggle, giggle. The strawberries came directly from the establishment’s own garden. Yeasty homemade bread also originated in the kitchen, and the eggs were fresh from a nearby barn—we could actually hear the hens cackling. The thick strips of drug- and hormone-free, hickory-smoked bacon came from hogs raised in that barn, too.

We decided to go bird-watching that morning, encouraged by the variety of birds we saw just from the breakfast table. We did not see the bobolinks rumored to have returned to the fields behind the hideaway, but I did spot a stocky lestes (Lestes dryas), a species of damselfly, resting in the meadow grass. Though lestes is not exactly an uncommon species in these parts, I had never seen this striking insect before. Its clear lacy wings spread out about an inch and a half; its body was nearly as long. Its abdomen, a little thicker than a darning needle, glinted metallic green in segments marked off by tiny black and whitish bands. Its thorax was shiny green on top, yellowish on the sides shading into rusty brown underneath. Its bulbous eyes were blue, and between them on the back of the prothorax, a yellow and black design, resembling somehow a monkey face, seemed to stare menacingly up at me. In front of the eyes, precise yellow and green lines marked the real mouth parts. What a fearsome sight the damselfly must appear to a mosquito.

Keep reading The aim is joy at Organic To Be→

Mendocino County’s Debt Management

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From YourPublicMoney.com

The eight things that should be done about Mendocino County’s debt→

Bank Nationalization Debate is Farcical

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From Kirt Hamburg

3/5/09 Ukiah, North California

For some time, we have been reading about the pros and cons of nationalizing the banking system in the United States.  There are some out there who are staunch opponents of any sort of nationalization, equating it with socialism. Others believe nationalizing the system today is the only real way to address the current morass by taking the pain and starting a real process of recovery rather than wading in the muck for years or even decades to come.  Many other points of view lie somewhere in between.

The American people have been lead astray on this topic.  Our banking system has been in the midst of nationalization since last October when a frantic Wall Street, led by then-Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs chief Hank Paulson, strong-armed Congress into believing the sky would fall unless the government gave $700 billion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street, no strings attached, in order to “save the failed credit markets.”

We all know that did not work. The plan laid out by Paulson to buy toxic assets in order to shore up the liabilities side of the balance sheet was never implemented. After all, if a company is failing, it needs to sell its good assets to raise capital.  It cannot sell its junk and expect to raise much cash.  So in the end, it was determined by the brain trust in DC to simply give these failing institutions boatloads of money in hopes they would commence lending.

It should have come as no surprise that these institutions used our money to pay out huge dividends, give bonuses to the same executives who created the mess, and buy out smaller banks–even by utilizing a tax loophole created by TARP that enriched banks for buying out competitors!  This was the case, for example, in the buyout of Capital Commerce Bank by PNC Financial.

Schizoid culture and a course for treatment

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From Sean Ré
Mendocino County
sean@bandcamp.org

3/2/09 Ukiah, Mendocino County, North California

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ~ J. Krishnamurti

Denial and excess

My step-father is baffled by my current interests. He has, as of late, become interested in alternative energy. He, like many others, thinks that there is a singular technology that can save us all. In a previous career, I was an engineer, and he wonders why I don’t use those skills to pursue something that will serve humanity. Humanity has all the solutions it needs to solve its problems, I tell him; what it lacks is the will to exercise them. My stepfather, his body ravaged by the excess of his life and denial of his disease, diabetes, has lost half of his left foot, and most of the toes on his other. He is on dialysis three days a week. He tells me almost every time I’m on the phone with him about some new substance he has discovered that will restore his health, that will turn back part of the excess of his life. Excesses that he indulged in with denial. A denial that raged, even as he watched his siblings destroyed by the disease. In him I see an allegory of our whole modern way of being.

Charlatans and false solutions

I have these days concerned myself with issues of the exercise of will. I listen to community radio every weekday morning, and much of what I hear is denial, speculation, opinion, and false hope… dancing around the gorilla in the room. Fill the void with noise, but rarely utter the truths of our lives. We work so hard to fill our lives, and yet a feeling of emptiness seems to prevail. We feed the guard dogs of our way of life with our own flesh. A truth is before us but remains unfocused in our vision; it’s a dream we are told, it can never happen here. Stay the course, these things are just cyclical: things will return to normal soon. But what is normal? We refuse to look to the lives of others who show us a better way, as we cling to the lies that serve to make only a few prosper… for a while. Normal has come to mean common, as opposed to a state of well being: sustainable homeostasis. Sometimes I hear credible solutions to our problems, but I fear they won’t be realized. As with any addiction, delusional thinking prevails. But the truth lies within us if we can remove the barriers that have blinded us to our own truths.

Barriers: Signs, symptoms, and false diagnosis

In my profession the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) is the psychiatric profession’s attempt to legitimize themselves as a player in the scope of medical science. It is the fundamental tool at the core of the counseling profession. The DSM-IV (brought to you by similar minds that brought you the DSM-III, which listed homosexuality as a mental illness) presents clusters of symptoms which represent behaviors that lie outside the norms of our current culture. Symptom is the key word here. Webster defines a symptom as, “a phenomenon experienced by an individual as a departure from normal function, sensation, or appearance, generally indicating disease or disorder.” A sign is defined as “a bodily manifestation indicating the presence of a disease or malfunction.” The difference being, one is perceptual and the other is empirical. For example, if you go to a doctor and complain of pain in your arm, that is a symptom. If she takes an x-ray and observes a fracture, that is a sign. Imagine you went to your doctor and complained of leg pain, whereupon she snapped to a diagnosis (without the x-ray) and said, “your leg is broken” and then laid out a course of treatment saying, “and you’ll have to wear a cast for eight weeks.” You would look at her sideways and hop out of her office as fast as you could, as this would amount to malpractice. She made a diagnosis with only a symptom, and no signs, and then suggested a course of treatment. To understand this is to begin to wrap your head around the common standard of practice in the mental health profession: treatment (often medication) for a diagnosis made on symptoms alone. The actual causes (observed by signs) that can make the symptoms manifest are many. For example, the symptoms we associate with ADD can be caused by trauma, neglect, in-utero drug exposure, allergies, poor diet and the immediate environment just to name a few. I suspect there is not a child out there who is suffering from a deficiency of Ritalin. Yet that is a standard “treatment” given for this “disorder.” Something is a disorder if it impairs the individual from some area of life functioning: relationships, work/school, and self-care. Let’s look at two common mental “disorders” common in modern society.

Greater Ukiah Localization Project Report (GULP)

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From Cliff Paulin

2/26/09 Ukiah, Northern California

Greetings GULPers,

Well it’s been a while since we’ve met but I just wanted to let you know that localization efforts continue to bubble in different realms. It’s been heartening to see the localization banner being carried on in so many different circles.  If you have other activities you’d like to share with the group, please send me an e-mail: cliffpaulin@hotmail.com

Be well,

Cliff

Time Bank
A very exciting service has been brought to Ukiah thanks to the work of Julia Frech. It’s called Time Bank, and is a way for people to exchange services locally via the web.  You can sign up on the website or you can call 489-1388.  This is a great way to put your talents to use and get assistance from your local community.

Year Round Farmers Market
In case you haven’t noticed the Saturday Farmer’s Market in Ukiah is thriving through the winter.  Featuring the finest in local produce, meat, seafood, honey, cheese, eggs, and crafts the market is open under the pavilion at Alex Thomas Plaza every Saturday morning. You can also pick up another local currency there, the wooden $2 piece, which you can start tipping your wait staff and paperboy with.

Shop Local Card
The Mendo Lake Credit Union and the Mendocino Savings Bank will be rolling out a shop local credit card in the near future. This is another great way to ensure that our dollars stay local. Keep your eyes out for future developments.

Boosting Local Farms Conference
Mendo Food Futures (MFF) and STEPS to a local food economy will be hosting their annual meeting again this spring and the theme is “Growing the Next Generation of Mendocino Farmers”.  The vision is to have current, beginning, and aspiring farmers connect with the resources (land, labor, capital, knowledge) that they need to start producing more food locally. The tentative date is set for April 8th. If you are interested in attending please contact Cliff Paulin at cliffpaulin@hotmail.com

New Local Food Market
Scott and Holly Cratty, ever the stalwarts of the localization movement, have recently purchased the Westside Market on Clay Street. They are looking to feature locally grown Mendocino Renegade Certified Organic food and local crafts. If you have items you would like to sell through the market please contact Scott at cratty@comcast.net

Rent a Local Artist
The Ukiah Art Center, our own cooperatively run gallery located at 201 and 203 S. State Street will be offering the chance for you to feature a local art in your home by renting it. Attend the next First Friday Art Walk on March 6, or stop by anytime to find out more info.  For a list of ongoing activities you can go to their website: www.artcenterukiah.org

Shop Local Campaign
You may have seen the proliferation of shop local banners and placards around town recently.  A group of local business owners, lead by Spencer Brewer of the Ukiah Music Center have done a wonderful job of raising the profile of our locally owned businesses. You can show your support for  their efforts by stopping into a local business next time you are in need of a new acquisition.

Bulk Organic Grain Share
Following in the footsteps of Community Supported Agriculture, Mendo Food Futures (MFF) are offering a Grain and Bean Share. You can purchase shares for $10, which will entitle you to 11 pounds of pinto beans, brown rice, white rice, or 17 pounds of Triticale (a hybrid of rye and wheat). You can contact MFF at mendofoodfutures@gmail.com to purchase shares, and if we get enough interest in Ukiah we may be able to get them to attend the Saturday Farmer’s Market.

Mustard Seed Project
A group of local medical, financial, and policy individuals have been meeting to devise a strategy to maximize the impact of state and federal funding for physical and mental health in the county.  During these times of challenging financial reality these organizations are working in concert to best serve the residents of Mendocino County.

Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Conference
The City of Ukiah will be hosting a Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Conference at the Ukiah Conference Center on May 5, 2009.  Stay tuned for details.

Anything Else?
If you know of any other efforts or projects underway or envisioned please e-mail Cliff Paulin at cliffpaulin@hotmail.com so we can get the word out.

Mendocino Cooking from the Farmers’ Market

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From Pinky Kushner
Ukiah

Last week was no exception to the rule that great treats can be gotten at the Ukiah Saturday Market.

Here’s what I was just delighted to find: Small, plump white turnips, complete with their little green tops freshly pulled from the ground by our friends the Ortiz family. Now some of you might say, “What? Turnips? Give me a break.” Let me tell you about turnips. These little treats are not the big muddy balls that you may have seen in an old Dutch painting, although even the big ones can be very special. Here in California, baby turnips ‘turn up’ as a spring specialty at high-end restaurants like Chez Panisse. Grab them now while they are young and being thinned from the field to make room for the later, larger summer crop.

What to do with these little ones? First wash them thoroughly—plunge them into a large bowl of cold water (which you recycle in the yard onto a thirsty plant, right?) and agitate for a few minutes. Then, drain and from the bulb, cut off the skinny little root and all but an inch of the greens.

Steam the turnips in a vegetable basket. After 3 minutes add the greens that have been chopped into 1-inch pieces. After 3-5 more minutes, pull the steaming basket out and pour the water from pot, reserving for later use. Dump the cooked turnips and greens back into the pot with a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon or two of the reserved liquid. Heat over low flame a few more minutes and serve. The cooking time is a total of 8 to 10 minutes.

Freshly steamed baby turnips go with almost anything, from rice to pasta pomodoro to grilled chicken or fish. The reserved liquid can be added to water for rice or almost anything else that might use a stock. The joy of turnips is their mild sweet/bitter taste and their reputation as excellent nutrition. They are thought to have originated as cultivated food about 2000 BC in northern Europe and spread south and east over the next 3500 years. The Romans prized them highly. I will share my favorite recipe for the big guys in the summer.

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What’s going on around here, and how are we going to find out?

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From Kevin Murphy
Ukiah

Reflections on facing the reality of dying news functions

Dave Smith reminded me recently of an inexorable truth coined by Stewart Brand, the original publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogue, that “information wants to be free.” Alas, the world is a much more jumbled place and our need for information in the modern world more complicated. Presumably in heaven information is free and instantaneous. Here and now, however, the situation is a bit different.

I believe it was Thomas Merton who wrote that the only place communism could be expected to actually work was the monastery. Likewise, a great deal of commitment would be needed in the perfect communication model. If, among your friends and acquaintances there was compelling consensus about what was most important and how information needed to be shared, and everyone willingly dedicated a part of their energy to that whole, we wouldn’t need newspapers or news feeds or RSS, assuming our community of friends and acquaintances was large enough that someone was involved in all the communities or organizations where there was important public information (and we all talked to each other enough). I suppose that’s the sort of thing which the Googlezon mythology describes, the creation of a global blogosphere, distilled down to each person’s interests and delivered by digital robots, providing all the information we need at the touch of a button, culled from what every one had offered. Again, that heaven, if that’s what it would be, ain’t here yet, either.

An old saying in the newspaper business is “If advertising isn’t going to pay for the news, who will, the tooth fairy?” Sharp business minds understand that waiting for the tooth fairy is a less appealing business plan than selling advertising. Thus we arrive at the professional consensus that a newspaper is first of all a retail merchandising tool, and only secondarily a means of supporting democracy. The critical value of the availability of reliable news about public affairs, a life blood of democracy, it seems to me, should be judged as only a bit less important than civility, mutual respect and enforceable legal agreements regarding how the public’s business is to be conducted. (The presumed goal being to assure, at least, the tyranny of the majority, and one hopes, significant consideration to minorities. While some readers would have the discussion at this point veer off toward the necessary demise of the two party system, please allow me to make a different point.) Like education in California, the way the purpose of our news is married to its funding doesn’t make sense; the funding structure doesn’t reflect the importance society places on it. (Or, perhaps, it does.)

I can envision a local news organization that appeals to the realization that getting the kind of quality information about the public’s business is not best left to the whims of advertising budgets, especially at a time like this. If in heaven, or sometime before, information will finally get its wish and become entirely free, there’s still however, before those final revolutions of love and truth, some smaller, but necessary preparatory revolutions. Perhaps like the extreme revolution I am proposing. We must consider that we will have to pay for the news, or we won’t be getting it reliably, especially at the local level.

Keep reading What’s going on around here…→

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Local Victory Garden Program

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From Julie Fetherston
4-H/Youth Development and Human Resources Advisor
UCCE Mendocino County

On Saturday, January 17th, twelve Mendocino County Master Gardeners put together a class called “Creating Your Own Victory Garden.” The class was held in Ukiah and was open to the general public. The response was tremendous with 60 people attending the class. Everyone had a wonderful time. The class was the first in a three part series that will take participants through planning, planting, harvesting and using the bounty from a Victory Garden.

What is a Victory Garden and why do I want to plant one?

Victory Gardens first appeared during World War I. As the conflict on the war front made it difficult for European farmers (those that weren’t off at war) to bring their crop to maturity and market, a food shortage ensued. Canada and United States’ efforts were needed to supplies our European allies with food. The U.S. government, concerned at how the food shortages might affect the home front, began a campaign to encourage citizens at home to grow their own food as part of the war effort. The gardens were called Liberty Gardens and growing food quickly became an act of patriotism. An emblematic poster from that era is a picture of Lady Liberty sewing garden seeds. The program was a success and supplied many communities with adequate food through the difficult times during and directly after World War I.

Victory Gardens regained their popularity during World War II as a patriotic answer to food shortages and rationing. Across the country Americans were encouraged to “grow their own.” It is often cited that 40% of all produce consumed in United States during World War II was grown in Victory Gardens. This was also the beginning of school gardens with the Bureau of Education’s formation of the United States School Garden Army. Our colleague 4-H and Master Gardener Advisor, Rose Hayden Smith has compiled wonderful information on this interesting era. To learn more explore her Victory Grower website.

What is happening with Victory Gardens today?

With United States involved in two wars and Americans feeling economically insecure, a movement has started across the country to revive Victory Gardens, encouraging citizens across the country to grow a portion of their food. This includes the Eat the View campaign led by Roger Doiron, who is trying to build support for replacing a portion of the White House lawn with a vegetable garden. While the thrill of raising a crop of cauliflower in your kitchen garden cannot be denied, the attention surrounding the Victory Garden revival is most likely tied to several very American traits: self-sufficiency, independence, and tenacity. Certainly, this is a difficult time economically and culturally. The global economy is in the worst economic crisis for decades. Rising food and transportation costs, coupled with job loss and the housing crunch, are creating hardship across the country and Americans are looking for a way to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of their communities. Taking matters into their own hands, many people are addressing some of these issues by growing a local solution, literally.

Growing your own vegetables has many benefits. For starters, it can increase the quality and quantity of vegetables in your diet for less than you would pay at the market. In Mendocino County we are blessed with a mild climate that allows for year round vegetable gardening. If you plan right, you can avoid having zillions of zucchini, and enjoy a wide variety of vegetables from artichokes and chard, to spinach and watermelons.

Growing your own vegetables can also reduce your carbon footprint. If the average food item travels 1,500 miles from farm to plate, then reducing your vegetable mile by approximately 1499 miles, 5,100 feet will definitely impact your carbon footprint. If you tear out lawn and replace it with your vegetable garden, you can most likely boost your impact by reducing water consumption, fertilizers etc…

Finally, gardening is healthy! Anyone who has double dug an asparagus bed or pulled weeds from a radish patch knows that gardening is good exercise and generally gives you a better outlook on life. Whether you are new to gardening and need some help getting started, or you are an experienced gardener looking for new ideas and camaraderie, please check our  Mendocino County calendar of events at UC Davis Cooperative Extension for our next scheduled class in the “Victory Garden Program.”

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The Ukiah Latitude Observatory (Updated)

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From Martin Bradley
Ukiah

The International Latitude Observatories were a system of (originally) six observatories located near the parallel of 39º 08’ north latitude.  They were used to measure the variation in latitude that occurs as a result of the wobble of the Earth on its polar axis.  The orginal six observatories were located in:
• Gaithersburg, Maryland
• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Ukiah, California
• Mizusawa, Japan
• Charjui, Turkestan
• Carloforte, Italy

History

The International Polar Motion Service program was created by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1899 to study the precession, or “wobble” of the Earth’s axis, and its effect on measures of latitude.  Six separate observatories were created .  The alignment of all six stations along the parallel helped the observatories to perform uniform data analysis.  Twelve groups of stars were studied in the program, each group containing six pairs of stars. Each night, each station observed two of the star groups along a preset schedule and later compared the data against the measurements taken by the sister stations.

Economic difficulties and war caused the closing of some of the original stations.  The stations continued to function until advances in computer technology and satellite observations rendered them obsolete in 1982.  The data collected by the observatories over the years still has use to scientists, and had been applied to studies of polar motion, physical properties of the Earth, climatology and satallite tracking and navigation.

Continue to Ukiah International Observatory Index→

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Update: The Jason Bradford interview of Bill McKibben on the Reality Report KZYX via Global Public Media (Transcript)→

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CFAR Pushes Masonite Site Environmental Review

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From Antonio Andrade
Citizens For Adequate Review

As DDR was not being responsive to our lawsuit and claiming refuge for their activities claiming they were simply implementing the site remediation plan signed off on by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Board’s (NCRWQB), it prompted Citizens For Adequate Review (CFAR) to review an early communication directed to the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) and to reframe some of those issues and follow-up with other issues that had not been addressed in the remediation process.

We did not go public with the communication when it was sent in late summer. We did not want to negatively impact our negotiations with the County or DDR. Now that the suit is settled, it is important that the City, County, local agencies and Boards who have oversight responsibilities continue to press for comprehensive remediation of the site. My conversations with Environmental Health Director John Morley were not encouraging in this respect. It was John’s position that his Department has no oversight responsibilities for the site and that his Department was mistakenly listed in the NCRWQB-approved remediation plan as a secondly agency who should be coordinated with for remediation of the site. Isn’t the site located in Mendocino County? Don’t they oversee the buried fuel containers for gas stations in the county and didn’t they oversee the remediation process for leaky fuel tanks?

Right now the focus needs to be on getting a response to this communication and/or getting DTSC in on the oversight…

Continue reading CFAR→

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Did cloud seeding cause our fire disaster and drought?

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From Dan Hamburg
Ukiah

When the lightning strikes hit Mendocino County early on a Friday evening last June, at least a few people wondered aloud whether this unprecedented weather event was related to the unusual cloud patterns that appeared earlier that day.

Mid-Friday afternoon, I had noticed five or six bands of clouds running along a north-south axis in a formation I’d never seen before.  On Saturday, as news rapidly spread of the extent of the strikes, I was informed by a friend that one explanation could be the use of the chemical silver iodide in a weather modification experiment.

This week, I received an article from a Mount Shasta newspaper titled “PG&E responds to cloud seeding concerns.”  The article dated November 26, 2008, referred to PG&E’s “intention to conduct a five-year weather modification program in the Mount Shasta region.”  Residents of Siskiyou County, including representatives from the Mt. Shasta District of the Winnemen Wintu Tribe, are expressing concern about the planned cloud seeding which would be achieved by “injecting silver iodide aerosol into already existing storm clouds with the hopes of creating more moisture.”

Despite local concerns, PG&E has assured the public that there is no environmental downside to seeding with silver iodide.

Interestingly, problems with “rainmaking” have been noted since the 1950s.  Dr. Irving Langmuir, “the high priest of scientific rainmaking” [and winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1932], warned a half century ago that “those who sow too many rainstorms may reap nothing but droughts.” Langmuir noted that silver iodide particles have many potentially pernicious effects and that “there ought to be a law” controlling the amount of silver iodide fed into the atmosphere.

Evidently, there is no such law in effect today.
~
See also Too Much Rainmaking in Time Magazine 6/12/1950→
and Cloudbuster→
Image Credit: Wikipedia

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Water Supply Outlook Meeting Tonight 1/22/09 6pm

[Action: Janie's article Water, Then and Now has been updated with the planned meeting date and time. -DS]

It was nice running into you on the trail. Our meeting will be at 6 pm at the Alex Rorabaugh Center (1640 S. State) at 6 pm on Thursday the 22nd. We will be discussing two main issues at this Special Meeting:

1)The upcoming SWRCB License Inspection
2)The Water Supply Outlook for 2009

FYI-Reservoir levels are now the lowest on record for this date. In 1977 we had approximately 52,000 acre feet of storage at this time, it is currently at 33,000…the situation is indeed “gnarly”.

We are are hoping that by beginning water supply discussions early, we can have allocation system in-place if rainfall continues to be insufficient. Thanks for spreading the word and hope to see you at the meeting.

Sean White
General Manager
RRFC

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Art Happenings in Ukiah – January 2009

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From Rose Peterson Myers
Art Center Ukiah

Did you know that Art Center Ukiah has realized their Founding Members dream to open a center for the comunity to experience art, make art, and participate in artistic appreciation events?

In December, thanks to a generous donation by local attorney Ann Moorman, Art Center Ukiah acquired the building next to the Corner Gallery for an art center. In a flurry of activity, the place was painted and set up for classes. In late December, the City cleared us to open. The first class, a free drawing class for children, was filled and was a hit! Taught by Founding Members Carol Heady and Minnie McQueary and sponsored by Sakura art supplies, the class was a huge success.

More information on our website: www.artcenterukiah.org click on classes on the left pane from the home page. All classes held at the ACU Education Building 203 South State Street, Ukiah phone (707) 462-1400 for registration and information.

Here are up-coming classes for the next 2 weeks. Taught by talented local and renown Northern California Artists, the information and instruction will reach the beginning student as well as bring information for experienced artists to a new level:

1/24/09 9:30-4:30: The Zen of Koi: An Art Success Workshop with Rose Peterson Myers. $75 includes all materials; Scholarships available. If you ever wanted to try watercolor, or believed it was too difficult, this is the class for you! You will experience a lesson on the steps to acheive all the watercolor basics while enjoying this fun filled class on painting Koi Fish. Success guaranteed!

1/25,1/31, 2/7/09- 3:30- 5:30- Basket Weaving by Christine Hamilton $60 includes all 3 classes and materials. Local Native basket weaver will teach this introductory class on the coiled basket. Basket weaving is a nearly lost art in America. Don’t miss this chance to learn from a protege of Elsie Allen.

Every Wednesday evening 6:30-9:30 Live Model Drawing Class with Tom Johnson. $20. Live Model session. $20 per week covers model fee.

Open Studio: Second and Last Saturdays each Month 10 am- 2pm; $5 facility fee. Bring your project and join others in camaderie and solve problems by group invitation.

2/7/09, 1:30-3:30; Children’s Drawing: $11 per child snack and materials included. Founding Members Minnie McQueary and Ann Malinte will teach a children’s drawing class. The last class was full, so don’t wait to enroll your child in this class. See www.artcenterukaig.org Classes for more information and registration

2/14: 10-2: Make Valentines with Tom Johnson all ages

2/28-3/1/09, 9-4:30 ; $155: Renown artist Jeannie Vodden teaches her signature Rainbow Glazing Technique. If you can only take 1 watercolor class this year I recommend this one. Jeannie is an amazing artist and instructor who can help you break through any problems you may have and bring your work to a whole new level.  Visit her website at www.jeannievodden.com.

More to come for February, March and April: Rug Braiding by Arlene Magarian; Watercolor Traesures by Minnie McQueary; Renown Oil Artist Victoria Brooks on Alla Prima impressionist style paintings; and more live drawing open studios.

See also What 100 Paintings Will Teach You→
(via Dave Pollard)

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Benj Says “Well, yes…”

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Technical Notice

From Ron Epstein
Ukiah

Dear World,

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage.

The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located, and the parts responsible for it were replaced Tuesday night, November 4. Early tests of the newly- installed equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional by mid-January.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage, and we look forward to resuming full service — and hopefully even to improving it in years to come.

Thank you for your patience and under- standing.

The USA

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From Susan Jordan earlier today over the Bay Area 1/17/09

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American Aid To Israel – A Libertarian Perspective

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[We welcome a wide diversity of political opinion on Ukiah Blog, although we would like to keep it primarily local. I was not aware that libertarians all must sign the statement "I do not believe in the initiation of force to achieve political goals" in order to join their political party. -DS]

From Virginia Macintosh
Ukiah

The current conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is the most recent incarnation of an ancient, and endless war between Jews and Arabs. The expectation that a greater show of force by one side or the other, such as Israel’s newest push into Gaza, will finally solve the problem for once and for all, is, of course, a delusion; America’s continuing support of Israel, the lone democracy in the region – but with its own strong army – prolongs another delusion that somehow, with our help, the rest of the middle east will calm down.

In a recent commentary, Andrew Davis of the Libertarian Party notes, “There are several complications with U.S.foreign aid going to Israel. One, it makes the United States culpable for the actions of Israel that many times come with international condemnation. Secondly, it opens up the United States to cries of extreme bias in favor of Israel – a main catalyst for terrorism against U.S. interests at home and abroad.”

Libertarians have long criticized not just aid to Israel, but any type of intervention into the political policies of all nations, believing that 1, It is not in our national interest;  2, it invites consequences never envisioned; and 3, there are better ways of creating friendly relationships with the world’s nations.

The complications of intervention were of concern to early political thinkers who formed this country. In his first inaugural address,Thomas Jefferson set out to define what he thought were the essential principles of government. The words most often quoted from the list are, “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.” Our alliance with Israel is a perfect example of the kind of entanglement Jefferson warned against.

What does a policy of non-intervention do for us and can it be justified morally? Far from abandoning our friends, trade, commerce and friendship, are powerful forces of good will. Direct financial aid to other nations, rarely goes where it is most needed, often buying arms or lining the pockets of the country’s rulers. But honest and fair practices of commerce and trade devoid of import taxes, price supports or blockades create an even playing field in which pure trade – value for value – a fair exchange of goods and services, enrich all parties concerned.  We should be open to trade with, and be free to visit all countries including Cuba and all other “axis of evil” countries. One of the worst aspects of the Israeli conflict in Gaza is the forced closure of Gaza’s borders which stops any chance for trade with the rest of the world – a requirement for any new or established country for stability and growth.

In his January 7th post, Watching the torching of Gaza, Jim Houle properly asked if the majority of Americans feel we have an obligation to support Israel in their battles with Hamas, or, in parallel, Hezbullah. A good question indeed. One might also ask if Americans knowingly support the “entanglement” of our military presence in 135 countries, or 70% of the worlds countries, not counting territories. How can this huge military presence in the rest of the world be tolerated by the American public?

Disengaging from the quagmire of political alliances, by ending all financial and military aid to Israel and others would create real change in U.S. policy for the better. Tourism, trade, and commerce, with bias to none, supports Jefferson view of “honest friendship,” and removes the threat to all. By doing this, we do not turn our back on the rest of the world, but instead, encourage prosperity and stability. This change would serve us in the long run and help bring back the respect we once deserved.

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Art Class Announcement

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From Tom Johnson
Potter Valley

Re-Beginning art program starting up at the educational annex of the Corner Gallery soon.

I am looking for interested people from 8 to 80 to meet for 3-4 hours on a Saturday or a Sunday. Also photographers of all stripes, neo-silver nitrate, nouveau digital, those interested in developing a portfolio, meeting other photographers to share notes and experiences.

Uncertainty required, risk mandatory, come and join in the fun. 203 S. State, or drop in the gallery to sign up, leave your name, etc.

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17th Annual Professional Pianist Concert This Weekend 1/10 & 1/11

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From Spencer Brewer
Ukiah

For 17 years, local keyboard artists have put together sellout concerts benefiting local schools or foundations. In January, there will be two performances in Ukiah: The first concert is Saturday, Jan. 10th at 7 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 11th at 2 p.m. at the Mendocino College Center Theatre (1000 Hensley Creek Road, Ukiah).

Tickets: $10/students and seniors; $15 general and $25 “I ‘Wanna’ See the Hands” limited seating. For more information call (707) 462-8863 or go to ukiahmusic.com. Tickets are available at Ukiah Music Center, Mendocino Book Co in Ukiah, Leaves of Grass in Willits, Watershed Books in Lakeport or online at ukiahmusic.com.

By popular demand, the concert will feature all the pianists on stage throughout the concert! These popular musicians will be trading stories and songs with two pianos on stage to accommodate impromptu collaborations. This concert is an annual sellout because of the diversity and quality of all involved. The musical selections range from classical to jazz, boogie woogie to Cuban.

Continue reading 17th Annual Professional Pianist Concert→

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Report from Redwood Health Information Collaborative

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From Will Ross

On Wednesday December 17th the Obama-Biden Healthcare Transition agenda was discussed by 15 people at the December meeting of the Redwood Health Information Collaborative, held at Public Health in Ukiah.  After the meeting, a draft discussion document was developed by several of the attendees, working together by email. The Collaborative response is posted here.

The Collaborative response was submitted yesterday to www.change.gov operated by the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

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Redeeming the future

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From Gail Johnson

This is about the bigger natural community we are in. Just an excerpt. Perhaps interesting and germane.

By Chief Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of Onondaga nation
Interview from Book, “A Seat at the Table” by Huston Smith 2006 Univ. of Calif. Press p.174

Redeeming the Future

All Indian nations, as far as I know, have this profound understanding of and belief in the Creation. We believe that the Creation was perfect, and the Creation was profoundly diverse, from the smallest creatures to the varieties of bugs, the varieties of plants, the varieties of fish, the varieties of trees, and the varieties of peoples. They were all different, and they were all interconnected, and they were all related.

In fact, what you had was community. You had a world community of life. A life that really existed in what I would call the Great Law of Regeneration. The greatest natural law is the law of regeneration, the ability to regenerate endlessly as long as you maintain the rules of the law, which is variety. So if you tamper with variety then you are challenging the laws of regeneration, which of course means that it’s the human beings who are doing it. Absolutely the only ones who are doing it. They are now challenging the process of life itself. They put themselves in jeopardy now because in our understanding and in our belief, you can never challenge these laws. You can only abide by them. You can only understand them.

But if you challenge natural law and think you are going to change it, then eventually you are going to come to that crisis point where life is not regenerating itself anymore.

One of our Indian leaders said, “Only after you cut the last tree, and only after you’ve caught the last fish, and only after there is nothing left; only then will you realize that you can’t eat coal.

“Only after.”

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seasonal words

From Benj Thomas

Yesterday in Mulligan books, I was reminded of this poem by Naomi Shihab Nye, so appropriate for this time of year. I cannot read aloud the last stanza, even to myself, without tears.

I also want to say that I just watched Lars and the Real Girl. A very moving film, as well as improbably funny. Also good for the season. Mature teenagers will get it and like it.

And finally, I did my local shopping in spades the other day, when I bought at Dig Music a disk made by the Charles Ford Band, which is really Robben, Mark and Pat Ford, plus a few others. It is a wonderful disk, if you like lively blues (I do). Highly recommended.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and with the breath of life.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then it goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

–Naomi Shihab Nye

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Draft General Plan Update info

Anna Taylor, Anderson Valley, passes this along:

Comment letters received in response to the Draft General Plan Update and Draft Environmental Impact Report documents are available for review on the Planning Team Website.  Attachments, including attached letters, are included although not separately listed. Email addresses have been blacked out. The comment period for inclusion of each comment and response within the Draft Final Environmental Impact Report began with the release of the Draft General Plan Update on July 21, 2008; the Draft EIR on September 18, 2008; the subsequent comment period ending on November 18, 2008.

To view the letters, go to www.co.mendocino.ca.us/planningteam.  Go to “What’s New” on the homepage, or to the “Master Calendar” on the General Plan Update page.

For assistance in accessing this information, please telephone the Planning Team at (707) 467-2569.

Sally Palacio
Administrative Assistant
Mendocino County Planning Team

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